The Viall Files - E303 The Bachelorette Recap With Mina Kimes & Dr. Diane Strachowski

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Today we recap The Bachelorette finale with friend of show Mina Kimes and Psychologist Dr. Diane Strachowski. In breaking down the episode, we cover attachment theories, setting relationship boundaries, empowerment, and more. These topics clarify Katie choosing Blake, Justin’s exit, Katie and Greg’s conversation, and family dynamics. This team is just what the doctor ordered to take a clinical look at the episode. “…attachment theory is like tea, you don’t know the flavor until you put it in hot water. ” Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  For merch please visit www.viallfiles.com today!   THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: UNTUCKit:  http://www.UNTUCKit.com use code VIALL for 20% off your first purchase  Canva: http://canva.me/VIALL to get your FREE 45-day extended trial.   Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @mina_kimes @backtolovedoc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

what's going on everybody welcome back to another very special episode of the vile files recapping the finale i think the sentiment in this room is team no one maybe team justin we have a great episode for you we have the wonderful amina kimes with us returning to the vile files of espn and she does she has her own podcast which is great and dr diane strakowski yes is with us a longtime bachelor fan and psychologist who i discovered because many people had sent me uh some of her content uh from the past week giving another expert opinion of what she saw with the greg Katie fight and Greg and Katie breakup. So we thought we'll get more takes from an expert, especially we assume there might be more needed conversations to dissect what we saw from a psychologist standpoint. So we have a great episode for you.

Just a couple housekeeping as usual. Tomorrow I will be interviewing Greg. So we have some tough questions to ask greg um right off the bat we're i think we're a little disappointed he has no regrets um we'll get into that but uh so tune in uh tomorrow for greg oh by the way everyone thank you for nominating uh us we were nominated for the the podcast awards the people's choice you're the producer you tell what what did what did we get nominated for we got nominated for best male host nicholas congratulations and we got nominated for best

podcast in society and culture so thank you to everyone who voted and nominated us uh clearly we wouldn't have been nominated without you. So it means a lot. Chrissy told me earlier. So thank you, guys. Truly, this podcast means the world to me. And it wouldn't be what it is without the people listening. So thank you so much for nominating us. And now let's get to it.

Dr. Diane, I wanted to start with you because, like I said, the reason why I asked you to come here is because I saw your breakdown. And I talked with Dr. Solomon about what we saw in terms of the gaslighting and emotional manipulation and things like that. And if you haven't listened to that very informative episode that dropped last week, but you also did a discussion on attachment styles, attachment theory, which we didn't discuss. Can you give us just a kind of a quick explanation of what you saw between the fight between Greg and Katie last week?

Absolutely. So thank you, Nick. I am a licensed psychologist. I have been in practice for over 20 years. This is my expertise. And I love watching the show because I like to look at it through the lens of attachment styles. So when it comes to attachment styles, I'll just give a brief overview. It breaks down into either you're secure, you're either anxiously ambivalent, you are either avoidant, or you are disorganized, which means you've had like abuse.

So they break down in different categories. And I believe based upon your own attachment style, you're going to be watching the show and interpreting it through that lens. So you're not only speaking about Greg and Katie, because there, you know, there's been a ton of discussions. And again, something when we recapped it last week, when I watched it, you know, we realized there's, were a lot of people who were triggered by what they saw. And, and we have a lot of empathy for those people. I wasn't one of them. And so when I'm watching, I didn't see that I didn't identify with that. But Dr. Solomon certainly helped us have a much better understanding for why someone might be triggered and why it might be so hard for someone to watch,

specifically a lot of women who watched it, who felt triggered, who identified and saw maybe they're very toxic and potentially dangerous acts and the things they saw Greg do with or to Katie. That's absolutely right. I mean, I think there should have been like a trigger warning. I've heard from people saying that they would have appreciated that. Absolutely. I think if you are the anxiously attached person yourself, you're going to be empathizing with Greg. So in my summation, I think Greg has an anxious attachment style. And what I wrote about is that he had a meltdown. Essentially, he couldn't reach Katie. So if you

are the anxiously attached person, what do you need? You need empathy. You need to be seen, to be heard, to be validated, all those things that he needed. When you don't get it, you can flip into something called anxious-angry. And that's what we saw. We saw him melting down. People were calling that gaslighting. But from my perspective, my clinical perspective, I would call that anxious-angry reaction. Now, if you're someone who has more of an avoidance style, you would observe this and say, Katie gave him plenty validation.

Look it. Gave him the rose. Told him she loved, you know she told him he was the frontrunner I told him she was falling for him so you would empathize with Katie and this is like my husband and I so for instance I'm the anxious type I'm going oh my god not enough and my husband's like he's totally validating her so we it depends on your lens sure and then there's the third lens, which is the person who's been abused themselves or who has had trauma or a toxic relationship and can identify. And it's going to trigger them and bring up old feelings that they have, that they've

been in that situation. But again, this is a TV show and this is a snippet. And we want to be very careful about those terms that we use because we don't want to label people out of context sure so we're having empathy again at the same time now again like it's something I've had a lot of conversations and thought a lot about in terms of understanding why someone saw it in a different lens than I did and and why there should be empathy for the people who saw it. Because it's like you watch this TV show and it's easy to want to have these. This is my point of view. This is yours.

And, you know, it's easy, you know, Monday morning quarterback as we tried to do on this show. But in this for this particular breakup scene, it was very personal to a lot of people. Absolutely. And people have a story, right? They have a narrative. People wanted to identify with Katie and Greg. Somehow they saw them as this really good couple because Katie's a very expressive person and so is Greg. And so people want, they have their own confirmation bias that that's the couple that's going to win. And so what they perceived is that Katie couldn't tell him she loved him because of the show.

But then in tonight's episode, we see something quite different. Yeah. Isn't it, though, like less that people wanted to believe and more that we were led to believe they were the perfect couple by the editing? And then once that all came crashing down down rather than come to the conclusion of students of the show such as ourselves we were we were questioning well okay what happened with this relationship who's right who's wrong who's lying who's telling the truth when the reality is we were probably fed a version of this relationship that was never actually the

perfect relationship yeah i'm glad you brought that up. It was a nice segue to something I wanted to just offer a perspective. You know, Katie talks a lot about validation. Yes. When she talks with Greg. Listen, on this show, validation is used as a tool by the show to deceive both the audience and cast people when they're filming it. Like it is a TV show. I don't think the show is going to even deny this.

It's more interesting if you don't know who wins, if you think some person might win. And just to give some example, to Mina's point, we don't have to look any further than Rachel Lindsay's season if you watch that. Rachel's been on several interviews. We've had talks, and she's been very clear about the fact that she feels like the show

underplayed or undershown her relationship with Brian to maximize the emotional response the audience was going to feel when her and Peter broke up, right? There are still people to this day who, if you talk to them, like, I still think she would have picked Peter. They just lock on to that. She's married to to bride they couldn't be more thrilled right so that's another

that's one example of how the audience can be deceived as far as cast people you know I wouldn't Vanessa showed up everyone gets a limo I said to myself the other person's not gonna have a first impression rose tonight is Vanessa. She's my favorite. I know I like her. She is excluded from that. I, just being, you know,

someone who's been on the show, decided I'm not going to give Vanessa any group date roses because I don't want the audience to figure it out. And I also didn't want to get her too overconfident for fear that even someone's

overconfidence that world can work against them and then when i was on the bachelorette validation no one got more validation than me i got twice as much validation than the guys in andy season and in terms on caitlin season i got validation in the form of i'm going to pick you i love you behind the scenes only to be fooled twice and again like i have so much empathy and this you know like i've talked about being mad at andy and caitlin at the time because i was hurt i felt let on i and i thought about all the things that were said but then when i was the bachelor i had a lot of guilt that I was doing exactly what I was mad at with them. And I had to lead people on. And I said things like, I'm falling in love with you too. When I didn't really believe it.

I convinced myself and said things like, I have so much respect for you. I think you're the best. I think you're awesome. And that came out in the form of I'm falling in love with you because it's the lead's job to carry people along. So to Mina's point, yeah, we saw validation, but we don't really know what that validation was intended for. And as an audience, it's very easy and makes the show interesting when we believe certain kinds of validation. the show interesting you know when we believe certain kinds of validation and wow nick for you i i'm like just having empathy for the lead and being in both those positions right um how

difficult that is to want to get the validation and that is again what the anxiously attached person really needs um an avoidant person wouldn't need as much and so that's really interesting um also the the population there's more anxiously attached people so that's really interesting um also the the population there's more anxiously attached people too that's so interesting so listening to her describe the anxious attachment yes and in describing greg having a meltdown was actually really it didn't change the way i felt but what you accurately i think describes a meltdown i saw as a hissy fit yeah and that that's just who I am and when I watched him on tv I didn't I didn't think he was gaslighting her being emotionally abusive for any

of the things that some other people have said but I thought this guy screw this guy like I this kind of he's being super dramatic over the top aggressive but hearing you now describe it as a meltdown I'm like oh yeah he was having a meltdown like yeah does it i don't like him but it doesn't mean he's any of these like really awful things that people are saying yeah and again like we want to hold that space to not diminish anyone who was triggered by it but like like you know when we were messaging messaging and like we talked last week it was more like for me like i i the whole season, I didn't necessarily believe, I didn't buy the connection between Greg and Katie and kind of maybe thought that Greg was playing into the role

or being on the show. And then for me, when I saw it, right, it was just like, I just saw a guy more like, I was able to empathize with a guy who, again, in that moment, again, just want to make it clear, not in any way justifying that he was a dick or a jerk and cold and dismissive. And again, I'm really disappointed that Greg did not have,

you know, and he had no regrets. He saw himself on TV being like a total baby and had no regrets. Yeah. My guess is, you know, when he watched it back he probably was in his feelings and he brought back you know so but it was disappointing to not see that reflection and something i want to ask him if he actually if he still feels that way but yeah i was it nevertheless able to understand why he was trying to make the insane feel real and and so that was my take.

I didn't see it much as a hiss. I saw it as a, like, oh God, like this guy should not be, he's not, he shouldn't be on the show. Young, right? Insecure. Yes. Immature.

Yeah, he has some growing up to do. Absolutely. It's so myopic in how we view these people. You know, Amanda and I were discussing, you know greg's kind of quiet demeanor and then a lot of people have been like oh well he's not the shot you know katie kind of mentioned that i believe two people can be both and greg put it on i have i believe that you i'm agree with all that they like the aw shucks like yeah you know you're good looking dude right i'm just simply saying yeah this is where the gender gap comes into play i think all the girls are like oh yeah we know that dude and i feel like yes you know i i don't see it yeah well i'm just

saying i think he can be simultaneously confident in life and then come on a show where he's competing with 30 20 other guys and become insecure you know because you can be you know you can be good at hitting on women and have a lot of insecurities and i think greg has a lot of unresolved shit all right people as we know it's uh we're in the the heat of summer no pun intended is that even a pun way, we want to get outside. We want to loosen up, and we still want to look our best. Untuck It is here to help us accomplish that goal. And that's right.

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C-A-N-V-A dot M-E slash V-I-A-L-L, canva.me slash V-I-A-L-L. A-L-L canva.me slash V-I-A-L-L. What I say in attachment theory too is that you don't know who someone is. We're all like tea. You don't know who somebody is or their flavor until you put them in hot water. So you don't actually see someone's true attachment style come out until they're under duress. And so this was like John Boldly who came up with the theory and then had this thing called the strange situation where a stranger comes in and the baby like freaks out because babies do freak out and that's what we're seeing is as the stress is mounting so Greg up until that point was pretty

likable he's attractive the other men like him right he's a good guy in the show I don't think there's any vibe that he's a villain and then we see him under this duress and that's when we see the meltdown come which is he then really needed the validation that he wasn't getting and katie flipped and so that was when she was giving so much up until that point and when she became kind of still face that's another psychological experiment where the mother just like changes her affect the baby freaks out even more. Because I can't get to you. He keeps saying, you're not real. You're not the Katie I know. And from your point of view, what is he saying? Or what is he communicating? Well, he's clearly not being a good partner. I mean,

really, I mean, if he was a secure functioning guy, he would say, what is this like for you, Katie? This must be hard for you. You're going through this. And we've seen other people do that, right? We saw Zach be a great partner to Tayshia, putting her first. Clearly, he's self-absorbed in that moment. Right. And all the other words we want to use with it, but he can't see it any other way.

So at that point, he shuts down. Nothing she says matters. And all he can think is fight or flight, get the hell hell out of here i just couldn't believe it lasted two days because i was of the thinking i mean not to relitigate the prior episode where in night one i was like wow this chick like she is in the wrong and then day two i was like oh he's still immovable and i was you know i've had fights with partners in the past before my current marriage where they would last multiple days but like to see someone maintain that level of meltdown continue melting down over the course of a couple days I was like geez well yeah he

couldn't calm down in his body right I mean he was over analyzing overthinking this kept thinking um she wasn't she wasn't going to pick me i'm sure he convinced himself of that and then i'll get the hell out of here he even said why would i make love to you right and and and then have you not pick me he wasn't wrong that she wasn't going to pick him so should we yeah well that's i think that seems to be the big debate that's really well yeah if it seems like there's a camp that and you know depending on what you think of the reaction of between greg and katie but regardless even before we saw this confrontation between greg and katie i think a lot of, and it kind of speaks to what you brought up earlier, Mina, and Rachel, and Peter's story,

is Katie was going to pick Greg if Greg didn't leave. I don't think so. Yeah, I actually don't think that. And I don't say that other than I think, A, we agree, Blake and Katie make sense. They're compatible. They're on so many reasons. Like, this is like a great pairing.

Let's set them up. And I'm sure Blake would think that. But, yeah, what if Katie was always going to pick Blake? And listen, I have a ton, again, of empathy for Katie. I know fans, you know, want to pick sides and they want to say well that's not cool or you know the lead is asked to do impossible things you the lead has to lead people on but as a result of the lead asked to be doing impossible things the lead sometimes reveals themselves to the people trying to fall in love with them. Right.

And most of the time it doesn't get this toxic. Yep. Yeah. And this time it did. Absolutely. I mean, I watched it back carefully and I think Greg was the front runner up until Blank showing up. Yes. And then you see, she says, I can see myself going home with him.

I think everything changes. And it's also at that point, interesting enough, where she starts to pick on Greg. Ooh, you're moody. You know, you've got resting sad phase. She already starts this kind of, are you okay? And she asks, as an anxious person would, because I think Katie has some anxious attachment too, are you going to leave? My biggest fear is you leaving.

And he says, I promise I won't. And so I think that leads to some of the anger. When was that? I don't remember that. Yeah, that was the same episode where she has the great date with Blake. Oh. Okay, she has the great, I just watched it back. I don't know if it was five or six. And so she has a great date with Blake. And then she goes to Greg and she but you start seeing

her and I go, Oh, something switched. I watched this. I'm like something switches. He starts getting a little jumpy. He senses it. In fact, Greg himself says, I'm a jealous type. And I am threatened by Blake. He makes it known that Blake's a player, you know, a key contender here, right? Right. And so we start to see, Greg, this is boiling. The pot is boiling before we see the final blow up. I want to say something in Katie's defense, because I think some people will hear that and think, okay, again, back to the big fight. So she knew then it was blake i don't think she knew 100 that it was like at that point i do think though in that moment her unwillingness to say i love you to greg what

at the time i saw as her being like well i'm the bachelorette and i'm on tv and this is how it goes i now after the finale view is her being like i don't want to say i love you to this guy because i'm now whereas i was i started out as 90 10 him and then it's been switching switching and at this point like the dial has shifted and i'm leaning yeah that's interesting it makes me think about like i i don't know the answer to that question i will say from what i know about conversations i've had with my peers and being in that position that the vast majority of time the lead has a pretty good idea who they're picking by hometowns if not before and you know maybe it was a 90 2010 and 80 20 thing and i do think maybe there was like and i get it

from katie's standpoint like you're the bachelorette. Like you, Greg almost challenge, like challenge her power. I don't know what her motives were, but you know, it's like, you know, I,

I get to say I'm dating three guys or four guys. And you know, they are, you know, she gets to say, this is my journey. I mean, that's all she's been hearing in that world.

It's her journey. So you can fall victim of falling into that mindset. So I guess let's finally get into the beginning of the episode. That's a nice segue. That's how we bounce around. Technically, we're recapping the season here. That brings us to essentially where the show opens up and you know but right off early on on her date with blake katie breaks through this boundary she had with greg

um and says i fucking love you and there's a lot of reactions to that um i i have no real problem with it. Like she's salvaging her season. Again, I believe that she was always going to pick Blake to begin with. You know, who knows what the real truth of why she didn't tell Greg. But it's clearly her guy. You know, you were, Dr. Dan, you were talking like, you know, she got dumped. She didn't get dumped by Michael. Michael had to leave because,

um, her, his son, Greg left. That is hard for any lead. It's just like, you're just told that you old hard, all the cards.

And, and, and it's, if, if, if being broken up with in real life is an blow to your ego, it's magnified times a thousand if you're the lead and again just empathizing with katie but you know people are now going to

criticize her for you know again even if it was ego why she reacted so you know much to being i'm going to quit i'm going to leave almost to the discredit of her relationship with Blake, she bounces back and obviously wants to validate that relationship. And she does in the form of a very definitive, I fucking love you too. Thoughts? Well, yeah. Here's the thing about a boundary.

I think part of the problem is that she also didn't say it from the beginning. I'm all for women having boundaries, right? But she didn't tell Greg at the beginning or any of them, I'm only going to tell one at the end. And I felt like she was kind of losing control. And then she said, I'm going to have this boundary, which is to only tell one person. But she had to. She had to tell Blake at that point, because he's questioning, right? If you're devastated that Greg leaving, she had to tell him she loved him. Yeah. And can we just go back to the setting upfront expectations and boundaries?

Because, you know, obviously you may not know what your boundary is until you know it and you communicate it. But just explain why it's more effective to be very clear about your boundaries up front when getting into any situation. Absolutely. Whether it's a sexual relationship or a show about who I am, because we were talking earlier, you don't know the definition of what really love means to one person or the other. If I'm somebody who maybe is anxiously attached, I might say I love you more easily than someone who's avoiding, who never says it. So I I think again, through the lens of that context,

what does that meaning mean? So you have a way to interpret what this means, but when you're gonna set a boundary, you have to be clear about the boundary, state what it is, also be empathic, right, in stating that and understand the person might have feelings about that because she didn't ask anyone how they felt about that. And there's a premise of the show that what the lead will do or won't do.

And if you're going to do something different, then I think you just need to say that and then reinforce your boundary. Yeah. I mean, it's something that used to, like, entrain us at Salesforce when I was selling software. Before you start, you know, going to a salesman, upfront expectations. Yes. You know, that way there's no surprises.

Right. People know what you're dealing with. You're like, hey, some ground rules of let's set some, you know that way there's no surprises right people know what you're dealing with you're like hey some ground rules of let's set some you know that's why you know and refs in a game like here are the rules of the game here's you know if you were all of a sudden playing a game and in the third quarter i was like oh by the way now that's a foul you're like what huh what do you mean yeah you know so yeah that makes a lot of sense um obviously more nuanced and complicated in life but if you have the chance to set a boundary early on best to do that yes then um so yeah they seem to have a good date morning after uh amanda felt like in the morning have

am i calling you out no no like uh did you did you did you not in the morning. Am I calling you out? No. No. Like, did you not like the morning scene? No, I was just noticing that that was the first time I've ever seen a bachelorette genuinely look like it was the morning after. Like, that's the first time we've seen bachelorettes with light makeup or no makeup look. That's the first time we've seen last night's makeup on. And it was truly spectacular seeing a woman truly wake up in the morning.

Katie has been very open and very like, this is who I am, you know, owning her kind of, you know, she wears Hanes t-shirts on bachelorette dates. You know, I don't know what the brand name is, but like- She's more casual for sure. Yeah.

So I feel like that's on brand but it was like i noticed it too because it was in contrast with earlier in the episode when she wakes up perfectly made up wearing leggings which no woman is sleeping in what she wore in her her like fake sleep scene and then to see her with like an obvious oh shoot she just had sex and fell asleep. Bra on the floor. Eyeliner underneath the eye. I enjoyed it. I bought them so much as a couple.

I bought all of it. And it sucks that it's been overshadowed by all of this other stuff. I mean, the Bachelor producers obviously don't think it sucks. stuff i mean doesn't the bachelor producers obviously i don't think it sucks but i would argue that they came across as the one of the more compatible couples that we've seen on the show when you look at like you know mostly we fall in love with a couple based off of what we see like their connection and what you know the the words of affirmation or for they're too hot people or whatever. But there's so many reasons that Blake and Katie make sense. His description of the moment

when he realized he was in love with her, I thought was really beautiful. It was really specific. He said, we were playing hockey and you screamed, go America. And I looked at her and I thought, I fucking love her. It's usually a lot more vague and journey and this and that.

And I was really charmed to hear someone describe it in concrete, specific terms. And I found it super realistic. I totally thought that Katie would feel great with Blake's family. We can also talk about Katie's family. But yeah. They'll be spending a lot of time in the Niagara Falls area. Exactly. I could see them.

Thanksgiving in Niagara. I totally agree. I think they have a great vibe together. So then Katie has to break up with Justin. Let's just spend a moment to appreciate really the only winner. Pour one out. Justin. Justin was the only winner of tonight's episode he's the only one who

really you loved everything you saw i love the montage of the facial inspect inspect thank you you know and my guess is kind of speaking to validation and what we see you know we we're we're kind of we're appreciating justin but like teasing the fact that like why you here bro kind of thing and my guess is if you sat down with justin that he would be like he's not an idiot that he really liked katie and there was probably a lot of justin and katie moments that we didn't get to see because we have a Michael storyline we have to get to. We have an Andrew storyline we have to get to. We have a Griggs. There was a lot of good stuff this season and a lot of good content. And Justin was a

casualty of that. I'd like to say something about this because I think what was most important was and after the final rose when actually Katie says to Justin you were vulnerable and you opened up and don't stop doing that keep doing that I loved that because so many times you see somebody leaving in the limo crying I opened my heart out I'll never do that again it's true and I thought this was a beautiful moment to say because he is in my opinion a little bit more on the avoidance side his parents didn't show up right they're like forget that um you know we're not going and so i mean i almost respect it but yeah i do i mean there were funny memes about that but um the food was terrible there they didn't miss out the point was that if you're not vulnerable justin you'll never get there and so i thought what a journey he was on and i loved that she actually reinforced that so

i thought that was really positive so sweet and now i feel bad because my only contribution was going to be that i i saw him as the seven and nine of contestants like he won the nfce he made it to the playoffs half of your listeners like what the hell is she talking about basically he made it in by default but I you know Amanda and I both appreciate that you know

somebody's got to make it in from the division and I like to think we have a very knowledgeable female audience who we got football fans yeah

we got football fans alright well Justin I appreciate you I especially appreciated in the finale after the final rose pardon me

when they we talked pardon me when they we talked about this when they teased the greg and katie which they by the way been to use another sports metaphor they were literally teasing that thing like the ufc title card and they were like they're all the under cards and they're they kept showing like but coming up the greg and katie showdown and justin was like oh i'd love to be a fly on the wall for that i laughed that was the funniest moment of the episode for me um a king pour one out for justin yeah i don't think we'll see him in paradise i hope uh listen i personally i think it's a good move i think he can is it yeah it goes away for a year i think you know being the runner-up from the previous season,

if he wants to come on, he's a great-looking guy. Yep. I feel like a lot of women would be into dating Justin. So I think he can get on the beach next season if he wants to. So he'll be fine. Yeah. And if not, then he... He can just hang out with some blue cheese dressing do you remember

when he got so excited that katie also liked blue cheese yes personality weird roses i think there's a lot of women out there would appreciate a man and because i know i'm not good at to always like make just be excited about fucking everything just like i'm you know she comes in with an idea whoever she is in this relationship and he's just like fuck yeah as opposed to like cool yeah down yeah so i think jess is gonna be just fine yeah let's get to blake meeting katie's family we're gonna lead off with you again dr diane Diane. Where to begin with that? Well, I'll tell you what was going through my mind because I was trying this whole season, I've been trying to formulate this idea of whether Katie is anxiously

attached or not. And you can't really decide until you see the family because it's not who someone is in the moment where their pot is boiling. It's who they were from the beginning. And so I love hometowns because i want to see the snippet of the parents like that means everything to me so wow uh the aunt i'm sorry lindsey aunt lindsey aunt lindsey oh my um yes i am woman here we roar we need no men no beards i just want to point out i just blake's like yeah i'm going to africa for a month and she did this like i twitch for like i i if i that we're going to be seeing memes for every i mean i'm going to be using aunt lindsey meme i twitch with anything that's just like that sounds

off um please continue yes of course and then then the mother, what I was actually impressed with the mother, she softened, if you noticed at some point, right? From the beginning, she was like, I want to look out for my daughter. I'm getting the sense there's this whole backstory about these women, and they themselves have had some hurt, right? Katie, as we look back, she told her story, I think it was to Andrew S., about having financial instability, having a rough childhood, not wanting to replicate her parents' marriage, what she saw, there was a divorce in there.

The father, if you know, is not her biological father. I mean, there's a lot of complexity here in this. So anyway, I just felt bad for Blake, right? I mean, that's a lot. And these are intense questions like, well, what are you going to do? And, you know, she's like, that's cute. So that was tough. But from that perspective, I actually got an understanding of where Katie is in her power,

I am woman, hear me roar, and why she wants to be an advocate. Because these are the women that who have raised her to be independent and not need a man. But that can be tricky in relationships. Because then does she have to give that up? And then does she have to be like the little woman who her aunt was kind of implying in some ways, if you go along with this guy. So I actually felt for Katie in that moment, like, wow, what a juxtaposition. I want a traditional relationship and be happy, and yet I'm feeling this pressure from my family that I shouldn't want or need a man.

Yeah, it's a tightrope, right? And I feel like we're starting to have these nuanced conversations. And listening to Aunt Lindsay, it reminded me of my first relationship when I was 18. And I remember her mom sitting me down and telling me men are replaceable you know and i remember for our entire relationship trying to prove myself to her mom and with no success but how do we not how we but like yeah because you you understand we understand we empathize and understand the empowerment kind of message that seems to be embedded in those statements but that can be

problematic obviously in a relationship where you you don't you'd prefer i'm assuming to hear things like you know partnership team yes kind of things like that and for someone like blake going in this relationship yeah it can be a I'm assuming, a little scary in terms of like, well, what does that really mean you don't need me? Because I get it. I know you will survive without me, but I want to imagine in a relationship

we need each other. And I get it in a romantic way, but that can be a- Yeah, healthy interdependence. Yeah, almost like a, yeah. Do you see that a lot with the kind of couples kind of almost invalidating their partner's right up, like significance? Because isn't that what it almost,

and again, I know maybe they didn't mean to do that, but how does that? Well, I think it's an uphill battle for Katie. She's going to have to prove, right, to these two, you know, her mother and her aunt, how she feels about Blake, and Blake's going to have to prove right to these two you know her mother and her aunt how she feels about Blake and Blake's going to have to prove that over time but eventually I hope they would soften because you know to your point that's an uphill battle one that you feel like this is a whole narrative that I can't you know I can't mount over that right I can't win that I think

it's telling by the way you mentioned that you had this interaction with girlfriend's parent when you were like 18 because like that was my reaction watching like your daughter or your niece is 30 right you're talking about her like she's a child and that's not empowerment. Empowerment is trusting your daughter or son to make their own decisions and supporting them and questioning them and be and I thought the mom was a little bit more like a normal line of questioning frankly but I don't want to roast her on like the internet's already doing that work right now but like you know it it I don't think I hear what you're saying about like Katie and how that's probably a complicated dynamic but I also think throughout the course of the season never i never really saw anything from her that suggested

that she's not going to have the sort of relationship you describe a more healthy interdependent one yeah it was interesting too because i actually we were talking about before i really appreciate and i think bachelor nation does as well the parents who bring a level of realism yeah totally when they walk in whether it's hometown dates or at the finale like now when they literally they see their kids come in often with this kind of glazed look you know they it's like they sent their son or daughter off to summer camp and they came back like oh they all had this conversation like hey mom i'm going on this trip i'm like i'm sure i

won't fall in love i'll probably like i don't know what the fuck i'm going on like and they and hometowns it's like i'm no i i'm i've never been more in love you know and so i appreciate the the families that are like all right everyone cal down. Like love, let me tell you about love, you know? So I appreciate where Aunt Lizzie's coming from. She just like overplayed her hand a little bit and maybe projected a little bit of some of her own maybe personal experiences. So like I get it, but like, eh.

And at the end of the day, I don't know how, you know, Katie did say we talk about everything, but we don't know how close they are and how much that will factor in. And so, you know, they are adults and you hope that they will, you know, leave their own, leave their own life in their way. Yeah. And I thought Blake handled it as well as you could. I did.

I did too. I think we all sort of felt for him like, ouch. Yeah. I mean, Blake's been the butt of some jokes and memes of the past couple of seasons. Obviously, he's constantly reminded of how many bachelorettes he dated. And I can empathize with that joke.

But he seems to be an emotionally mature guy. I don't know what age Blake is, but what I love aboutake is he knows who he is yes right and i think men we talk about men maturing later in life i don't feel like i really knew who i was until i was 30 you know i you know i thought i who i know i was in my 20s but i remember having a okay and then from that moment forward it was being more confident with who i am owning not only my strengths but my insecurities and And I think you see that in Blake kind of just being okay with like, I don't know, fuck, I'm a weird guy. I'm into some weird shit. I like syrup, like whatever. And so props to Blake for handing that situation because imagine Greg meeting at Lindsay. Oh, my God. I wanted to see that part of me in like a sick, like, voyeuristic way. Like, oh, my God.

Like, horror movie stuff. I mean, truly. Like, imagine. I mean, but I want to hit on something with Blake that we kind of skipped over. He handled Katie telling her that she thought about quitting pretty well and, like, bounced back. pretty well and like bounced back and i think with the level of resilience that she was clearly looking for in a partner um and made it a lot easier for her to say i love you kind of seeing that it's not saying he's better than greg i'm just saying your point about different people in different relationships he's clearly a different kind of guy oh and and that's what uh somebody who

is more anxious is going to need an anchor of of some type, right? Yeah, he's an anchor. Somebody who's going to calm you down and be there. She said it many times. He's confident. He's there for me. He supports me. Beefy anchor. That's absolutely right. And so she needs that.

I do think it's a part of Blake. When I went on Caitlin's season, I remember telling myself, if you're going to do this, you're fucking all in. And I do think there's a part of blake who like he didn't show up week four to get cold feet and that i think that all in and having that experience allowed him again to be the empathetic you know guy that katie definitely

needed especially you know when you know that greg couldn't be um and that greg wasn't even before that moment you know i'm sure blake must have been insecure about greg at times yeah right but like blake was just like fuck it i don't i don't care if i get my heart broken i'm i'm here and fuck it i'm here by the way he was like to the three bachelorettes thing he was clearly the justin of taisha's season and if you needed evidence of that taisha sat down with the rings with him like these people never thought that relationship was ever going anywhere and they're in a great place now they're good friends yeah. I think it's great. What happens next? Oh, God.

20 minutes of, is he going to propose? Yeah. So is he going to propose? Is he not going to propose? What are we missing, Amanda? You have a look on your face. It was so confusing.

You got to stretch it out. I mean, I don't know. Like, you know, Katie did can't, like they ended the season short. So you got to fill 20 minutes. I guess let's just get to the meat. AFR. They ended the season short. So you got to fill 20 minutes.

I guess let's just get to the meat. AFR, as I mentioned last week, my greatest fears were realized. I was hoping Katie would lean into her happiness. Opted for the opposite. Again, I think we're all in agreement here we believe katie was always going to pick blake regardless of greg left and unfortunately with katie wanting to express what she you know called anger or i guess let's want to express her anger decided well she she was very angry and again i'm just gonna start off with you dr diane like what does this invalidate katie's feelings towards blake it almost felt like katie had to make a choice in her mind

do i want to come across as the advocate and defend myself what i felt like was being treated mistreated or do i want to focus and just show that you know i'm happier now i mean keep in mind they have a two month there's like a two three month gap between when greg and katie fought between them filming this and she seemed to have opted for the former, but maybe not. I'm curious about your take in terms of, what do you think Katie's mindset was, or what did you see?

I'm going to go with she could do both. I think she could be in love with Blake and be happy with Blake, but come back into that scenario, and this is what a trigger is, when you're in a scenario, and a person or a smell or something clicks off your negative reaction and she saw greg she said i don't know what i'm going to say to him but then all of a sudden there were all those feelings she heard him say i don't

regret anything and that pissed her off it was the flame that so here she is we talked about all the pressure that she'd felt she She'd had two guys leave. Also, Andrew, right? She went after him, said, you can come back. I mean, I think that was an abandonment wound. I think there's something bigger going on here. Again, back to her family. I don't know.

I'm not her therapist. I don't know the whole story. But my feeling is there's something unresolved here. Because when you have an overreaction, that hints at something's something unresolved here because when you have an overreaction that hints at something that's unresolved and I felt like it was an overreaction I mean we can all say what not to do that felt really strong and so in my thinking this is her anxious angry moment Greg had his meltdown this was hers how. How dare you? I was begging. You didn't say goodbye.

And you promised me you would never leave. All of these are triggering her abandonment wounds. And it is right there in front of her. And you're the pretty boy. You've probably done this to other women. And I am an advocate for all women. And I'm going to champion this cause. And because lots of other men walk away with no consequences,

I will make sure there will be consequences. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Sounds all right. That's my dick. No, I want to throw one more thing in there, which is Katie is also, I believe, extremely online. So in addition to- Oh, she's well-read.

Yes, having all these feelings, she's also spent the last month on the internet watching people say, well, Greg, Greg, Greg, Greg, Greg, Greg, Greg. So boiling. She's boiling. They're both boiling all the time. Boiling over.

It's just an overreaction, then an overreaction, then an overreaction. Like, no way. Clearly, these people should not have been together. That's... If there's anything, I think we can all agree on it.

Yes. So she's been watching the internet, fa over this dude she's probably been also been reading the blogs and the reddit and then reading the the you know the i mean this is where the she said it she said it like i've been reading he literally was like i've been reading reddit say that you took an acting class so that i do i we i want to talk about that because i didn't i asked amanda for an explanation because they didn't really dig into the details and i guess he went to an acting school we'll be asking him tomorrow okay so what i found actually so if nick you know going to an acting school doesn't mean anything first of all obviously doing bachelor has nothing it's not going

to help your acting career and everyone manager definitely gave him wrong advice yeah if that's the case. However, I did think it was strange and maybe this isn't true, but the way she presented it was like, she didn't know that. And I'm like, wow,

this dude went to acting school for two years and you didn't know. I think that's a little weird. And I think she should have known on the online. No, no, he should have told her. It didn't come up in their relationship. How did it not come up? If he went for two years recently. Again, i i just there's so little time and and in

that world you're not asked to talk about i didn't talk about software i didn't talk about hobbies i didn't that's the thing like it's it's an imperfect world yeah and you're meant to talk about your tragic story or why you got cheated on or something about a past, you know, like Greg's story was his father. And also they might've talked about it. We didn't see it. She could be lying or misrepresenting or maybe he told her, but I think it's weird that he didn't tell her.

I think that's Mina's point though, is that like Mina was so surprised when she read it on the internet because it was something that hadn't come up in their conversation. And I think a lot of this could have been avoided. Like Greg didn't have to delete the acting stuff off of his LinkedIn

or like he could have mentioned it to Katie. I think part of the reason there's so many more exactly i'm you know there's a fear though when you go in you're aware of you don't want to be looking sus but to me it's less that he deleted it and more that he potentially didn't tell her that recently he spent two years studying acting i just want to say this though i'm less trying to make a point about greg being sus and more back to what i'm saying. This girl's been on the internet. She's seeing people fawn over this dude. She finds out he had this whole thing he didn't tell her about. I'm just thinking, okay, you see all of these little pieces of information sort of amassing.

And then, like you said, boom, it breaks. And he says, you know, she sees him. Well, I think she's also shocked. I think she's shocked with this information she finds out after the fact. I think she's also shocked. I think she's shocked with this information she finds out after the fact. I think she prided herself, and I actually really thought Katie was a great Bachelorette. She was an empowering person. She was getting rid of

all the villains quicker than any other Bachelorette ever had. We didn't have any villains that were staying around that long. Yeah. We didn't. Right? She listened to the guys. Right when Blake showed up right and then you know like what hunter but she took the feedback and she acted on it and i think she was upset then um talking about the anger part the rejection part where here's one actor another

actor and i missed it yeah and i hear this we hear this a lot, like on Ask Nick or our podcast, like I felt used, I felt misled. I felt like you told me one thing, you know, the fuck boy mentality of like, you told me you were someone else and I'm realizing you were different, you know? And yeah, so that, that. They were both blindsided. I think Greg felt blindsided by, by Katie from the beginning, like you were warm and then you changed. And then I think Katie felt blindsided by him that he left.

And I just see a lot of raw emotion. We don't need to label it. You don't need to be a psychologist to see that this was just raw emotion on display. I don't believe it was acting. I think you're all pumped up. You probably see these scenes and then boom, you've got a mic on. Well, that's the thing I don't believe it was acting. I think you're all pumped up. You probably see these scenes and then boom, you've got a mic on. Well, that's the thing I don't get. And I think that's where Katie reading the internet, I think hurt her kind of.

Sure. Almost kind of got in her own thoughts. And then she's thinking about this and I, you know, feeling used. But it's, you know, like, okay, maybe he was acting. Okay. feeling used but it's you know like okay maybe he was acting okay but like i don't know if he can be both acting that out and simultaneously like like it just i guess i don't get the acting part i don't know just like how can he is he someone who lost it and was kind of a dick about it or was he acting that that's where i didn't really get that i think it's a ladder i don't think he was acting i think he was into her or

you know thought he was thought he was into her yeah it's like that's another thing people you know love it like i'm really curious about your thought diana's like you know love is so subjective it can mean a million different things with a million different people the falling in love i love you like you know when you're 18 it means something when you're 40 it means something else and they're sitting here like debating whether like katie's like i don't think you know what love is and greg's like but i loved you and and in bachelor world like yes you think you're in love you know and it's it's toxic love for sure neither of them loved each other that's the hilarious thing like we're having this whole like well who's in the

wrong and who loved who neither of them loved each other. That's the hilarious thing. Like we're having this whole like, well, who's in the wrong and who loved who? Neither of them loved each other. Not only should neither of them been together, but the end, I don't think either of them actually loved each other. And I think ultimately she just felt like she had spent probably two, like right off the show. As she said,

I felt like I was wrong. I was blaming myself. I believe that. And then suddenly she gets all this new information. Like, Oh wait, wait, what, what? This guy didn't tell me this and didn't tell me that. And I'm hearing this. And yeah, it's clearly just two people, I think, who aren't handling conflict very well. Right. Or that they both are. They're both their buttons are pushed. They're outside of their limits. They're dysregulated. Right. Your heart rate gets up.

You get really upset. And it's really hard in that moment. I mean, I can armchair this and say, you know, in a perfect world, you know, Katie could have said 100 different things that would have shown that, you know, to give actually hold Greg account, something and still play out her positive story. But I think to the viewers, it's a little bit unsatisfactory, because you do want to like root for Katie and Blake, but then you've got this hangover here with all this negativity, right? It's like, oh. Yeah.

And again, to your point, you know, Katie mentioned that she was angry as a justification almost for leaning into Greg. And that kind of goes back to last week's fight where, again, we can both empathize with why someone might have felt the way they did. We've been discussing why Katie might have felt triggered by all this.

And last week, certainly, we spent plenty of time empathizing, or at least I empathize with why Greg might have been mad. Not a justification for either person for expressing their anger the way they do yeah and it sometimes feels like almost a disconnect of like who could or who should is it better is it more justified after the fact because the relationship's over etc et cetera, et cetera. Like, I mean, just more like when you meet with your couples or like, where's the line between, you know, just being shitty in your feelings and needing to apologize for those feelings

versus, you know, again, recognizing where things are taking a more dangerous turn. So I give this short little narrative. I'm just going to give you this story. There's this little, this boy who's super angry and his dad gives him a box of nails and says, when you're angry, I want you to go back in the fence and nail, put those nails in the fence. So the kid does, goes through the box of nails quickly.

Then the dad says, I want you to come now and pull those nails out. And he does. And he goes, what do you have in that fence? You've got holes. You've got holes in the fence. So even if you're justified in your anger, you have now put holes in your relationship that you're going to have to fix. And so short little story, but poignant that there's anger here and you can't justify it.

It's going to cause a reaction in your partner. And it's sometimes very hard or impossible to recover. Like, I don't see this. There's no recovery here. We can't keep rooting for them. The story's over. They shouldn't be together. He wasn't meeting her needs for security. She wasn't meeting his needs for validation. It was just a mismatch. Yeah. And I think we do need to go with the narrative that that Blake is a better partner for her. And these were just two people who were so into their feelings, and they didn't have time enough to calm down. So if I was working with them, I'd say, okay, let's do some somatic treatment, deep breathing. Physiologically, you've got to calm down. Like calm down before you carry on. Your brain is on fire, essentially.

And nothing good comes of that. So like your limbic system is you've popped your lid and until you calm down you can't think rationally you're like the opposite of producers on the bachelorette who are like fire manning it like let's keep it going yeah so i'm like calm down take a breath you know and i actually had to give a moment of silence too because even as the viewers they're like sad for this story they were all wrapped up in it too and it's like hard to wrap their head around it now you wanted me to flip my you know like Blake and it's like yeah we got an infirmarium I mean it's exactly this is true of any forget the bachelor or bachelorette of any

movie or tv show if you're introduced to a character first they're the protagonist and it really speaks i think the effect of just having blake arrive four weeks into the season like we feel so different if it wasn't the case yeah that's right the og yeah yeah and like have you ever watched uh uh the notebook lately i was talking like it's like a love story revere and those two fuckers were super toxic so toxic oh my god i've done a post on that it is not what you think like you got a date by threatening suicide that's it that's how the relationship started i'm gonna kill myself if you don't accept a date like and from there forward he you know like so it's just i think a lesson on like you know romanticizing what love means and we you know get in our feelings and certainly i remember 18 year

old me thinking fight harder fight harder every time you know i would and uh like fight for this and and yeah and like we want to believe love is good enough and sometimes we just have to be okay with walking away and not doing some of that shit. And I think the Greg and Katie story is a great reminder. And I do want to defend Katie for a minute, though, when she said, you know, you really didn't love me then. And to her point, right?

If your partner has a bad moment, you want it run away. Yeah. That you would struggle through that. And that's what real love is. And, you know, when we're talking about this, this is limerence, as they call it. This is infatuation phase. This isn't like agape love, which is like deep love. Real love, which is acceptance.

And so you have to be with a partner who does truly accept you. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. That's just where the fallacy of the show comes in, where, again, it's one of those things you, you you know people ask me like i like for the rest of my life like when i said i love you to caitlin i meant it like sometimes i don't even like it owning that because it's not the same as my other relationships i don't even think of them as ex-girlfriends i just know that when i express those feelings

i felt it was genuine, regardless of reflecting back and realizing it was probably like just a mountain of manipulation and misdirection and intensity, et cetera, et cetera. So that's, I think that's where it gets a little complicated because yeah, we all agree, not real love, but it's also like both katie and greg were tell like invalidating each other's feelings when the other person was saying no this is how i feel they're like no i don't know no i don't buy it and you know questioning each other's motives and just back to the point they just shouldn't be together yeah nobody was listening right both were talking at each other this is a

happy outcome it doesn't feel like it right now but imagine if let's say katie had reciprocity blake hadn't shown up katie had reciprocated greg and katie wouldn't be together in a happy relationship yeah maybe we are wrong maybe katie would have picked greg yeah and been like oh fuck he's just i don't know he's too hot to let it go like i can't there's a lot of emotional labor there right yeah um and i think that's where also in her championing this you know and kind of maybe attacking him it's like i'm tired of doing all the emotional labor for men and now you're asking me um like you know you didn't give me some slack in that moment too so you know i can i can totally see it from both sides. One thing I want to discuss,

I think it's important to kind of overall world level dating and relationship. Katie brings up gaslighting on the episode. Caitlin asks her what she means. She defines it. She misdefines it. And what does she say, Amanda? How does she define it? If anybody remembers, I think she was like,

it's when someone convinces you. Makes you feel like you did something wrong. Blames you. Yeah, it makes you feel like you're doing something wrong. Projects onto you, I think. I only want to bring this up in no way to give Katie a hard time. We've all, non-professionals, misdiagnosed or misdefined things because we read it somewhere.

And interestingly enough, it's not necessarily far off, but also it's very necessarily far off but also it's very vague and broad right she's kind of basically saying anytime we have a misunderstanding in katie's defense i think she defined it in a way that a lot of people in our society are using it ali is reminding us that what katie said was it's when someone makes you think that it's your fault yeah okay thank Okay. Thank you, Allie. But to that point, I think a lot of people out there last week, we saw, I mean, I think you told us, Dr. Diane, like it was one of the most searched things on the internet. Yes.

What is gaslighting? What is gaslighting? Yes. And I think a lot of people I just have were often define it as this kind of very broad brush thing while still simultaneous simultaneously attaching it to abuse and toxic behavior. And so in addition to like gaslighting, stonewalling, love bombing, all these things, we were hearing it more and more. It's becoming our everyday kind of vocabulary with dating and relationships. Why is it important to like be very careful how we define things?

Because I think it's almost being, again, not intentionally, but almost weaponized in relationships. Because imagine being accused in a relationship, hey, you're having a fight with your partner and you're like, I feel like you're gaslighting me. being accused in a relationship hey you're having a fight with your partner and you're like i feel like you're gaslighting me i can imagine that that that that that that that fight turns it like i i mean if i i would shut off oh my okay i don't do not want to be accused of gaslighting

and especially if katie's thinking like you're just you're making me feel like it's my fault i mean i've i we in fights i think that's what we're often doing is making the other person feel, because we're just, I don't know, I'm just in my feelings. Like, do you see, what's going on there? And do we need to be careful? I think the terms themselves are getting people triggered, right? And we do have to be careful. So, you know, to be a psychologist, you have to go to many years of school. We have something called the DSM. Let's say like narcissism, even. You have to have many, you have to go to many years of school, we have something called the DSM. Let's say like narcissism even. You have to have many, you have to have 10 different categories and two in extreme over a lifetime. We're looking at patterns because that's a personality disorder. Gaslighting is not even in the DSM, it's a behavior. But gaslighting originally meant like a long standing manipulation

to make somebody think that they were going crazy, like turning down the gaslights. And this man is like making this woman feel like she's losing her mind. In the moment, back to your point, you could just say, you're not listening to me. But if you say you're gaslighting me, that implies a whole other level of pathology. So I, as a psychologist, get worried about this, even the word of ghosting. You know, my boyfriend didn't text me back.

He's ghosting me. That's not what ghosting means. Ghosting means you have a relationship with someone and then they completely disappear. So we use these words so lightly. And what I worry about is it just creates more fear. So what I'm seeing in the trend in dating and why I developed this love style quiz I have, and I now know the data and like how people stack up, we're seeing more anxiety in the population because we throw these terms

around. So now everybody walks around and fears there's going to be another narcissist, another gaslight, not also thinking that there are good people out there. And so I want to diminish the fear by saying, yes, those things are there, but they're more extreme than you think. So be careful when you're using the terminology casually, because then we make it think that it's happening more than it is. Yeah, that's a great point and just like you know love bombing you know like especially as we like relate it to the show i mean people are love bombing on week two and they're like i think i'm falling in love with you i'm like bro you've met her for six minutes you know and and things like that but i love how you said that because yeah it it does seem like it's you know we want we want to learn. There's all these podcasts out there.

There's TikToks everywhere about all these things. And it's like, oh, okay, I've been told this and I recognize this and I want to speak up for myself. And I didn't know how to define it before, you know, because I feel a lot of people, we've been in these toxic relationships. We feel like this was going on. You're like, oh, that's what I was dealing with.

But yeah, it's good to know to be careful. well because you want to put if you want to put yourself out there and you're going to have to go through some fear and go through some there are some players out there for sure you have to be able to spot them quicker the red flags but know that there's green flags out there too and then reinforce those people because if you have all of this fear then how are you going to get to the other side how do we wrap this up blake i mean blake and uh do we do did we like the blake uh no no it's cringy well i mean listen i felt like it was a we need to do something to make sure uh the audience thinks they're in love we all believe in the blake and katie potential yeah i mean certainly

every there are roadblocks ahead just because the show started on the bachelorette and you know hope we don't know what their living situation is going to be how blake's african trip went if aunt lindsey even allowed that to happen so a lot of unanswered questions for the couple but um yeah it was a little little cheese but a remarkable bachelor in paradise uh oh that's gonna be good cannot wait uh a quote i got from a uh a cast person from this season i won't name the person they replied to me last tuesday and they said if they think this is gaslighting oh no they're in for a rude awakening so put your seatbelts on drama mama and uh let's just be careful when we watch paradise you know it is a show and we'll probably we will we will see toxic behavior we will see

a lot of yeah we'll see a lot of bad behavior which i think so let's try to enjoy it um all while trying to have empathy for those who might be triggered by it. Anything else? And in closing, uh, Dr. Dan, uh, thank you so much for coming.

You're very welcome. Thank you so much for coming. Always a pleasure to have you. And you were an absolute delight. Uh, can you share with our audience, uh, where they can follow you,

uh, enjoy some of this content you've been talking about, learn more about the psychology of dating relationships please let them know yes so i am dr diane strakowski the back to love doc b-i-c-k-t-o on the gram that's where i live and um i've got a workshop coming up too and um but i also have a quiz you can just text the word love to three three seven seven seven and so if people want to know what lens they're coming at it from are they anxious are they avoidant are they more of the secure type I've just got fun ten little questions take my quiz

in two minutes and you'll have the results great Mina please indulge our audience with where they can enjoy your wonderful content i'm scared to take your quiz because you were describing the different types based on like how they watch the show and i'm like wait where's asshole because that's the one i clearly am because i was like these people suck no they don't suck they suck they don't suck um i did i did say it was team no one though but i would like to amend that i am team justin with a little side of team blake i think after this you know you're right i think we need to give blake some appreciation uh he really had to go through a lot yes and he was um yeah he was the he he truly is i i i hope he makes it

because it feels like we saw a very compatible relationship. Totally. He just happened to show up four weeks too late for the world to feel that way. I have a football show called The Mena Kimeshow featuring Letting. Her dog. Who is my dog? She's a great follow. If you enjoy sports and someone who has hot takes, both analytically and color commentary,

Mena delivers both. Make sure to follow her and listen to all of her content. Thanks for listening, guys. Appreciate you again nominating us for the People's Choice Podcast Awards. We will be back in a few hours, probably with a Greg episode and interviewing him. in a few hours, probably with a Greg episode and interviewing him. And we will then be, you know, back next week with some more great guests. Thanks for listening. We love you.

Everything's going to be fine. Everybody. Congrats, Katie and Blake. And go Justin.