The Viall Files - E334 Ask Nick - Introducing Temptation

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Today on Ask Nick, we start with someone who after getting into a polyamorous relationship with a married couple, attempts to navigate the relationship and build it into something beautiful and healthy. Next, we talk to a caller who is trying to help her single friend after a string of bad relationships. The caller attempts to help her friend who questions their self-worth for not being in a serious relationship and how to help her realize that the problem isn’t her. The next caller is trying to decide if they should reconnect with a friend they’d ghosted in the past, after discovering that the friend had been diagnosed with cancer. Our last caller talks to Nick about filling the in-between steps with a guy that they are seeing, having trouble knowing where to go and how to set a pace with someone they genuinely like.  “No one is envious of someone who feels sorry for themselves.”  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 https://www.viallfiles.com today! THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Betterhelp: Get 10% off your first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/ViallFiles LetsGetChecked: Get 30% off your entire order when you visit https://www.trylgc.com/viall and enter code VIALL Ten Thousand: Get 15% off your purchase when you go to https://www.TenThousand.cc and enter code VIALL Wondery: Listen to Even The Rich on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. Without a healthy mind, being happy is hard. Visit betterhelp.com slash vile files and see if online therapy is for you. What's going on, everybody? Happy Monday uh hope you guys had a great weekend and if you are listening to this episode on not a monday i hope your week is going fine uh we have a fantastic episode for you for our ask nick episode and really excited for you to hear these stories because they're awesome and the advice is great. I hope. We'll see. I don't know.

Joined by my wonderful team, Allie and Amanda, how are you ladies doing? Doing good, I think. We're both not super enthusiastic, but we're doing it. What aren't you enthusiastic about i feel like i've been i've had a lot of like existential questions recently i'm like why am i living in la what do i want to do in life oh my god are you moving to the woods like chrissy i mean i'm like why am i in la are you kidding I have a dog? What am I doing with my life? That type of stuff. Hey, listen, Allie, nothing matters.

Oh. Cool. Okay, sounds good. Problem solved. Thank you. In a way. I don't know. I don't know.

Are you religious? I grew up very Catholic. I would say I'm more Christian than Catholic now. Okay. Interesting. So, all right. Well, you're on a spiritual journey. Nick, would you consider yourself religious? Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. I've struggled with my adult. I went to church every Sunday into my 30s. Like I served communion. I did readings. Did you do it from like a sense of obligation or because like

it was an enjoyable routine? I guess a little bit of both. Obligation, I don't know. I think there's, you know, from a Catholic Christian side,

there's there's an act of service. I think that comes with, you know, going to church right um so i guess you could call it that um and as i've gotten older uh you know um religion i've struggled with as because religion is organized and run by men and people. And by men, I mean humans. It's like the literal origin of the patriarchy. Sure.

And there's some challenges I have with it. And so I've become less rigid on certainly religion. And then when it comes to faith, I'm always, I want to believe. I'll tell you that much. I do want to. I want to believe. I'll tell you that much. I do want to. And I have certainly struggled in my faith at times as a human being. So anyway. I feel like there's not, I don't know, maybe this is just from the limited experiences I've been in because I've mostly lived in larger

cities, mostly on the East Coast. But I feel like there's not a ton of young people who seem very autonomously religious. Like there's young people who have like inherited it from their parents. But I like got weirdly or not weirdly, but just sort of like rediscovered Judaism in college kind of out of the blue. And it was very cool being like, oh, religion is so often something that like I think people's opinions is based on it being sort of thrust upon them or something that they haven't had a lot of choice over. And I did think it was very cool having the opportunity to sort of like re-engage on my own terms and be like, okay, I could get into this. Totally. Right. I mean, you're going to like, if you're going to be like religious as a

kid, it's going to come from your parents. Right. And there's not just like a six-year-old who's like, I would like some framework to understand. I mean, I'm sure it's happened. You're five years old, your parents aren't religious at all. And you're like, I want to go to church. Yeah. And you go and you're like, yep, this is exactly what I want. Drop me off at 9am. This is exactly what I thought it would be. I love it. I love going to mass. And you're oh, maybe that's happened, but yeah, probably not. But as an adult, I think, yes, anything we do as an adult that we make choices for ourself outside of the nest of our parents or whoever raised us is going to be more authentic to us, right? Because it's your choosing to do it. And I think then you can set more healthier boundaries

with that because whether you're a Protestant Catholic,. And I think then you can set more healthier boundaries with that, because, you know, if, whether you're a practicing Catholic, and maybe I think a lot of Jewish people experience this too, when it comes to religion, there's a lot of shame that comes. We, we,

as humans, I think we have a way of shaming one another in order to have people believe and feel the way we do. I'm not so sure that's what God, whoever God is and whoever God you worship. I don't know. Shame. I feel like God's above shame. Does God really have to resort to shame? It's either you're going to do it or you're not because I'm God. I feel like I think of God as occupying a space of the best ever coach I've had throughout my childhood. You know, imagine God be like, I'm not mad. I'm just like, Hey, second

half guys, you know, go out there and just play to have some fun. Um, so yeah, but either way, nothing matters. That's, that's not helpful. Well, nothing matters in terms of where you live or your dog or whatever. But doesn't it? I don't know. I feel like it's a quality of life thing. It's like, I don't know. LA is a weird place. I feel like I don't really have anyone out here and there's no roots here. So then I'm like, what am I doing? It's harder to plant your roots in LA. Yes. It takes time. Yeah. I just feel like all my friends, like I have people in Denver and I have people in New York. And so I'm like, hmm. I think you're at a great time. Well, I mean, I don't know. This is an ethnic episode, so I'm just going to assume you want my advice, but I

think this is a great time in your life to do things that are really not comfortable for you. So even if you are living in a city where it's harder to plant roots and it would be easier to reminisce about friends in other cities, what a great time to challenge your comfort zone. Or we take bio files to New York. All right. If you want to quit, just tell me. No, you were the one who was like, hmm, I do love New York. And I was like, Nick, this could be good for both of us. I do.

I do. But I don't think I'll be moving there. We have an excellent episode for you tomorrow. Jim Jeffries, the wonderful, outstanding, and hilarious comedian and Bachelor fan, is here to break down episode two of The Bachelorette. And on Wednesday, we have a very fun episode. The hysterical and wonderful guys from Veep, Matt Walsh and Tim Simons, is with us to talk about life, their experiences on Veep. They have a new podcast out recapping the Veep and phenomenal funny show.

They're also just all around great guys and funny and informative. You've seen Matt on a ton of movies like The Hangover, Old School. He's in a lot of classic movies. And I just had a really great time talking to them. So be sure to check that out on Wednesday.

And I think we've covered it. All those religious people out there, you know, don't judge us. Don't judge me. Still vote for me. If you vote for this podcast, for top podcasts, I'll go to church. Will you become a catechist once again if we win? That's the true test. You know, I don't know. Maybe. No, I don't want to lie.

I don't want to lie about God. Let's get to our callers. How's it going? Hey, I'm doing well. My name's Sarah. I'm 27. Hi, Sarah. How can I help? So this story has many moving parts, but I'm going to do my best to tell it as concisely as possible. So at the

beginning or the end of the first year of the pandemic, I spent the entire year of isolation, single and living alone. So doing quarantine on my own, I had a lot of time to self-reflect and think about the things that I wanted. And one of the things was getting to kind of dive further into my sexuality and start dating women. So I hopped on the apps and decided to seek out my first romantic relationship with a woman. And in my mind, I had kind of envisioned something with a person who was older and had more experience than I did. And in doing so, I ended up matching with this woman who was absolutely gorgeous. And she was 37. And I just knew right away that we had this fiery and flirtatious connection. It was really palpable right away. As soon as we started connecting and talking,

though, it was pretty quickly revealed to me that she was married to a man and had also begun dating women three years prior to meeting me after coming out to her husband and realizing that at meeting him at 24 and marrying him at 29, she hadn't had the opportunity to kind of dive into her own queerness and experience gay dating as well. So that obviously took me from going from my first experience in gay dating right away into jumping off the deep end with polyamory. gay dating right away into jumping off the deep end with polyamory. And, um, they had some boundaries put in place because she had been dating women, you know, for the three years prior to meeting me. And one of those boundaries was having the introduction between myself and her husband before we could be intimate together. And I obviously felt strongly about this person right away.

So I really, really wanted to be supportive of their relationship and their marriage and show that like I was this open-minded and free spirited person that I like to believe that I am. That became, you know, that started with an initial friendship between me and the woman that I was dating's husband. And that friendship then kind of took on a new relationship because we were spending half of our time together alone and half of our time together with her husband. And I then suggested that we, like, start having a sexual relationship between the three of us.

You brought that up. And I did, yes. Okay. I was the one that suggested it. And we would joke about being a throuple a lot, but I... Up until this point, I'm curious, had they ever crossed that line with someone else? Or was this just about her having relationships with women and and they had a boundary of he just wanted to know who she was hooking up with or had they done

this before they had had other experiences before with other women yes okay the connection that i shared was really instantly something different than she had had with other women and so when I when I was trying to like you know start this like sexual exploration I thought that this could be a fun way for me to have a new experience for her to get to be with both of her partners and for him to kind of get this like sense of inclusion and he was definitely hesitant to kind of involve himself initially and I inclusion and he was definitely hesitant to kind of involve himself initially and I was really upfront and explaining that my romantic feelings were only for her but uh I I'm not new to dating and I'm not new to casual sex so I kind of suggested this

like friends with benefits relationship between him and I and ultimately he agreed because sounds like it's fun right but um after like trying that a couple times a lot of the encounters were fun and some of them were really awkward and after just a handful of times of the three of us being together I also was the one to say like I don't think I can continue to maintain this. It's not right for me. And in pulling away from him in that respect, I was met with a lot of kind of like subtle resentment and jealousy. And from him, it became really hard for her to keep on going with dating me because of how much of it tension it caused between the two of them and like how much it brought some of their issues to the surface. And eventually, you know, after trying to keep going with my solo relationship with her and

trying to salvage the friendship that I attempted to create with him, it just was clear that it wasn't going to work out. And I broke up with her and I told her that it wasn't right for us to see each other anymore. I thought that she should go back to her marriage and mend the issues that they had. And they had had other similar situations in the past where she was trying to date women and then she would go back to him so they could work on their marriage. But after doing that, about two weeks later, she called me and told me that she was leaving him. And it really kind of took me by surprise because I had always thought that the two of them were strong in what they had in their foundation in their three years into this journey together.

And I wasn't ever intending on, you know, requesting that she leave him for me, but it, it became to the point where our connection was just so intense and strong and, and we loved being around each other, but we were feeling guilty loved being around each other but we were feeling guilty for being around each other and now basically where we're at is she's decided to leave and she told me that it's you know she doesn't have she's not expecting me to wait for him for her but she is leaving him and and it's been mostly a period of not communication, but we've started recently becoming in touch together again and, and talking more frequently and checking in.

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1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. In fact, so many people have been using better help. They are recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states. This podcast is sponsored by better help and vile file listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash V-I-A-L-L-F-I-L-E-S. You know, like, uh, what does your gut tell you my gut oh it's so hard to trust my gut in this scenario because i i'm also blinded by all these feelings for her these intense strong feelings so obviously

i want to be with her something you said and i was thinking about it while you said it you're like i thought their relationship was strong enough to get through something like this and it's not for me it's not the relationship that needs to be strong right because a strong relationship is based off of two individuals choosing to prioritize the relationship over anything else. And that's what makes a relationship strong, right? And the reason why I think why people like to refer to like, oh, it's such a strong relationship and then they become shocked when it seems like overnight someone leaves is because at any day or at any moment we can choose not to prioritize something we can shift our priorities which is why you know like every day i you know that sound corny i think it's like a gift to wake up and say i'm thankful to make this a choice in my life or prioritize this. And yes, I could have other things if I wanted it. And sometimes when I'm in a relationship and it feels static or boring or

benign, or I'm irritated or frustrated and annoyed, I think to myself, I choose this because there's so much other value. And she decided for whatever reason not to stop choosing him. Presumably maybe over for you. Or maybe it just got messy and complicated. You know, she could regret that someday. She seems to be making a reactive choice. It seems like, I don't know. You don't, you know. And so my concern then for you would be, you know, how reactive of a person is she? It's interesting because I think that the choice is quite the opposite of reactive. I think that they've been married for, you know, they've

been together for 13 years, married for 10. And there's been a lot of back and forth without, you know, diving too much into the relationship and the dynamic the two of them share. But there's been a lot of back and forth about what they need out of life and their their their goals and things that they want to achieve and i don't know that she had had an experience prior to dating me meeting someone that she felt that compatibility with and i'm more i guess concerned that if we like continue to dive further into this like that the way that our love story is going to be tainted and like kind of like am i going to be perceived as like a homewrecker by her friends and family

am i going to ever be accepted by the people that are closest to her because i did come into her life and put it through so much turmoil well that's not really your concern that's her concern right and that's a conversation you guys should have because you know i don't i don't know if you've talked with her about this but it's only a concern to the point where it affects her relationship with those people and then subsequently puts stress on your relationship. You know what I'm saying? If she feels judged by her family and friends for doing what she did in her marriage, and that is choosing to leave and then date a woman who was part of this throuple, et cetera, et cetera, then that judgment from her people that she values might put stress on your relationship and therefore make her pivot. So it's about you having this conversation with her about that. Do you even

know what their take is? Or are you just thinking about this, having no idea if it's even an issue? I'm sure there's part of it that's me projecting onto the situation, but I do know that they love him. Of course, he's been a part of their family for the last 13 years. And I'm this new person from the internet that caused her to want to leave her husband, essentially. Yes and no. I mean, it's certainly untraditional. She wasn't having an affair. It sounds like there was always honesty. wasn't having an affair, it sounds like there was always honesty. That marriage chose to do this. The marriage chose to bring in temptation. We like to think we're super strong and sometimes we test those limits of that strength. And then sometimes we realize we weren't as strong as we thought we were. And oftentimes we're stronger than we give ourselves credit for. But in this situation, they were wrong about their ability

to introduce temptation into their relationship and still at the end of the day and every day choose each other. That's not your fault. They made that choice. Could have been someone else, right? It's not your fault. You weren't going behind his back and committing, you weren't part of an adulterous relationship. I mean, again, super conservative people might be listening to this and disagree, but at the end of the day, you were an honest participant in this situation and shit happened. So just be careful not to judge yourself because you didn't do anything wrong here from my point of view. And then as far as her choosing to leave that marriage, you know, have conversations with her about some of these fears. Like, how does your family feel about this? Are they supportive of you like unconditionally? Or are there people in your family that might be

critical of your choices? And if they are critical of your choices, how does that affect you? You know, that might, hey, I don't, there's a lot of times I'd be like, oh, fuck what everyone thinks. But sometimes we say that, but we do care, right? And our caring about what people think can put a weight on us. And over time, make us feel stressed. And then we project that onto the people closest to us. And what you don't want is her projecting it onto you, right? She says she doesn't care, but she cares. And people in her family are starting to judge her. And all of a sudden, you know, six, 12 months down the road, she's just like, takes it out on you because she doesn't know why she's feeling the way she does, but it's because her family is judging her. You know what I'm saying? All these, who knows? So you just try to have to have a conversation with her about this and not ignore it and

see what she says and then see, you know, and then decide for yourself whether you trust her ability to be honest with herself about that situation. She should want to have a discussion about this. Hey, hookup culture, you know who you are. Raise your hand. We're all participating in it. It's fun. It's wild.

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I'm talking about the Murdochs. That's right. If you are watching this show, Succession on HBO, which I am a great show, it is loosely based off the life of the Murdoch family, Rupert Murdoch. Whether you love him or you hate him, certainly a fascinating story. And you can learn about that story on Even the Rich, where the co-host shared the stories behind some of the most famous and influential people and infamous people like Rupert Murdoch. Even the rich Murdoch's real life succession story, they explore the incredible rise of Rupert Murdoch and the battle of succession over his global empire. Since the early 60s, Rupert Murdoch has gone from a founder of a small newspaper to the most powerful media mogul in the world. And now all his kids are trying to stab him in the back

and steal his money and find out if they can on even the rich. That's right. It's certainly fascinating, provocative podcast. I was certainly fascinated and learned a lot and you can too. Listen to even the rich on Apple podcasts, Amazon music, or you can listen ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. She's in like this really transitional place right now because she's still living with him and in the home that they've had together for the last 10 years. And her intent is to move out at the end of the month and find her own place. And

now where our conversations are, like, do we decide to see each other in person again and like be together or or does she need the time and space to like kind of become her own independent person because she honestly hasn't had a lot of experience with that are you waiting on her to decide this or are you part of this decision no i'm definitely part of the decision but i, but I feel conflicted in every single moment because it's a head and a heart thing. My heart wants to be with her so badly, and my head is telling me, this has been messy from the jump, and you should get out while you can without causing any more damage. you can without causing any more damage. Well, there is a happy medium. Listen, at the end of the day, whatever relationship you jump into, there's no guarantees, right? I mean, there just isn't. And we have to trust that we're going to choose them and they're going to choose us and hope that it happens. And I think once we accept that, despite all the things, it's just like, oh, that will leave you. I mean, I'm a cynic in that sense. And I've committed myself to a relationship I'm in right now.

And I'm vulnerable to that relationship. And I'm realistic that like it might not end. And that doesn't mean it might end. And that doesn't mean like, I just, to me, that makes it more romantic. That's just the way I choose to look at things. Because I'm not going to be at the mercy of someone else's decisions. But every day we choose each other, I'm going to appreciate that and value that and see where it goes. Right. But why can't you guys, she's going through a transitional period. You know, that you

feel love for her, hold onto that love, take some time for yourself. Does that, you don't necessarily even have to date other people while you do it. You can if you want to. But just say, hey, as of right now, I have these intense feelings for you. And I don't see that going away anytime soon. I'm not promising you anything, but that's just how I feel right now. But I think it would be healthy for us to not be so indulgent in those feelings because if this, what we have is worth anything, we'll be here waiting when we're both healthy as individuals. And right now, why don't you just figure things out? And if things change between us, that will be maybe

the answer. If you meet someone else or she meets someone else or she wants to get back together with her husband, who knows, right? You're just saying, you know, because you're not looking for her to be a fuck buddy or something like that, right? You're like, I have real feelings for her and could this be something special? Well, if it's going to be something special, it will be something special. But don't dive into it for fear of losing it, you know, because right now your head and your heart aren't matching up. And that conflict that you're having, if you rush into it now, that's going to taint it. So maybe just give it a little breath and a little space, and maybe you will feel more comfortable about it. But at the same time,

you don't need it to be super clean. It doesn't have to be a magical story. Who cares how you met? It doesn't matter if there's a little mess in the moment, but how you handle it now and the conversations you guys have and do you approach it from a level of maturity? Are you okay with taking time and taking things slow? Are you okay with being patient with her transition to being married to being single again? Does she want to participate in therapy? Is that something, maybe you guys take therapy together, whatever. Just talk about your feelings as a couple in these decisions and approach it from a mature way. The more you guys are willing to address all the obstacles and then deal with them, the better sign that you guys will be able to face

obstacles in the futures. But the more you guys try to bring up something and the other person's like, whatever, no, no, like whatever, fuck it. I just love you. Can't we just like be in love and forget about those things and let our love like beat it all. Then, then, you know, there's like some red flags and some immaturity and some like pushing things away that eventually, you know, cause they don't want to deal. Definitely. she's for sure more in the camp of like i think that we need to personally she needs to take a little bit more time and i really want to be supportive of that of course but i'm also really in favor of her kind of getting to live her truth and like, and, and do some of the more like self-indulgent things,

like be with the people that she wants to be with and, and surround herself with more of what life is like intended to be filled with love and happiness. And I know that she's scared, but I also know that you're right. If it's worth it to wait for, then it'll still be there in a couple months or however long yeah and also it does sound like a person who has been like having fun so like i don't think she needs to like you know what i'm saying like this is part of what she was doing so you're you're not her mentor or her no you're right you know like she's an adult woman she's

older than you she can make choices for herself. And you just have to trust. Like if this is someone you love and want to be with, you have to trust that she is capable of making choices for herself and vice versa. So if she's asking for patience, give her patience. But like if she's asking to be with you and you want to be with her, then make it work. Definitely. When messes come, just deal with the mess. Talk about the mess.

Maybe get therapy to handle the mess. How you guys met does not have to be some clean romantic story. I don't feel like this is not like I was cheating on her and it started as a tainted thing. Like, no, it's just untraditional. But as long as there wasn't deceit, as long as you guys still have trust, you can trust

her to be up front. It was a risk they took. So maybe something in the future, let's say you guys start dating and two years from now, she comes to you about the same proposition she gave to her husband. Maybe you say, hey, last time this happened, at the end of the day, what they did is they introduced temptation in the relationship. They thought they could handle that temptation. Turns out they were wrong. And maybe that might give you guys a moment of pause before you introduce temptation, because sometimes, you know, temptation gets the best of us and temptation can change into feelings and, you know, I don't know. Absolutely.

Hopefully that was helpful. It was. Thank you very much. All right. Well, best of luck. You seem happy. You seem in love. Congratulations on that. And I hope it all works out. Thank you. I appreciate it. I hope it does too.

All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. How's it going? Good. How about you? Great.

What's your name? I'm Helena. I'm 24. Hi, Helena. How can I help? So I'm here asking how to support my friend. She's my best friend, and she gets constantly down about herself about never being in a serious relationship. And so she's been on the dating app.

She's tried meeting people, and she never has seemed to really find anybody. find anybody. And when she gets kind of down about it and talks to me, I try to come at it with like a solution approach slash, like also supporting approach, maybe being like, hey, like we can go out together and I can like help you start conversations with people. Then she's like, well, I've tried that and everybody's taken. Like, okay, well, what about maybe dating apps again? And then she says, you know, like, I don't want to go on that that's a waste of time then when i try to be you know there for emotional support she you know being like hey like rolling 24 she's 24 also yeah um being in a long-term relationship isn't really that everybody's done at this point in our lives and it's like well you have been like well yeah but you know

one relationship that i was in long-term, you know, I left long before. So I guess this is greener on the other side. I'm kind of met with kind of pushback from her and both sides of like solution and like supporting like, like, I don't know, kind of support, I guess. Um, so I'm kind of wondering what you think would be the best way to help somebody who's down like that feels like they're the weird person for never being in a serious relationship are you in a relationship right now yes okay i mean it's tough um i'm a big believer and you can't help people who don't want to help themselves and right now it sounds like your friend's not really interested in helping

herself. It sounds like she's more interested in feeling sorry for herself. And a lot of things I think I would say, it sounds like you're already trying to say, you're trying to offer some perspective, you know, like you're only 24, you know, and sometimes because you have a close relationship, it's just nothing you say is going to matter. You're like, too bad she's not calling in and have someone like me who's a little older could yell at her who has nothing invested. But it's a weird thing. You know how when you're in relationships and your partner's giving you sound advice and you're just like, fuck you, I don't want to hear that sound advice. And some completely oblivious person who you have no reason to listen to like offers the same

objective advice you're like oh that sounds really interesting thanks for sharing um and i think fun sometimes friendships are are like that as well um you know at some point have you tried tough love kind of it well depends on what you mean by tough love. So basically one time she asked me, um, what do you think I'm doing wrong? And I said, you know, sometimes I feel like you cut it off too quick. Granted. So people I've dated, I've known for years and then started dating. So like, I've never done the traditional meet somebody, get asked out on a date type of thing. But, um, so she meets somebody on a dating app and they go on a date and they take a couple of days to get back to her. And then she kind of writes them off. And then when they do get back to her, she's like, no, I'm not interested.

Like you didn't put any like investment into going forward. Sure. So sometimes I tell her like maybe like give people a little leeway, like during that first, like little, I don't know, trial period of dating. And then, so she's like, but then she like comes up with, well, they should have texted me faster. They should have done this. And then granted, sometimes she does break it off for really good reason. But when I did give her what I thought was tough love. Maybe it's not what you think is tough love, but it's kind of met with not excuse, but

yeah, excuse, I guess. Yeah. So, you know, something I try to do if you listen to the show and I think is helpful in these situations is try to get them to hear what they're saying. And you do that by asking them questions, you know, so she has all the, you're trying to offer these solutions. She's shooting you down. No, no, no, no, no. So have you ever asked her like, all right, how do you want to meet someone? Like what described to me in your head, how you would like to meet this person you can't find and see what she says, you know, like what, you know,

she doesn't want to go in dating apps. She probably says, you know, like what, you know, she doesn't want to go in dating apps. She probably says, well, I don't want to go to the bars or, you know, all these things that she doesn't want to do, or she doesn't want to meet someone. So I'd be curious to what she would say, you know, because at some point, like, and then I would ask her, does it matter how you meet someone? If, if you are able to eventually meet someone you fall in love with? And then you ask her, what's more important to you, finding something right now or having a healthy relationship when you find it? These things like that try to put things into perspective, but getting her to answer those questions rather than you saying it.

Because I've talked about this recently. It works when people call in and ask me a question because they're ready to hear it. And the people listening, I'm assuming a lot of people listening are listening because they might not be calling in, but it's relating to a situation they're in. And they're maybe open to hearing it. But your friend might be open to complaining and opening to venting, but she still might not be opening to hearing the truth about her choices. So you could be saying all these things and she's not really listening. She's not paying attention to you. It might seem like she is, but she's really not. So if she could say it,

she's going to pay attention to what she says a little more closely than what you might say and get her to kind of point out. And then that way you can then ask more questions. Well, see, that doesn't maybe make sense. Eventually, the point is, and I'm sure you've tried to articulate to her she just has to keep trying you know she might need to take some pressure off herself

i like to like articulate it as like just meet people you know has she ever been in a relationship at all like is she she's been in one yeah okay so she's been in one and how'd that go um as far as i know so we were at college during that time so i was gone um i was out of state and so from what i know what she told me is that he didn't really i think it was about a year that they were together and they didn't really get very far emotionally or physically, but he didn't really, he kept her at arm's length emotionally. So she wasn't a relationship,

but it wasn't, you know, deep, I guess. Sure. Yeah. She seems, is she in a generally impatient person with like everything?

No. Every other aspect of life, she's very patient. And I'm kind of the one that's just like, oh, like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then she's like, okay, let's just calm down. Like it'll happen when it happens. And then with this point of life, you know, she doesn't listen to that advice that she gives me about being patient, but, or, you know, sometimes I'm like, hey, my brother met his girlfriend, probably soon fiance, you know, sometimes I'm like, Hey, my brother met his girlfriend, probably soon fiance, um, because they were playing music too loud at their college apartment.

And she told them to shut up and, you know, people meet at the store. My mom met her current boyfriend at the store, you know? And then she's like, well, that won't happen. There's nobody in my town. And I'm like, okay, well, so travel more. Yeah. I mean, at some point you might have to, and the tough love is to say, listen, I love you, but you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself because feeling sorry for yourself is one of the most least attractive qualities anyone can show. And why would anyone be excited about meeting you? If this is the energy you're putting out, you're an amazing person. You have so much to offer and you are kind of dimming yourself down because you're just

kind of pitting yourself, you know, like again, like you are only like what, like maybe you don't want someone, maybe you just want to complain about not wanting someone, you know? Um, and again, just ask her, like, does it matter if you have it right now? You know? Yeah. I think maybe one thing she's caught up on is she always mentions how her sister got married at 23. Okay. And all of her cousins are married.

So she's like, I'm the only single person in the family besides my 18-year-old cousin. Wow. And I would be willing to bet that if she chose to embrace the fact that she's single and have some more freedoms and the ability to be a little more selfish and she took advantage of that, I would be willing to bet the cousins and sisters would at some times be envious of the things that she got to do. But she's not doing it. She's just feeling sorry for herself. So the reason why her sister and her cousins aren't envious of her is because she's moping around, sitting around by herself, feeling sorry for herself. And no one is trying to be, no one's envious of someone who feels sorry for themselves. But if she traveled more, if she said yes to more things, if she was a little bit more adventurous, at the risk of having a bummer night

or being disappointed, but having some fun stories. I mean, all she literally would have to do is change her perspective and how she talked about her experiences and choices and made it sound exciting. Everyone around her would be super envious of her. Right. And so like, you know, it doesn't, it, and that ultimately doesn't even matter. Like, again, like who cares at 23 or 26 or 29, I mean, no one's planning on dying anytime soon, you know, knock on wood. And so, yeah, you know, her sister at 23, I mean, I don't know her sister or her priorities, at some point in her late 20s or early 30s might have to go through a tough patch or a period with her husband where things might feel a little stale because you're human and hanging out

with the same goddamn person every day. Just get stale. I don't care who you are. So it really is just a matter of perspective. Dale, I don't care who you are. So it really is just a matter of perspective. But I think at some point, you got to be careful not to allow her to keep feeling sorry for herself and kind of coddle her and kind of bring her like, oh, try this and try that because she's not listening to you. So she might need a big kick in the butt about being like, honestly, I love you, but like, I don't feel sorry for you because well, I shouldn't feel sorry for you. You're an amazing person. No one, there's a lot of other people to feel sorry

for. And she might get mad at you and be like, I can't believe you and not talk to you for a few days, but she might need a wake up call. Oh, that's what I'm worried about is that if I meet her with tough love, because sometimes I want to be like, what do you want me to say? Because nothing I'm saying is helping at all. And you're kind of and I told her one time, like, that she keeps pushed, like, kind of, what do I want to say? Like, push back on anything I say? I'm like, okay, well, you keep shutting me down. So what do you want me to do here? And then she just kind of like, I just like want to know why i'm not in a relationship so i i'm just afraid that if i go at it at a point like that and i know our friendship's stronger than that we've been friends for 10 years um i'm just afraid that being like well you know i'm tired i'm like i don't feel sorry for you you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself i'm like afraid that she's gonna like never come to me with stuff like this then. Well, if that happens, then your friendship will have evolved to a different type of friendship.

And that's part of you growing up, right? More realistically, she will be mad at you for a period of time. One of my tough breakups in my very first relationship, I took it really hard. I felt incredibly sorry for myself so much that I exhausted all my friends who at first tried to be there for me and tried to be the supportive friend, but I was pathetic. I mean, there's no other word for it. I was self-indulgent and I took my heartbreak and I just made it all about me and my pity and no one else could feel my pain and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And quite frankly, my friends just got sick of my shit.

And it wasn't like necessarily a tough love, but I was just mad at them because they didn't understand me or my pain and blah, blah, blah. And for about six months, I lost touch with my closest friends, friends I'm still with, friends with to this day, like friends I was with, friends with since high school and college. And I got over myself, I healed, and we just picked up right where we left off because we are close friends, you know, and the closest of friends have the ability to hold their friends accountable and check them at the risk of their friends throwing a temper tantrum and being mad and saying things like, I can't believe you're treating me like this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But sometimes I need that wake up call. And it's

the people who they're closest with, who have that history, who have the strength and courage to say, a lot of people are afraid to tell you what's up, but I'm going to. And I know you're going to be mad at me because we'll be okay eventually. Maybe not right away. You might not want to talk to me for a month or two, maybe six months, but I believe in you enough that you'll get over your bullshit and your self-indulgence and your pity, and you'll wake the fuck up. And I'll be here when you do. And when you do, I won't say I told you so. I won't. I'll just give you a hug and say, welcome back to the real world where everyone has relationship problems. Everyone gets discouraged. Everyone feels alone. Sometimes, you know, even people who live in New York and LA feel like there's no one

to date, you know, it doesn't matter if you're in a small town or a major city, we all feel like crappy options, but like, we all feel like we have crappy options. but like we all feel like we have crappy options. And the reason why we feel like we have crappy options is because we are looking for what a lot of us will call our one and only, our person, the person we want to spend the rest of our life with. So of course, most people should look like crappy options. And yet we get so down in the dumps when, you know, we realize that if everyone was a pretty good option, then the one person you found wouldn't feel so damn special. And so, you know, yeah. So she just needs to get out of her bullshit. And you might be the person who has to fall on the grenade, so to speak.

And if she is so immature and self-indulgent, because she's being selfish right now. She is. She's making life about her. And I've been there. And we've all had our moments of being there. But if she truly is his friend and she is a person that you believe in

and at her core, she's a good person. She's been there for you. She'll wake up. She'll come around. Because when you do give her tough love, you're not going to say anything that's hurtful. You're going to support her. You're going to let her know that you believe in her.

And the reason why you're giving her this tough love is because you know she's capable of handling it. You know, you believe in her, you true you know and you know we'll see but sometimes sometimes we just it's some it's we should be thankful to have the friends in our lives that need to give us a wake-up call because we all at times need a wake-up call you know oh yeah so you think you know kind of to like summarize make think, you know, kind of to like summarize, make sure I have it yet. Kind of like ask the questions, like you said, well, where do you want to meet somebody? Does it matter where you meet them? Do you even want to be, do you want to find like a serious

relationship or are you just looking to have somebody to have somebody? That's sometimes what I feel like it is. Yeah. Get her to ask. Step one is stop offering solutions because she's not interested in hearing solutions. So instead, when she's complaining, ask her questions and get her to point things out that will most likely not make sense and then ask follow-up questions. And then when she goes down a rabbit hole

of not making sense, then you can start pointing out like, well, that doesn't really make sense. And no one likes dating apps. People aren't on dating apps because they're fun. No one's like, you know what? I want to try. I want to mix it up and have a super fun adventure. I want to go on dating apps. I think maybe some people, but most people, it's a means to an end. Stop thinking of dating apps or going to bars or anything is, or going on The Bachelor or whatever it is. Like none of those things are your only option. They're all just options. And we should, we should be open to all options of

meeting people because you never know, you know? And I would let her know that no one's going like if you keep doing what you're doing when the right person does come around they're not going to see how great you are they're not going to see you they're going to see some other toxic version of yourself some self-indulgent person who's feeling sorry for themselves and that's not who you are but there's a lot of people who aren't their best selves when they meet someone who could be really compatible for them. And it's not timing and it's not because it wasn't meant to be. No, it's because you were being a shitty little selfish asshole. And that great person came around and was interested in you instead of being like charming and open and likable,

and was interested in you instead of being like charming and open and likable you were just in your bullshit and we've all done that i know i have you know and yeah shit works out you know but uh we all have to be you know held accountable for our choices so i don't know if you want to go that hard to the paint but you know when she's ready physically able to be that hard well one day maybe you can just play this episode for her when it comes out you know i've sent her episodes before like last week there was a 25 year old guy who called in and he was like how do you get over the excitement stage and like not put so many expectations on a relationship no like start at like seven minutes 24 seconds whatever it was here you go and she it. So maybe she will like, without even me pointing it out, she'll listen to this and be like, um, excuse me, you went on.

It's cause I love you. Yeah. Um, yeah, she, uh, it sounds like she's in her own bullshit, you know, she's just feeling real sorry for herself and we all have been capable of doing that. But it's not all about us. And our pain isn't greater than anyone else's. And what she's experiencing is literally what everyone's experiencing. Yeah.

She's not that special when it comes to her. Yeah, she's 20 fucking four years old, you know? So, yeah, no, definitely. Thank you.

All right. Well, best of luck. Yeah. And, uh, when, if you ever give her the tough love,

uh, be strong, be strong. I will. I'll let you know how it goes. Be kind, but be honest. First, shower her with love and compliments and then hit her with that left hook of truth.

Jab her with compliments and all of a sudden, wham, just out of nowhere. All right. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. Take care. You too. Bye-bye. How's it going? Hi. Hi. What's your name?

I'm Megan. I'm 22. Hi, Megan. How can I help? So I had a friend. We were really close all through high school and some in college. We had a mutual friend that I started dating when I was about 18 and we only did it for a couple of months. We broke up. Um, and then long story short after that, um, he assaulted me and, um, he, uh, I obviously, you know, cut him out of my life. And then I was really, you know, obviously traumatized and distorted. And so I didn't tell anybody, including this friend.

so um so whenever we would hang out you know she would bring him up and talk about him casually and in conversation and uh and it was just too hard to deal with and so uh and I was only 19 18 19 at the time so I didn't I know I didn't handle it um correctly but um but I ended up pretty much ghosting her, just not talking to her after that. And then, so that was about three years ago. Then about a month ago, she sent me a friend request on Facebook. And after I looked through her friends to see if she was still friends with him, and she was, I just declined. She kind of did this intermittently throughout the past few years. So I just didn't think anything of it.

And then my brother asked me about a week later if I knew that she was diagnosed with cancer. And I was obviously like devastated for her. And, um, and I was obviously like devastated for her and, uh, it made me wonder maybe if she reached out to kind of get closure on the situation. Did, did you tell her about the assault? No. Okay. Um, yeah, I didn't, I didn't think that she would believe me, uh, or side with me. So, um, so she has no idea.

And so I guess my question is, like, I don't know how bad the cancer is or if it's terminal, I guess. But I'm wondering if now I should tell her. Yeah, this is a tough situation. I'm really sorry you're going through all this. Thank you. I mean, first, I'd give yourself grace for, like, as you say, you didn't handle it correctly.

I don't know how anyone in the position or what you've been through should be expected to handle it correctly or whatever that is. I think it's obviously very scary. It's unfortunately, from the women I know who have been assaulted by men, yeah, they aren't often believed. I know of friends who were assaulted by a guy in kind of your similar situation. It's

someone they know, it's a guy who's part of a group of friends and it comes up and you would think the women would support you and yet they don't, you know, and that can be really hurtful. So I guess the question is, and forgive me because I'm just trying to offer you some options. I think I just, you know, I'm worried for you. My worry for you is one, bringing up the trauma again that you've experienced, right? And then two, I'm worried for you because I don't want you to feel any type of guilt about this friendship or this person who's now suffering from cancer and you don't have a lot of answers.

or this person who's now suffering from cancer and you don't have a lot of answers. Do you think you could connect with her and simply explain to her why you disconnected from her? Whether she wants to believe you or not, right? Because the good news is it sounds like you understood the importance of removing yourself from this situation because you didn't want to be associated with him and you thought maybe she might not believe you. And so you just chose to protect yourself above all things. And I commend you for that

because I think that is the right thing to do. And so could you just simply accept her friend request, connect with her and just say, you know, first of all, let her talk, tell you about what she's going through if she wants to. And then most likely she might ask for an explanation of like, why have we lost touch? And then you could say, listen, I'm not asking you to, I'm just telling you what happened. I'm just telling you why. Right. And I was afraid you don't believe me. And I just didn't know what to do. I needed to remove myself from the situation. And that's why, because I was afraid. I was afraid. I mean, shit, afraid. Afraid of a lot of things.

And I just couldn't go through not being believed and I didn't want you to then go to him. Because, right, because that's, right, all of a sudden you tell her she doesn't believe you, she goes to him and it becomes this thing and you have more reasons to be fearful of him. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've seen that with friends. She goes to him and it becomes this thing and you have more reasons to be fearful of him. And what he, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I've seen, seen that with friends. And the question to you is, do you think you could handle that? Right. Because I, you know, she's a victim right now of cancer and you're a victim of assault. You're both victims here. And I don't know if one is a higher priority than another right and and so you have to try to you know i just i don't want you to have regret or feel you know like um she's just trying to connect with people and she misses you and she's looking for someone if you have the strength to let her know,

and I feel like maybe she might have a greater perspective now given her situation, and you're not even asking her to believe you, you know what I'm saying? You're just saying, this is why I chose to do what I did, but I don't want to make it about that. Let's try to connect. If she's resistant to it and she still chooses to do the thing you were afraid of her doing a few years ago, then you still have to choose you. But there's a good chance she might not. Have you been working with a therapist regarding your assault? Yes.

What do they say? About this situation? Yeah. I haven't talked to them about it. I'd go there. I mean, I appreciate you asking me but i'd definitely ask your therapist yeah sorry he he has to schedule his appointment so far out and i know yeah but i think yeah my fear with telling her at all is either like she thinks if she responds in a good way or the best way even that I'll want

to be friends with her again and if I'm being honest I don't really want that um like just looking back on the friendship it wasn't a healthy friendship to begin with and um but as well like you know she's still friends with him it looks like they still hang out and talk and stuff and so yeah like if she went to him and he found out that i told people this so that's the other option you know she has friends like you don't know why she's reaching out if if if you don't connect with her you know like is is there a reason to think that if for some like worst case scenario she doesn't beat this thing and you don't

connect like i'm assuming she probably has a bunch of friends and family around her that you're aware of that for whatever reason, she'll be okay. Right. With not connecting with you. There's that choice. I just want you to be okay with not whatever you decide to do. I want you to be good with that decision. That's my concern.

Right. Yeah. So whatever you feel like is the best for you and that you won't look back and regret it like because again worst case scenario if she were to not beat this thing later in life would that would that eat at you not talking to her but if you're like i'm not really interested in being friends with her then maybe not yeah i i just i don't know how i'll feel late later on it's just i feel like i'm in this battle between like what's the best thing for myself right now and what's the right thing to do overall well i don't think there's a wrong thing to do

okay you know whoever this judge and jury is you know what i'm saying like it's just a better how you're going to perceive it i don't think any person could sit there and judge you for having you've been a victim and and not be able to still go out of your way to protect your well-being. Like you said, she's still friends with them. You don't know how close and you don't know what's going on. There's a lot of unknowns with this situation, right? And you know that some of those unknowns could result in you having a very triggering response and dealing with a lot of drama that's going to hurt you. And I think you do have to prioritize that. And that's incredibly justified. All at the risk of not connecting with someone, regardless of what happened to you,

that you deep down just feel like wasn't the healthiest friendship. And I just don't want, I just don't want you to like carry this burden. If you decide not to connect with her and the worst happens, I think you just trust that you're doing the right thing for yourself. And it's the fact that you're simply even considering it means that you obviously are well-intentioned and you have a good heart and you, you want to do right by just people in general. Like you're not being cold you're not being like fuck this you know like but you know yeah like you you have a right to protect yourself above all things you know based on what you're telling me that it's not like a friendship you really want or need in general that given the unknown variables

about what it would mean to reconnect with her you know she's not alone she's not like sitting there with no one to talk to i mean she literally has him and other people so i think in terms of her needing a support system you know it'll be okay she you you will not be responsible for her well-being one way or the other yeah yeah yeah i know she doesn't need me but we were really close and i would like to give her that closure i wish it just didn't have to be at the expense of like something so yeah i get it i get it but sometimes she she will get closure you know and you also don't even know why she's reaching out. Yeah. You know, other than getting a friend request, has she sent you a message of any kind,

like begging for answers? Yeah. It's kind of like fizzled out over the years, but yeah, I mean, she was contacting me pretty frequently um for a while and then up until this year it was kind of like every few months and um and then yeah she hasn't contacted me since sending that friend request yeah i don't know i think she'll be all right does anyone know about this have you been able to tell anyone do you have a support system yeah yeah okay that's good

yeah it's like it's not like i need to tell her that i need closure on this thing i just want to do the right thing i just want to do right by her. You got to do right by yourself first. And that's great that you wanted to do right by her, but you have some justifiable reasons of why you doubt her ability to do right by you. And the stakes are high, right? That's the thing about this. It's tough. The stakes are high right that's the thing about this it's tough the stakes are high and i mean like your well-being right it's not like you guys got in some fight over like whatever and you can like bygones be bygones like you are a victim of assault it's a very hard thing to overcome it's something that some people never are able to fully overcome and you got to protect yourself because the fallout of you telling her and her telling him you recognize could be really fucking messy and hurtful for you and ultimately hurtful for her

i mean shit like she's dealing with this and all of a sudden like whether she wants to believe you or not she's gonna have to deal with that truth right and face you know i don't and so a lot of unknown variables that i just think you are more than justified to just be at peace with choosing you first yeah okay but feel free to ask your therapist. Yeah, definitely. But you're a good person and I don't think you should have any guilt whatsoever by choosing your wellbeing first. Like at all. Yeah. At least I'll know like I did what I needed to do for myself in the moment, even if I think about it and regret it from years. I don't even think you should ever regret. You wanted to do the right thing. You have a good heart. You know what I'm saying? The stakes are high. Your face was an impossible choice, truly. I mean, most people in a lifetime don't have to deal with a choice like this. Yeah. And above all, you would certainly want to do the right thing but like this the stakes are sometimes too high and again she'll be okay she she has a support system

yeah okay okay i'm sorry you're going through this oh thank you all All right. You're going to be okay. Okay. And no regrets. You have no, don't, I mean, it's easy for me to say, but whatever you decide, don't, just believe in your choice and like, you're, you're good. You're a good person. Okay. All right. Thank you.

All right. Take care. All right. Bye. Bye. How's it going? Going good. What's your name? My name is Sam and I'm 28. Hi, Sam. How can I help? So I have a few questions. So I'm seeing the sky right now and it's going great. And we, I, I've never really, I haven't had this in a long time I've been single for probably nine years now um so I just I've been dating a lot and seeing a lot of people and exploring my options and just kind of seeing what I like and what I don't like

and unfortunately a lot of the people I've come across don't I guess it just doesn't work out they're not the guy for me great whatever the case may be uh and then this guy he's super sweet he makes me feel really good he doesn't give me any anxiety which I get a lot of in relationships when we're not together and I'm just why isn't he texting me you know like I listen to your podcast a lot I know a lot of people feel the same way and with this guy, everything is great. And now we're at that stage where we've had a conversation about being exclusive. And I don't know what that means. And I don't know how to navigate the relationship from this point on. Like we both, when we had the conversation, he was in a 10 year relationship.

So I'm 28, he's 31. And he, he's from a small town. And so he, it was his high school sweetheart. It was an amicable breakup with them. And now he's been single for five years. So when we had the conversation, we were both unsure what it meant, but we're kind of, I guess, both navigating it, but I'm struggling with not even struggling. I don't want to say, I just don't know how to do this middle part and what's what do you mean what do you mean what do you define middle part what do you mean okay and this is what I'm saying it's confusing like exclusive versus dating I don't quite understand the difference and I don't I just don't know what to do for example this morning I took a really

cute video of my dog and I sent it to my friend and i was like oh i kind of want to send that to him but is that weird i don't want to bombard him with text messages because i i don't know guys are like that i have three brothers they would probably tell me no how long are you hanging out you've been hanging out with this guy about seven weeks now seven weeks okay so it's still relatively new you know like sending a picture of your dog i don't know like it's whatever oftentimes like in relationships like you know like natalie has sent me a lot of tiktoks that she sees that she thinks i'm gonna find funny or that she thinks are cute yeah and. And I would say, you know, about 40% of the time, I'm like,

oh, that was good. And then the other time, I'm like, neat. You know, we don't have to be on the same page for every little thing.

Right? No, and I'm not even saying that being on the same page, but I've just, I want to be myself. There you go. I'm kind of weird, like quirky and whatever. Yeah. So there you go. I'm kind of weird, like quirky and whatever.

So there you go. Okay, third example. Another example is... I think that's good. You should pay attention to what you said though. You're like, what does that mean? You know, like you're calling me asking what it means. And then you said, I want to be myself.

I think you should listen to yourself when you say things that you want. So you should pay attention to that. That's an important thing. I want to be myself. Well, let's put that up in the priorities of whatever you want this to be. The ability to be yourself. And I am myself when I'm with him and I'm myself when I'm not with him for like 90% of the time. You know, those are common things to be nervous about. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Let's say you sent that picture of your dog.

Like it felt good. It was a moment. You wanted to share that moment with someone you like. Is he going to be like, oh my God, your dog's the best. You know, you don't know how, like, of course your brothers aren't going to give a shit about that. But if we like someone, we care about, it's not going to be about your dog. It's going to be that you wanted to send it to him. If I'm excited about a woman and she wants to share any part of her day with me, I'm

going to like that. Okay. I like to hear that. That's kind of what I was looking for. Cause I don't, I just, in terms of like, he's someone that I've liked the most in a really long time and I really connect with him. And I think a little bit of me is kind of tainted by past relationships um and i wouldn't even call them that now you're in this kind of critical stage of knowing that you value this and now you're afraid to lose something you value and we have a habit as we've talked about of not being ourselves of watering down ourselves are of editing ourselves for fear that we won't be accepted for who we are. So it's really important in this time of uncertainty about expectations that are in

this kind of thing that you guys are in is to start talking about what you want in a relationship. You know, what, what do you hope? What are your expectations? And instead of asking me and your friends, you should be able to ask them. I don't know. Yeah, I agree with you. And I, well, I think I can ask him. He doesn't give me any indication. Even when we have the exclusive conversation,

I think I have a hard time articulating myself sometimes. Again, probably just because I've been shut down so many times. And so you you've had the conversation of like we're not gonna have sex with other people yeah okay and was that all you guys talked about so receptive and he was and yeah well but it doesn't stop doesn't stop there you know that's all that's all you know we're not gonna have sex with other people but yeah as like you would probably guess you probably are starting to develop other questions about how much time you spend with each other that was my next question

too i was gonna ask that so i know it's something i need to have a conversation with kim about but i wanted to get your perspective uh because all of my friends are either married or in long-term relationships so they their advice is very different than advice that I would get from you. Yeah, what the fuck do they know? I know, my sister-in-law's jokes with her advice. But anyways, yeah, so I was asking, in my mind, so when we had the conversation, part of it was on both of our ends.

So what does this mean? And we both didn't really know. And what I said was, I would really like to spend more time with you just because I think it's important We both didn't really know. And what I said was, I would really like to spend more time with you. Just because I think it's important to spend time with someone to get to know them. And he said, yeah, he agreed with that. Excellent.

And then here's the, I don't want to call it a curveball, but I think he has something against sleepovers. So I wanted your opinion about that too. How did he say it? Maybe he's against playing house no so we were just talking when we had that conversation and then said I'd love for us to have

a sleepover I don't know if that's childish to say but I said it and then he goes yeah we can have a sleepover like this weekend again I feel kind of silly saying that to you right now but whatever i think it's for me it's important that's an important thing to have that connection and that intimacy when you kind of i don't necessarily love sleeping with someone either i mean i've been

single for so long that my bed is my bed right like i'm not a great sleeper but yeah if you want to sound a little bit more mature you can say i'd love for you to spend the night sometime but like who cares whatever you said sleepover it's endearing um yeah i get what you're saying i think that's nice but just be careful not to feel like you need to rush that that'll like yeah you know like if you're building a connection and like spending time with someone you'll enjoy spending the night with them it'll feel natural but yeah don't don't add unnecessary expectations around like well you know we've been hanging for together for a few weeks we should start having sleepovers and spending the night there you're getting into the playing house territory a little bit like yeah it's fine if you do but like you don't need to

all of a sudden be like all right well you don't need to always constantly add to it some of it will yeah you know basic expectations how much time you want to spend with each other like what you like what makes you feel love love languages you can be literal when you talk about love languages or you can like you don't have to be like hey let's have the love language conversations but you can ask about like things that like make them feel validated and loved and like how you like and and and hopefully he cares about those things and so you figure it out but like sleep you know having sleepovers or spending the night no spending the night is uh is a nice thing that will happen in time you know and the way you probably if you asked me that i would like there would a part of me that would be cautious i would be like what does she mean like it sounds

like a weird a very specific thing she asked that doesn't need to be like i would my my playing house red flag would go up a little bit yeah and it's not really a big deal like i'm just saying like if he didn't respond the way you hoped i don't think he has anything against sleepovers it's just more like okay sure we can all spend the night yeah yeah i understand what you're saying but no he was receptive again like there's nothing there's no anxiety about this guy other than myself i'm giving myself and it's not even like i'm giving myself anxiety it's that i don't know i i guess i just haven't really been in this position in a really long time so i just don't really know how to go about it you found something you value and you're hoping hope you

don't lose it anytime soon that's natural yeah so so i guess is i don't know i guess just i know that you're probably just gonna say just continue doing what you're doing but i just don't i don't want to you don't want to what i don't want him to lose interest i guess and i don't know well he either will or he won't all you can do is be yourself yeah i mean that's the thing you probably being yourself and you think about all the weird quirky things that you do or bad habits or things that you do in private. Well, those are also the things that make us kind of interesting and not vanilla and boring.

And you're just trying to find the person who finds that your quirky, weird things are lovable, interesting and not annoying. Yeah. And so you have to be yourself to figure that out. Yeah. Okay. So far, so good. So far, so good. If you want to send yourself to figure that out. Yeah. Okay. And so far, so good. So far, so good.

If you want to send a picture of your dog, send it. Yeah. If he thinks that's weird and breaks up with you for it, then glad you found out now. That'd be a weird thing to freak out about. It's like, oh, she sends a picture of her dog. I think she's obsessed with me. I should break up with her.

Like, what is he going to, you know what? Yeah. No, I agree. of her dog i think she's obsessed with me i should break up with her like what are you what is he gonna you know what yeah i know i agree and it's just i guess i have a lot of time on my hands right now because of covid they didn't want us in the hospital i hasn't been working so every time i have something going on it's kind of all i put a lot of energy into it so i guess the good thing yeah so recognizing that just you can be excited, but also know when they'll be like, all right, like some of this is maybe based off the fact that I have nothing better to do. So let's not suffocate this new thing,

you know? Yeah. So a little bit of restraint, but whatever. Enjoy the thing you're excited about. Okay. All right. I guess that's all I had.

All right. You'll be great. Okay. Well, thank you. Congratulations on this new fun relationship. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. Thanks for listening, guys. Again, don't forget on Wednesday,

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