The Viall Files - E405 Going Deeper - Female Viagra, Will Smith and Flirty CoWorkers!

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

Welcome back to The Viall Files, Going Deeper edition! Today we are joined by Cindy Eckert, the billionaire behind the creation of “female Viagra” known as Addyi. On this episode we talk about why a drug like this has never been made for women, how the options given to women differ from men for a similar problem, and how Cindy was able to sell her drug to a company and win it back again down the line. We also talk about how Cindy got death threats for releasing Addyi, how this drug differs from Viagra, and how Cindy had to fight against the FDA. We also dive into pop culture, talking about the Will Smith situation, him leaving the academy, and how defending your partner can expose toxic traits. We then shift to feature an extra call from our Ask Nick episode with Justin Long where our caller deals with a flirty coworker who is stringing her along. Now she struggles to know if he actually cares for her or if she is the victim of his fuckboy tactics.  “People misinterpret being sex positive as not being able to have opinions about sex at all.” 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.  Pre-Order Nick’s Book: https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/dont-text-your-ex-happy-birthday_9781419755491/ Check out our new "Introvert" merch at http://www.viallfiles.com today! THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Bloom Nutrition: Bloom Nutrition is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase of their Greens & Superfoods blend when you go to http://www.BloomNU.com/VIALL Wonderskin: Wonderskin is offering our listeners 20% OFF plus free shipping on orders over $50 when you go to http://www.WonderSkin.com and use our promo code VIALL.  Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @cindypinkceo @justinlong Life Is Short Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/4bqGBlGEpQFLdC7yVlIjKw ADDYI is for premenopausal women with acquired, generalized hypoactive (low) sexual desire disorder who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, and who have low sexual desire no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation or the sexual partner. The low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or mental health problem, problems in the relationship or medicine or other drug use. ADDYI is not for use in men or to enhance sexual performance. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink 1-2 standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your ADDYI dose. Wait at least 2 hours after drinking before taking ADDYI at bedtime. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is also increased if you take certain prescription, over the counter or herbal medications, or have liver problems. Low blood pressure and fainting can happen when you take ADDYI even if you don’t drink alcohol or take other medicines. Do not take if you are allergic to any of the ingredients in ADDYI. Allergic reactions may include hives, itching or trouble breathing. Sleepiness, sometimes serious, can occur. Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep and dry mouth. See full PI and Medication Guide, including Boxed Warning at addyi.com/pi or call 844-PINK-PILL. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

you're crazy what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of the vile files going deeper edition how is everyone doing i hope your week's going well i am joined by ali and amanda and i switched it up because i'm that was fun actually it's just uh i'm really excited about this episode uh we have the very wonderful impressive cindy eckhart with us. Billionaire inventor of Addy, which is for layman's terms, the female Viagra.

Good news is we have a fourth call from our Justin Long episode from Monday. Bonus. Justin Long and I are a bit long-winded, so it was too long for a fourth episode. We figured, instead of a mediation call this week, let's throw it in as a preview or just a surprise, an Easter egg.

I'm really curious how people respond to this episode. I know, if you guys haven't noticed, we've tweaked our format a little bit because we want to give you the content that you want we still obviously are with our going deeper episodes interview interesting guests we are introducing more conversations around like you know current events pop culture we like to you know just to be totally transparent i think it's important that uh as a show we're now having guests that we think are willing and able to have the conversations that we want to have

that ultimately you, the listener, are interested in. In the past, selfishly, like as a podcaster who gets to interview celebrities, I've been a little bit of like, I want to talk to this person because I'm interested in it. And then sometimes it'll be a name or someone who wants to promote something. And I'll be like, oh, that's cool.

But what do we want to talk about or what do they want to talk about? And ultimately, I think we've always able to give you good episodes. But we've changed it because we want to dictate the conversations. You guys just seem to respond well to that. And so Cindy is our first guest

who is more from like an expert role but obviously we have an audience of a lot of women this is a very uh i'm i'm fascinated by it even as a man but for i think for everyone men and women in terms of the sex and the conversations around it uh sexual drive versus sexual reproduction, big pharma, there's a lot of layers here. Conspiracies are in this, like big tech is in this. It's a story that I also think it's a lot to learn. And Cindy, we get into a little bit more of the Will Smith, Jada Pinkett slap.

What are the other conversations that we need to have as a result of this, the fallout? I really enjoyed our time with Cindy, and I'm really curious how you, the audience, responds to this conversation that we have. Will you share it with your friends? Will you be interested in it or not? I'm honestly just curious, but I thought it'd be something that you all would really want to hear about. What did you ladies think? I texted our producer in the middle of the session and I said, I want to lay down on a couch with this woman and cry and just like have her comfort me. Like, I don't know what it was about her. I want to like, I don't know. Like,

she was great. I just feel like she would comfort me in my tears and give me good guidance. Yeah, I think there's also relief in finally talking about this because even though, and this is something we get into a ton about like this idea of like sex positivity and sex becoming de-stigmatized in certain ways, but how there's also a ton of discourse or just like conversations around pleasure that are really missing and how it's so easy to feel in some ways broken or inadequate.

And I think it's kind of cool just having someone like break it down from a very like scientific and clinical standpoint of being like, this is literally science. This is a biological need. This is how it happened with men. It did not happen this way with women. Here's what I had to do. Yeah. Really interesting stuff. Well, we will get to this Cindy interview. If you haven't listened to the ASNIC episode with Justin Long, you're missing out to Justin Long returns. You know him, you love him. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while,

if not, not, if you've never listened to an ethnic episode, I honestly don't know why, but now, now's a good one to start. Alison Raskin is our guest for our Tuesdays episode. We talk a lot of,

if you listen to the Shane interview, a lot of discourse. We basically had listen to the Shane interview, a lot of discourse, we, we basically had a podcast about the podcast and reactions to Natalie's statement. Uh, we'll, we have Natalie on as an interview answer. We answer those questions, rumors that are going out there, some bachelor updates. And also we talk a little bit more, uh, with Alison's book that she has out, uh Health Struggles and Dating, and some conversations around that I thought were really fascinating. So be sure to check that out.

Anything else we're missing, subscribe, review, tell your friends. Don't forget to send your questions to asknickatcastme.com for our mediation calls. I know it can be a little intimidating to sit down together, but everyone who has done it has felt better for it. So be sure to write in with those and the Ask Nicks. And it doesn't need to be like some huge, large life debacle. No.

It can be like a little thing that you bicker with your sister about constantly. And like we just like, because sometimes in these like little teeny tiny micro interactions can be really rich. And so it doesn't need to be some big, scary conflict. I should bring my sister on. Let's do it. Sure.

The goal is to find common ground with little things that we feel righteous and right about that maybe there's just a way to, you know, find the... To talk through. To talk through. That's all we're trying to do. Anyway, give us five stars,

obviously. You could use those, whatever Spotify, Apple, iTunes, wherever you listen to us. Those are the two platforms that let you judge us. Let's get to Cindy Eckhart. Cindy, welcome.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Good. Your story was presented to me as something that we might be interested in talking to on this show with an audience of predominantly women. Yeah. And when it was presented to me, I was just maybe my own ignorance. Maybe it's just because I'm a guy. Maybe it's not on my radar of things I pay attention to. But I was also the impression that I think what we're going to talk about is something that maybe even a lot of women aren't fully aware of.

For sure. And how it was told to me is that you created, and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, basically the equivalent of Viagra for women. Yes. And obviously Viagra is something that I think the average person is aware of. Correct. It's kind of part of our mainstream.

Sure, pop culture, of course. Yeah, pop cultural at least. It's covered by insurance of our mainstream pop culture. It's covered by insurance. It is. That's right. It is? Yes. Yeah.

And so it's a movie. It's been how many years has Havagra been around? 1998. 1998. Okay. So over 20 years. Yeah. When it comes to men's sex drive and desire for sex, it's thought of as a big deal.

Sure. Especially if men lose that sex drive. Impotence is something we, is discussed and that can be emasculating for men to not be able to perform and it also is something that we either don't discuss or dismiss entirely as it relates to women yeah and and their sex drive uh and is there and and things if like can we do things about it or isn't do we does society deem it worthy to do something about right that's the big question uh and those are things that we will discuss today i love it it's great i mean am i getting it right so far you're doing great i mean you're absolutely right isn't it insane

when you think that probably i wish i could see the whole audience and ask them by like a show of hands who knew that there was a little pink pill for women or the so-called female vibrant works differently, which we should talk about. But insane, like when you think, I always say to people, when's the last Super Bowl you watched that you weren't told that, you know what, like sexual satisfaction makes for a better life. What we weren't conscious of is the subtext was, if you're a man. Yeah. Because it's all been for that, right?

To your point, like Viagra is totally in the vernacular. We make jokes, it's comfortable. And yet, why don't we talk about this in the same way for women? And do we think it has something to do with, it like has something to do with like the double standard of from men and women, their sexuality, back to the kind of original, if a man's promiscuous, he's thought of as like a sexual stud. God, yeah.

And if a woman's promiscuous, people might criticize her of being a slut. Yeah, sure. Or some of those other derogatory phrases. Does it kind of originate back to those double standards? Oh, I think it runs deep, really runs deep. If you think about it, I think from the time really women get their period, sex becomes a bit taboo, right? It's a little bit shameful. And I think the whole thought is that pleasure is ours to give, not ours to receive. I think at the crux of all this is really pleasure and how we feel about that in a male versus female context. That's really, I think, the genesis of all of this.

And it's deeply held beliefs. Yeah. And there's obviously a fascinating story here with the drug itself. Before I want to kind of get into that story, creating this had to do with, as I'm reading here, like hyperactive sexual desire disorder. Hypo. Hypo. So low. Hypoactive. Yes. What is that? Yeah. So it's like, it's the medical term for women who lose their drive for sex. Newsflash to everybody, we are all wired biologically to want sex. Actually, none of us would be here if it wasn't for sex. And so women too have a biological component to their sex drive. For us, desire

ignites in the brain. So for men, we talk a lot about mechanical issues, you know, blood flow, directed blood flow. For women, it's about turning on in the brain. And so we've known about this medical sort of issue since the 70s. Like it was first characterized in literature. There's tens of thousands of medical articles about it. And it's about really, I was once happy with my sex drive. Like it was good. Something changed.

And women will describe it almost like the switch going out. Like I never think about it anymore. I don't have fantasies. If my partner comes on to me, I'm like, like not so interested. And they certainly aren't initiating. So something changes. And frankly, they're bothered by it.

Like it's losing a little bit of a piece of that basic biologic drive that we're all wired to have. So isn't it crazy that we think like, you know, we accept biology immediately for men. Something goes wrong for a guy, we're like, oh, biology, let's fix it. Something goes wrong for women, we go, oh, psychology. How are you doing? Are you stressed? You need to take a vacation. Is it your partner? We start asking all these questions as opposed to naturally going,

well, of course biology is at play there too. Why wouldn't we think of something to address it? That's what really ignited me and set me down this path. And then you created ADDIE. I did, not in the lab. I had a great scientific team. So you had the idea of, you did the research and studied the idea, then kind of created a team to come up with this. Yes. So the research that had been done was basically brain scan imaging of women. So here's the cool science that had emerged in terms of what it is that unlocks desire for women,

brain scan imaging. So actually in medicine, we've learned a ton of things from brain scans in the last like 10, 15 years. So what you're looking at basically is a rendering of, put a woman in an MRI who has this issue, hypoactive sexual desire disorder. The shorthand for it is HSTD.

Put a woman who's totally happy with her libido, like normal ebb and flow, expose them both to porn, watch how their brains light up. Totally differently. Totally differently. So basically for, we're quite animalistic when we have sex. We like, I would describe it as we shut all the tabs in our brain to be like, enjoy the experience. For women with this issue, they can't shut the tabs. So they're sitting in bed going like, oh, I got to do this tomorrow. I'm doing this. They're never sort of quieting the brain to have sex. And that's really what you're looking at is activation versus deactivation of the brain. When this was presented, it's awesome new science, right? It was an awesome new discovery.

Like, okay, we got it. This is the biological basis of this issue. And all of the big companies that you would think would like chase this, when you consider how big a category Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, all of those drugs were, like ran the other direction. And that was my signal. Like, what is it about us

in women and sex that would have us leave a scientific discovery so spectacular that we wouldn't then translate that into a treatment for women? And that's what set me down the path. Wonderskin. I'm just intrigued by the word. Allie, take it from here. So, little story time. Last week I texted my guy friend who works in the cosmetic industry and I was like, why is this foundation flaking off my face? He told me it was good. And he was like, babe,

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and then, if I'm understanding correctly, you sold it to a pharmaceutical company. I did, yeah. For a lot of money. A billion cash. A billion cash.

A billion, yeah. I feel like I should go like that. Let's just let that. That's a lot of, that's Scrooge McDuck. Two and a half billion, a billion cash up front. That's a Scrooge McDuck. What's that like? It was an amazing week, let's just say. Like checking the bank account the next day was like. A billion cash. Wow. A direct deposit. Wow. Did you, did you kind of Scrooge McDuck it for a little bit? Like I'm going to need like a couple of mail and just throw it on the bed. No, I wish I had, I disappointed like every single one of my friends that I like, I don't

know. I got up the next morning, went to work. They're like, what are you doing? Um, no, but it was, uh, it was a crazy ride though, because it was so hard. You would think, I'll give you just another like male-female comparison here. When Viagra got approved, it was deemed to meet such an important unmet medical need. Like it was a national emergency that men couldn't get it up. So we raced it to approval in six months. Oh, we skipped some of the... It took six years to get the product for women. We had three times as many patients' worth of data. If that doesn't tell you how we value male versus female

sexuality, now ultimately science won, right? Science had given us the answer. We just had to get out of our way when science won. Two days later, I sold the company for a billion dollars cash, but it took me six years of just getting turned down by the FDA, having to fight the FDA. It was very, it's fascinating. So the approval process for the Viagra was treated like the, you know, vaccines. I'm like, just get it out. Get it out. Men need to have pleasurable sex. If we don't get it out in time, we might, the world might end. We have a national emergency. We did.

It was a national emergency. But for women, we're like, well, I mean, do they need more sex? How much more sex? What would the industry or whoever it is, what would their argument be to you? If we had the other side, whoever that other side is, what would they say? Well, you know, yeah, but this is why we had to do it. Do you have an answer? I'd love for them to be sitting in the room and tell me why. You would just be guessing?

I mean, really, like the science is there. So, you know, when you study medications, you do blinded trials. You don't know if it's the drug or it's placebo. You have to meet certain endpoints that the FDA laid out. You have to do it with statistical significance to prove that time and again you show this effect. What do you say if you've done those things? I think it's really hard. It became very hard to hide the bias. And the bias really was at the end of it, and I don't, the bias. And the bias really was at the end of it, and I don't, these aren't bad people,

they're just human. And I think they've been conditioned by society to go like, yeah, but does it matter? You said the exact right word at the outset. You said it worth, right? Is it worth it? Like, what does it matter? I'll role play. Let's role play. I mean, I'm in sex, I'll role play. Let's role play. I mean, I'm in sex, right? We got to go there. So if a guy goes into a doctor and he's like, hey, and it's embarrassing, right? But he says like, hey, you know, I'm struggling a little bit. Like, you know, it's like, hey, I need a little help.

It's immediately acknowledged like, hey, there are things you can do for that, right? We acknowledge it. We make it okay. and we fix it. If a woman goes in and says like, hey, you know, I love my partner, but honestly, like I'm not into it. I never think about it. I don't want, we start the questions. We go, well, is the relationship okay? Is it okay? Are you tired? Do you just need, do you need vacation? Have you taken a bubble bath? What the hell are we doing?

Why would we not just say, hey, there's something you can do about that. I'm not saying that all of that discussion isn't worthwhile to explore the relationship dynamic and everything else, but we wouldn't do that with a guy. There's no guy that walked in asking for Viagra where we said, have you done couples counseling yet? But we do that all the time to women. And I think it's fascinating. What is that that holds us back? So that's my long answer to if people were sitting in the room from the FDA and they're looking at a data set, a scientific data set that shows outcomes,

what would they say? I don't really know. I don't know if they could pinpoint exactly where that bias originated. But there's more to your story after you sold it is that you ended up buying it back from that company? Getting it back. Getting it back. Getting it back. How did that work? What happened there? So listen to this crazy story. So I take this on. I have an

unbelievably wild ride where I'm rejected by the FDA. I have to publicly fight them. We ultimately cross the finish line. Dream come true. Company comes in to buy it. They're going to get it out there for women. They're going to advertise it on the Super Bowl. And they put it on the shelf. They bought it and shelved it. Yeah. So listen to this stat too, by the way. When we cross that finish line, 26 FDA-approved drugs for some form of male sexual dysfunction, not a single one for women. Not a single one in the world until we cross the finish line. So, okay, 26 v. 1, finally, women have won and they shelve it. And I was crushed, crushed. Like I'd fought so hard for us to finally have it, and now women can't even get it. So, you know, I had to feel sorry for myself for a little bit. Then I

had to say, okay, they paid you a billion dollars cash. Nobody's feeling sorry for you. Then I had to kick myself in the ass. And I was like, not on my watch. Oh, hell no, I didn't fight this hard for them to not let women have it. So I can remember I invited, they had a new CEO from the time they had bought me. And I invited him to breakfast in New York. Will you meet me? He agreed. We sat down and I said, give it back. And he really did look at me like,

hi, we paid you a billion dollars. Please, please go away. You said breakfast. Give it back. Give it back. You're not doing anything with a give it back. And I think he was amused. And then I said,

I wasn't amused. And they had agreed to do certain things like advertise it, educate OBGYNs about it, like basic things that you would do for a product of this magnitude to come to market. They weren't doing it. So they really were in breach of my contract. So I sued them. And in exchange for dropping the lawsuit, they ended up giving the product back. And we kept the billion dollars and I invested in other female disruptors today. Wow. Mic drop. You kept the billion dollars. Yeah. And we got Addie on the market. So now women can get it. So what was his response to like, why, why didn't they just start living up to their end of the deal? Why did they go and breach their contract? Did you ask?

I mean, you must have asked. Of course. Like, what the fuck, bro? Yeah. I mean, look. I didn't say what the fuck, bro. It's hard to ever understand like the internal dysfunction of so many big corporations.

They had missed, like their stock had dipped. This was the last thing in. They were trying to save their existing products. I don't think there was a story of malice here. They had switched CEOs at the time. So I think it just got lost and nobody had the passion to bring it to market. And it was just killing me

because so many women had fought the good fight to ever get this product to market. So I just couldn't let them down. Wow. And how long ago was that that you got it back? I got it back. We launched it in 2020. So really considering the pandemic,

last year was our first full year of launch. And we doubled year over year, and we'll double again this year in sales. Last year was your first full year of launch after you got it back. And so, because you sold it to a pharmaceutical company essentially as the distributor, right? They're the ones who would have, like you said, they would educate OBGYNs, they would do the commercials, the Super Bowl ads or whatever. For sure. They would bring awareness to this product. That's right.

Which you guys agreed to. You got it back and now you're just doing it on your own? Yes, with my team. We're like a small startup doing this. And who's manufacturing the drug though? We manufacture it here in the US. And that's something the pharmaceutical company was also going to do? They'd own the whole supply do. They were going to,

you know, they'd own the whole supply chain. They would have owned like every aspect of it. So we got it back and we figured it out, put it together. And I mean,

I've built pharma companies before, so I understood that. Casual. I'm just like, ah. No, I mean, I'm from the space, so I did understand.

And we had to build like product supply to do the clinical trials and stuff. So that part, but like getting it into pharmacies across the U.S. and, you know, just all of those things. And even the challenge of bringing this first product type to market, you know, like the first day we did ads, Facebook shut us down. They're like, oh, you can't say these things. Like, you can't have a sexual enhancement product for women. And I'm like, it's an FDA approved treatment option for a medical condition we've known about since the 70s.

And, you know, so it's been a fascinating like journey in that sense too every single part of it is is the first that that is wild to me and then did you have to i'm assuming you use some of your own capital some of that money yeah to do this like you you basically took that money and reinvested it back into the brand yes maybe got some other investors and things like that but you you truly have put your money to work. I will say there's a term called femtech, right? Femtech is all of these technologies for women, you know, often like related to healthcare. And there are all these great female founders in the space

solving problems that the system hasn't solved for us. When I crossed the finish line in 2015 with Addy, there was no such term. It was coined in 2016. It'll be a $50 billion category by 2025. I feel like I gave investors a billion reasons to believe that if you go solve issues for women, there's a massive market there. And so I think we'll continue to like hear this conversation evolving and we'll start to hear about it and we'll start to see commercials. I mean, we ran our first radio ad on Stern last year and I sat in my car and cried like a baby because it took me 10 years to get there. That's incredible. I want to maybe just kind of go over the drug a little bit and tackle any potential ignorance around the drug.

Yeah, sure. Because I wonder too, listen, when it comes to any type of medication, I think people are naturally reluctant. For example, I struggle with anxiety. I have ADHD. I saw the pillow. I don't self-medicate for that. Yeah, yeah.

That's my choice. I'd rather, I have tried and they have worked for me. Other forms of dealing with it, whether it's exercise and diet and sleep and meditation. That's not to say it's not right. Medication in those areas are right for some people right so you you're you're still dealing with kind of it being a pharmaceutical yeah right and people having skepticism around that and then i wonder if the way even you were talking about it because it's talking about affecting the brain yeah do you think more people are are skeptical about that

or i have fears of well well, I don't want to take something that's going to change my brain psychology just to get horny. What would you say to someone who either at least has a question about that or are concerned regarding the drug as it relates to how it works and whether it's from a man's point of view or from a woman's point of view or from a woman's point of view, how would you answer kind of that concern? So I'm going to back up to your first point. So first of all, I agree. There's no such thing as a panacea, a magic pill that fixes everything, right? There's no such thing. However, I'm a bit of a scientific snob, and here's what I would say. It has been

proven safe and effective, and it has been trialed in a way that has the maximum amount of data for you to, I'm very data-driven, right, for you to understand how it's going to work. I sort of tease a lot of my friends out here who are like, oh, I don't take any drugs, but they come to lunch and they have a bag of supplements. I'm like, I know you just take unproven bullshit that may actually put you in harm's way, but they come to lunch and they have a bag of supplements. I'm like, I know you just take unproven bullshit that may actually put you in harm's way, but you're going to tell me it's natural. And I'm going to tell you, okay, let's actually just for fun, you'll like this fact. GNC has like all of these products for male vigor, right? It was like the advent of the industry after Viagra was approved, like all of these products. They did an analysis of those products.

Let's say there were 20 of them. 18 of them were laced with Viagra. Why do you think they work? Because there's actually a real product that's at the heart of it. It's just not disclosed that way. So I think that first from a pharmaceutical perspective, and if people are anti-pharma, I would just say, well, what do you choose to put in your body? And what has been the depth of the study of that product, you should be a snob about how proven the therapy really is. I think to your point on like exercise and, you know, all of those things that are such an important piece of lifestyle, You know, all of those things that are such an important piece of lifestyle, wonderful. And those should be taken on by everybody and considered diet, exercise, all of that. I would just say, again, if a guy comes in with ED, we don't say to him, like, hey, why

don't you just like start running a few miles a day and it's going to fix it. Because we know there's a physiologic basis to it that we probably need to address, even if we only need to address it for a period of time before he can then go off that medication. So I think you've hit the nail on the head that there is skepticism about treatments in general. But I think of, I think of a moment in time, even in mental health, if we dialed back to patients who were severely depressed and you can think about like,

I mean, not really that long ago. We'll say it's 30 years. I don't even know that it's 30 years where those people were told like, hey, you know, suck it up. Life's hard. Like they were severely clinically depressed. We think that's so Neanderthal today. If we look back on it, we're like, oh my God,

we know that they actually need help with something, even if for a period of time. So that's my retort to it. But I think there's more skepticism, again, be it a product for women than there has ever been for men. That has been fascinating to me. And I'll tell you why. Because the product that I brought to market before this was one of the male drugs. So I'd lived this life having brought one of the 26 products for men to market. And that's why I was in these rooms of the scientific research and there with this discovery in women. And the difference in conversations is night and day, I can tell you that. It has risks. I should, you know, this is important. What are the side effects?

Sleepiness, dizziness, nausea. You take it daily at bedtime. If you've, you know, had three or more drinks, we say skip the dose that night because it's working on the central nervous system, right? Just like alcohol does. So, you know, again, all medications, be it Benadryl, Tylenol, over-the-counter or Addi or Viagra or any of those. Yeah, like Viagra, like obviously it can be like increased heart rate. You know, like. Can't combine it with the nitrate. It could be, there were deaths in the clinical trials because of that. Like, so, you know, drug interactions.

Not with Addi. There were deaths in the clinical trial for Viagra. Yeah. And no one talks about that. So, you know, drug interactions. There were deaths in the clinical trial for Viagra. And no one talks about that. Yeah. Because we know so little about, like the average person knows very little about the process of how a drug approved. For sure. And we probably just assume almost everything. Yeah. I think that's probably also to your point, like part of the, like you're not so sure because it seems so mysterious, the process, if you will, of drug approval. But we studied adding in over 13,000 women. The average new drug approval is a little over 1,000. Now, in fairness, that includes like

rare diseases. So like a Viagra kind of drug would be studied in 3,000 or 4,000 people. And then you follow them long term, even beyond that. So drug companies continue to study, obviously, when it's in market, and they report all the side effects and everything else. So you continue to watch those things. But Addi has risks. It has benefits. And all drugs have risks and benefits. And that's why you make the decision with your healthcare provider. Addy's a prescription product. If you're on certain medications, you shouldn't take it. So that's an important piece. What struck me is that 26 times, right, we had looked at

a risk-benefit profile of a product for men and said, yes. And I'm going to turn the decision over to the guy and his doctor. And we hadn't been able to do that once for women until we broke through with Addie. I feel like you've received criticism online due to like a lack of efficacy with the product. So what would you say to your critics who are saying, you know, it's not effective enough, you need to like stop using misleading marketing? What would you say to them? How much sex is enough? I always think that's funny. I mean, I shouldn't. I'm not minimizing somebody saying, well, how does it work? If somebody goes from not having sex to having sex, is that enough? How many more sexual events is enough? Like that became a very fascinating

story when we were going through it that if you look that if you look at data, you have to split. Because in a medication, so if I took Prozac's data, for example, or any of those products, not everybody would respond on treatment. But they're in your averages, right, even the non-responders. So then you segment, like, well, how much more sex do responders have? Well, some people had four to six more events a month. On average, they had one and a half, but non-responders are in there. So who gets to choose? The woman? Like, were we actually going to say, you can't have it? One's not enough. You can only have it if you have two. You can only have it if you have three. You can only have it if you have four. It's so absurd to me. But again, it goes

back to this conversation. So I think that for women on the product, what they said, and this was the first to your point, like what's the first thing they said? They said, well, the effect is only modest. So modest would convey like minimal, wouldn't it? But modest is meaningful, right? You actually are moving somebody back into what's the normal range. You're not making them hypersexual. Actually, if we'd given this product and it made everybody nymphomaniacs, I assure you would never have gone to market because that wouldn't be the effect. That's a good point. If I treated people with depression today, I'm trying to restore them back to where they were at some point.

I'm not making them euphoric. They're not walking around every day euphoric. That actually would be a negative effect. Nymphomania would have been a negative effect, if you will, of Addy. So it was almost like with Addy, some of the criticism was, I'm not going around obsessed with sex all of a sudden. I just wanted a little more. And then the criticism was, well, then it's not worth it. Is it really real? Is it a placebo? You shouldn't be on with any risk, right? If it's not, but why are they picking?

And then I'm assuming too with the male drug, there's the erection we can literally look at and say, oh, well, regardless of whether he's fantasizing or wants to, his dick is hard. So it must be going now. And when it comes to women, there's not that kind of actual visual thing rather than the expressiveness or being in the mood or talking about a fantasy, which opens up the door for people to saying, well, where is that really coming from? Is that coming from the drug or is that coming from you're conveniently deciding to say you want that?

Yeah, that really... Fun fact on Viagra, you know, you actually need desire for it. So Viagra doesn't treat libido, right? It treats erectile dysfunction. But if you didn't have any libido, it really wouldn't work. So it's an interesting... And men take a product. So most commonly, if a man goes into a doctor's office and he says like, hey, I have no sex drive, up until, the most common thing used

is testosterone treatments because we know that they have a regulation on libido. So they're treated for a condition called hypogonadism. One of the symptoms is low libido. And you can't see that, but we've used it for years. So yeah, I think that's, again, we don't believe in women. And then we assign all of this additional like, well, how much is enough? And then we, I think, a bit fear monger with women around side effects in a different way than we do with men I'm curious um in terms of in talking about efficacy and what success looks like because as you've alluded to there's not that same discourse surrounding female sexuality I'm curious what you learned about what like positive a positive relationship with sexual pleasure looks like in women in

terms of like what ideal you were chasing in this? Such a good question because I think it's so individual, right? We're different. Like somebody's version of a happy sex life is we have a date night every Thursday, we have sex. Somebody wants it four times a day. Like I think we have different baselines for what our natural drives are. And again, I think this just gets people back to where their natural kind of happy place is. When I was first going through this, when you said sort of idyllic, one of the things people would say to me is, I know who your spokesperson should be. And I would say, who? And I actually knew who they were going to say. And almost to a person,

they would say Kim Cattrall from Sex and the City. And I was like, no, no, no. And here's why no. Because now we're imposing some kind of idyllic sex kitten, which is not what Addy does. Addy just brings you back to the you that you were happy with, right? That I'm not like, ugh, if somebody is, you know, like my partner wants to do it tonight, I'm not going to bed early and pretending to be asleep. Or it makes you a wild initiator. So whatever that is, I think sex is really very much on your own terms, male or female. And I just think we've got to give room that women can be sexual beings and say it out loud and not have it be dismissed or marginalized. And I think that we sort of, if we say something really overt, we're like, oh, see, we're so evolved when it comes to sex.

But I'm here to tell you, having been in this field for as long as I have, most people don't want to talk about sex that way. They just want to, they're somewhere in the middle, right? Like we either hyper-sexualize things at the extreme, it's completely taboo. And I would just say like for most issues, right? Most of us are somewhere in the middle and that we just like to have an honest, like I would just say an honest evidence-based conversation. That's the science geek in me. Like I just want women to understand like, hey, if this is going on, it could be biological and you should talk to somebody about it. Take the medication. Don't take the medication. I don't care. I wouldn't want you

to take it if it wasn't right for you ever, but I want you to understand that there are solutions and you deserve to talk about it. Yeah. And what are some of the success stories with the women who have used adding in terms of like, because I could envision stress is like whether it's men or women, obviously probably plays a role in both men and women not having the sex drive. And so where does stress come from? Other responsibilities, fears, worries, you start a family, you have kids, money problems. So I assume a lot of the success comes from maybe people in those situations where maybe Addie or Viagra can reconnect to a relationship where they're just been so pulled away from some of their other concerns in life, like starting a family and having kids or

other problems. And that can maybe have a very positive impact on a relationship. I always say if it breaks down in the bedroom, it breaks down at the breakfast table. Like if you start not having sex, you're not communicating the same, and you can almost set the clock on that relationship. I think sex is a fundamental part of our connection to others in relationships. And so I hear unbelievable stories. Of course, these stories aren't going to happen for every single person. But it's funny, I remember a story so well. I had presented at a meeting. I was in DC. I was at the JW Marriott and there's a Starbucks

on the second floor. And I'd gone to a Starbucks like right after my talk. And this guy tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. He's like, hey, I think what you're doing is really cool. I was like, that's so nice. How does he know what I'm doing? And he said, I was the AV guy in the talk you just gave. I was in the back of the room. And I said, oh, that's great.

Thank you so much. And he like held my arm for just a second and his eyes kind of teared up. he said I just got divorced I said I'm really sorry to hear that and he said I think this was it but I never considered it wasn't about me that's what I yeah I was gonna say I one thing that's very relatable between men and women is that when you're dating someone and the sex declines yeah everyone thinks it's them. Of course. You know, I think it's also something that men struggle with too. Yeah.

Women will often assume that all the guys, we're all horny. Right. We're just horny sex freaks. Right. I remember as soon as I started being sexually active as a young man, Yeah. my sex drive was also something that was just assumed. Yeah.

And if a guy doesn't climax, what did I do? Is it me? What did I do wrong? Women often feel like it's them. And then subsequently as a guy, there's this pressure of if they don't get aroused or they don't climax, she thinks it's him. And he's like, but no, it's me. But what does that even mean

when I say it's me? And then when it's the other way around, it's very easy to project and to internalize these emotions because like, why don't I get my partner sexually aroused?

And why am I not good enough? And then your partner starts looking for satisfaction in other places, whether it's porn or things like that. And you're right. It's such a personal thing. It is. And yet, we don't want to, like that gentleman said, I never considered it wasn't me. I mean, I felt his pain like so deeply because we're all egotistical when it comes to our relationship. We all want to be wanted.

How's that? Like we all want to be wanted by this person. And therefore, if something changes, we assign that completely to ourselves. So the person who's dealing with it feels alone and broken in it. The person who's being rejected is certain it's them. So both are

completely struggling. And I feel like I've gotten the joy of sitting in front of couples who've gone through the struggle, seen it to the other side, and the relief when they realize, oh my God, it actually may be something that's out of my control. It might just be my body defying me, biology defying me. And like that relief is so powerful when you see that. One thing that's interesting, and you know, this surprises a lot of people, this happens across the age band. So people think of this as, oh, well, you know, you've been married for 10 years or whatever that is. No. Actually, if you look at this, the younger you are with this issue, so it's indiscriminate across age bands. It affects women of all ages.

But the younger you are, the more profoundly distressed you are if you have this circumstance. I walked into a bridal shower and a woman was like waiting for me and she's like walking up. She's like, Cindy, can I introduce myself? And I'm like, hey. She said, I've been on the product and I'm one year married. And this was like my total like struggle. Even in getting married, I was really worried about this issue because I'm never interested. Now, I have sex. She had sex, right? She had mercy sex, duty sex, whatever you want to call it, right? But she wasn't like into it or thinking about it. And she was really worried about it. She loved this guy, right? And that's one of the things I heard over and over again when I talked to women. They're

like, I love my partner. I love my partner. They want to make sure you know it's not about them. This is something they're struggling with. So it's just a fascinating, but our average age is much younger than you would think. No, it makes a lot of sense because the assumption is I'm young, I should be healthy, I shouldn't have to deal with this. Whether it's erectile dysfunction or sex drive, you just assume I should want to do it and also potentially like I'm at a stage in my life where casual sex is maybe the most normalized that it will be or where it's encouraged to have your like whole face if you will put in like those casual terms possible and so it's like there's that additional like social context yes of sex

but then it's even worse though like I feel like I feel like, I mean, I'm probably more on, like, that spectrum of, like, I am not someone that enjoys sex. And then, like, living with girls also in their 20s where they're like, oh, my God, I need it. I can't wait for it. And you're sitting there. It's, like, horrible. You're excluded. You're like, what am I doing wrong? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I was also, I was kind of curious, like, in terms of talking about female pleasure and, like, specifically, like, orgas orgasms, like I think there's a lot of talk sometimes about the orgasm gap. Yes. And I'm curious how in developing this drug, you took into account orgasm. Like was that something where it was a pretty specific metric that you were looking for to affect or was it a more kind of comprehensive view of like the other ways pleasure can be experienced? Oh, it's such a good question. I love it.

Okay. So if you study sex and women, you study it in these parts. You'd study desire, arousal, orgasm, and pain. Those are the four areas that you look at that women most commonly struggle. Far and away, most women struggle with desire. So the party never starts, right? I don't think about it. I don't want it. There's a cascade effect in sex that basically now I want it. Do I get aroused? Do I orgasm? Like, so when you looked at it and when we even measure results, our drug is studied specifically for desire.

But you look at the whole female sexual function index, which takes those things into account as well, like are orgasms approved and things like that. So not indicated there is a condition called female sexual arousal disorder or orgasm disorder. Both of those are their own conditions as well that are distinct. But yeah, there's a bit of a circular theory in sex, if that makes sense. I need a full workup. Can I get a full chart? I have so many questions. I'll tell you, there are really, there's like a group of people and this is what they do. And it's not our, most of our OBGYNs, right? Most of our OBGYNs want to deliver your baby and they're surgeons and they're reproductive health. And actually as med students, they get very little time on sex. Men too, by the way. So male, female,

like very little time in med school talk about sexual function. But for men, there's a group of urologists that are specifically like sexual medicine urologists. For women, it's assumed it's the OBGYN, but they're like, not all of them are interested. So there's a society called ISWISH, it's International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, ISWISH, really find one of those providers because this is what they care about. This is what they do. I have one more question on this and then I want to have you tell the audience where you could find this or they can talk to their doctor. But have you gotten pushback from religious communities? No.

So I love that question because that's who everybody thought were my detractors. I had some detractors, people. When I went through this the first time, I got some death threats mailed to my house. I learned how to blind my address, freaked my dad out. He came over and installed every camera around my house. And everybody's like, oh, it's religion.

I was like, actually, no. I think the religious community understands sex is good for marriage. And so there's a really sort of positive, like this is good for marriage. The only reason why I asked is because the like Christian community, which I'm a part of, you're taught that sex is about reproduction, not so much about enjoying about pleasure and i was curious so yeah it's fascinating who was it from um i think that honestly it was a group of very like i'm gonna choose my words carefully i'm gonna say early

era feminists um and what and it exactly exactly I thought you were going to say incels. No, listen to this story. I thought she was going to be like some like radicalized men who didn't want to like. Listen, the biggest haters are women. And I will tell you, it was really, that was so important for me. Early days, I got to, like I snuck in the, I wasn't invited to this party, but I snuck into a party in New York with like some of the, you know, icons, if you will, of feminism. And I was so excited. Like, I sold off my profitable business in men. I'm taking this on. And, you know, we're in the moment in the conversation where people are like, well, what do you do? What do you do?

And I said it. And I'm telling you, if you had taken an aerial shot of the room, the whole room moved away from me like this. And I was like, what just happened? This is inherently feminist. Because I think that at that moment in time, all things related to sex were treated as objectification of women. And the confusion is, oh, they're going to take a pill just to please men. Nonsense. Nonsense, right? That's not why anybody's taking this or taking it because they are struggling and distressed

about something happening to them. But I think that was the initial idea. So look, lucky me. Great. So I'm going to, some people in the audience would be like, I just had you on because I'm trying to advocate for a pill to make women more horny for us men. No, this is not true. Fuck. No, I think we've gotten beyond it. But you know what happened? I never thought of it. It's so lucky for me that that happened because I would have never expected that. And because they had this reaction, I had already submitted the drug for approval. Little did I know it was going to be turned down. I thought, of course, it's going to be approved. It's met the end points. And so I went to DC, and I actually, I call it like my Elle Woods moment, like knocking on doors, right? I was like,

hi, I'm Cindy. This is the product. I want you to understand everything about it. I need you to understand that this is a condition we've known about since the 70s. To all these women's rights leaders who typically hate pharma. So most of them slammed the door at my face, but I left them binders of scientific information. And when I fought the FDA, remarkably, they'd all actually come up to speed on it. And 10 women's rights groups chartered a bus

and demanded a meeting with the FDA. I wasn't there, but they went and said, now, okay, 26 products for men, not a single one for women. Lucky me, but only because I'd gotten that tell and I had made sure that they understood that's not what this is about at all. This is just science and this is a medical condition. Where can women who are interested in learning more learn more and want to take it? Where can they just talk to their doctors? Talk to your doctor. You can go to addy.com. It's spelled A-D-D-Y-I dot com

and you can be connected to a doctor licensed in your state today. So you can do it via telehealth. When I finally got back to this, I thought let's remove every barrier to the blush factor of having this conversation. I hope you'll talk to your doctor about it. But many women are still even embarrassed

to bring it up with them. And if they can do that from the comfort of their couch to somebody licensed in their state who understands Addy risks and benefits, great. That's amazing. I was really curious. I've been thinking more and more about the Will Smith Oscar. The slap.

The slap. Yeah. And more, because as stuff has come out, more about Jada and Will's relationship. Yeah. And it really, just the conversations around how, when we find ourselves in toxic situations and specifically relationships how that can affect us day to day and how that can affect how we react to other people around us and how not only that affects and harms us as individuals yeah that can really uh play such a huge role in our lives and i think you you saw that on a world stage with Will Smith.

Because since the slap, more conversations have been coming out about the relationship where it's just like, hey, remember that Red Table Talk conversation between Jada and Will where they openly talked about what seemed like this, was it an open relationship? Was it not? Were both parties into it being an open relationship? Because it didn't seem like Will was it an open relationship was it not or both parties into it being an open relationship because it didn't seem like will was all that thrilled was there an emasculation

of will then clips of his memoir came up about him talking about i think his book opens up with him talking about how he's always seen himself um as a coward because he dealt with some trauma as a young boy watching, unfortunately, his father physically abuse his mother. And so you can empathize with this reaction, but more specifically with that relationship, Jada and Will, it's been really fascinating. Another part of the conversation, which I find is interesting that I don't think it's weirdly not being talked about. Yeah. We always talk about toxic masculinity and things like that. People, men and women can be toxic in relationships. I get the conversations around toxic masculinity because for so long, some of these toxic behaviors were not only seen as not toxic, but like almost appropriate. And one thing I'm

not seeing talked a lot about publicly, but I hear it, the water cooler talk is even with a lot of my women friends, women who identify themselves as feminists, They're still, and the instant reaction to Will and Jada, it was, I think, more mixed than I think the reaction has settled on, that was wrong of Will. Yes. And it's the thought of, it still seems almost attractive

to acceptable that some women find it to be either attractive or if not simply okay for a your male partner to get in a physical altercation with another male partner in your honor yeah and i find it to be fascinating that if that's not a toxic reaction i don't know what is but yet it is something that initial reaction was well he did it in honor of of his wife yeah i know does that make it okay or does it not and there was a and and women are a lot of my women friends talked about how it's not only they like were turned on by it that's interesting yeah i think that conversation is it right or wrong but like i find it like a lot of women admitted to it to me that it's like well i would want a guy to do that and in certain areas it might make sense and i think

it's a very complicated conversation but i think it's saying, to what extent will you go to prove your love to me? And I think that's dangerous in any relationship, be it a physical altercation or in any other way that you feel you're holding that partner, you're testing them, if you will, in terms of what they would do on your behalf. I was so unsettled by that slap. I don't know. It freaked me out like that night going to bed and everything else. And I think, you know, from my perspective, I think you're right that the world has sort of landed at a certain place. Maybe not everybody, of course. But to me, it spoke to leadership or lack thereof, right? You elect, I think,

to be in the public eye. That is not all. I mean, I feel the pain of the scrutiny that comes with it and everything else. But in the end, you do understand that people watch what you do as an example that they will emulate. And I think I'm friends with a lot of comedians, and that really resonated with me when all of them came out and started saying, you know what? I'm going to be at the improv this Saturday and some asshole is going to walk up on stage and open slap me, right? Because they have seen that as now something that even the world is torn on. Is that an acceptable kind of public behavior? And I think it's never acceptable to have that level of physical violence. So it's weird to your point of like a woman who says, yeah, but, you know, he's standing by his woman.

I struggle with that. I struggle with that defense ever. We saw Will laugh and then we saw Jada be upset. Look, and that was the test. It was almost like you have a job to do. I think that was the test. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm testing you, right? Are you going to prove it? And in what world is proving your loyalty, devotion, love for somebody measured by an act of physical violence? And as a guy, it's just like, again, I think it's good that we talk about toxic masculinity and we challenge men's behavior. Yeah. But we still sometimes get worried as a guy with all the conversations around that, that we sometimes are forgetting to have a space around behaviors that men do struggle with. For sure. The pressure of defending the honor of your girl and what does

that say to you about as a man if you aren't you know quick to like throw punches yeah um or or yeah like have living up to a certain standard as a guy and and and then are we able to do that now with the the criticism judgments, making sure we're not being toxic? And as a guy, are we able to say, to talk about our feelings in that way of emasculation? And it just seems to be a place where I think we want to have more enlightenment about healthy male behaviors. want to have more enlightenment about healthy male behaviors. But I think we also have to save space to have conversations around, is it still okay for a guy to talk about his feelings and be open and honest about things that might make him feel insecure or scared or not enough in relationships? And it just seems like,

I feel like this incident has shined a light that maybe not. Because Will Smith is not just an A-list movie star. He has positioned himself as truly a worldwide role model. Correct. I agree with that. Yes. It's Will Smith.

Correct. He's aware of his influence. Yes. And he's brought so much good and joy and perspective uh and to your point yes people truly see him as a want to be world smith because he has that's right he's cultivated uh such a likable brown brand of this well-rounded man who like that's how you should be the emotional healthiness and and clearly like everyone else he is a human being of course who struggles and it's almost like that trying to live this kind of perception yeah and then it kind of it was really like the more I think about the more sad it is but I do think it creates healthy conversations that we should try to have.

Because right now it's gotten to the point where people always, let's start condemning and really the overreaction. Will Smith was wrong, but he can learn and grow from this and still be, I don't think he's a bad person now. Well, what's the expense to Chris Rock? What's his psyche? What happens every time he goes on a stage and people just think, well, you're the guy that got bitch slapped basically, right? I mean, isn't that what people are going to say? And what does

that do for his masculinity? Did he fight back? Did he not fight back? It's really, it's so layered. I actually love that you're having this conversation because I was so, I like the question that you asked me about in what ways could men be more empathetic to women, right? Because you feel on the hook, of course, with the three of us. That question almost has to be asked. But in what ways could women be more empathetic toward men? And I feel that we still have, so we'll condemn all the toxicity, right? All of those behaviors, but here's the crazy double standard, right? We still have this expectation of men, protector, take the lead, initiate, make the ask for the date, all of those things. And yet we sit back

in judgment on if, when, how they do it. That's hard. That's a hard, I look at, I have two nephews and I think maybe it's even more complicated right now to be a guy in this world and figure that out. I mean, and be able to have space to talk about the emotion of it all. 100%, I do think, yeah, I think it's, there are still concerns and needs and fears of men that I don't know they all feel comfortable

voicing it out of fear of it's not their time or place to voice it. I know. It's tough. I was kind of paying attention to people I pay attention to when they have certain conversations. And some people were kind of remarkably quiet around this because it's complicated and nuanced and it's not as simple as saying that's right or that's wrong there are layers to it and and i think it's really interesting the relationship of will and jada and what we do know about the relationship and it seems like there's some toxicity in that relationship and that toxicity has then that wasn't dealt with in the relationship has expanded outside of that relationship has affected other people chris rock and what does it say about regardless of their gender what that toxic kind of relationship has brought out

right and themselves in the relationship and it seems like both people could do some work pain bubbles up right pain always bubbles bubbles up in a bigger way. Cindy, this has been an absolutely, just really enjoyable conversation. We don't have a mediation call this week. It's a bit of bad news. But good news is we have a fourth call from our Justin Long episode from Monday.

Bonus. Bonus, yes. We, Justin Long and I are a bit long-winded. So it was too long for a fourth episode. And we figured, let's just, instead of a mediation call this week, let's throw it in

as a kind of a preview or just a surprise, an Easter egg. It's the gift that keeps on giving, that episode with Justin. It's amazing. How's it going? Hi, how are you? Good, what's your name?

My name is Lana, and I'm 28 years old. Hi, Lana. How can we help? I am currently in a weird situation ship, if you can even call it that. And I need your advice. So basically, seven years ago, I was living in New York City and I met this guy. We were co-workers. The minute I met him, I had a crush on him. He's very good looking, easy to talk to. I was kind of warned by my coworkers that he could be a fuck boy. They just said that he's typically a long-term relationship guy, but when he's single, he knows that he can get any woman he wants. And so he kind of like portrays himself like that. And so they were like, be careful. And of course I didn't listen to their advice.

I kept the crush and he didn't really see me like that. Or at least I didn't think so. We became friends the whole year that I worked there. We never really hung out outside of work, except for the last part of the year. So I started going over to his house late at night. And obviously I was thinking, you know, something would happen and nothing happened. Like I slept over multiple times and we literally just slept in the same bed, didn't kiss, didn't do anything. So I was like, okay, this guy definitely is not into me like that. Don't know why he's calling me over at midnight, but yeah, that's not boy behavior. That's like, yeah, he's like a sleep boy. Strange, strange behavior. Um, so anyway, I moved back home to be with my family in Buffalo after a year and a half of knowing him. We stayed in touch for a couple more months after that. And this is when I kind of told

him, I was like, might as well. I was like, hey, like, just so you know, I've always had a crush on you. And did you know? And he was like, oh, I had no idea. If I had known, I would have made a move. And that kind of was weird to me because, you know, I had been warned that he was, you know, he would go after what he wants and like he wasn't scared to make moves. So I was like, that's kind of strange, but whatever. So we kind of lost touch. We stayed following each other on social media, but we lost touch like we weren't texting and stuff. So flash forward four years later, I've now been in LA for three and a half years. And I was, you know, I saw in December of last year that he

got a really nice apartment and a new job and like got a big career move. And so I was, I split up on his Instagram story and I was like, Hey, like we haven't talked in a while, but I want to say like, congrats on the new apartment. It looks really nice. Hope you're doing well. He basically replied and was like, Oh, it's so good to hear from you. Like we haven't talked in a while. And he was like, can I have your number? And so we started texting and Snapchatting and come to find out he had been in a long-term relationship for three and a half years and just broke up with her July of 2021. So when I reconnected with him, he had been single for like five months. And at first he was like super flirty. Like he was like, oh my God, like I look really different

than I did four years ago. And he was like, your hair, I love it. You look amazing. And he was like, you look so sexy and great. And I was like, thank you. And then he was like, I see you're in New York for the holidays. Like, where are you? And I was like, oh, I'm in Buffalo visiting my family. And he was like, oh man, it's a shame you're not in NYC because we could catch up. And I was like, yeah, it. Like, you know, catch up, talk for a few days, and then we trail off. Well, that wasn't, we kept, we started texting every day and then it turned into FaceTime calls every night, talking on the phone. If it wasn't every night, it'd be like multiple times a week for hours. And obviously it's like a three hour time difference. So I'd be staying up to like 11, he'd be staying up to like two. And I didn't really think anything of it. Um, cause we were both pretty open that we were currently still dating. So like I would go on a lot of dates, um, specifically in January, he was going on a few dates with this girl. I'd call him after and be like, tell them how bad they went. We laugh

about it. He was asking me for advice on like the girl he was going on dates with in January. And so we were just open about like that we were dating, talking to other people. So then like one night after we'd been talking for about a month, my roommate was like, who are you talking to every night? And I filled her in on like who he was, that we reconnected. And she was like, oh, does he like you? And I was like, I don't think so. Because we haven't really been flirty, you know, like except the beginning and we're just kind of talking as friends. And she was like, I don't really know too many guys who would like put in the effort to call you every night after work, ask how your day

was going, catch up multiple times a week. And there's no benefits. Like we're not having sex. Like we live across the country. And she was like, it just seems like he's doing a lot. And so it kind of like put the thought in my head and I was like, well, maybe, I don't know. Um, I've always liked him like in the past or whatever. Then we had a phone call, like, uh, me and the guy had a phone call one day and he was telling me like, he's going through a dry spell and he considering like hooking up with his ex and that she was like the best sex of his life and was like asking me if I, he should do it. And like, um, going into grave detail about how good their sex was. And I was like, I do not want to hear this. I was like,

can we just like not talk about this? And he was like, why are you being so weird? Like we've always talked about our dates and everything we've done. And I was like, I just don't want to hear about it anymore. And so we kind of like hung up the phone. And the next day I decided to text him and be pretty straightforward. So I was like, Hey, I just want to know, like, I don't know if I'm like developing feelings or a little crush or what, but like, can we just keep it friendly and not talk about who we're dating now? Because I'm just realizing, like, I don't want to hear about that anymore. And I was like, by the way, like, do you like talking to me every day?

Or do you just call me? Cause you're bored on your way home from work or late at night? Like what, what are we doing? And his response was not very good. It was pretty vague. He was like, um, no, I do like talking to you. It's not because I'm just bored and having a crush is like us having a crush is just annoying. Cause like we can't do anything about it. And I didn't really know what to say to that. So I just kind of let it go completely. I was like, that's such a lame response. Like he didn't describe anything of how he feels towards me.

And it was just weird. So I was like, whatever, we'll just let it go. So another month goes by, we're still talking. I decide to plan a trip to New York City to go visit some friends because I hadn't seen them in a while. So I'm telling him about the trip and I'm like, we should hang out and there's a concert I want to go to and you should come with me. And he was like, he doesn't like the artist. And so I didn't think he was going to say yes. And he was like, oh yeah, I'll go with you. And I was like, okay.

And so I'm excited for this trip. I'm like, this is the time I'm going to like see him in person and ask what we've been doing these past three and a half months. So another month goes by. So about two weeks ago, we've now been talking for three months. He calls me and he's like, hey, I have bad news and you're not going to be happy. And I had been drinking heavily and I was like, what is it? And backstory on the bad news.

So my guy friend is very good friends with someone in Bachelor Nation. And he is going to their family member's wedding. The wedding is at the end of April. And he's also going to the bachelor party. The bachelor party was supposed to be in March. And he just got word that the bachelor party dates changed to the exact same dates that I planned my trip to New York. And so I was pissed. I was like, this is so annoying. Like, um, I was just so frustrated and he was really frustrated too. He was like, I was really bummed. I was looking forward to the concert. Um, he was like, the bachelor party is in Arizona. Maybe it's a sign. I need to like fly to see you. And I was just like, this is so confusing. And so I just decided to ask him, mind you, I'm pretty drunk, but

I decided to thought out asking him. In wine, there is truth. In vino veritas, as the kids say. I was very wine drunk. So I tell him, I'm like, like, it's no big deal. I haven't booked my flight yet. My work said I could have a different weekend off. What if I change my flight? Touche. When you originally planned this trip, were you planning it for yourself or was this whole trip really planned around him? I would say it's equally 50-50 because I had planned this trip before December, before

we matched up. I just didn't have the dates yet. And then when we started talking, it was originally going to be the dates yet. And then when we started talking, it was originally going to be in the summer. And then when we started talking, I was like, I'm going to bump it up to April. Okay. But the concert that you wanted to go to was...

But she knew he didn't like the artist. No, I know. But now all of a sudden she's willing to reschedule. I'm still going to the concert. Instead of going the week through the weekend, i'm instead of going like the the week through the weekend i'm going the weekend through the next week like okay you've adjusted okay so i'm still going to the concert i'm so curious who's playing there who's who's who's the artist it's justin bieber great oh great yeah great show so i'm still seeing the concert i didn't completely

change the trip so anyway i tell him that i that. I'm like, hey, no big deal. I can change my flights. And he's just like, oh, that seems like a lot. Like, don't do that. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, it's literally not a big deal. And he was like, I don't know. That just seems so complicated.

So I just like basically hung up because I was like so done with the conversation. And I was like, I need to have this when I'm sober. So we hung up the phone. Didn't talk for five days, which was weird because like, we don't normally go that long without talking, but I wasn't really interested in reaching out and he didn't reach out. And so finally, eventually he reached out and was like, Hey, and this is when I decided to just send everything in a text message. I was like, I have to get this cleared up. So I send a long text message. Where do we go from there?

So then I changed my dates because I just decided to and I told him yeah then he was like no worries I can be a bit standoffish and sometimes need to be checked which I thought was weird I can be a bit standoffish this is weird no worries sometimes I'm a two stand look I think this guy is trying to maintain this vague, keep you in this purgatory, keep you in this state of like, he likes the ego boost of you. He knows you have a crush on him. He knows you like him.

You have great energy. You're a fun person to talk to. He likes that. I don't think he... I think you just say it. He's just not that into you that way. I think all signs are like, eh, eh. And this guy is like, he might be a really nice,

I'm sure he's a really nice guy. He's just, he doesn't maybe want to hurt you and come out and say that, but he's hurting you more by being vague and this is what we're talking about. It's hard to say to somebody, I'm sorry, I don't see you that way. It's hard to be clear, but it's hard to say to somebody i'm sorry i don't see you that way it's hard to like be clear but it's a loving thing to do it's it's a loving way to be is to be honest

and clear and and that's why when you get drunk you're like hey you're clear sort of i mean like you should be clearer maybe i love i love like justin kind of said that that one message where you just told him exactly how you felt. That was a great message. Yes, yes. And then the problem with his response was, is that it was just enough, but he didn't say anything. He's not accountable. That's what I feel like he always gets around the topic.

Let's go back to that message. Let's go back to that message. He always manages to not answer the question. Yes. Well, that's strategic. He says, okay, I'll put more thought into my response so you know I'm not just being like whatever. Yeah, sure. So he puts it on you kind of.

And it sounds like he's acknowledging what you're saying, but he still didn't say what you want him to say. Right. You're right. Which I'm glad he's not saying things he's not meaning, but he's not actually addressing your message. He's just saying, yeah, I'll be more thoughtful. And then you make the mistake of convincing yourself

that he gave you the answer you're looking for when he in fact didn't. Because he didn't acknowledge you. It's nice that you put yourself out there. You told him what you want. You must have been a little nervous sending that to really put it out there. And he responded in a way that said, yeah, I could be better. You were probably like, you know what? That's good enough because this could have gone much worse. I was like, this is great. This could have gone so bad.

But he unfortunately didn't really give you any answers. But you got enough to be satiated. But he offered you no clarity, right? None. He didn't say, you know what? I do want to see you. You're right. I like you. We should, you didn't, nope.

He wasn't. But he also didn't reject you. He didn't reject you either. Yeah. So he really, he literally did nothing. Yes. Yeah. And he's probably thinking,

you can feel the frustration in his response because he doesn't have that to give you. So when you're asked to give something that you can't, it's frustrating. And you can hear it. He even says, okay, I'll put more thought in my response. If I were to read this dramatically, okay, I'll put more thought in my response so you know I'm not just being like whatever. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. I mean, there's something very like wishy-washy about that. thought in my response so you know i'm not just being like whatever yeah sure yeah sure i mean

that there's something very like wishy-washy about yeah you provide your he cares about you yeah you have a he values your friendship 100 he's not a bad person doesn't value you the way you want him to right and that's what matters and that's what you're trying to get answers to and that's what he's avoiding trying to offer clarity because he doesn't want to lose the friendship. And you're trying to avoid the rejection. So that's kind of another question I had. Like, I was going to plan on mentioning it, like, when I was in New York, like, talk about, like, specifically, I guess, in person, like, would you like me as more than a friend? But there's no, I would just say it'll be there. The answer will be there when you meet up. You know, people would say this to me my whole life and I never, I never got it. I never saw it until I met the person that I felt that with. I just wanted to be around all the time. I just

enjoyed them so much that I didn't want them to, I didn't want to be away from them. You feel it, you know it right away. I mean, it's that cliche, like you know when you know, but you will feel, that's why I asked about your chemistry in person, because it is everything. And for him too, it'll be, he won't, if he really wanted you and like, he wouldn't respond this way.

And maybe he hasn't seen you in a while. So maybe when you do meet up, it'll be there or it won't be. That's what I was going to say. Like, this might not be a good train of thought, but like, what if we meet up and like everything changes for him and he starts acting way different

and like he likes me. It might, but right now he doesn't. Like right now, what's clear about these texts is that he's not a bad guy. He likes you. He's just, he maybe thinks that you like him in a way that he can't that's

why he slept in a bed with him a guy he because he cared enough to not probably make a move knowing that it would screw up the friendship and so in that sense like i you know it's commendable that he didn't um put you in that knowing that you liked him in that way he didn't mess with you in that way but he is kind of messing with you now by stringing you along. A little bit. But in his defense, you haven't fully put yourself out there. Right now, you guys are both kind of operating in this gray area where you probably...

If I were his buddy and said, hey, she likes you. He might say something like, no, no. And I'd be like, dude, she likes you. Oh, okay, maybe, I don't know. He would probably give some response like that because he like i don't know if he doesn't like the thing that confused me well a lot of things confused me but when he was like having a crush like us having a crush it's just

annoying because we can't do anything about it like i'd be if like he liked me i'd be willing to do long distance and like right so you could do something about it and like when did he say that to you like he said that like a month and a half ago. When I first told him. It wasn't five years ago. Yeah, that's a shitty thing for him to say. You think so? 100%.

Because based on what you're telling us, I don't think he's interested in pursuing something romantically. But he is acknowledging that he understands that you kind of do. And it's something he is saying to like brush it off you know yeah and i think guys are pretty easy i mean that movie keeps coming up he's just not an engineer now but like there is weren't you in that movie there there is i was yes thank you i love that but there's real wisdom in that you you know. That will reveal itself. And it just feels like he's being pretty clear in the vagueness of his text.

It's kind of clear. A guy will let you know, you know, if he really wants you. He won't go to a bachelor party in lieu of, like, meeting up with you for a fun New York. For Justin Bieber? Yeah. I would, because, because like the opposite of your situation is you two have been crushing on each other you live in different cities you've been facetiming every night yes I know you guys have the same kind of like excitement about this person you kind of found and you're like flurrying over messages and maybe there's like a little you know leads after

months like it he would there would be some sexting even, you know, and then he would be super excited and he would skip the bachelor party. In his defense, again. Really? Well, in his defense, I was just thought of something. Because they have been, it is so loaded. I mean, they've been texting, they've been, they had, they've been, like, right, for hours you said you were talking on the phone.

So I'm sure in his mind he's thinking, this can't be a casual thing. It's probably why he slept in the bed with her without doing it. It can't be casual because there, it would, it's got to be all or nothing. And maybe he's just not in the place in his life where he can give that. He wants to be out there being a... No, I know. But I'm saying like, this is, this is like a friend, like saying this is like a friend. This is like a combination of a long-distance fling that you met virtually that you're building this relationship

slash this is my friend, and I'm trying to figure out how to turn my friend into my boyfriend. It has elements of both. That's true. So which one do you think is more predominant? The friend? The friendship? Yes, because in the fact that...

He doesn't seem to be trying. It's not doing... It's not having... There's such an opportunity to flirt and to build up this kind of excitement and tension. That's the fun part about connecting with someone that doesn't live in your same city. You look forward to talking to them at night.

You can catch up with your day. You FaceTime. I mean, those are fun relationships to have some yeah Yeah, it's also not attractive. I'm sure you don't feel attractive when you're like Scrambling, you know, please what if we there's some? desperation in trying to make dates work and trying to I Think if you were to go radio silent and you were just like played it cool I it shouldn't be that way it should he should just do it naturally but like I think that's probably

He talks to you about other women, too Not recently, but yes, but she had to say to him. Hey, can you not? Was upset about the yeah means he wants to That's a surefire sign that he's trying to do That means he wants to, that's a surefire sign that he's trying to, that's someone trying to set a boundary without setting a boundary. If you want to see this through and see him in person, just to like, because things could change.

That could change. I wouldn't have much hope and expectations, and I wouldn't go out of your way anymore to make it happen. I would go live your life. I would start to distance the friendship. I would be less available. And don't be like, you don't need to break up the friendship. Just kind of be. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

Can we stay friends, but on my terms maybe? I don't want to not talk to him anymore. I would be clear about what your terms are and what your intentions are. And right now it feels like that's a little murky. And you like, I would draw boundaries for yourself, you know, just to protect yourself. Because it doesn't seem like he's into you right now. And you have to protect yourself. You have to, like, make yourself, all that energy you're putting into it, you have to make yourself available to somebody else you're doing yourself a disservice by you know languishing in

this gray zone it's not wondering what he means or what he's doing yeah yeah dissecting his texts and like i'll tell you i mean it's it's clear i'm sure your friends are like oh i'm sure they give similar advice my friends think that he likes me oh oh your friends are way off that's why i called in i think you should not stop going out of your way to try to make the meetup happen. Okay. In the meantime, I think you should make yourself less available to him when he reaches out. Don't cut him off gold turkey, but just, I don't know. Yeah.

Stop being so available. Yeah. By the way, Clarity is really attractive, too. I mean, even if you're just going to be friends with this guy, it seems like he might flourish in that kind of relationship. If you're just really honest, really clear.

And when he starts getting wishy-washy, when he starts getting vague, just say, that's vague. I mean, I keep thinking of that movie now. Yeah. See,

not clear. Ginny would say that in the movie. It's not, you're not clear. I'd like to, what do you mean? Have him just make sure he clarifies and just come from a place of honesty and love

and love for yourself. Yeah. And I know like when I go visit in April, like if I do start to sense things changing on his end, I think Justin had mentioned like, it would be natural to talk about like, could we be long distance or should I just see like what happens?

No, definitely see what happens. I mean, okay you're way because that'll scare him way i mean if like it doesn't just see how it goes like should i wait for him to mention it if i do since like he's changing and like starts to like me i think to justin's point if you eventually meet up yeah you'll know pretty quickly yes if there a chemistry. And most likely, he probably already suspects. And so if nothing changes for him, he'll be a little bit distant and cold and standoffish, and you will notice it. If he is giving you the full court press,

I would play a little hard to get. Okay. And just say, hey, you know, this is fun, but I don't know, like, should we really do this? And play it, be a little coy, but like, I wouldn't bank on that happening but I don't know. Like, should we really do this? And be a little coy, but, like, I wouldn't bank on that happening. I don't think he wants to. It's to, like, really manage your expectations. Right now you have certain expectations.

I would try to divorce yourself from those expectations. And, by the way, it'll make you a lot more present when you do meet up. It'll make you a lot more comfortable. And that's why I think people get so in their heads on The Bachelor and stuff. They so badly want this thing, even before they've gotten to know the person. And not to say you don't know him,

but to be in somebody's company is different than like FaceTiming even. It's your pheromones are there and you're mixing with your energy. And so I think, like Nick said, I think you'll know pretty, and he'll know, you know. And you might get there and you're mixing with your energy and so i think like nick said i think you'll know pretty and he'll know you know and you might get there and find like this is not the same i had built this whole thing up in my head i told myself i gave told him i wrote this romantic story

cast myself as the lead he's the coley and like in truth it's like i've had better chemistry before i don't know i definitely think i'm at fault for doing that. It's always been like a fantasy. I think that's common of people being like the fantasy of like reconnecting with someone from the past. Yeah. This sounds great.

We already know each other. It's comfortable. Yes. We have the base layer. I built it up. Yeah. We have the foundation. I know.

But like the truth is you'll walk into a bar, you'll go to some Justin Bieber concert and you'll hit it off with somebody in a way that you won't even question it. Yeah. And he won't. And it'll be, you'll hit it off with somebody in a way that you won't even question it.

Yeah. And he won't. And it'll be, you'll be off to the races. And you'll look back at this and think, God, I can't believe I spent so much time like,

you know, deliberating about this guy who now I barely talk to. I have no, you know, I promise you, you will. But you just have to get there.

And you get there by drawing boundaries and being honest with yourself. Hopefully this was helpful. Yeah. And enjoy Bieber. Maybe Bieber will look at you in the crowd and it'll be game over. Go have fun in New York. I really think when you go there, you should have the mindset that you're not going to see him and have fun. Don't even bring it up like, hey, are we still meeting up like don't say anything by the way he knows very much you were very clear

yeah your expectations of him so now don't don't reach out don't try to set anything up make a bunch of other plans and if he reaches out

then he is welcome to try to join those plans you've already made you will ruin your trip by you're gonna like don't don't make don't give a bunch of other of your friends a bunch of soft maybes and give them we'll see because you're like, I just want to get everyone in. And when all you're really doing is waiting on him to give you like a time that he's available, do not do that. Yeah, remember this text you wrote.

Be that person. I want you to say you want to see me. It's that simple. He should say, I want to see you. It's that simple. He should say, I want to see you. It's that clear. When somebody wants to be with you. Yeah, and he can meet up at any point. And honestly, the meet up should be like, you know, I think you're better off if him meeting up with you and some other friends or something like that.

Rather than like some kind of heavy handed, you know, dinner or something. Yeah. Remove the expectations. Calm self or something. Yeah. Remove the expectations. Calm self. Okay. Yeah. I'll try to break down the fantasy I have in my head. Yes.

Definitely. Yeah. Just be present with them and see how it goes. But also start moving on. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right.

All right. Good luck. Thank you so much for your advice. Best of luck. Best of luck. Let us know how it goes. I will. All right. Thanks. Thank you. All right. All right. Good luck. Thank you so much for your advice. Best of luck. Let us know how it goes. I will. All right.

Thanks. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. Well, I hope you enjoyed that little bonus call from Justin and myself. Thanks so much for listening, guys. I appreciate it. Thank you, Cindy, for coming on.

Really interesting conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, review, five stars, all that fun stuff. Tell your friends. Send in those questions at AskNickAtCastMe.com. Cast with.com. We need those mediation calls. We need those ask Nick calls. I know some people get cold feet with mediation, but don't. Don't. Please don't. Don't. They have no reason. We've gotten updates being like, thanks for saving our relationship. No one's left me upset. But is's left me upset. But,

is that it? Yeah. Great. Bye.