The Viall Files - E553 Ask Nick - The Grim Reaper of Dating

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Welcome back to another episode of The Viall Files: Ask Nick Edition! We’re back to answer your burning questions about the world of dating and relationships. Before getting to our callers, we discuss what it means to be a “best friend” in your relationship, and if a romantic partner can ever be the same as a platonic bestie. We then get our latest Breakup Song of the Week submission. Our first caller wonders if she’s a fuckboy, because the guy she’s been seeing wants more commitment than she does. We dive deep if she doesn’t want a relationship right now, or if he just isn’t the right one for her. Our next caller has a very complicated issue, centering around the fact that his ex and his girlfriend’s ex are now dating each other… both parties have children, so the families are constantly involved with one another. Our final caller is worried that she’s scaring off guys by asking for too much too soon. We discuss the timing of her conversations with potential partners, and how they probably shouldn’t be happening in the bedroom.  “So you had this conversation with him when you were half naked?” Start your 7 Day Free Trial of Viall Files + here: https://www.viallfiles.supportingcast.com If you are interested in running a book club in your city, send an email to: [e-mail]  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.  Join us for our new LIVE show on Thursdays at 9PM ET/6PM PT on Amp, available in the Apple app store and https://www.onamp.com for Android listeners. To Order Nick’s Book Go To: https://www.viallfiles.com  If you would like to get some texting advice on Office Hours send an email to [e-mail] with “Texting Office Hours” in the subject line!  To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://www.advertisecast.com/TheViallFiles  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Caraway - Caraway is offering our listeners 10% off their next purchase. Visit https://www.Carawayhome.com/VIALL  Care/Of - For 50% off your first Care/of order, go to https://www.takecareof.com and enter code viall50 ZocDoc - Find and book a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. Go to http://www.Zocdoc.com/VIALL and download the Zocdoc app for FREE.  Babbel - Right now, get up to 55% off your subscription when you go to https://www.babbel.com/viall Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @alison.vandam @liffordthebigreddog @dereklanerussell 

What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Vile Files Ask Nick Edition. I'm your host, Nick, joined by the trusty team of Allie, Amanda, and Dattery. We are trustworthy. You are a trusty team. I do feel like that is a word that really, that would be a central way that I would describe both of you as very trustworthy. I kind of agree.

I value all of you in the trust department. We're like one eternal cone of silence. The three all of you in the trust department. We're like one eternal cone of silence. The three sides of a triangle, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. Three musketeers. Not even silence, but I kind of just trust you with keeping the ship afloat. Oh.

Oh. Oh. I was going in that direction. You were implying that I don't really tell you a lot of secrets. No, but if you told me anything about your life I don't think I would spread it

even if it wasn't a secret yeah I do trust you with secrets yeah yeah yeah I'd fire you if you that's optimistic you remember

that's hearing you say that I'm like wow to think there was a time where there was a really strong running bit of you pretending

to fire Allie and jokes on you because you're giving her healthcare now yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good bit. Great bit. What's new? OK, so I this is maybe boring in the sense that it's like positive, but I've just been having like the best time with my boyfriend. We had we had a bit of a fight at an oyster restaurant as you do sometimes you're that couple sometimes you are and we were that couple we had kind of a a rocky you had to come to jesus conversation i think it was just it was a conversation where it felt like like cleaning the garbage disposal you know or

like cleaning the stove like you know the garbage, the garbage disposal. You have clean. Sometimes if you put like a lemon rind down there. Six months to like a year, like they can just get kind of like grouty or like there could be like mold or build up. So it's like, so it, but like a deep clean, that's like, or like, like I felt like this was like a changing the oil in our car thing more than getting gas.

Like it felt like something that was like a lot more kind of like long-term and just like, I feel so listened to on the other side of it, because I think a lot of it kind of like pertain to like me not being sure if he craved closeness in the way that I craved closeness. And just since then, like I just feel like he's been such making such an effort to like ask follow up questions and like, you know, we've been seeing each other more, but we've also just been having like these phone conversations where he feels just like so present and like it's a goddamn dream. And it just makes me feel like so understood. And the other day we had like we had an absolute day of like a wild goose chase. We went to I found this food truck actually in North Hollywood because

there's he was like, there's this awesome lamp store. It was a Saturday. We were like, let's like let's go lamp shopping on a Saturdayurday like oh how stable and domestic of us and i found this place on google maps it was a food truck 4.8 stars like that's a very high rating discussion question for after like what's your cutoff when it comes to like yelp and google ratings below fours yeah a risk below four is like i'm not doing this unless I understand why. Yeah, unless I know it's like, there's a reason why. Yeah. Or I've already been there and I like it before I found out what it was reviewed.

I would honestly say like 4.2 and under. It's a little sus. It's flagged. I'm less so like the star amount and like okay the people who gave it one star why because sometimes when you look at it it's like you're choosing a fight and then other times it's like this is my reservation and it's like okay i understand why that's annoying but like says nothing about the quality of this dining experience exactly so we like went on this wild goose chase to a 4.8 star food truck we show up it's like

the most residential area i was like okay interesting it's nick's house you know it's off the beaten path and then the address that is in google maps that said is open until 6 30 p.m is like a construction site and there was no food truck inside so we like drove all the way there for this like food truck that didn't exist was like ended up like just having like is that a thing to yelp a location of a food truck to like follow a food truck where it's located well that's i think that's the lesson learned the hard way because like it just it had up to eight hours which is why i was like and it only had certain days so i was like okay this knows that it's a food truck that's only present in certain locations i've never i'm not familiar with...

I mean, I'm familiar with food trucks and I've certainly been to my fair share, but I just know where they will be. It's not something I've tried to find via the internet. I do feel like I am someone who is prone to wild goose chases, both for myself and others.

And that's on Big Swings. That's good to know. Let's not listen to amanda when she's like when we're on vi-fi tour and i'm like you guys we gotta get off at this exit there's a crazy souvenir shop like knowing that deep down she kind of wants to get lost a little bit yeah yeah that she's fearless against getting lost and wasting time but okay the point the reason i was saying all this is because like you know this epic saga we end up going to this like bar and restaurant that we go to all the time that is so close to our house for like a brunch like meal at 2 p.m and we were just playing pool like

having a really nice time and at one point he like just like looked at me and was like you're my best friend and i was curious like what do you guys think of the, like, when you are dating someone, like a romantic partner, viewing them as a best friend? Do you appreciate that comparison? Are you like, no, there's a fundamental difference? Who doesn't appreciate it? But there's some people who's like, no, like, I'm not your best friend. Like, you have a best friend is your best friend.

I might, like, really like you right now. You might be the person I like keep the most updated on my day to day life, but like can your partner ever really be your best friend? I certainly hope so. Yeah, I think so. Yes, absolutely. In my relationship, I would love for my partner

and something I think Nellie and I work towards is like I want her to have her friends and her best friends and, you know, but I want to know her the best. I want her to know me the best. I don't want her to have friendships where she is telling them things she can't tell me and vice versa. And to me, that's a best friend best friend someone you're you really go to with your struggles and i hope that she has best friends to talk to about things even our relationship but i don't want it to be anything she couldn't talk to me about does that make sense you know so yeah i absolutely hope that my partner is my best friend. And in addition to our relationship,

I hope she has her best friends, that she can do whatever she wants to do with her friends and talk about whatever she wants to talk about. But in terms of my ability to know her and know everything about her and her to feel comfortable with her insecurities and fears and any, you know, because that's when you, when I think of a best friend, it's that person you always go to, to say, can we talk? Or this

is bothering me, or I'm worried what everyone's going to say, but I know I can tell you. And I know you'll listen and I know you'll hear me out. And I know you won't make me feel judged. And I know you'll support me. I feel like that's paramount in a relationship. Your partner has to be your best friend. And if you also have a friend, best friend, that's great. But I don't ever want, you know, as an engaged person or in any serious relationship or certainly married, you know, you and your boyfriend are a serious relationship, a date for a year, I'm assuming, right? And so I would feel uncomfortable if my partner, if I knew that there was things that they could tell their friend that they couldn't tell me. It's like, well, what's stopping you from, am I doing something that's stopping you from feeling comfortable to tell me? Am I not creating a safe space?

Are we not creating that safe space? Is that not the expectation we have set? And I think that happens. I mean, I think there's a lot of relationships out there that don't have that type of understanding. It's like, yeah, I mean, I tell you everything, but I don't tell you everything. I certainly don't tell you everything. It relates to like, when I want to vent to my friends about you, it's just like, well, shouldn't I be the person you eventually like open up to about this? You know, it's one thing if you're like, hey, you know, let's say Natalie and I were struggling with something and she wanted to talk to her friend about something because she wanted to talk to

me about it. Like she might talk to her best friend first to get advice. And then, you know, or I might talk to a friend, you know, because it's like, Oh, this is how do I approach this? But there's nothing I want. I don't want to want to tell someone else something that I'm dealing with or something that I want to share. I always want Natalie to be that first person. Totally. No, it's really interesting to think about like how you define best friendship and like what that looks like.

Because I think when I was thinking of best friend, a lot of the lens I was viewing it through was like this kind of like the person like quality time, like not even like those times where like the best friend shows up for you because it's like a really vulnerable, like really difficult, tricky situation where you need someone who is just like not judgmental, who you can be really fucking vulnerable with. But like just that kind of like day to day buffoonery and hanging out and like having activities that you do together and having a history friend for me. That's like that's like most fun hang. But like the person who you but the person who you do together and having a history. That's not best friend for me. That's like, that's like most fun hang. But like the person who you, but the person who you do that consistently with, like not like,

Oh, every now and then we can have a good time. If that person is to, I get it. Yeah, you're right. This is a great question to on YouTube to comment in the, in the comment section.

Like, what does it mean to be a best friend to you? How do you value friends? But like, I just think, especially as you get older, really true friends are truly hard to find again friends you know when you think of a best friend i think you think i mean me i think of someone who's like a family member like a sibling you know someone who you're like you know for better or worse will always be in each other's lives. You know? Yeah.

And that doesn't mean that we won't have conflict or there won't be hurt and there won't be frustration, we won't be disconnected, but we are a part of each other's lives. And when we deal with this shit, we will make it our effort and our energy to fix the problem and that might take time or whatever. But to me, a best friend is, again,

that person that you can count on. Like unconditional love. Yes. And count on to talk to, count on to work through issues, count on to, you know, work through frustrations and through the good and the bad. We hang out all the time. I mean, and that's great if that person is also someone you really enjoy their company and you hang out all the time and you're, you that's great if that person is also someone you really enjoy their company

and you hang out all the time and you're the person you spend the most time with. But that's not always the case. And I would rather think of my best friends as people I can count on rather than people that I have fun with. It's great if it's both,

but it's not always both. And to me, just me personally, I value my truest friends with the people I can count on. Hearing you say that makes me think just me personally, I value my truest friends with the people I can count on. Hearing you say that makes me think about the fact that I think sometimes, especially with my best friends who are long distance best friends, who have known me, who know my family, who just can offer the most amazing support and insight and just have all the context for when I'm about to do some fuck shit, they can be like, whoa whoa whoa we know what you're doing yeah and let's talk about it and I

realize that like sometimes I can fall into the trap especially with these long distance ones of like going to like only having emotional conversations or like only having you know the kind of the intense in the weeds the stuff that is like it is so special to be able to do this with you because it's really hard to find people you can trust with this. And I've actually realized like it's important to also save time for like the stupid little banter. Sure. I think when you're younger, people will mistakenly don't prioritize having friends who, you know, help protect your character. You know, I know we've had some calls recently around that topic. So, yeah. Speaking of calls around that topic, we do have an update from our listener who was on the Raven episode, the friend whose friend was cheating on her boyfriend and the four of them were going on a trip coming up and she is now available behind vile files plus which is now

available it's now uh live we have a a new update uh astnick update on vile files plus we have all the better date than ever episodes that we have recently dropped and will continue to drop we have all the things that used to be on the patreon like the bachelor recaps with all the women from my season plus uh some amazing uh rom-com uh recaps like the notebook women from my season, plus some amazing rom-com recaps like The Notebook and 10 Things I Hate About You and more to come. But for all the people who love the Ask Nick updates, we'll be doing more and more updates behind Vile Files Plus. It's available now. It's $6.99. You can sign up for a whole year and get two free months if you want. You get a seven-day free trial. So there's no reason not to just try it.

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And all you have to do is go to takecareof.com and enter code V-I-A-L-L-5-0. We also have a breakup song of the week. Now, thank you so much to everyone who submits. They're awesome. We have so many to go through. I want to give a special shout out to this one because this is a song that I listened to, saved to my Spotify library, and have been listening to quite a bit over the last few days.

It is very catchy and very like it just hits right. So that song, it's called Bitter by the artist Fletcher. And the person who submitted this said, Hello, my breakup song of the week is Bitter by Fletcher. My ex-fiance cheated on me with a girl off Tinder, took money from me and was emotionally abusive. After I moved out, I lived with my mom for a few months and then finally got my own apartment. Music by Fletcher felt so healing to me during that time. I was listening to her a ton last spring as I was restarting in my new life. So the lyric that she highlighted was, I know she's thinking that she found herself a winner. I know you fucked her on the counter right before you cooked her dinner

but you sugarcoat the truth but you're real sweet with her I know you think about me when you kiss her I left a taste in your mouth can she taste me now I'm bitter and she damn yeah it's a way it's like you bet the counter

it's it's a great check out our playlist is Is it slappin'? Yeah, it's slappin'. And it's slappin'. Also, we know we have our Breakup Song of the Week playlist, which we adore and love, but for March Madness, we are going

to go in the other direction. We're gonna do some love songs, so stay tuned. We are gonna be doing our very own bracket. We will have polls be doing our very own bracket. We will have polls in the Instagram story where you can vote for your favorite love songs and see the way they advance.

So stay tuned because all the details on how to submit to that will be upcoming. And we're so excited to see all the various songs and which love song will be the champion.

And don't forget, also on Thursday, another amazing episode of Better Date Than Never Live. It's so fun. You got to check it out. Obviously, you're able to listen to it now on Vile Files Plus if you're not available at that time.

But if you haven't checked it out, it is a super fun, interactive show. The chat's amazing. Basically, the whole show is this like sex conversations and people telling their stories and us responding to them. But, you know, we bring callers up. You get to hang out with us.

It's like being in the same room with us. So check it out. Available on the AMP app. It's free to download. Search my name. Subscribe. Super easy and fun. Hope to see you there.

Let's get to our callers. What's your diary thing? Hope to see you there. Let's get to our callers. How's it going? Hi, I'm Kate. I'm 23 and I think I'm being a fuck boy and I need to know how to stop. Okay. Why do you think you're being a fuck boy? So I have been seeing someone recently and I, in my mind, it was pretty casual. And in his mind, I think it was a little bit more serious. And I had been kind of clear that I've been seeing other people along with seeing him

and dating pretty casually. with seeing him and dating pretty casually. And at some point, a couple weeks ago, he asked if we could be exclusive. And I said, I don't think I want to do that right now. He brought it up again more recently. And it was one of the things where I just not in that mindset right now, which is not normal for me. Normally, I'm very much a relationship person, very dialed in on one person. And I just not really sure why now I'm in this mindset, why I'm interested in keeping my options open and just would be interested to hear another opinion on this. I mean, well, you're only 23. So there's that you're young. What's your relationship history like how many serious relationships have you been in i have been in two serious

relationships one was three years long from around 16 to 19 and the other was about a year and a half about 20 to 22 ish okay yeah i mean you're young you out there, you're dating post-college or you post post-college. Yeah. Yeah. Post-college. I feel like post-college in this kind of climate that we're in or in 2023 is like, it's a whole nother phase of, of almost like childhood in a way. I don't necessarily think that's a good thing. Just trying to explore, figure things out. Yeah. I mean, like on some level, I think we have just gotten, we gotten we've we we have lowered our expectations of ourselves or of adulthood i mean whether good or bad it's just it is what it is for better or for worse uh when we get out of college we don't know what we want to do and we

give ourselves the freedom to try new things and you know listen that's fine that's okay right i think the the big thing is recognizing what you want right you want to play the field and that's fine that's okay right i think the the big thing is recognizing what you want right you want to play the field and that's good that sounds like you try to set some up for expectations but whether you've been in this situation or not but like you know what it's like maybe i don't know do you know what it's like to like someone a little bit more than you feel like they like you oh absolutely i feel like i've only been in relationships where I have like the other person more. And I almost feel like since this person I've been seeing likes me more, I've put my guard up a little bit more. So it's just trying to I want to give it a chance and such.

But the fact that he likes me more, I definitely don't want to hurt him. And I'm really so you want to give him you want to get to know him more. Yes. But I also feel like he has stopped want to hurt him. And I'm really. So you want to give him, you want to get to know him more. Yes. But I also feel like he has stopped getting to know me. I feel like he's at the point where he's like. Okay. Very invested. He's just decided he liked you.

Yeah. Well, we've been friends for a bit. Okay. But we hadn't ever, it was all surface level friendship. It wasn't anything much deeper than that. It wasn't anything much deeper than that. And I've really struggled with him communicating and not just communicating boundaries. I've been pretty clear about that, but just in general, asking about days and in depth about that and getting to know each other on a deeper level than just friendship.

Okay. Have you communicated that with him? Yes. Have you communicated that with him? Yes. And I think he also is aware that it's an issue, but I just know I have my walls up because he likes me more. Okay, well, you have, I think, a couple options.

Listen, if there's nothing wrong with you wanting to play the field, I just think you immediately become a fuckboy when you keep fucking around with someone you know likes you more than you like them because you there's an unequal power dynamic you know things like that and so you know that he likes you more than you like them if you want to keep dating around if you want to not be a fuck boy i think you have to stop fucking around with them you know but you're also saying you want to keep dating him a little bit. And so that's where, like, the fuckboy doesn't want to make tough choices. The fuckboy wants to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak, right? Which is what you want to do.

You want to keep getting to know him, but not necessarily commit to him because you're not sure about him. And in the meantime, while you get to know him, you want to be open to saying yes to whatever might come, reasonable. However, it's also selfish and fuckboys are selfish. So you just have to decide for yourself, do you want to be selfish to the point

where it affects other people? How much do you want to confuse someone or hurt their feelings or make them so emotionally invested that they start calling their mom and their friends and getting all fucked up about you. You're only 23. You can say to him, listen, here are my concerns. Here's how I feel about you. I'm going to be totally upfront and honest. I feel like you're a little bit more into me than I'm into you. You could say that. That's pretty harsh, but it's direct. You could say part of my reservations are we've known

each other for a while and like you say you like me and and you want to hang out but like i i don't feel like you're really trying to get to know me i don't feel like we're really connecting i don't think we're building anything emotionally so like i don't like if you actually want to do this i need that from you you can decide to not be sure about someone and you can give it a shot. You've heard me probably, if you listen to the show, use that kind of like, we just have to like press play on Netflix. Everyone's around looking for the perfect preview. You can press plan a movie. You can decide in the first five minutes, you know what? It hasn't captured my attention. I'm going to just end it.

You can stop dating other people for a few weeks and invest your time into him. And after a month or a few weeks, you can go back to saying like, it's not really working for me. I'm just, I don't want to do this anymore. And yeah, you'll might have to have an awkward conversation and a tear might come down his face or whatever. That's the most selfless and mature thing to do, which most of us nowadays don't choose to do we'll make excuses for ourselves and well things like well i told him i told him i don't want to hang out you've probably been that person you hear people listen to that show why do they act like my boyfriend and girlfriend if they don't want to be my boyfriend and girlfriend and guarantee you

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is he going to take that as a little too far do do you think? Depends how well you communicate. Okay. You say, hey, listen, I'm trying to have a more enlightened and a more mature approach to dating. And so I think, you could just say in general, I think two people can commit to getting to know each other without taking the moment for granted. I don't want to play house with you. I don't want to plan a future with you. And I don't even know if I'm ready for a honeymoon phase with you. I just like, no, I care about you and like you and I see potential with us. And I like how you make me

feel about me because I know you like me. And so I'm willing to explore that. But what I need from you is X, Y, or Z and just be upfront what you need to grow because you're not saying yes to not seeing other people because you're obsessed or in with him. You're saying that you want to focus on this relationship because you are unsure, but what you want to do for yourself, for the relationship, and for him is to not waste anyone's time. And the easiest way and most efficient way of not wasting another's time is to focus your energy when it comes to dating and relationships on a singular thing. Because you can just say, all right, well, it's distracting to,

you start comparing or whatever. And it's just like, what am I comparing? What am I comparing? How I feel like all these different variables like you know comparing dates doesn't really help you figure out what's best for you because you never really know what you how well you might be triggered or what you know is it like the sex or is it physical attraction how's that how they make you feel emotionally is it how they communicate like and then obviously you're just like trying to piecemeal a boyfriend together it gets real and that's when you really are a fuck boy because fuck boys will do shit like that. So you just have to stay grounded and be disciplined and say to yourself,

all right, I'm going to give this a few weeks and see where it goes. And then I'm going to check in with myself a few weeks later. And then I'm going to check in with him after I check in with myself. Do I like how it's going? Do I feel more connected? Do I feel less connected? And then whatever you decide with yourself, then you relay that to him and you see where it goes. And at any point you can say, this isn't working for me. I've tried. But when you make a decision, you have to hold firm with your decision. Don't do the whole thing like, I'm not sure. So like, I just need some space, but like, you can still call me and we can still fuck a little you know it's just like you have to make decisive decisions for yourself and for him that's what a fuck boy wouldn't do and fuck boys do all the things we're talking about just like you know

say just enough so they don't feel bad i think that normally i am very decisive and one of the reasons why i am kind of trying to keep one foot out the door right now is I do in general, I have a bit of a fear of commitment. But the reason why I've been able to be in such successful long term relationships in the past was because I was just so obsessed with the person that I wasn't. The fear of commitment didn't really matter and so now that I'm not having that obsession I definitely feel it more and also I've been experimenting to be honest with my sexuality a little bit and trying to figure out dating men and women or non-binary people while this is a really important person in my life and I always thought that would be really good together and it just kind of ended up being run.

It feels like the wrong time right now because I'm trying to explore my sexuality. And that's okay. It makes perfect sense committing to them and not wasting anyone's time. But I'm just curious, too, because normally I feel like people who call in are on the other side of wrong, right person, wrong time. And I'm just curious on your thoughts where I think it could be the right person, but it doesn't feel like it's the right time. Maybe it's just not the right person. Yeah, maybe he's a really good option. And, you know, maybe in the future he will be the right person.

But like right person, wrong time just means they're just not the right person in my book. That's just because you don't know what time is going to bring the situation. You know, you're exploring things right now, right? So part of exploring is finding out who you are and what you like and your perspective might completely change on what you value in a partner. And right now your values are one way. And as you go through this kind of exploratory period of your life, those values might change or they might not.

And he might change. You know, almost you are both going to change over time. So instead of obsessing over like, well, if I don't do this now, I might miss out. Well, you're not going to miss out on anything. You're both going to change on some level. And if you realize the way you change never brings you together, then that's your answer. You don't need to sit there and feel down on yourself. And you got to remember that life

is long type of thing. And what I mean by that is usually what happens is these situations, let's say you go through this, let's say you're going to decide to like not try it. Like you're just like, I like you, but more than anything, I really feel like I want to explore myself and I really want to get out there and I want to try different things. So you say, hey, listen, as much as I like you and as much as I think this could be something more than anything, it would be selfish of me to invest in you. So like not right now, but that means you have to cut things off with him. You can't give in, you can't give in to your boredom or weakness or the comfort of having him around, especially when you want to feel good about yourself and you know, he'll probably do

that. That would be a selfish thing to do to allow him to love on you, knowing that like, you're just doing it, you know, for more of an ego purposes because in things like that. So you, you let them know, like, listen, I really care about you, but right now, I don't want to take advantage of how you feel versus how I feel. And so I think we should stop this. You can leave the door open for the future.

I wouldn't make any promises or things like that because you never really know. But let's say you do that, right? And a year goes by. And all of a sudden, you see him on the gram or whatever, and he's looking good, and you're just like, wow, what is he up to? And then you realize he has a girlfriend.

And you're going to get bummed, and you're going to get sad, and you're going to have these feelings of regret. Oh, I should have done this. Nah, listen, you don't know who he is at this point. You don't even know who he's dating. He could be dating her and break up with her in six months. You know what I'm saying? And then you just don't know what life is going to bring you. And we always react to

situations as if like, you know, when disappointment happens, we act like the world is static in a way that nothing else is going to change. And that this disappointment I feel in this moment is going to like last forever. But the truth is like, he's going to keep changing. She's going to keep changing. You're going to keep changing. And that change might eventually bring you guys back together two years from now or never again. But I'm certain that whatever happens, most likely over time, you're not going to be sitting here being like, he's the one who got away. You're just not going to have that much regret about this guy because the time that passes and the way things just play out will give you the answers that you need to move on. You know what

I'm saying? And unless you decide to really beat yourself up and you're having some sort of pity party, anyone can make themselves feel real bad about a situation. You know what I'm saying? If you were like, I'm in my feels and I just want to make myself feel worse, I'm going to keep telling myself that I'll never find a guy like him and he was the one and I really fucked up a year ago and blah, blah, blah. But that's just not true. We can convince ourselves of that, but it's just not true. And I just think we just have to be open to the possibility that life happens, feelings come and go, situations change. And when it feels truly right, that means we'll want to do something about it. And we will want to make those sacrifices and make those priorities. And it won't feel like a big kind of compromise. And it won't feel like you're really

giving up a part of who you are or things that you really need to do to be the best version of yourself to whoever it is you want to love on. You know what I'm saying? So I think some of these fears that you have are temporary fears. And I think it sounds to me like deep down, you know what you want to do. You're just afraid of what, you're afraid of what it might cost you. A really good guy and some potential. I just think that really good guy and some potential i just think that really good guy and that potential will be available to you if it needs to be and if it's not then there's a reason why i was just gonna say like speaking to kind of like the exploring and like kind of like wanting to do a little bit more like diving and expressing curiosity for like the way you identify like i've found that this like the second i broke up with my long term boyfriend, I was like, OK, finally, like because I knew there was something going on.

But it was like it's weird for like me personally. I just found it really challenging to be fully emotionally like honest with myself, especially before I like had like a strong sense of like confidence within the identity. And I was just like dating a man being like, OK, I think I'm pretty sure I'm also queer but I don't know like and so I think in terms of just like setting yourself up in an environment where you can actually kind of like uncover and listen to yourself like I do think even if you're like okay well we're not exclusive like we're open I still think like sometimes just like having that presence of like you know there's so many ways that this is like the society like defaults to heterosexuality. And so I personally found that like it wasn't really possible to fully explore queerness while in the context of a relationship, not even necessarily to find one

that was heterosexual. And then the other thing I would throw out there is just like something that I learned was when I was like casually hooking up with someone when I first moved to L.A. and was sort of like, you know, like I also would like to date more women, et cetera. He at the time was like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm OK with you hooking up with girls like we were exclusive. But he was like, you can hook up with women. And at the time I was like, OK, I know this is a little fucked up, but it's giving me everything I want. And the more I've reflected on that, the more I've you know, and I knew at the time, like all my I was like, all my all my friends are lesbians. And they were like, that's like that's delegitimizing queer sex. Like, you know, like that's saying, oh, this is actually like a separate, different thing. And like, sure, you can say, oh, no, he just meant that it's different, not the same. But it's like it's also he clearly does not feel threatened in that way. Like that is saying that it is like not as legitimate. And so I would just say like from my many muddled experiences of like dating men while also trying to like sort out queerness, I think any kind of like space you can

give yourself to like be really listening to yourself because it's confusing enough already. Like just trying with just you in the picture, like I found it was like there's a lot of questions and there's all these things you're like, oh, I got to think through this is changing everything up. And so I think it's a really cool opportunity to kind of just like really give yourself space to listen. And also I would just be very wary of if you do end up like continuing to see this guy, but you also want to like date queer people. Like I would just be very upfront about that because I think there's a lot of something that like I'm very aware of and have definitely been a perpetrator of bad behavior and like am continually trying to work on is like not being like a queer woman who uses

kind of like the privilege of like dating a man while then also like kind of getting to like dip my toes into queerness just because I think a lot of like especially lesbians have had really negative experiences around like women who weren't fully emotionally available and were dating men so that's sorry that was a huge ramble but basically give yourself space and do whatever feels good to you. That makes sense. And I can definitely relate on a lot of those points. I feel like deep down. You want to explore things and you're just afraid of his potential. Yeah. And you're afraid of losing his potential. I am upset because we originally started seeing each other after a drunken hookup.

And so I wouldn't have originally explored this relationship. I wouldn't have let this blossom into what it was at this time if I wasn't drunk. So solely based on the fact that you guys had sex, you feel like you owe it to yourself to explore a relationship with him? No, not based on that, but just at that point, he got really excited. And then we started going on dates. That's when it took the turn from being friends to something else. And I did try to be clear with him that I wasn't looking for a relationship, even if it was with someone that I'm very close with at this time. And it just kind of escalated before I could take control of it. Sure. Yeah. I mean,

he's excited. He likes you. Worst things in the world. It's tough. Yeah. And that's why I feel bad. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah. Well-intentioned fuckboys are still fuckboys. And those are usually the hardest ones to get over because they mean well you mean well you know you care about them sex with them you like there's a lot of good things and there's a lot of reasons well i'm sure if you kept the door open that you would keep wanting to like walk through it from time to time but you also feel a part of you that knows that you really can't give him what he deserves and what you would want to deserve from someone else. Knowing that the right thing to do is to just be up front with

them and let them know, not make, and don't breadcrumb them or leave them on a hook. Just let them know that like, it's just not the right time for you. But I wouldn't say more than that. I wouldn't say maybe in the future, yada, yada, yada. Like if it's going to play out, you'll find your way back to one another. You can always reach out to him and be vulnerable and say, hey, would you reconsider giving me another shot, you know, and give him an opportunity to feel a bit more in control and powerful and, you know, you can always give him that in the future. But the right thing to do is to cut them off if you want to explore things. And again, at any point you could say, hey, I want to give it a shot, but don't do it out of guilt.

Don't do it to be nice. Don't do it even for yourself. You don't owe it to yourself to give this guy a chance just because you're just like, well, it's the first guy who just done X, Y, or Z. Like if you don't want it, you don't want it, you know? And you exploring desires at this point in your life at 23, I think will serve you well and make you a better partner for whoever that person is. Try to do the right thing, even if it's hard and awkward and ask yourself, am I doing this because I feel bad or am I doing this because ultimately I'm being a little selfish? People love to convince themselves that they're doing something

because they feel bad, but at the end of the day, they just don't want to have to give things up. They want to take advantage of the power that they have. Even if they don't want to admit to themselves, they have it. Well, and I knew I i was being selfish i even told him that at one point um and sometimes we say that to people because then we tell people i'm being selfish because we want to hear those people give us permission to be selfish oh i know i'm being selfish and they can say well it's okay i mean thanks for sharing you know like i just oh he definitely did not say it was okay. Well, that's good. It was just conflicting trying to figure out I really do like him. And I just felt pulled in two different directions.

At any point, you can change your mind. And again, if he changes his mind after the fact, there's nothing to regret he didn't like if you a month from now you let's say you hang up the phone you reach out you know he follows up and like hey listen you deserve more than me and right now i'm just i think we should stop hanging out and i'm saying this because i do care about you and like you but like i know i need to explore this and i don't want to keep coming back and forth so like i just i don't want this and i'm not i'm not doing it just for you i'm doing it for me too and And so he gets really upset. And three weeks from now, you're like, fuck, I miss him.

And let's say in only three weeks or a month, you go back to him and he's just like, nah, I'm good. Well, that's again, he didn't like you. It's, you know what I'm saying? Like he, he's still exploring how he feels about you and his feelings, regardless of what you do can still drastically change. And so it doesn't do us any good to sit there and rewrite history or beat ourselves up. Because, you know, like if in a month he's moved on from you, then he definitely didn't like you enough today.

If he was calling in right now, what would you tell him? Well, I mean, it also depends on how much about what you're saying I would know. But if he was just like, I really this girl i put myself out there i try to define the relationship but like she i would just tell him to like stop it you know don't accept less than what you think you deserve you know i would tell him to like make it clear that you really want to explore it i would say the same thing like yeah you can try out. You can always change your mind, but don't make excuses for her. Don't give in to boredom. Don't give in to making yourself available to her at her convenience isn't going to get her to like you or respect you.

It will just get you a little bit more sex and you'll feel a little less bored. It won't make her want to invest more in you. There's some version of that I would say to him. Well, good luck. Thank you. I'll need it. We definitely would like an update from you in a couple of weeks, even if that update is simply just no real update. Hey, you know, I cut things off or I didn't cut things off. I'm really want an update on what conversation, what your next conversation with him is. And we would love to follow your journey if you'd be so kind. I'll do my best. Yeah. All right. Thanks for your time. How's it going? Good. How are you? I'm William and I'm 44. How can we help William?

My current girlfriend's ex-husband is dating my ex-girlfriend and I'm still technically married and there are kids involved and there's a lot of mess to it. Very convoluted. All right. That's very confusing. Yeah. Are you confused every time you say it? I am very confused every time I say it. All right. So let's, let's, let's, so you're, you're still married. You have an ex-wife. Is she actively involved in this or that's just a data point? Well, that's interesting you say that because my now ex-girlfriend reached out to me about a year ago and said that my ex-wife was trying to link up with my current girlfriend's ex-husband. You separated from your wife. You're going through a divorce.

And in that period, you got a girlfriend, broke up with her, and now you have another girlfriend? Yep. Okay. Correct, yes. I was married for 17 years. Okay. And then the fact that you're still technically divorced,

is that just because this shit takes time? Is there anything other than legal bullshit that's delaying this divorce? She won't sign the papers. She knows that she left me and my kids. And so she's going to have to pay a lot. And she makes more than double what I make. So she's not willing to sign any paperwork.

So it's just kind of, we're kind of in purgatory. How does that work? Can people just refuse to get divorced to you? I think so. Yeah. So on my birthday, actually, of all days, I went down to and I got the paperwork done and I handed it to her in person. And she signed off on it that she got it, but nothing, she didn't sign it. She said she had a lawyer and she does not have a lawyer. And I don't have a lawyer because I can't afford a lawyer because I raised two teenage kids by myself. so that's part of the problem as well i think is that i don't have anybody behind me to help me move the process along quicker and there's just like nothing you can do yep all right well

sorry about that that's up i reached out to lawyers you know no it is it is what it is but what do you reach out to lawyers or what do they say? So they all told me the same thing. It's just the fact of the money that it costs to get a retainer fee is incredibly expensive. And so I just don't have anybody or any enough money to do it myself. So I'm trying to save up for it. And my ex ex-wife soon to be ex-wife is just just kind of just floating along and not paying anything and you know making things difficult for me and for my kids okay so that aside you separated from your ex-wife you got a girlfriend then you guys broke up and how did that breakup go amicable ish or toxic or how would you on a

scale of one to ten ten being super toxic we hate each other one being like hey we just realized we're not a match but we're still friends how would you rank that breakup my thought was it was amicable um i would have said like around probably like a five or six but i also was kind of going through a mess you know i was as you would say kind of a fuck boy for a little while i was dating her she wanted to date seriously i wasn't really ready for that and i kept telling her i wanted to go day by day um i had so much going on my ex-wife that i didn't want to like you know put my business out there for everybody to know so i didn't we didn't go out in public we didn't see each other like that um

and so after a while like we started getting into fights and arguments and i was like i just can't do this anymore and so i broke it off with her which i thought was amicable and she she said it was amicable so then a couple weeks later goodbye and she texted me and she's like hey um i just wanted to tell you but it has to be in person and i was like can we do this on you know over the phone by text and she's like no it has to be in person. And I was like, can we do this over the phone, by text? And she's like, no, it has to be in person. Come to my house. I didn't want to go. I knew it was a bad decision. My friends were like, don't go. But I wanted to hear her out and see what she had to say. And so I went to her house and she was like, hey, just to let you know, your ex-wife was having an affair. I found this out recently that she's having an affair with a

friend of yours for like a while. And so at that point, I was pretty numb to the situation. It didn't, you know, I'd heard a lot of stuff over a long period of time. So I, uh, I just was like, all right, cool. And like, I left and kind of just left it there. And I thought things were amicable, but then when she found out about a month later that I started talking to my now current girlfriend who is fantastic that she'd started spreading rumors that we were you know we were talking the whole time and I knew I didn't even know this one until like a ways after I broke up with my ex-girlfriend so like we're all in the same business so it's it makes things really difficult you know

gotcha so you start dating your and then and then what's the other connection his her your current girlfriend's ex is now dating your ex yes so the night we had this big event like and so i went to the event with my girl and that was like the first time we had kind of publicly been seen together right like we didn't put anything on social media we were very quiet or everything um and my ex-girlfriend was there and a bunch of people went on afterwards and then she reached out to my girlfriend's ex-husband they kind of know each other a little bit um and then they just started like hanging out all the time in public letting everybody know you know they're quote-unquote together and that you know that i was a bad person you know it was it was a mess and at one point your ex-wife was also interested

in your ex-girlfriend's ex-husband or your current girlfriend's ex-husband yes so my ex so both your ex-wife and your ex-girlfriend are interested in the same guy who is your girlfriend's ex-husband i i want to protect you know like i don't need to know specific details i don't want you know this is anonymous but like what is the relationship where you're all this close like you all work for the same company like why is it so incestual ish it feel you know like why is it like wife swapping kind of energy? Yeah. So we're in the real estate business and my girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend are parts that are not in real estate, but that relate to real estate.

So we've kind of like known each other. And the funny thing is, is my ex-girlfriend came to my surprise 40th birthday party because we were friends. And so at the time we were married, both married. And so then when my wife and I separated, ex-wife and I separated, she actually reached out to my ex and was like, hey, I need to buy a house. Can you help me with this and that? And then she was like, oh, hey, I heard that so-and-so is single. Can you hook us up? And so that's how it kind of got to that point well how are your kids involved in this drama because i mean i understand you got

some drama with your ex-wife but your ex-girlfriend and your current girlfriend aren't aren't parents to either of your kids like why how is your ex-girlfriend inserting herself into your kid's life and your parenting life, so to speak? Not necessarily so much now. Before, she was really pushing, like trying to reach out a lot to them. One, it's a former relationship that I wasn't really comfortable with at the time. So now there's no communication with them at all. Like there's nothing like, she's not causing any problem with my kids right now. She's causing problems with my girlfriend's kids uh and then how so i feel like it's like my fault um just bringing her kids around them and um like they're meeting up at

places i know it sounds really stupid but like they're meeting they're meeting up and trying to force the kids together so then when the kids come back home, they're really upset about it. And, you know, I feel bad because I feel like it's kind of my fault because if I didn't date her per se, then these people wouldn't be involved. It probably would be somebody else, but I feel like it's my fault. Well, I mean, I don't know all the details. I mean, it's not really your fault if you're just trying to date. I just find in situations like this, I think we all just love drama a little bit more than we like to admit.

And my guess is that everyone is playing a role in this drama. And I think everyone's not doing their best to just kind of walk away from the drama. Because even if you're responding to the drama, you're a part of the drama. And I think if you and your current girlfriend really want to, if you're really just thinking, when it's just the two of you, hey, this is a good thing here.

Like, we like each other. There's a lot of potential here. We both have a past. Your current girlfriend has an ex-husband as well, yes? Yes. Yeah. So you both come with some quote-unquote baggage. It can get messy.

Feelings can be complicated. You have a tight community. A lot of people know each other. So you could sit down with her because right now, as far as you're concerned, your only real priority is your current girlfriend. I understand that you have shit to deal with with your ex-wife. And, you know, obviously that's a priority to figure out how you can finalize a divorce. But in terms of your like current dating life, your only priority is your current girlfriend.

So that's the only person you really need to be talking to. And that's the person you need to focus on being on the same page. But I just want to make sure your conversations are more about how you two can avoid the drama rather than how you two should respond to the drama. In most of these cases, a lot of times we get sucked in and we will talk about how we should respond. Well, how you should say something to her or you should say something to him and we should say something to them. And you're just, again, you're feeding into the monster in the machine and you can do that that. And it's important sometimes to stand up for ourselves. And it's important to say, to not let people disrespect us or our partners. But you got to ask yourself,

is it really moving the needle? Do I really need to bring this up? And I think if you and your current girlfriend sat down and said like, hey, we got a good thing here. We like where it's going. Let's just not feed into it. Let's not respond. Let's just go out of our way to avoid these people as much as possible. It won't always be possible because we're connected within our community. Just ignore them as much as you can. Throughout my life, I've been involved in friend drama a lot. And it can't like, we do that. We're just like, we respond to we're just like we respond to it we say we're frustrated we say we're tired of it but at the end of the day we're choosing to participate in it and i think as adults we sometimes conveniently will ignore or not acknowledge that at any moment

we could just choose not to like involve ourselves in this like most of the drama that we are involved in in our adult lives when it comes to friend groups is drama that we are choosing to be a part of. We can at any point say, you know what? I don't need this. I don't need to be involved. I am focused on what matters. I'm going to focus on my job or my kids or my wife or my girlfriend. And I don't need to respond to this. I don't need to quote unquote, stand up for myself. And I don't need to be offended. I don't need to respond because of the principle of things. We come up with all these excuses of why we should insert ourselves in drama. And I think we can always choose to not be involved. And I just wonder if you and your current girlfriend just kind of make a pact of

how can we, again, not be involved as opposed to having conversations about how to react. And then, you know, it's natural to want to, you'll be frustrated. So it's going to come up and then you should ask each other, you know, how we should support each other. So when it does come up, we'll remind the other person to like, not, you know, like, Hey babe, we're challenging each other not to talk about them. We're challenging each other not to like go down rabbit holes because we can do that, right? Sometimes it's fun to talk shit about people. So you go out with your partner, you go out to dinner and you spend the next 15 or 20 minutes just venting with each other about how much you think what Sally did is fucked up. And then you had a whole nice meal of agreeing with your partner,

but all you really did is just talk shit about someone and get emotionally invested in drama that's not advancing your relationship. You're just bonding over a mutual disdain for someone else. And I think that only goes so far. I think we don't give ourselves enough credit to not be involved in drama. Yeah, that makes sense. And we don't actually like um feed into it like so a lot of times like the kids her kids will come home and like just say things that they're hearing from their father and we don't respond to it like not me i'm not saying like

she doesn't respond to it because it's not my i'm on that position it's not my kids uh she doesn't respond to it um and it just caused, which I think is good. And we have that conversation a lot of like, hey, you don't respond. It's not worth it. Like, you know, kind of let it go. And that's, I think we bounce off each other really well with that. So it helps a lot.

Like that we both understand the situation, but we're all mature enough to say, listen, we don't need to respond to that. And they're just trying to push buttons and we don't need that. Do you have any relationship with him? No, I don't have any relationship with him. I mean, I've seen him around, but we don't need that. Do you have any relationship with him? No, I don't have any relationship with him. I mean, I've seen him around,

but we don't talk or anything. How recent is their separation? I have no issues with him. I mean, they've been separated for about a year. Is she not on good terms with her ex? Mine's been about a year and a half. They are not on good terms now. Why?

Very similar to my situation. we're both basically raising kids by ourselves uh they're not helping support anything they're just kind of going basically they didn't want to be married anymore and they wanted to live that free lifestyle i'm not having responsibilities sure and so uh we i'm here with my two teenage kids, you know, being a full-time parent, trying to work, trying to maintain a relationship, you know, and not really getting any help. What are some of the things her kids are saying? Not anything really negative per se about my ex, about my girlfriend. It's more of like, they want us to come over. We don't want to go over. The dad knows it they get there it's

awkward her my ex-reference kids are younger and they're out of control so they're kind of violent and it's just a really bad situation and that was the reason why i broke it off one of the part of reasons why i broke it off with my ex was because i didn't like what i thought the future was going to be with her and then with her situation with her children was like, I can't do this with her anymore. How she parented her kids? Yeah. The way she parents her kids.

Yes. They scream at her. They yell at her. They hit her. They swear at her. They're like, they're little kids and they should not be doing that. Your ex-girlfriend has kids.

Your current girlfriend has kids. You have kids. girlfriend has kids your current girlfriend has kids you have kids and right now your ex-girlfriend and her kids are sometimes interacting with your current girlfriend's kids because she's dating your current girlfriend's ex-husband yes and how old are her kids your current girlfriend my relationship with my girlfriend is great that's good yeah they are 13 and 10 and we actually get along great like my kids love my girlfriend and her kids love me like we get along really really well I think that the other side sees that and it's trying to force it on everybody and it's not really working because they're

forcing it and it's not natural I think yeah I mean listen all you can do like some of this yeah some of this you can't avoid, right? I mean, some of it is just like, I think you and your current girlfriend just have to do your very best to be the bigger person. And when it comes to your kids and her kids, I think you just kind of have to have like high level conversations about leading with love

and not saying anything if you don't have anything nice to say, like some of those basic lessons. And when they come home and start spreading gossip and drama, they're just kids so that they don't realize that. But maybe it's just an opportunity to talk about, hey, we're just... If you have a story about kindness and love, that's good to share. But if you're just kind of talking crap, maybe we don't need to have that conversation obviously you want to you want everyone to feel safe to coming to come to your parents if that your kids feel like there's something unhealthy or toxic going on as kids you know we all gossiped we all talk shit you know i remember being on the

playground and gossiping you know and so this is maybe an opportunity to teach them to avoid that and not get sucked into that. But I think it's so easy to get sucked into friend drama, even as adults. And it's so easy to justify talking about it with our partners. And it's so easy to do that, that I think every day we have to remind ourselves, you know what, this isn't productive.

Let's change the topic. Us venting to each other is just keeping us in this. If you don't give them stuff to talk about, they'll have a harder and harder enough thing to talk about. The less you respond, the less ammunition you give them, the less, you just kind of ignore them as much as you can and just don't feed them the monster and eventually they'll get bored.

Maybe a lot of this has to do because it's relatively new and they are just kind of reacting and so the less you react the less they'll have to react to and the more you give into what they're doing the more they'll be able to react to the things that you're reacting to type of thing so it's really just about sounds like in your case since there's a lot of like interchanging pieces that you can't control all you can do is constantly just avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid. And I think eventually it will die down at eventually people's kind of anger and frustrations.

They'll just get bored because they're not getting the reactions they want, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think things will just calm down over time. I hope so. I think I appreciate that. Yeah. That's what we're kind of hoping. Are you in therapy at all? You know, we're just kind of i am good for you yes yeah actually that's

awesome man we'll keep doing that if you really think this uh relationship with your current girlfriend has a lot of potential i would highly encourage couples therapy and that doesn't mean anything's going wrong but like you are dealing with a lot with your current girlfriend and just like i truly believe that every relationship can benefit even if it's a healthy one from like a third party who's not invested they can help like mediate and help each other make sure everyone's hearing each other out and when it comes to this type of stuff like you guys could be proactive rather than reactive with your relationship because these types of conversations are stressful and they are challenging. And eventually, you know, it might bleed into your current relationship and you might

get frustrated and you might start, you know, projecting your frustrations and treating each other with kind of not the love that you want to, not because there's anything going on between you two because life is just getting you down. So if you ever had a thought of, is couple therapy something that could benefit your relationship? The answer is always, I think, yes. So if you really value this relationship, maybe just see, it's just like, hey, would you ever be interested in like

going to a couple's therapy with me? Because like, I really like you. And like, I just want to make sure that we're going out of our way to like, do this the right way and get, learn certain tools to best communicate with each other because and also like you're stressed about this drama that we get are stuck with and i'm stressed with it and like you know maybe a couple therapists can just help us

navigate it and like you you don't need to have a problem to go to couples therapy it's also awesome for your kids to see where like i think it sounds like so much of the approach to this is kind of the thankless work of like not pressing the shiny red button no matter how much you you want to like, you know, and they're like waving the shiny red button in front of you, like trying to get you and suck you in on this. And like, it's a really like thankless, exhausting job continually saying no to that. And knowing that like your kids are both seeing it now. And like after the fact, like I have, I have all these moments in adulthood where I'm like, I put stuff together that my parents did and I'm like oh my god like those impressive bastards like how did they do it and just knowing that like both now your kids are going to see all the work that you're putting in but then also like down the

line as they emotionally mature like there will be all these moments where they will think back to the way that you navigated this situation it will serve as this like wonderful model for sticking it out and doing unglamorous hard things. So good luck and hang in there. You're on the right path, man. And the most, you know, just kind of try to do more positive things and focus on the things that are working on. Try to just remove yourself from the things that are just, you know, keeping you stimulated, but ultimately just toxic and don't feed the beast, so to speak. And I think, you know, you'll go to the right direction. And I say that because it's so easy to get sucked up in drama.

It really is. And we often complain about hating drama while participating in it at the same time. All right, buddy. Well, appreciate it. Good luck with everything. Keep us posted. I'd especially love to know if you guys ended up in couples therapy

and how it worked for you guys. But any update whatsoever is always appreciated. Okay. Thank you, Nick. All right. Thanks, pal. All right. Take care.

How's it going? I'm doing well. How are you? Good. What's your name? I'm Kylie and I'm 27. How can we help Kylie? So I'm just wondering if maybe I'm scaring guys off because I'm asking for too much too

soon in dating. Okay. Yeah. I remember you asked this question on Questions with Nick, and then I wanted you to write into the show. So thanks for doing that. Because I started to respond to you, and then I thought, well, I need more information kind of thing.

As I was responding, I was thinking, well, no, of course not. And then I was thinking, well, I don't know, maybe. Because it depends. You know. Every situation is different. So I'd love to hear from you. Give me an example, especially if it's a fairly consistent example of a type of situation, a dating situation that you have found yourself in where you feel like you are asking them yourself in where you feel like you are asking them something or too much and and you feel like that is negatively negatively affecting how they are receiving you or their desire to want to advance things like can you give me an example of a situation and then we'll go from there yeah so i actually had a recent situation okay um that just ended a couple days ago okay uh we were seeing each other

for a month and i think like on the second or third date i made my intentions pretty clear that i didn't want just to hook up like i was looking for a relationship okay um and he said that he wanted that too um but it was early on obviously so we wanted to continue getting to know each other my first question. Yeah. Now, when you said that to him, were you speaking more in general about your desires in a relationship or were you speaking to him about this relationship? Does that make sense? Yeah.

You know, because like early on, you could say you meet someone, right? You said second date first second date you're just like hey what are your dating intentions like what are you looking for it's just like well hey i'm i'm out here dating and i hope to eventually meet someone that i can like build a relationship with i want to get married someday so i'm actively out there dating with intention and hopes that i can meet someone to build a romantic connection with like whether that's you or someone else that that's my goal. Like that, that would sound great.

Other people on a second date might say, I want to seriously date. I'm not looking for a hookup. So what do you have to say to that? You know? And they immediately present like they want that person. They just met that they're on a second date with to give them some sort of assurances that they are willing to commit to them if things move forward. And they're thinking, I don't know. I'm on a second fucking date with to give them some sort of assurances that they are willing to commit to them if things

move forward and they're thinking i don't know i'm on a second fucking date with you yada yada yada so again there's no wrong answer because we're just trying to figure out you know like because i think that's the thing why i wanted you to call in because i think it's it's it's kind of you're threatening the need a little bit i think there is nuance to this and i think it's important to set expectations and boundaries but there's also a way to do it and communicate that without sounding a little kind of pushy or disconnected or, or, you know, a guy feeling like, well, I don't know. I don't know you. So like, I don't know if I want to date you, but like, yeah, sure. I want to get married someday, you know? So in

this particular situation, if you could go back, do you think it was, which one do you think it was more closely aligned to? Um, I think I just meant like, it's hard to say, I guess in general, because the scenario was like, before we were about to hook up or like do anything. And so I wanted to make it clear that it wasn't my intention to just do that and have like it would be a relationship based on like sex or something so i just wanted to make it clear that i was looking for something more in general so you had this conversation with him when you guys were like half naked yeah okay it's still problem fine we all we've all done this i think in general that's not the time to have that conversation you know and i know it's awkward and i know a society hasn't created an environment for women to feel comfortable to have these types

of conversations early on. So I acknowledge that and empathize with that. I still think we need to try to challenge ourselves to still, if we're going to participate in hookup culture and having any type of relations within the first few dates is hookup culture. It doesn't matter whether you just want to hook up or not, or whether you want to find a boyfriend. If you're hooking up with people you barely know, you're participating in hookup culture. And that's fine. But just be honest with yourself about what you're doing. Because saying you don't want to hook up doesn't really stop you from still hooking up. So I think early on, it's great to set that expectation with the people you're dating before your things are getting hot and heavy. Because he will literally agree

to anything in that moment. Oh Oh yeah, for sure. Totally. Like I totally want a relationship too. It's just like, oh great. Can you just shut up and take off your clothes right now? It's kind of like what his brain's actually thinking. So do yourself a favor and try not to have that conversation when his dick is clouding his brain, so to speak.

And it's not an excuse. Like men still need to hold themselves accountable for not saying shit. They don't actually mean just because they're hard but nevertheless they do that a lot if you want to get a really insincere response from a guy ask him a question when he has a hard-on yeah that makes sense because yeah he did say like i was just saying it in general but even though it was like second or third date he was saying like yeah like I do see myself dating you. Like I could see us like being in a relationship eventually, which I thought was a little bit weird because we didn't know each other that

well. Yeah. Um, but it makes sense that he could just be saying that because it was like in the moment. And it's weird. Cause it's like, he probably doesn't even think he's lying to you and can think about what he

said. Yeah. I, I can see myself dating you someday. What does that even mean yeah it also means he could see yourself not dating you someday it's very open-ended but it sounds nice have you ever asked that question i mean you know like you're a smart person you you even said i barely knew guy. And we're like half naked, we're about to hook up. And so you said to him right before you're about to like round second and go to third or whatever

base you were going for. You said that because again, society judges women unfairly for hooking up or quote unquote being promiscuous. And I think sometimes the only reason we say this in that heat of the moment is because I don't want him to think I'm being slutty or I'm being promiscuous. And if I let him know right now that I really want a boyfriend and not just a hookup, then he won't see me as someone who's just sleeping around. You know, I don't know if there's any of that energy that's kind of you're projecting. Again, all he really wants to do is hook up with you anyway. So he's not even thinking about whether, you know, why you hooked up with him or what your intentions are. He might think about that after the fact.

So again, in the heat of the moment, that's not the time to have these kinds of conversations. In terms of intentions around what they want for themselves in the future or what type of emotional connection they're interested in the future or what type of emotional connection they're interested in committing to or building with you. Like that's not what they're thinking about when they are hot and heavy, so to speak. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess like the other thing is I just in the first month of dating, it's hard to tell sometimes what their intentions are.

I mean, I guess maybe they don't know in the first month. Yeah. It's probably more of that. When you're dating these guys, are you usually, if you like a guy and you're like, you're on a second or third date, are you usually hooking up on some level? I feel like, yeah. Okay. Usually. It's usually them initiating it, but yeah. Sure, yeah. And again, I've had some fun. I've been a fuck boy.

You can be a fuck boy too. I'm just saying these conversations that you want to have with these men about what are your expectations and what you really want for a relationship, I think it's also important to have with yourself. Right? right and i think if right now if you're more of in a season of i'm tired of you know these kind of casual hookups and i'm tired of getting invested emotionally with these guys i barely know and getting excited only to be disappointed i want to date i want to date with intention i want to get to know someone i want to meet someone i really like and then get to know them and build a connection it might serve you well just to slow it down sexually early on because sex can confuse both parties. It's a very powerful thing. It gets a lot of emotions going. It complicates things. It just

does. You know, we can, again, we can be sex positive and still respect the power of sex at the same time. You know, you have the right to do it. You have the right to do it without judgment, but it still doesn't stop it from impacting your relationships with the people that you're having sex with. So yeah, maybe in the first month when guys are very easily confused by their own emotions and their whoriness and they're kind of saying whatever,

take the sex off the table. No rounding second, you know, heavy makeouts, some light petting. And a guy who really likes you, a guy who's really connecting with you, he'll wait. He will. He just will. You know, I don't, I don't care how sexual he is. I don't care how much sex he's had before. If he likes you, he will wait certainly a few weeks, a month. He will have no problem taking you on on dates and getting to know you and having conversations and having heavy makeouts with you that you get guys both really excited and want to take each other's clothes off. But that kind of like, not yet, it can be fun and exciting and you can build a lot of great sexual tension

by not giving in to that temptation early on and having that build all while, you know, prioritizing like really getting to know each other on these dates. And I think you could just kind of slow that part down. I think you will see a lot of development in the emotional connection space if you slow it down and again you don't have to and you're you're not wrong for wanting to fuck around i'm just saying

it might serve you well to to try a different method because i do think sex early on very much confuses both parties yeah no i definitely agree with that i think the only like question about that is like if they're being nice and doing nice things for you for the first month like maybe they're just doing it because they want to sleep with you versus they actually like you i talk about this a lot in my book and building an emotional connection like i i don't think you know making them wait a month for the sake of waiting a month you're right is is ultimately not going to like like, if they're just waiting around to sleep with you, chances are if you have sex with them in a month,

you'll get the same reaction. You know, I think in that month that you're, let's say you meet a guy and you're like, okay, I'm going to do it a little different now. You know, before, by third date, I'd be like, this guy's hot. We're vibing. Let's fuck, you know, let's hook up. You know, that's what I would normally do. I'm going to try it a little different. So now I'm not going to do that. And we're going to go on a series of dates and we're going to try to build a connection.

I think it's important. Again, I think a lot of times in those situations, we'll start the stopwatch, so to speak. Be like, all right, I'm going to wait a month, you know, and you're like literally marking days off the calendar of how many days I'm going to make him wait before I get to sleep with him. You shouldn't do that. No, it's like, okay, well, I'm not going to set an arbitrary deadline, like 10 dates or a month. No, I'm just, right now, I'm definitely not going to sleep with you. And what you're just going to focus on is getting to know him. And you're just going to check in with yourself and check in with him every day and feel like, are you building trust with this person? Do you feel like you are really getting to know him?

Or do you feel like this person's just kind of saying what you want to hear? And are the conversations very sexual? If every time you're trying to connect with him, he finds a way to turn the conversation back around on sex and what you like in the bedroom and things like that, then you probably know that that's where his head's going. You know, is he asking in this month of you like slowing down, is he asking you questions that make you feel like he's getting to know you, you know, that again, aren't focused around sex. And that might allow you to like build some more trust with him and feel more, you know,

comfortable. Like there's no guarantees you're right. You could wait a month and have sex with him and you can flip a switch. But I don't think we're checking in with ourselves as much as we should. And I think if we are slowing things down sexually, sometimes we will set this arbitrary deadline and we'll make it all about the deadline. And we're just trying to meet the deadline. And in the time in which we're slowing things down, we're not actually thinking about the type of conversations we want to have. And we're not checking in with ourselves. Like, hey, do I feel like I know him a lot more than I did two weeks ago? Am I still comfortable? Because sometimes you could set that arbitrary

deadline and like, oh, I guess I get to sleep with him today. You haven't thought, well, I don't know. Nothing's really changed in three weeks. I'm still as unsure about him as I was three weeks ago. I don't really know how he feels about me, but hey, it's been a month, so let's fuck. You could very much get to that point and say, well, nothing has changed. And so I'm not ready to sleep with him yet. I'm not ready to not hang out with him, but I just want to keep doing what we're doing. I think it's trying to change our patterns of behavior and be honest with ourselves about the choices we're making and then just try to slow things down and then check in with ourselves a little bit more often. Because I think, yeah, I think sometimes we confuse like

setting expectations and boundaries with like these arbitrary deadlines. And well, I told him I don't want to just hook up. And then, again, when we kind of reverse engineer it and think about that situation, it's like, well, I kind of told him we were half naked and he kind of said this, but I never really followed up after we were done making out. And we never really sat down and actually talked about what we want for ourselves and what type of relationships we're looking for and what our timelines are. No, I mean, I asked him when we were half naked. These are awkward conversations. timelines are now i mean i asked him when we were half naked these are awkward conversations so we'll like we'll latch on to these things and then think oh well i asked him maybe i pushed him away yeah no that's true i think also like i did start reading part of your book and like you listed things that were like behaviors of fuckboys yeah um and like is it possible to tell in the first

month if like if they're doing those behaviors or is it just so early on that it's like too soon to know no i think it's you could definitely tell are they inconsistent you know i talked about inconsistency being the one of the biggest red flags if you're hanging out with a guy you know in the first month and if you've expressed to him a desire to it's like hey i really i like what i know so far these These were two really fun dates. I, this is great. I'd love to see you again. And he's like, yeah, I'd love to see you too. Or yeah, sure. Like maybe sometime next week, you know? Well, that's a confusing statement. What do you, maybe some, maybe sometime next week. So maybe we'll hang out. I don't even know what day and I don't even know what we'll do. It's very different than I'd love to.

How about next Thursday? I know a great place I want to take you. Well, that's clarity. And the other one's confusion. And if he's being confusing, you know, you need to recognize that you're confused because a lot of times in those situations, we'll lie to ourselves

because you've said to him, you were vulnerable and you said to him, I really had a good first dates, first two dates with you. I want to see you again. And he responds with, yeah, me too. Maybe sometime next week. So first our egos will only want to hear the me too. Oh, he agreed with me. He feels the same way as me. And then we'll kind of be like, oh, and then he also said like sometime next week. So like, cool. Like he didn't reject me. Great. And then we'll, we'll only focus on the fact that we weren't actually rejected. But later on, as a couple of days go by, we're like, well, are we, are we hanging out? You're like, you'll talk to your girlfriends and be like, oh, I told them

this. They're like, well, so when are you getting together? You're like, well, I don't know. Like maybe sometime next week. And we're not actually acknowledging to ourselves the confusion that we actually have about the situation. And so to your question, like, can you tell? Yeah, I think we, again, we just have to, we actually have to listen to what they're saying to us. And we have to not be afraid of that like sense of rejection of I was vulnerable with him

and he gave me some like noncommittal, very aloof, confusing answer. Maybe sometime next week. That response is, I'm not ready to prioritize you or this relationship. I am interested in keeping my options open. The maybes or the willsies, sometimes these kind of like positive,

like noncommittal responses are just, those are very fuck boyish words because they're all about like keeping you close, but not putting themselves out there to commit to anything that they have to follow through on. So it's just listening to little things like that. Yeah. I think I just, like I noticed it, but then I tell myself like it's just the first month. So maybe it will change, but I guess maybe that's not how it works

yeah i mean listen it can change but it usually changes when you call it out either with your words or your actions if a guy says well maybe sometime next week you could kind of playfully be like i don't i don't know what maybe sometime next week means like do you actually want to go you know be playful and then tell yourself well he's literally committed to nothing i'm not going to sit around and wait for him to like let me know and that's a sign for yourself to maybe consider other options get back on the apps it's a sign for yourself to say well yeah i've had a two nice dates but like two good dates you know it sucks i get it because like it's hard enough to have good dates it really is we have we have more bad dates than good dates and yet two good

dates doesn't tell you anything and i know it's like a kind of a shitty reality i feel like i'm the grim reaper of like dating bad news but even though good dates are hard to find just because you have two great dates with someone. It's just, it's the very start of something. And too often we will hang on to like, oh my God, I had an amazing first date or amazing two first dates and we'll hang on to that and we won't want to risk it. We don't want to like, we don't want to like take away from the shine of those two dates. So we'll lie to ourselves and not be honest with ourselves about their follow-up and their confusing statements and their fuckboy activities and things like that. Because we had two great dates that followed 10 bad dates with 10 guys that we just couldn't connect with at all.

I guess in my scenarios, usually I notice it and I call it out and then they kind of get pushed away by that but then that just probably shows they weren't that interested yeah totally and it's not that they're not interested in you they're just not like at a place where they want to prioritize anyone but for the time being i would just as a social experiment to yourself like next time you have a good first couple of dates with a guy and you're, and you're like, I really want to like, fuck, he's hot. I want to hook up with them. Don't. And you can tell him that honestly, like I, I want you, but like right now, like I want to get to know you even more. So if you're down for that, let's keep hanging out.

But like, I'm chilling on the, uh, on the hookup front And just see how it goes. See if you're able and challenge yourself to still have productive conversations. See if they still show an interest. And yeah, maybe wait longer than a month. The right guy will wait. He will. He's not going to bail. The right guy isn't going to invest in you in a month to get to know you and connect with you and get to a month and then have you say i'm not ready yet and then bail on you if he does he's not your guy he's just some fuck boy who was hanging around for sex so i i hope and i know like society doesn't like make it easy but i hope for you and all the women listening just to not ever feel bad about not having sex because you're afraid he won't like

you or afraid, you know, like those are just guys who aren't interested in making a priority. Like there are a lot of great guys out there. Even the fuck boys for the right person will be a softy and a compassionate understanding patient King, you know, with the right person. And so just know that it's just not the right people if they're not willing to give that energy to you. And it's not a you problem. It's a them problem. Yeah. That makes sense. Let's definitely have to try that. I think that'll help. And I think you just kind of tell yourself that you really got to have that in your mindset because like the more you can project that energy to the

guys you're dating where it's just you're not worried about their approval and you're not worried about their validation especially when it comes to like hooking up it would be a very attractive quality yeah you know i think it's just been not the right person for a lot of times totally and i know that can get discouraging uh but you're a very beautiful person. I'm sure plenty of guys are chomping at the bit to have a chance to date you. There's a lot of lonely men out there. I think the more you can be honest with yourself and call out the fuck boy activity and pay attention to the questions these guys are asking you and how they're responding and the type of topics they want to talk about with you will really tell you a lot about their intentions. Well, this is great. Thanks for calling again. Very relatable

stuff. I always like to kind of have these kind of general dating questions that are very relatable because this is the stuff I think we often get wrong. It's very confusing. And I think it's just kind of subtle adjustments we can make and just little key things that we can pay attention to to help us feel a lot more kind of in control and empowered when it comes to our dating life. Yeah, definitely. I think this helps a lot. So thank you. Awesome. All right.

Well, take care. Good luck. Keep us posted on, you know, if you try new things with dating, we'd love to hear about it. Like success stories are always great. I'm sure a lot of people listening would love to hear things you did in the past, things you try differently and how, how it played out.

Thanks so much. All right. Thank you. Thanks for listening guys. Don't forget vile files. Plus is now available. So sign up now seven day free trial. You do not want to miss out better date than never live on Thursday,

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