Wednesdays - 119: Toxic Relationships, Red Flags & THE ICK Ft. LalalaLetMeExplain

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Hello tiny winies, we have an extra special treat for you this week!! Sophie and Melissa are joined by the anonymous relationship extraordinaire LalalaLetMeExplain. From decoding red flags, limerence and toxic relationships, Lala will be talking through all things relationships with the girls. Don’t miss it! Listen to LalalaLetMeExplain's new podcast, It's Not You, It's Them...But It Might Be You.Thanks for listening x-Instagram / TikTok / YouTube: @wednesdayswedrinkwineEmail: [e-mail]-Credits:Podcast Producer & Editor: @kat.milsomAdditional Producer: @jemimarathboneVideographer: @jamierg99Social Media: @emzchampionAssistant Producer: @maiaadelia.docs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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guys advice but as we love giving you guys advice do not take what we're saying as gospel if you do feel like you need to speak to somebody please seek professional help hello hello i'm just having a little she's having a little coffee oh my god have you seen that thing it's like don't talk to me before my morning coffee so annoying i'm kind of like that don't be one of those people i've got a coffee there but sometimes they make me honestly like a bit shaky i'm all right with it yeah i know she like has one asleep so you sleep like a lot before bed sometimes weird no no restaurant my whole family we order a coffee after dinner i taught you know this i know you do i do an affogato sometimes a little bit of ice cream an affogato is that what they're called affogato yeah you know all these like weird and wonderful things like i've

seriously like i found a permission on zap fillet a permission they are okay so we've got a really epic guest on today we never get a bit nervous when we have a guest on. We also are very cheesy with our guests. We are, I'm sorry. So if you've ever been on our podcast, you're welcome. We're really happy if we're all going to benefit you guys, really. Yeah, yeah. We really think about what you guys would like to hear.

Yeah, and also that we're going to be seriously interested. We can sink our teeth into it. Yeah, we've got a few upcoming guests that we're very excited about. But today, she's basically anonymous. She's anonymous. into it yeah we've got a few coming upcoming guests that we're very excited about but today she's basically anonymous she's so we don't ever reveal her identity but you get to hear her words her words of wisdom wise words of wisdom la la la let me explain you guys may have like heard of her she's a best-selling author she's an anonymous relationship expert she's known for her raw and honest dating relationship advice.

I mean, she's got an Instagram, which is just incredible. And she's got an actually, she's got a column in the OK Mag. She's pretty good. She's got a book. She's got a bestselling book. Yeah. Block, delete, move on. It's not you, it's them.

She's got a lot going on. Okay, so please welcome the one, the only, la la la, let me explain. We're so grateful and so excited to have you on. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Yay, thank you. Obviously, you're blood out so no one can see because you are anonymous. I'm totally anonymous. Yeah, I'm like the Z-list poor Banksy of the dating world. I literally earlier I was like she's like Banksy yeah I wish I was more financially like Banksy but yeah I'm the

best-selling book yeah this is true but you know authors don't make any money what yeah authors don't make any money if you this is why i've got a real people often will tag my book and be like i lent this to my friend and then she lent it to her cousin and i slowly die inside because i'm like i only earn about three pence or something off every book and i don't even earn that yet whereas jeff bezos gets like 6.99 oh fuck so yeah if you've got a book that you like don't pass it around your friends unless you're all really, you know, cost of living crisis. But if you can afford to buy it for your friend, get it. But it's a dating guide.

It's the dating guide that I wish that I had before I started dating. It's just literally everything in there that I think is aimed at women, heterosexual women. But loads of people have messaged me to say that they can apply it to whoever they date. And I wish more men would read it because I think it would give men a lot of insight into the experiences that we're having on the dating scene. But yeah, it's a good book and it's helped a lot of people. So I'm really proud of it. That's amazing. We do get boys listening in to this and they ask us dilemmas. And I love it because I think as two girls you know we can only speak from our own

like experiences or our own thoughts and I think yeah but we just they're intrigued we are very different and like the way I hope they want to know the way that we understand things in the way that we see things you know there are the really toxic boys but there are the really like shy boys who are just you know not yeah that won't understand how to like yeah girls are like them but they're the good ones yeah we just wanted to sort of know where it all started from you for you like also why the anonymous sorry that's not a question we have on here but i'm just quite intrigued yeah so i um started off as a social work well i started off as a sexual health and relationships educator about 20 years ago now i worked for the nh as a sexual health and relationships educator about 20 years ago now. I worked for the NHS delivering sexual health and relationships information in schools and prisons, all settings for people under 21.

And then that motivated me to go into social work. I wanted to go into child protection. So I was a child protection social worker. I started that around well I started studying for that in 2003 that's amazing that must have been pretty hard you must have seen somebody yeah it's a very brutal yeah it's a brutal job it's uh it's it's it's a lot it's a lot that's amazing you did that though thank you I mean it's really hard job and like shout out to anyone who's on the front line in social services especially now because things are so awful that the government has stripped so much money from social care that

children are so vulnerable so shout out to everyone who's still out there doing it um so I was doing that um and I kind of specialized in domestic abuse I had a real expertise in that but at the same time I was also dating men and having a really shit time of it and so I was at work like helping people to manage relationships helping people to leave abusive relationships but then I was going home and like begging a man to treat me better you know so it was like I had all this professional knowledge but I didn't actually apply it to myself I was just some reckless which is what we all do yeah um and I just I I always call him the fuck boy that broke the camel's back because it was like I'd had this kind of string of failed romances and then I dated this guy and he really gave me hope and then it was just another one that

was just like narcissist waste man whatever label every label you can think of it could have been applied to him and then I just had all these light bulbs going off in my head they were all just like oh my god you're an idiot and that was a red flag and what what have you been it was like everything started connecting in my head and I just had this big urge that I wanted every other woman to know I wanted to go up to women in the street and be like did you big urge that I wanted every other woman to know I wanted to go up to women in the street and be like did you know when they do this this is what it means and I thought like the book of knowledge yeah yeah like I just really had this strong urge so I decided to put it out in a blog and uh but and that's why I was anonymous because I was still a

social worker right and I was writing really personal stuff about my dating life so it was just like let me write this out like it's almost like a diary and then it just went viral and then everything just sort of followed on from there so you've really seen every angle of the dating life and like just life with men and relationships the whole thing yeah you just had like a arch you needed to help people yeah it was just this kind of it was just like everything makes sense to me now you know whereas it should have before because I've been doing this work for a really long time but then yeah it was just it made sense and I just wanted to put it out there I had no intention of making any type of career out of it didn't think

I'd be able to leave social work but but it's all just kind of happened accidentally. And essentially you're still helping people. So it's still in the same line. Like you're still giving people advice. You're still helping them. You're still there for them. And, you know, it's probably very rewarding. Yeah, I'm still a qualified social worker and I do see the work that I do as social work.

It's more like social work education. So I'm hopefully putting out information that might help people to prevent ever having to be under social services you know so and my podcasts my original podcasts were classed as CPD so anyone who's like a therapist or a social worker or a midwife can listen to my old podcasts and that counts towards their professional development oh my god that's incredible so that's amazing not sure about the new ones but you might as well listen to them anyway you know just just for all the listeners these are new podcasts they're going to be if you've listened to my old ones they're quite different my old ones were really long form

and they were kind of deep dives into things like child sexual exploitation right abuse the new ones are going to be very different. So I'm working with Sony Music, and it's going to be three times weekly short episodes. They're about 15 minutes each. And on a Monday, we'll be doing Hot Topics. So, for example, say we were recording this week, the Hot Topic might be something like the Jonah Hill story, you know?

So we'll have a look into that and then on wednesdays i'm gonna be uh stepping into my agony on mode again which is what i do for okay magazine on a monday um so people can send in questions and i'll answer the questions and then on friday it's going to be basically making my insta come alive so we do lots of different things on my insta like ick stories fuck boy replies oh interesting so we do all of that on on the friday and we'll have guests and stuff so it'll be more kind of fun getting you into the weekend to have a fuck boy free weekend basically you've got a good mix of everything going on yeah that's lovely i'm interested to know like this may be very personal please don't feel like you have to i'm interested to know because you've obviously seen the worst of the worst like do

you sort of are you very wary with guys like how's your dating situation now so I'm sort of seeing someone okay um but I um I'm I'm open to trusting people I'm not like paranoid or anything yeah I I have got to work really hard to not become sort of a desensitized but also I hear so much like if you were to open my DMs now there would be a hundred new messages from somebody women mainly telling me some awful thing that's happened to them last night or today or something like you know it's constant it's constant and it's really easy to just go men are fucked like I can swear can't I yes men are fucked like what is the point in this the safest option for any woman would just be to stay away from them all but at the same time I also know so many amazing men I know so many people in beautiful relationships I have so many men

contacting me uh who are just lovely and who are doing the work and so I do have that faith and I I feel quite sure that I know the red flags and that I'm in a position now that I would run from them if if they appeared yeah um and and I'm actually not really that scared of getting hurt because I know that to be open to love, you have to be open to hurt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to, like, expose all your vulnerabilities and, like, part of that is just the process, really, isn't it?

And if you don't, really, you're never sort of fully opening yourself up to that sort of situation. Yeah, exactly. It's quite scary so i guess we just wanted to sort of like get some advice and insight into you like what you would give our listeners there's also questions that we have from our listeners that we're probably not very and qualified is the wrong word but we don't have an experience we're not that qualified let's just put it around we're not that qualified we wouldn't know what to say we probably give

we're very opinionated but perhaps it's not on what we would do in scenarios but for example like this first question is dating as a single mom how to make time how to meet people how to approach the fact you have children etc we're not very good at maybe approaching that subject because we don't really have any experience yeah so dating as a single parent is a really hard thing to do you know dating is hard anyway right but since the dating apps have like blown up and taken over and become the kind of primary way that people would meet people I can't even imagine it has opened up this whole new like realm of just how on earth like how do you create for me when I text you I don't know if you're replying well obviously

I know you say well you're my best friend but sometimes like you just get lost in translation how you ever manage what someone's like or if they're

going to pick up on your jokes yeah I think and what's happened is that things like ghosting have become really common like just par for the

course like people are just casually throw away people that they've had connections with because that's just what people do now. Can't bother. Yeah. It's socially acceptable now. It's like, oh, I'm just going to ride them. Yeah. I'll add them. Well, it's just being more of a coward, isn't it? It's just easier to not

reply. It's so unbelievably common. And I think people just treat people in a really casual way. People aren't investing. People are often dating with this sense that like, this is okay, but maybe there's something better, you know? It used to be back in the day that you casual way people aren't investing people have are often dating with this sense that like this is okay but maybe there's something better you know it used to be back in the day that you would have your one partner and that was it and you were so committed now it's like oh but there's five other girls you can't just scroll these and i also think no no offense to these tv shows like love island but it's very much so like it's i feel like it's normalizing like oh but there might be a bombshell that walks in i'm not going to close myself off to you yet even though we have this great connection because someone

better might come along and I want to have fun in Castro and all this shit and I'm just like it's giving this really bad like yeah I think I agree examples when I first started dating in the 90s you know you had a house phone you had a landline that's all we had and then we had pages and if you met someone you weren't really sure whether anyone else was going to come around at any time soon so that's all you had and if you didn't hear from them you'd go to their mum's house yeah and not from the door reverse charge call them from a phone box you know like life was really different back then and people it would have been easier so easy to get a boyfriend back in the 90s early 2000s

and then things have changed dramatically but not only have they changed dramatically but also then your life changes dramatically when you become a single parent and so as hard as it is if you don't have any children because I guess you can you can put more into it you know if you are going on lots of different dates it's just kind of okay because that's you? If you are going on lots of different dates, it's just kind of okay because that's you. Whereas if I am going on a date, I have to contact my mum first to say, hi mum, could you have him on the 15th or whatever?

And then if she can't, then I'd have to go back to the date and say, hey, could you do the 26th? And then if they can't, then I'm like, mum, could you do the third? God, it's a lot of logistics. And then they fucking go through and they don't tell. And then by that,'t, then I'm like, mum, could you do the third? God, it's a lot of logistics. And then they fucking go to you and they don't tell. And then by that, are they still even around four weeks or two weeks later when you finally got your six hours of child free time?

And then after that, when, you know, how do you arrange the next day? And actually, if they don't have any children. They can't. Do you broach the facts that you say I've got a child? You know, they're going to want to date that woman who's freely available during weeknights and whatever so so and then if they've got children it makes it even harder because you've got to coordinate your child free weekends with them it's really i would have thought it would have made it easier if they had children it's maybe easier because it's more they're more understanding yeah the logistics is probably harder because if you're

so i have my son every other weekend and then if I meet a man and it's happened a few times where their weekend clashes with mine, so they have their kid when I don't and vice versa, then it's just impossible. And probably, I assume you're quite protective over who your son meets. You're not going to just be like, oh, let's blend all the families on the first date. That's the thing as a, you know, a big tip for single parenting dating is really take it slow. And you can't, I mean mean it wouldn't be a terrible thing you know say you got to know someone and it was a few weeks in and you both had kids similar age it wouldn't be a terrible thing or traumatic to any child if you were to say hey me and my friend yeah uh we're gonna go to the zoo and they've got a child your age you don't have to

say this is my new boyfriend no exactly so you're right you know so yes you can do things like that without that being problematic for a child but obviously you know i wouldn't again i wouldn't recommend this to a single woman either to invite men from dating apps to their their house just don't do that like in the early stages you know but if you have children like extra don't do that like if you want to be reckless with your own life that's absolutely fine but you can't be reckless when you have a child in the house make sure that child in the house yeah you and your child comes first no matter what and I guess it makes you more conscious about the red flags and about the decisions that you do make again because it's not just you now when I was you know before I had a child you could just like all right well he seems really dangerous but

he's so hot and now it's like yeah he's hot he's dangerous that's just can't run anymore you know help us with the psychology of like why we all because we're all guilty of it kind of just like a bad boy well i mean a lot of it is probably down to your attachment style because actually i really i'm fucked i've got a laser that i must be i want to get away from the idea that women love bad boys you know women love being treated badly because this is definitely like

an emerging theme that's coming out of a lot of these misogyny podcasts I must just stop like I'm married to someone who is a very good boy

like he can be more sweet I'm probably the harsh one in the relationship so I haven't I have stayed away from that

but obviously like when you're younger you do just sort of if you're rejected there's something you want the more I mean I think it is really common because a lot of people are anxiously attached or have like disorganized attachment styles and I mean so so there there is it's a very complex thing the whole women and bad boys thing and I mean I I took that to extremes like I was very much into like you know people who were going to jail and selling drugs and you were like I can change them I wasn't just like I want a bad boy I want the worst like I want the gang member off the side of the road no I've got a

friend who's literally like that like the more fucked up they are she's like come to mama i'll protect you and i'm like no not him again it was i guess it was this weird sense of like they can protect me and also i loved the idea of making a really hard man softer it's also i feel like they're more vulnerable they need people more yeah and i when they crash they're high and then they can do that then there's that then i've always had that social work tendency of like sure i can help everyone i can change everyone's life yeah i can fix you little crack dealer like let me let me be your shining light um obviously i'm over that now that is a long time in the past was there a point where you were like this is quite dangerous well not really so I've got ADHD and I grew up in quite a chaotic household and my dad was uh quite an emotionally abusive person and I have always been quite addicted to chaos. And I think a lot of people find that the patterns of the relationships that they're choosing now are very linked to their childhoods.

And so if it was familiar to you to be in a state of chaos, volatility, to not know what was going to happen next, to not know whether your dad was going to love you and be really proud of you or tell you you were, you know, fat and ugly, you know, as a child, it was like oh what next you know like where's my dopamine coming from and then the relationships that I chose as as a young woman you know reflected that. I think just leading on from this I'd like to, like, how to navigate when you're in a toxic relationship. Like, lots of the girls have written in or boys have written in saying, like, how to help a friend when they're in a toxic relationship.

What advice would you give to yourself back then? It's really difficult because I think that we all know that when you are in something like that, there is absolutely nothing that anybody in the entire world can say to you. It's so true. That would get you out of it. Absolutely nothing. They could show you a video of you in your future. I don't know, laying on the road as a complete alcoholic because you can not cope any longer

with how much this man has traumatized you. And you are still not going to go. Oh, I've seen my future. You will still stay. You're not done with it yet. So, so, I've seen my future. You will still stay. You're not done with it yet. So it is really important to know that people will never be saved until they're ready to save themselves.

So you can drop little gems in every now and then, but becoming like obsessed with trying to save your friend from a toxic relationship will probably just more likely sever your relationship, your friendship. It's important to be there for people. It's important to not make your friendship solely about like, what's he doing? He's really awful. You know, make your friendship. A lot of people make that mistake.

But make your friendship really like a break from that toxic relationship. So when she comes and sees you, it's fun. She's having a really good time. She realizes there is life and liberation and freedom outside of what she's got. And you can say, you know, I would wait for a friend to like offer you that information. Because also what you really don't want to do is put them in a position where, and again, you may relate. I've done it many times before where i have stopped telling my friends when he's done something when a man's done something toxic because i know they're

gonna just be like oh my god what the hell are you doing he's fucking awful so i just won't i'm just not going to tell you because i don't want you to say that to me whereas if you've created a friendship a safe space where you're not constantly berating my boyfriend then I'm more likely to come to you when he's done something that I need to talk to you about you know and then again it should never be like this is abusive you know why why are you still with him it has to be like you know what you just said I would find that worrying um you know just drop the little drop the little nugget into their head so that they realise that maybe they think about it in a different way but don't be, like, determined to make them think differently about their partner.

Just let them know that you're always going to be there for them no matter what. But don't try to force anybody to leave a relationship. Yeah, because you'll be the one who loses. Yeah. Okay, right. So why do we think people suddenly get the ick? a relationship it's just you'll be the one who loses yeah okay right so why do we think people suddenly get the ick

is the ick even a real thing yeah oh my god it is I know it is but I do feel like there's this sense of like oh I'm you know

it's the way I tied up my shoelace I got the ick no I do that's not a thing let me explain I saw a boy's toenail and I was like ick

I take responsibility for being the person that brought the ick to Instagram. Now, I know I didn't invent the ick. I know it came from Love Island. The ick is not just general turn offs. You can call that the ick because the word works. Oh, sure. I get it wrong now.

So, for example, I could say, oh, I get the ick when a man picks his nose and eats his bogey. Of course, everybody is going to get that. That's just a general turn off. Sure. example I could say oh I get the ick when a man picks his nose and eats his bogey of course everybody is gonna get that's just a general turn off sure the the thing about the ick is that it is a rational totally unreasonable and it is beyond your control and I don't know if you've ever felt it I have but it is like a sudden repulsion and it's usually with somebody who you really like and it can happen for absolutely no reason. I really like this guy. And he turned up at my house and he had a bit of mud on his trainers.

And I was like, oh my God. And that was it. I couldn't look at him for the rest of the night. I couldn't have sex with him, which is what we planned to do. And you can't say to someone, it's because you turned up at my door with mud on your shoes. Because that doesn't make sense. And it wasn't the mud. It wasn't the shoes.

It was the ick. I've had the ick from someone wearing a t-shirt with a pattern on it and again it wasn't bad fashion or anything it's just one of those things that when the ick hits it hits and that is why it's really important to talk about because actually you can feel like a massive bitch when you get it because you can think how can i end a relationship with this incredible human who i really want to have something with how can i end it with him because he dropped his glove you know dropped his glove or he did a little trip up a step you know how can i put what a little person am i to end it but actually it's really important for us to share these stories because it's normal because it's a thing and it's actually it's really important for us to share these stories because it's normal because it's a thing and it's actually instead of trying to continue to date somebody who you feel

totally repulsed by the sound of them breathing makes you feel sick and you try and force yourself because you think there's no reason for me to feel like this but you've got the ick um and there's lots of different reasons behind why people think that it might happen so there's some explanations that are rooted in like evolutionary psychology and this is particularly for uh women obviously when we're dating whether we want kids or not we're all subconsciously assessing whether this person is going to be a good parent to our child yeah and a lot of the the ick that comes from you know them tripping up a little bit or them i don't know hitting their elbow on a car door or something again which are not things that

you should end a relationship with sure but apparently there may be something within our brains that goes that person's a bit clumsy they're going to drop our baby on its head so they're not going to be a safe partner so cut that one out because they're not going to hold my baby no this is fascinating this is boomer i there are also explanations that are like rooted in obviously attachment and things like that and and self self-defense really like self-protection and self-sabotage so you're thinking deep down within you you you have such a strong fear that this person is going to reject you that you are searching for whatever it is that you can

find to reject them first to protect yourself to sabotage the relationship before they can do it to you and when does that when you say that's to do with attachment what would your attachment probably be before that to start that well it could be any of them really so people with avoidant attachment styles will also be quite prone to the ick um because they will get this kind of sense of suffocation and intensity like if somebody likes them too much what's an avoidance if you've got an avoidant attachment style then you are somebody who can probably have a bit of intimacy probably likes a bit of intimacy, probably likes a bit of intimacy. But when it starts to get too real, you panic and you feel suffocated and you want to avoid.

So a lot of men will have avoidant attachment styles. And that's actually because attachment is developed in childhood and it's related to the people that we first bond with so our caregivers yeah and what we do with a lot of girls if you raise girls traditionally people will be very like wrap them in cotton wool and if the girl falls over it's like oh my god darling are you okay but then when our little boy falls over we're like get up big boy don't cry move on you know so then we are raising you know little boys who are not used to getting that emotional attention and and that love and that empathy that they might need in vulnerable situations we tell them be a

man you know men don't cry grow up uh and so what that does is that that leads them to have a quite uncertain attachment to their caregivers they know that their caregiver is that that leads them to have a quite uncertain attachment to their caregivers. They know that their caregiver is going to be there to give them food and tuck them in at night. That person's not going to be there to meet their emotional needs. So they develop an avoidant attachment because they don't think that in their adult relationships, they're going to get those needs met. So anxious. going to get those needs met you know so anxious so I'm well I don't know if I'm anxiously attached because it's all very complex and it's difficult to kind of diagnose yourself because I've always gone around saying I'm anxiously attached and I blame that on the fact that my dad left my mum

for her best friend when I was seven and my mum's best friend was quite close to us so there was this whole thing with inside me that my dad left me for another woman you know at age seven that's how you take it in isn't it like I couldn't make my dad stay yeah so I wasn't good enough I wasn't good enough and on top of that I had a dad who would tell me I can't take you out today because you're too unattractive you look disgusting you look like a tramp I had a weekend planned for you but look at your hair we can't can't leave the house you know so of course I've grown up like do I look okay what do I need to do you know it's all about your childhood oh without a doubt and so I'm very anxiously or I thought I was very anxiously attached because the way that I approach relationships is like oh my god love me

love me love me yeah if you haven't answered my message within an hour like you're gone you've rejected me you've left me for that my mum's best friend you know that's somewhere deep inside me although I wonder if I'm anxiously attached because I'm I can make brilliant friendships you know I have really secure attachments with women I get on really well with women and I can bond with people really easily and I don't fear that they're going to leave me at all so I have very secure attachments and attachment style with women but I have quite I'm quite disorganized a bit anxious with with men although I'm learning and I'm working on that in therapy but if somebody has been like seriously abused in childhood

then they will have like a fearful avoidant attachment style um and those are people who are very afraid of love but then can be very intense and very codependent it's all messy and then everybody's gonna play out differently for everyone and it also just explains so much about like why relationships are just so fucking hard that's so complicated because we're all so different. We've all had different childhoods. We've all gone through different like ups and downs and like no, you know,

that builds who you are, that forms who you are. But you, it's hard for two people then to gel and like you become one almost in a sense. Yeah. You merge your lives together, but you're taking on their troubles and they're taking on yours. Yeah.

And that's why I think it's really important to to you know once you're deep into a relationship actually having that vulnerability and being able to really a understand yourself you can't understand your partner as well if you don't understand yourself but to to strip that back like understand their childhood understand their insecurities what they went through you know some people have really beautiful strong you know parents who who raise them impeccably but it's still you know those people will likely have a secure attachment a lot of people are just very securely attached and what does that mean yeah so that means that you can you can make bonds with people you are open to love um you're probably pretty good at communicating you don't

have any anxiety if somebody doesn't uh message you back after a couple of hours you're you're securing yourself you know that that love is available to you you know that your emotional needs are going to be met and that you can meet your own emotional needs as well um you're just you're just secure so secure people can be really. If you've got one secure partner and then an anxious partner, the secure partner can be really good for the anxious partner. But like an anxious and an avoidant together is the worst that you could ever have. Because avoidance is pulling away and anxious is literally having a nervous breakdown because the avoidant is pulling away.

You know, it just doesn't work. This is so interesting. I can't. FanDuel Casino Daily Jackpots. Guaranteed to hit by 11pm with your chance at the number one feeling. Winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do.

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Please play responsibly. Green, pink, red flags. Well, that's three different things yeah so obviously everybody knows what red flags are i think it's really important to know what red flags are especially if you're heading out into the world of dating get really familiar with what you think the red flags um you know with what they are you can read that in my book um so a red flag is danger run you know like if you're sitting on a date with somebody and they tell you that they've just come out of prison for killing a woman right of course you're like

quite an obvious massive red flag there's no options just go um but but red flag doesn't always have to be about domestic abuse it can also be if they turn up to the date with a wedding ring on big red flag they're married go a pink flag is a step below a red flag so it's not something that you immediately need to run necessarily but it's a warning sign it's a potential it's I'm not entirely sure they've said something a bit odd on the day right and I'm gonna mark this down as a pink flag. It's not enough for me to run, but it's enough for me to mark it. Then if we go on the next date and they say something equally as odd, then I've got two pink flags and two pink become a red. You don't want to collect pink flags. So, or maybe you might, you might be able to have two pink flags. If you've got three, absolutely just, just run. But again, you're going to have pink flags if you've got three absolutely just just run but again you're gonna have pink

flags for different things so a pink flag for someone who's married that might be they don't turn up with the wedding ring but they can never facetime you they can never have any communication with you after like work hours or whatever they can never invite you to their home so all of these things are like warning signs but you don't have the evidence. You don't have that final thing. So if they never FaceTime, that's one pink flag. But if everything else is fine and they're inviting you to their house, there's no more pink flags. But if they're not inviting you to their house, they're not FaceTime, then you've got the red flag. Got it, got it, got it.

Because you've collected your pink. Green flags is actually what we should be on the lookout for. We shouldn't even go on dates on the lookout for red flags because then you're just in a really shit state of mind you're not being you you're not relaxed exactly you're looking for danger don't do that because you will see them red flags do appear you don't have to search for them they they just come up it's like a boy phone you're gonna advise that you don't like yeah exactly they just red flags stand out to you what you need to be looking for is your green flags so what are your green flags what do you want from somebody do you like somebody who is really laid back and chilled or do you prefer someone who's like really charismatic and charming and the

center you know what are your green flags is so for example a green flag that's really important to me as somebody who's a bit anxiously attached is consistent communication. That is such a big green flag for me. And if they're coming with consistent communication, they're letting me know where I stand. They're providing me with reassurance. They're making me feel good. They've got healthy morals. They treat their mother beautifully you know they'll it'd be different for everyone but know what your green flags are yeah and and know that when you know you're out there dating there are people who can meet all of your green flags and you hold out for them and be on the search for them how do you help people navigate through chemistry and then get over that in order to see the pink flags

because i i personally believe it's so possible to like fancy someone and have a huge attraction have major chemistry with someone without even speaking to them right like i've had it on the tube before where i've seen someone and i've been like whoa and I'm like I could I could fall in love with you even though we've never spoken so when you do then have maybe two conversations with someone you've got something going already that you really feel within you like you feel something is I feel it's quite hard to be that you get blinded by that I think you are a limerent person what's that so I am I do not get that I have to like I fall in love with people purely for their personality

and the way they like that for me well I fall in love like that but I've but I don't I've had attraction before

I fancy so that's lust anyway yes yeah but so well you all think people are fit but I would never want to like

pursue anything well you're married so I'd hope not no well you're in a relationship so I don't relationship no but what I'm saying is with my partner I fancied him an insane amount when I sat down and we said like two words to each other okay I get it I'm saying if he then had pink flags how do you help someone navigate through that by not being blinded by it but I think that that is a lot related to like limerence and infatuation. So it's really important if you're learning about dating to learn about limerence. You can have a look on my Instagram.

I didn't even know this word. I've got limerence highlights on my Instagram. And I also talk about limerence in my book. And I'll definitely be doing limerence as a hot topic on the new podcast. Limerence, a lot of people don't know about. No, I've never heard of it. And it is, and a lot of people don't experience it, but a lot of people don't know about and it is and a lot of people don't experience it but a lot of people do and it is that thing of you meet someone and you really

fancy them and you become almost infatuated by them yeah yeah before you even know them like and you can't stop thinking about them you've matched with dating with them on a dating app you might be talking to 10 other people on the dating app who you've met but there's this one yeah and this one feels like oh my god they're going to be something big like because i just fancy them so much and this is i'm feeling this chemistry you know but it's how much is chemistry and how much are we telling this story it's a story in our minds i have that leonardo dicaprio thing from the great gatsby that's what i have i haven't seen that but maybe he's a limerent person too you know know the Great Gatsby?

I said this on the last podcast I did with Jamie. He met this girl Daisy years and years and years ago. They had like a one night stand and then it would have been like seven years since he last saw her. But he then had this infatuation. He obviously didn't love her. He met her once.

He created this whole story and it's amazing how amazing it would be when they were reunited and they reunited and she was like crazy and it never worked out and like yeah it was not what he expected but he was so infatuated that he let's say ignored all the red flags this is literally limerence is that infatuation yeah for some reason you cannot stop thinking about them your day is dictated by whether you've had contact with them or not you know like if you you could start off the morning with this deep sense of just like oh my

god that i haven't heard from them i just feel sick i feel awful the second they validate you by just messaging like hey babe what's up or something you know you're like oh my god like i can listen to my favorite song again and the sun's coming through the windows wow he said what's up i actually don't have that but this is a very but it's a very common thing if you've ended up in a relationship with the person you had limerence for yeah so it's different limerence does works differently so if you both have limerence for each other then you don't have any of the anxiety you just have the initial infatuation and then the limerence goes away because you've come together okay limerence is you feel the limerence when the other person isn't limerent for you too

so someone's just not that into you but you know sometimes they can be into you but your limerent energy can actually end up putting them off have a look at my limerent no i like it on instagram have you given your instagram handle because we must at la la la let me explain right we're all gonna be standing our whole evening I am absolutely mind blown why don't they teach us this shit in school oh my god I wish they did

what the fuck get my ass yeah we've all got Pythagoras rule but none of us know what the fuck's going on like in our lives I wish we had so much longer

we probably kept you too long no that's fine oh I have more questions okay so we're going to be listening to your podcast every Monday Wednesday and Friday.

Is it all coming out? Can you say the name of it? It's coming out on Monday the 17th of July is the first episode. Putting it in the diary as a reminder. But make sure you listen to all three because they'll all be totally different. So if the hot topic's not for you,

then you might really enjoy the dating dilemmas on a Friday. It's called It's Not You, It's Them, but it might be you we're so grateful thank you so much it's been so interesting and we're just going to do a part two but thank you so much thank you thanks guys love you so much We'll be right back. Jackpots. A chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11pm every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur.

Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded or 11pm Eastern. Restrictions apply. See full terms at canada.casino.fandu.com. Please play responsibly. That's it for this week Wednesdays, but God, don't you just fancy some more, Melissa? Yeah, I'd really love a follow-up to some of those dilemmas I want to know what happens well then tinies we have got some news for you we have launched a premium version of Wednesdays now listen subscribers get access to the podcast ad free with bonus episodes it's pretty amazing it's also packed full of Dilemma follow-ups, which we love,

and some of our more personal stories and recommendations. And it's super easy. You just listen on your favorite app. How cool is that? Amazing. And all the info is in the episode description and in our Insta bio.