Why Won't You Date Me? with Nicole Byer - Performative Allies (w/ Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman)

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

'Do you want to be an active ally, or do you just want to say that out loud?'Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman (Judge/host on Canada's Drag Race, Unreal) joins Nicole to unpack racial traumas from childhood, discuss the systematic racism in society, and rise in performative allies instead of active ones. After the break, Nicole shares her experience finding love at a Lassens.Be an active ally. For a list of resources and ways to help, check out blacklivesmatters.carrd.co.Follow Nicole Byer:Twitter: @nicolebyerInstagram: @nicolebyerFacebook: www.facebook.com/nicolebyercomedyBuy Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/nicole-byer?ref_id=964Order Nicole's book: www.indiebound.org/book/9781524850746Advertise on Why Won’t You Date Me via Gumball.fm

Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Please tell me why! Ooh, baby, welcome to another episode of Why Won't You Date Me? A podcast where me, Nicole Byer, tries to figure out how I'm still single, even though you could spit in my coffee every morning and I'd go, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, spicy.

My guest today, I fell in love with him on Unreal. You've seen him on RuPaul's Drag Race. You've seen him on American Horror Story. It's Jeff. Oh, and he is the host slash judge of Canada's Drag Race. It's Jeffrey Boyer Chapman. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Hi.

Oh, my gosh. what a great intro. You know, I try to keep them high energy and really fun because it's fun when you get credits said, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah, because I almost forget sometimes. I don't know about you, but my resume is certainly not the first thing that I self-identify with on a daily basis. In fact, I almost forget some of the jobs that I've done like oh shit that's right I did do that

yeah I recently did a podcast where they're like you know her from SNL and I was like they do when when did I do this and they're like that's what it says on the internet and I was like which internet are you on the dark web honey the dark web truly it's like what deep dark web are you on where there's an alternate reality where i've had a job i've never had just take it just take it jeffrey it's so nice to see you again i just did uh the canadian drag race podcast and that was a treat that was so much fun having you on the show, Nicole. It was like, like I said to you when you appeared, it was like, it was such a treat having somebody who is a Drag Race recap podcast pro and someone who's such a super fan of the show on as well. Yeah, I just, I love drag.

I think it's super fun. Wait, have you ever done drag you know i've done it a couple of times i want to say completely uh unofficially both times were in movies both times it was like quick drag it was um the hair and makeup done by a cisgendered female makeup artist who who you know really doesn't know how to do drag makeup properly so it wasn't necessarily the most authentic or uh you know beautiful representations of what drag is but it's something that rue and i talk about he's something that he threatened me with several years ago to get my ass in drag and i'm just holding him to it i'm just waiting

i'm waiting we were waiting until march came around when he was going to be back in drag quite often to do Drag Race UK. But that got nipped in the bud as coronavirus swept in and took over our lives. But one day I would love to. Have you done drag? I've been put in drag. I hesitate to say I've done drag because I haven't done it in like a queer space where it's like a drag show. But Monique Hart has put me in drag twice. Wow. Trixie Mattel and Monique put me in drag. And then honestly, sometimes late at night I stay awake and paint myself. Oh, that's adorable.

Yeah, I love playing with makeup too. I love doing like some crazy eye makeup looks. How on earth did you, were you in a position where you got Monet and Trixie and all these girls to put you in drag numerous times? Well, so Monet or no, not Monet, sorry,

Monique Hart. I had her on the podcast and during the podcast, she was like, bitch, I'm gonna put you in drag. And I was like, I'm going to hold you to this because i enjoy being near you because she's truly just this ray of sunshine and then she texted me it was like what are you doing friday and i was like what are you

doing friday she's like i'm putting you in makeup and i was like yes so i just like went to her apartment we hung out made a little video and it was truly delightful and then for Trixie it was uh Trixie Cosmetics so she does videos for uh doing her makeup on other people and it was very funny because as we were painting our friend um Anne was there and Pine was like you look like Meatball do you know Meatball yes that's amazing yes and then Meatball was like no joke some college I was doing a show at used that picture to promote my show. Brilliant. Brilliant. I need to see these photos. I can't wait. It's very, very silly. I love it. I have a question for you. This may be a very off-putting question.

Go for it. I'm here for it. So on Canada's Drag Race, you walked into the workroom. I think it might have been the first time or the second episode. And a couple of the queens were like, oh my God, he's so hot. He's so attractive. And you were like, right there? Yeah. Does that happen a lot?

Oh God, what an interesting question. It's a bad question. It's an awful one that really puts you on the spot to be like, I'm beautiful. Well, no, I just don't know how to answer it because yeah. Oh gosh. How do I even, how do I even say this? So I'm 35 years old now. I started modeling when I was like 15 years old. I was raised in a, as you know, in a really small farm town in the middle of nowhere, Canada, I was adopted and I was raised by an entirely white family. I was the only person of color in my town and in my school. So I always stood out. So my physicality was always something

that people commented on like my entire life. I was just telling my boyfriend yesterday that when I was a kid, like a teenager, and I would walk into the mall in the town that I grew up in, like people would be breaking their vertebraes like six, seven and eight trying to take a look at me. So like having all eyes on me was kind of something that I've just become accustomed to, but, but my physical, the world may perceive how I look physically as being aesthetically beautiful, but the internal beauty was always something that was so much more important to me. So I feel like that's where I've placed my focus on for the majority of my life. But is it weird? Yes.

When people like are commenting on that, they want to like go down on you right in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. It's weird. It's never not weird, but you know, I don't know. I feel like in many ways it's just like led me to be quite disarming in my in my character you know like to kind of just like dispel like that like okay get over that and

like let's just get to like the root of the human connection between you and I that's what a eloquent answer uh I once asked the same question to the server in I may have said on the podcast I don't remember but in Oklahoma I was doing these shows and there was this server who was stunning like she would ram the corner and I would get shaken because she was so pretty it was a way that she was pretty she like held herself in a way that was like I was like oh she must be nice to talk to as well and the last day I was like wait I can't remember her name but I was like can I just ask you a rude question? She said, sure. I said, do people tell you you're like beautiful all the time?

And how does that feel? She was like, yes, they tell me all the time, but I already know. So it feels fine. And I was like. Interesting. Very interesting. You know, I mean, I mean, I don't I don't it's it's not something that I really think about, to be totally honest with you. And I feel like I have just like I mean, you and I've talked about this as well.

We spent like a tremendous amount of time in therapy. So I feel like I like I have so many other insecurities and like things like personal flaws to work on in my life that like my my physicality isn't really something that I place a lot of importance on. Truly. I like that. It's interesting because I feel like ugly people or like not traditionally beautiful people spend a lot of time thinking about their looks. And they're just like, I have to accept this. I have to love it. It's not society's norm, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like I wrote a whole book on the fucking subject and there's a whole, I mean, wrote loosely wrote there's very few words in this book it's a lot of pictures but um i just i think it's so interesting that there's a word called body positivity and i'm just like there's a whole word for like not hating your body yourself yeah it's insane nicole it's so insane to me and then this like world that we're living in and we know living in Los Angeles, like superficiality is like of the utmost importance and how the world views you. And it's just, it's such a culture of like, I don't know, self care, but that self care also is wrapped up in like, you know, changing who you are essentially in order to get to a place where like you can be content and your level of self-care like i can you know like i can i can reach spiritual enlightenment once my nose is just an inch smaller once this deviated septum gets fixed i'll be fine what caused that deviated septum in the first place honey a few too many nights in hollywood um so you grew up i always thought you were mixed because your mom was white and she was adopted

which is so funny that like it never occurred to me i was like oh oh i guess jeffrey's mixed his nice white mom she's so nice i love her i love that you met her you guys you guys met at drag con a couple years ago yes and she was so kind and so sweet and she truly was like in awe of everything she is adorable did you ever so i grew up in an all-white town so i remember the day i found out i was black i just it never because you know my hands the palms are you know the same color as white people so i guess i just looked at those and i was like i guess i'm like them but my sister came home and she was like mom guess what we're black because this kid adams wickler on the bus was like you are black and she was like information i'm taking it in and i think i'll go home and tell them so i remember hearing her say that and being like, well, if she got told she was black, that probably means I'm black, too.

So I'm black. Did you? I don't know if this situation is unique to me, but did you ever go through that? Well, first thing I am. Yeah, I am adopted and I was raised by a white family, but I am biracial. My biological mother.acial my my biological mother yeah my biological mother is white my biological father is black Jamaican um oh god Nicole was I I mean I'm just I'm gonna be I'm gonna be straight up I feel like the first time

that people ever really acknowledged my otherness or my my color was it wasn't just being called black it was being called the n-word you know so so so so like it took some time for me to wrap my head around that like what does that mean necessarily what do what do you mean when you say that when you see me what does it mean to me what is the history of it like i didn't really i couldn't really grapple with that or even begin to have an understanding of it like seven years old um but i lived in such a small redneck hick town that that was just like the word that was thrown out at me because it was, you know, the only real, real point of reference

that people in that town had for, for black folk. But it was, it was my, my blackness wasn't really something that people took issue with. It was my queerness as a kid and it was because i was black and stood out that i couldn't just blend in uh and not necessarily hide my queerness but you know when you're like you're a young kid and you're gay and people kind of target target you for your feminine qualities or whatever it may be a lot of the time when you're blending and because of the color of your skin you don't it's you're not really going to be that much of a target but because i already stood out because of the color of my skin like I was then the black queer kid. Those are the nice words that I'm using to describe what people actually called me.

Yeah, I think I was very, very lucky growing up that I was quick. Because if anyone started being mean to me, I wasn't like, Oh, I'll destroy you first. I was like, Oh, I can turn whatever you say into a joke. So then it didn't seem as awful.

Cause I was like, Oh, we're just joking around here. But then, you know, you grow up and you're like, Oh my God, there were so many microaggressions and overtly racial things that happened in

my youth that I just truly put in a pocket and put it in a box and put it away it's been really interesting uh thinking about all that shit now it's such an interesting defense mechanism that kids develop and i i think that i was uh i certainly did the same in some respects like i just i i definitely used comedy to diffuse situations very often but you know i mean that defense mechanism can serve you for a certain period of your life but you're eventually going to get to a place where you outgrow it you have to actually like begin to acknowledge and like deal with these traumas and these demons that you've had to face unfairly as a child yeah you know you know and that and that's when therapy comes in honey truly like i unpacked a lot of stuff with my therapist

and have said things to her and she was like oh yeah that's that's racist and i was like oh fuck like i was talking to my sister yesterday and she was like oh yeah i was unpacking this story i don't know if i told you so she told me the story that happened to her in school. And she was like, and I just was really trying to grapple with whether it was like, like really racist. And I was, it was okay for me to be mad about what happened. And then I told my therapist, my therapist was like, it is, you should address this. And then she's like, it's been like a year. My therapist every now and again, we'll bring it up and be like, have you addressed it? And she's like, no, I just don't know how. And I know I have the tools. I just, I don't know.

And I was like, that's so interesting that you didn't tell me. And she was like, yeah, I just didn't want you to like worry about it. And I was like, oh man, we live in a way that's so hard and unfathomable for some people. Mm-hmm, yeah.

And then you being from Canada, I feel like Canada has the, not stigma, but reputation of being like, they're all so nice and they apologize. And it's like, yeah, on a similar vibrational frequency to that of the United States, but we just didn't have the history of slavery and the oppression of African people to the same degree that Americans did. So the level of racism that I experienced because of my Black body was a lot of it had to do with like ignorance and stories that were told or just lack of exposure to blackness, black people, black culture. So I was very much othered because people just didn't know what to make of me. But that in itself is a form of racism, just like casting me to the side and treating me as this other being because I

didn't look like everybody else but the history of like the impression of indigenous and native people in canada is real honey it is real and it is dark and it is something that is not explored in history or in social studies it's not something we're really taught about in school but it's um yeah i mean if anybody like takes it upon themselves to like just like crack a book or google the history of the oppression of Indigenous people in Canada. It's really, really sad. Or the concentration camps they had in internment camps they had for Japanese people during the World War in British Columbia. Racism exists on many different levels no matter where you go in this world, unfortunately.

How are you dealing with all of this at this point? Because I feel like truthfully, Nicole, I'm so overwhelmed by the state of the world right now. Yeah, I'm tired. And the only people I really like talking race with is with other black people or other people of color. Because it's a shared experience. Whereas when I'm speaking to a white person, I feel like I'm educating them. And I'm like,

well, I had to do all of this on my own, you know, mainly because I live in the body, but like totally Google's free. Yeah, totally. And I don't think that's something that white people really understand is that

we too were fed the same messages about anti-blackness and systemic racism as the rest of all y'all. And the only difference between you and I are, not you and I, but us and white folk is that we had to like undo the internalized racism and the internalized self-hate that goes along with all of those messages. And we did have to do the work on our own. I had to seek out the literature and the lectures and the literary greats that have been doing this work for centuries and generations.

And yeah, it like takes time and effort and a lot of unlearning, but that is what needs to be done to come to a place of like, yeah, I remember. So my best year friends, she has worn her hair natural since I've known her. And I remember pointedly asking her,

I'm like, why do you wear your hair like that? Which is an insane question to ask somebody why they wear the hair the way it grows. But that was my internalized racism that our hair isn't good enough. And that our hair needs to be straightened. Our hair needs to be in a weave. Our hair needs to be in something like it's not,

it's, it's unkempt. And I like, I thought about it like, like a year or two later. And I was like was like well why am i still relaxing my hair it's breaking off it's not healthy it doesn't look good so i just i shaved my head and dyed it blonde and from that day on i was like oh i'm never relaxing my hair yes i wear wigs and weaves well not weaves anymore can't keep them up too much work but i'll wear like a wig but i the the the older i get the more i'm like it should be like a natural texture

it should feel like what my hair would feel like if it were straightened or whatever and that feels better to me now that i'm not like oh i have this european whatever hair in my head and it's like well what why i can't believe we're like fed these images as kids. And my mom did not want me to straighten my hair. But she was like, I mean, you keep saying you want to look like your little friends. And I'm telling you, your hair will never look like your little friends. And I was like, what if I put a towel on my head and sing and dance around the house? And she's like, yeah, do that.

That's easier. That's easier than straightening it. You're lucky to have been fed these messages from your mother because, as I'm sure you know, so many young Black people are fed the exact opposite message from their parents. They're encouraged to straighten and relax their hair and to embody Eurocentric beauty standards. All of these messages. I actually wrote like a big post the other day on social media about it, about my experience working as a model and having to face Eurocentric beauty standards and knowing that I would never be sent to certain markets in the world. I would never be sent to Asia or Australia or certain European markets or American cities because of the color of my skin, because my blackness was not valued. Therefore, they wouldn't hire me. They wouldn't photograph my black body because they didn't want my black body in advertising because my beauty was not coveted. these messages of having to embody Eurocentric beauty standards ourselves and to wear blue

contacts and lighten our skin and dye our hair blonde and straighten it and wear wigs and weaves and all of these things to be accepted on a certain level by mainstream society or by the entertainment industry or whatever it may be. And yet we're still faced with certain walls and barriers. You can embody these things, but we're only going to let you get this far. these magazine covers and having their own reality shows and making millions of dollars off of the appropriation of blackness, black beauty, natural born black beauty, and, you know, benefiting from it financially in a way that we never can and never will. It's just such a, like, it's such a fucked up system of racism that people don't like. It's so hard to, it makes my, it makes my head want to fucking explode.

It makes my head want to explode. And then, you know, and then along with that, like, us, like, having to feel the pressure of having to be this thing in order to be accepted and playing the game but then still only receiving, like, a fraction of the pay of our white counterparts who were taking it upon themselves to, to like, to appropriate our blackness. Like it's just such, I, it, it just keeps my head spinning in circles because it is, I try to make sense of it. Then I realized like, oh shit, this is nonsensical. That's, that's why I can't put my finger on it. Can't make sense of it. It is so crazy. I remember it's crazy. I really can't make sense of it. It is so crazy.

I remember. It's crazy. Very early in my career, going out for this one part. It's not even just one part. It's many parts where I would do the lines and they're like, can you make it more urban, a little bit more street? Oh, God. So then I'm like, okay. But like, for me, I interpreted this role just like a little differently. And sure, I can do that.

But like she has four lines and they're just like, hello, would you like soup? And they're like, but, you know, black it up. So you're just like, oh, would you like soup? And you're like, do I want to be that person? Yeah, girl, you want a bowl of soup here, honey? I get it all the time. Make it make it blacker. Make it gayer. But then I get, make it straighter.

Make it butchier. Make it more, make yourself more palatable to men and women. Play into the binary. Like all of this shit. And it's so fucking confusing. And it leaves me, I don't know about you, but it leaves me in a state where it's like, on a platform like my show, like my podcast, like I just know I have the freedom to just completely be myself like I am here with you.

But when I'm being hired to do something so often, it's so confusing as to like, what do you want and how do you want me to deliver it to you? And I have this like inherent fear of I on one side of things, I know that I can't please everybody. I can't please everybody. But on the other side of things, it's like, I'm just, you're just, we're just fed so many different mixed messages as to who we should be, how we should be us and how we can like present ourselves to the world in a way that, you know, people are going to like it, enjoy it, accept it, ingest it, like whatever it may be. But it's like, it's really, man, there's no, there's no formula for black folk, for like black folk to succeed in this world, you know?

Yeah, for white people, it's one plus one equals two. But for black people, it's like one plus one equals negative eight. And then you got to find seven of those things to get back at zero. And then you can start. It's very, very exhausting. I recently had an interview and it was very early in the morning. It was going great. I did a bit where I was like, I'm still in bed because it was like 8 a.m. And the interviewer goes, so let's pivot away from your book. Has your size held you back from anything in Hollywood?

And I was like, oh, that's not a question I was expecting. And I was like, what a loaded question for a morning talk show. And I was like, I mean, no, because of systemic racism and racist tropes that fat black women are mammies or they're over-sexualized. So I would say the whole thing has held me back from certain parts, but not just my way. It was so like I was rocked. I was like, oh, my God. Like, do you actually want to get into this or no? Yeah, right. Is my has my queer.

I've been asked, like, has my queerness like held me back in certain aspects of this industry? Like, fuck, yes, obviously. In the in the world it has. And why? of this industry like fuck yes obviously in the in the world it has and why because this is a world that is like that is deeply homophobic and transphobic and fat phobic and femphobic and and racist and like of like of course it is like what a what a dumb question like yeah you know and then like part of my answer i was like it has but like i have created so many different things for myself and i think those things should be i

can't even like i like blacked out after that i was like what the fuck it's uh that has like that's one of the questions that's thrown me off once uh another one was during tsa's or no tca's tsa's at the airport tca's the television critics association yep um i had a show on mtv and it was me the cast the showrunners uh my showrunner and then the second in charge they were two white people and this black curmudgeonly critic was like i have a question and we're like okay he's like you oh um well um and you don't want to shit on the people who are doing the job who listen to every word you say who are trying very hard to tell the story you're trying to tell and they were hired because they were the best person for the job also i was told that there were no black women at the level that they wanted, which isn't true.

But you get told these things. With casting, you know, you have an idea and then the casting director has an idea. So it's like when it's your very first show, you don't have all that. I wasn't even in EP on the show. I was a creative consultant i had very little power over stuff and that i was like as a critic you know the ins and outs of television

you just wanted like a headline or something or you wanted to make me feel bad about succeeding it was like one of those things where i was like oh my god i can't believe this the crazy thing is nicole the question should not be directed to you which should be directed to them right like how are you supposed to answer this question yeah right i think it's hilarious i think it's hilarious when white people are asking me about like the you know the the intricacies the nuances of systemic racism because it's like how the fuck am i supposed to know the answer to this y'all are the ones who created this shit and like perpetuate it why don't you investigate your own thoughts and behaviors and then tell me why this is the case you know

yeah and it's so wild because after you know protests haven't stopped since george floyd's uh death and the media is not covering them as much but you know what's the most interesting to me is the outpouring on social media people being like i feel helpless how do i be an active ally how and i and it stopped like people have stopped a little bit caring as allies yeah black people are still posting shit but i posted this whole long thing where i was like read your kids black history post it on instagram not one person has done that and tagged me in it that's like it was the simplest thing to be like if you read to your kid at night tell them tell them about you know madam cj walker or like uh uh any like fred hampton like tell them

tell them about the black Panthers, how they didn't start out as a political thing. It started out as like, like a program for kids. Like tell them about this stuff, post it on Instagram. And then maybe other people will do that. And that helps,

that helps to like, if you really want to raise anti-racist kids, like you have to do a little bit of the work. And not to say that nobody is doing it, but I was like, well, I suggested it. I got a lot of feedback saying this is great, but then I didn't get anybody sending me nothing. And I was like, so what is it? Do you want to be an active ally or do you want to just say that out loud? So it seems like you're doing good. Right. Performatism. I think that at the beginning of all of all of this, just since, you know, since May 25th, since the murder of George Floyd, I kind of like took a step back and was like, y'all need to do the work. The reason why sustainable change has not been made is because white people fall off the trendy bandwagon of being an ally to black folk.

And no change is made because you don't continue to do the continuous work of re-education and unlearning and like garnering new information. Because you're, I don't know about you, but my experience as a black person trying to share my lived experiences with white folk in order to like make a point or get them to like reach a level of enlightenment. So often it's not well received. They just don't get it. But when I see educated white folk teaching other ignorant white folk about the experiences of black folk, it's heard in a different way. So, oh, Nicole, it's just like, it's such a, I'm at the point too, where I see where I'm very frustrated. I see people just like having done the same thing and fallen off the bandwagon. And so I am doing what I didn't want to do. And I am continuing to have these conversations and to share my experiences and to challenge people. And it's really, really, it's really, it makes me, it makes my heart swell with joy to see so many of my friends continuing to do the work,

but it makes me so sad without calling out any particular individuals or institutions in my own world. But I know that like certain companies that I deal with on a daily basis like like when i ask them questions like are are so is your you know predominantly white company doing any work towards decolonization towards re-education do you have any programs put in place are you guys getting like garnering new literature is there anything going on and when the answer is just like silence it blows my fucking mind i'm like what what what is going on here you know and it's like and then with without the without people white people having the education or the history of of of blackness in america when changes are made something as simple as like changing you know uh uh uncle ben and aunt jemima like getting rid of

those of those two characters. Like people think that it's absurd, that it's insane, that they're just two cartoon characters and it's not harmless. And, you know, like you guys want to complain about everything, but you're going to, you know, come down to a place where we have to get rid of our pancake boxes. Like this is absurd. But like do the history and know that the character of Aunt Jemima was a minstrel character that was like based on like the most offensive mammy stereotypes of blackness in America.

Or like, you know, like it just if you don't have that history or the knowledge of where it originated, then of course you're going to look at it and think that it's absurd or unnecessary. But if you don't know that, you don't know how hurtful it is for us as black people every time we go into the grocery store and see a mammy figure smiling maniacally at us from the grocery store shelves like you know it blows my mind yeah i remember going to a friend's house in high school and they had essentially like a mammy or like a black face uh decoration in their house so it was like just black like a black little hanging thing person with like bright white eyes eating a watermelon and in my brain i was like we do like watermelon oh girl was this this was a white family's house that you went to yes and then i like thought about it more and i was like wait a minute why does this white family have this black little figurine eating a watermelon because it's adorable yes and then i learned about like minstrel characters and blackface and i was

like huh i don't know if they meant to be racist but this is pretty racist and i think you know like in that that little rant or you know piece I wrote on social media the other day, I was talking by our culture and by our artistry and our music skills. So they just kind of took the things about us that they loved and painted their skin black and then performed as these minstrel characters. And there was like an insane obsession, like Jonas Brothers style obsession swept the nation where like millions of young boys and girls would go to bed at nighttime, like dreaming of being in minstrel shows and, you know, like aspiring towards that level of artistry and of blackness while still rejecting and refusing blackness. It's like,

to me, it's the same thing when you see, when you turn on E their E network and, and obsessively watch this show where it's like, it's, it's still, it's a rejection of blackness. It's an appropriation of blackness.

It's a self-claimed ownership over blackness. It's, it's a, it's a hyper, it's a hyper-sexualization of blackness, a fetishization of blackness. And like people, it, it hurts my feelings when I turn on the TV and see them operating in the way that they are and being celebrated for it and making millions of dollars off of it and nobody questioning it. I will say this.

All of those kids are black, essentially, except for some of like three of them aren't black. So I'm like, the only good thing about this is the generational wealth that is being produced for these black kids. All right. Then start a life. OK. Like when they're adults, they're set. They're set for fucking life. That is the the only good thing is that they appropriated blackness so much that they had black kids but then i'm like are they gonna educate these little black kids about their blackness who's gonna do that work for them well this is

the thing girl you know like i mean i do have a bit of an inside perspective to it i was in a relationship for three and a half years who some who with a white person who was part of their glam squad um you know and so i did get some I did get an inside kind of peek behind the curtains at the reality of what goes on on a daily basis in those households and the level of intelligence or true depths of knowledge in blackness. It's pretty lacking, and i won't i won't get into it but just some of the things that are said and done are deeply offensive and it leads me to you know to answer in my own head the answer to your question like like are they

taking the time i don't think so maybe but you know i don't know it's just it's it's really fucked up it is really fucked up and yes I get your point that they are passing down generational wealth, but it's like, I don't know, like descendants of like Thomas Jefferson, black folk who are still, you know, who like may have some generational wealth from those plantations. Like, it's just like, it feels like blood money. Yeah, it's like, at what cost are you getting your generational wealth? Yeah. But c'est la vie. Well, we have to take a break and we back um so let's transition a little bit into love and relationships yes because it is a

relationship podcast but i have not been dating really during this quarantine period so i truly have nothing really to say on that front except i fell in love the other day so i went on an outing big deal i put on my mask i got into my new jeep i have a jeep now can you even it's a white jeep wrangler just like Cher Horowitz and Clueless. And I leased it. No money down. Felt like I was stealing it. Amazing.

But I went to Lassen's, which is, you know, a hippy-dippy expensive grocery store in LA. And I was walking around lost because I never go to expensive groceries. I go to Ralph's. And this masked man with these beautiful eyes was like, do you need help? And I was like, actually, I do. Also, I was looking for coconut milk and Satan, which is like a vegan. Satan. Yeah.

So I never say it correctly. And I was like, I can't tell this man I'm looking for Satan. He'll be like, bitch. Bitch, what? You trying to get to hell p.s p.s lawson's is a christian owned company by the way yeah it is so you should have said that you're looking for satan i should have said i was looking for satan excuse me where's satan at um and he goes oh uh i can show you where the coconut milk is follow me so i follow him to the coconut milk and he's like here you go and i was like oh thank you he's like i really like your hair and i was like oh thank you thank you so much so then i was checking out and then i told the checkout

clerk i was like oh can you wait a minute i'm gonna get a topi chico as a treat and she was like whatever so then i go get a little have you ever had a Topo Chico? I don't even know what it is. A Topo Chico. It's Mexican bubbly water and it's so bubbly and so delightful and delicious. I love it. So I go to get it. And as I walk past the masked man, he looked up at me and he was like, have a great day. And I was like, I'm not leaving yet. I'm getting a Topo Chico for a treat. So you'll have to say goodbye to me again.

And he was like, okay. for a treat so you'll have to say goodbye to me again he was like okay so then i check out and then i'm walking past him and he was like all right now you can have a good day and i was like thank you and then i stood there for a beat too long and then was like i uh bye and then like i ran out because i was like there's a line other people need to get into lessons and i think i might go back this is last tuesday i was like should i go back and see if this is real but then this nice lady tweeted at me because i tweeted the whole story she was like he was nice to you because he's working and yeah he's in a grocery store and that's part of his job you're so cute maybe crushing my dreams maybe girl i think female brains work so differently than male brains i was literally just having this conversation with my boyfriend yesterday about how some of our female friends

like like uh will either see somebody on social media or from a distance in person and like create these entire fantasies in their heads about like like you know like falling in love and starting a family and living this fantasy life and i think that y'all y'all give men especially straight men you y'all give straight men a little bit too much credit ladies if i if i do say so myself yeah my therapist was talking about that so i was dating this dude who i really liked and i thought he liked me back and things were going really great and we had so much fun together and we would like sing in ubers back to his place and then when i was like i don't i was like can you not date anybody else

he was like oh boy and he it just kind of like fizzled out and i was like but what the heck what it was going so well and my therapist was like well nicole it may have been going well for you and you may have been projecting what you thought was going on but to this person it could have just been isolated incidences of you hanging out whereas you were building to a relationship they were spreading out it was like not building up it was building out to like oh i like hanging out with this person you know let's lay the foundation it's like and you thought the foundation was like late on that second date and i was like oh okay so i should die before telling a man how i feel she was like no nicole and i said yes mary i will die before I tell a man how I feel.

Yeah, where's the balance? Where's the balance, girl? I feel so bad for straight. I feel so bad for straight women that y'all have to deal with like the primal teenage brain of straight men. Yeah, it's depressing. It is depressing. I don't really have any advice for you because I would never profess to pretend like I have any understanding of the straight male brain either. I don't get it. I don't really have any advice for you because i don't i would i would never profess to to pretend like i have any understanding of the straight male brain either i don't get it i don't get it i've also dated women who but the women i've dated were they knew who i was like before so i think they brought in a lot of expectations into the the dating ship. So that was tough. Dating is just truly, it's so mind-numbingly difficult. Is dating easy for you?

So you have a partner. I do, yeah. So yes, dating is very easy for me because I have a partner. You're like, it's so hard. I'm in love. How long have you guys been together? Almost a year and a half i guess and and i and i love him very much um it is it's it's a lot of firsts for me in this relationship it's the first time dating somebody um uh younger than me first time dating somebody

who very first time ever for me ever dating somebody who does not work in the entertainment industry oh and it wasn't by choice necessarily in the past that i was that i was dating like actors or models or producers or photographers or whatever it was just like that's what we're surrounded by so like that you know and you you when you're hanging out when you're on set all of the time or you you date somebody who's also in the industry they just they get it there's a shorthand. You don't have to necessarily explain the insanity of your work hours or the level of attention and energy you have to devote to certain projects. But this one, he's such a good one.

He's such an amazing person. He's incredibly kind. We met in a way that was really organic and he didn't know who i was either it sounds bizarre but it was at the gym and i was sitting on the bike i was sitting on the bike and i could there's this gentle i didn't really talk to anybody at my gym uh i was you know there for a reason like there to work out but there was this gentleman um this older black gentleman named tony who is just some of one of the most charismatic people that i had ever come across and he was also he also happened to be in a wheelchair, but he's just so incredibly positive.

And every day when I would walk in to me and to everyone else, he's like, hey man, how's it going? How you doing? How's life? I'm great. Life is beautiful. Tell me something positive. Tell me something good. So he embodies this type of type of energy so that day at the gym sitting on the bike saw tony and saw this really beautiful guy walk up to tony and start talking and he matched his light he matched his energy he matched his positivity and i was like who the fuck is this fool so i kind of kept my eyes on him um and then long story short we you know we made eyes over the course of the next hour and he came up and started talking to me. But I wouldn't have given him a chance or even let him in just based on my physical attraction to him.

It was because I witnessed that interaction, that moment between him and Tony where I saw that he – like this person is a really kind – clearly like a very kind human being. So that is how and when i let him in and i was you know i was just coming out of a relationship i think i was i was only single for like maybe five months at that time after coming out of a pretty long-term relationship um and i wasn't looking for a relationship but it just it just happened and he is i don't know man i don't even know how to say it. He's just a really kind, empathetic, loving human being. He's the best. I don't really know what to say.

And he's also a person of color. He's Hispanic. So I feel like there's a shorthand there as well. We just kind of have a mutual understanding of what it is to navigate our way through this world as, you know, living in this color of skin, which is really refreshing after being in a relationship with, you know, I've been in relationship with people of many different races, but my last relationship with somebody who was, who was white.

Yeah. This guy's, this guy's the best. Oh my God. I love the way your face truly lit up retelling that story. Like your eyes got all squinty and your smile got so wide. It was so fucking cute so how long did you date before you guys were exclusive this is a mystery to me when well i've already

decided i'm gonna die before i tell a man how i feel but like when did you guys decide to be like okay we're not gonna see anybody else i think it was probably after the first, it was after the first month. It was, I actually remember the day. It was Cinco de Mayo. Okay. Yeah, it was after the first month and we sat down and had a very serious conversation about it. But even then, like I said, I had just come out of a pretty long-term relationship and

really wasn't looking for, I did not think that i would be committing to another um relationship right away so i was kind of hesitant to commit but it was just so there was just such a level of joy and ease to our connection our dynamic i was like why the fuck would i like fight this like just just go with it this is literally what you want to need in a relationship you need somebody who's grounded and solid and kind and compassionate and like don't don't turn away from it just because you're scared so um i think we decided then that we would uh only see each other but it was still another couple weeks or month before we said the the l word and i know and that may seem soon like telling somebody that you're in love with them or love them within the first like month and a half, two months. But it was the first time that I was with somebody and I had

been wanting to say it for weeks before the day that we actually said it. I'd never felt that way before. If anything, it's always been the opposite where I'm dating somebody and they tell me they love me. And I'm like internally like freaking out, like, oh, oh shit. Oh, uh, not ready for this. Don't really know what to do about this. But I, you know, I'll say it back anyway. This was the first time that I had like my everything inside of me was saying like, this is a good guy. And you're safe with him. And he clearly cares about you.

And you care about him a lot too. And it sounds so cheesy. This sounds so fucking cheesy, Nicole. But just take it for one of this. it sounds so cheesy this sounds this sounds so fucking cheesy nicole but just take it just take it for what it is the moment that we said the words to each other i love you it felt like literal fireworks were going off inside of me it was so it was crazy that's not cheesy i think that's what everyone's looking for you're looking for that feeling that like i think it's in sleepless in seattle uh i think meg ryan describes like that internal feeling i think we're all looking for

that you're all like i mean me personally like i'm looking for someone not to validate who i am but to validate that like i'm worth spending time with and then for them to be like i don't want to not spend time with you i want to be with you you make me feel like i want to be with someone where every time i look at them i smile because oh my god i just love them that's that's what's going on with this one here he's the best have you ever had that feeling have you ever had that firework feeling yes oh great honestly not in the way we're like when I drive up to my house. I bought a house a couple years ago.

Yes, congratulations. Thank you. I figured why not make an investment that like I can live in. But I bought this like yellow house with like a bunch of tile and it's very uh it was owned by four gay men it was it's truly like of course nicole lives here um but every time i drive up to it i'm so proud that i work so hard to be able to afford it and i love the way it looks so it brings me joy and i don't know if i've ever looked at a person that way, like romantically and been like, oh, my God, you bring a smile to my face like my house does, which truly sounds insane. I can completely relate.

It does not sound insane at all. I'm such an introvert and I could spend, I mean, I have spent now like literal months inside of my house without leaving and I'm like totally fine. I love it here. I love it here. I'm going crazy. Are you? My house is my i guess my relationship because i like to miss it so like i like to go away and come back and be like ah my baby um but i was with this dude on and off for like three years who gave me butterflies but

in a way where i was like will he be nice to me today oh no oh nicole i'm so sorry i've been there too it's like and if and to anyone out there listening like if you are experiencing that like it walk away immediately walk away kind like kindness is not something that you should like have to gamble on in a relationship or like keep your fingers crossed and hope that somebody is not going to be cruel to me today like you know or play mind games or whatever it may be it's not that's not that's not the tea it's not worth it it's and then by the end i like knew i was like he's not great he's borderline manipulative and not emotionally abusive he would like say things that i was like you're being very manipulative right now but um towards the end it was coming up on like i wrote down the day we met so i like i knew the

day we met or whatever and i was like okay it's coming up on like three years since we've met if he if we're not in a relationship and he hasn't changed i have to walk away and then he said something to me that was like so just like disrespectful or whatever and i was like okay i'm done and then he like texted me a couple times after i stopped texting and was like why are you mad at me and i was like not mad at you blah blah blah and then he like tried to pick up where we left off and i was like uh i can so then i explained everything to him and then he was like oh uh i don't see it that way i'm sorry you feel that way and i was like oh yeah he never once fucking cared about me and then like i haven't spoken to him and i guess two or three years and every now and again i'm

like what is he fucking doing whose life is he ruining but then i'm like just let it go let it go let it go it's so hard to let it go. But isn't it? It's not gratifying in the sense of like thinking that they are destroying someone else's life. But it's like nice to know they're no longer destroying mine. And also knowing that it's like, yeah, like I said, I would never wish ill upon anyone else or wish for somebody else to be destroyed. But I've certainly been in relationships where it's like, I know this fool hasn't changed and I know he's fucking up someone else's life right now. So I am so glad that I had the self-awareness and self-respect to step the heck away from that. Yeah, it's so funny that like just the slightest bit of self-love and self-respect will keep you from getting hurt by somebody else.

It's so stupid the shit we take from other people just to be loved to find our own worth or self sense of value and yes yeah the gaze of someone i guess right now i'm just really working on i'm trying to get to a place where i'm like i'm not looking for love because i'm i i'm like a wide-eyed cherub who's always like, maybe love can happen here. And I need to just get over that and worry about myself and try to bring joy to other people however I can. Definitely. Like the Lassen story.

I should not have been like, we're going to be in love as I'm driving home. It should have been like, oh, I made a couple people laugh today. That's a good day. That's nice. And I'm trying so hard to like work on myself but i feel like i've spent the last like three years working on myself i it's also i'm so horny

yeah i just that's real that's real how are you dating during this during this uh pandemic though like are you do you do the online social app thing oh yes and it's horrific it is truly a nightmare it is a horror movie i want a jordan peele get out i don't want to be on these apps people know who you are on these apps so it makes it complicated no yes sometimes they do know where i'll just get a message just like i'm a big fan and i've learned you just say thank you just acknowledge it and they usually don't want to go on a date or anything. But during the pandemic, for whatever reason, I keep getting hit up with people who are like,

I'm ethically non-monogamous, and I have a partner of 12 years, and you'll have to understand that. And I'm like, oh, boy, I don't want to get into, I have to social distance with a couple, and then we all have to get COVID tests, and then we get to, I don and then we get to i don't know this three oh no but yeah like i i guess for me some people are thriving doing uh like video chats dates and stuff like i have a friend who's done it a couple times but for me i even podcasting i prefer to do it in person i think it's really hard to like talking to you super easy because like I know you.

But when I'm talking to people, I don't know there's it's a little hard. And then to be like, are we romantically vibing? And it's like, I can't even I don't even know if you if you're stinky. Legit was just talking about this with my boyfriend yesterday in regards to like females, like creating this whole fantasy around love but like yeah i do know some a couple of people uh who are dating during covid and have only met on social apps or have only met on you know spent countless hours on facetime and they're being like you know like oh i'm just this is the one i know it they're so incredible we're so compatible i'm like you don't even know if you like the way they smell you don't know if your hormones or pheromones are compatible you don't know if they're a kisser you

don't know shit honey it's got to be so it's i can't i can't wrap my brain around it it seems like a real like black mirror type deal where it's like you're just living on the internet with these people and i just in my brain like i talked about I truly had therapy yesterday I was talking about this with Mary I was like well the the great flu I don't want to call the Spanish flu because I feel like it's like Trump calling it the China flu which is rude thank you oh that's great and racist yeah definitely but I was like so the great flu lasted from 1918 to 1919 I I believe, or 1920, I think. I'm not, I'm getting the dates wrong. But I think it was only like one, two years, maybe. And the second wave was worse than the first.

But I was like, but it ended. And now here we are, you know, what, 100 years later? Is that 100? I don't know. A lot of years later. I don't do math. I'm not a scientist. But we're here and life got better and we were allowed to like touch again.

So I'm just like, it'll take a minute. But I would rather date in the time after Corona where because I just I like to touch. I love hugs, man. I harass my roommate because we've been quarantined together. Me, my roommate, John Milhiser, John Milhiser, my roommate and his boyfriend. Oh, I, I started calling him the man I live with.

So it's John Milhiser, my roommate, my roommate, John Milhiser, the man I live with. Like the three of us are together. And sometimes I'll follow him around and be like, can I just have a hug,

please? He's not the hugging type, but I just, I crave touch. I love touch. I love hugs. I love hugging my friends. Me too.

So much. Do you have a pet? I do. I have two dogs. One, Charlie, he's having hip problems. Oh no. But I think he's faking it. I think he wants even more attention than we've been giving him.

Because the other night, we've been carrying him uh because the other night we've been carrying him up the stairs and trying to be gentle with him but then the other night i was like all right charlie i like forgot i was like come on let's go upstairs he like raced upstairs and i was like what about your hair and then his ears went down his tail went down he slowly walked into my room and i was like are you the greatest actor of our time like what's going on are you the another one clyde who's just a little snuggle muffin that's something right that's like that's there's a certain level of love and affection there that can like help soothe no the look on your face right now says absolutely not yeah no because like my dog's not gonna lick my pussy

that's true and if it does that's super problematic nicole super problematic well one i can't let a dog eat me out their mouths are disgusting like people say that dog mouths are cleaner than human mouths and i'm like this i've seen this dog eat shit and i've had to like smack it out of its mouth no also like you can't make a dog eat you out because it's like bad it's illegal and morally wrong they don't speak english right and then sometimes i think i'm like what if my dog doesn't speak english what if this whole time my dog is like what the fuck is she saying i speak spanish i speak spanish from spain not like i don't, you know, South American Spanish. I don't know what these people are saying to me.

That's amazing. Because he was found on the street. So, I don't know. Like, he might speak something else. But that's also an insane thing. I've had too much time to think, you know? Yeah. That's what's coming down to at this point, Nicole, during quarantine times.

It's honestly just awful. I can't. I just wish more people would wear masks i mean i talk about it constantly i'm just like i don't understand people politicizing it they're like the government's trying to control us i'm like bitch you're already in the system you're on facebook they have all of your information if they wanted to control you it'd be through like social media be through facebook and they kind of are with fake news and whatnot i just it's exhausting are you on facebook i don't have a facebook i don't give a shit what people from high school are doing they were ugly then they're

ugly now um no i'm kidding but uh yeah i just it's not for me i don't give a shit i don't need to write like read these people long paragraphs about how they feel about the world. I don't care. Do you have a Facebook? I had. I think that my accounts are both still technically active, but I think it was it was right after Trump got elected that I like logged out. I was like, I can't anymore. It's giving me such anxiety.

I'm going to bed with tears every single night. Like this is just this is the bane of our existence. I cannot engage with it anymore. So I logged out and have no idea what my password is. bed with tears every single night like this is just this is the bane of our existence i cannot engage with it anymore so i logged out and have no idea what my password is have no idea how to log back in and when you go to retrieve your password you have to provide them with either your phone number or your driver's license and i'm like these motherfuckers aren't gonna get uh uh-huh i'm like they're neither of them are gonna get either of that information i think it's like it's like a double authentication yeah it's crazy it is crazy so i i opt out i do not engage on facebook i mean our government is so wild just the fact that like a social media site

can ask for your like personalized like what's next social security is gonna go into facebook like what the fuck i mean they already have all that it's so crazy i've been trying to get my information off the internet like my address was out there like just like a lot of personal information was out there why so I don't I don't know how people figured it out but um I've been I'm in the process of having it like scrubbed and it's it's so it's such an invasion of privacy that like it would never occur to me to be like i'm gonna look up this person's address and i'm gonna send them something so like my old address was on the internet that's what i'm like my old address was and my friend lives in my old apartment and he gets mail for me from fans being like can you sign this and i'm like no one you invaded my personal

space too do you think i'm gonna make a trip to the post office for you i don't even go for me get out of here my friend great point great point i have a question i have a question for you that's totally off topic are y'all going back for another season of nailed it who fucking knows um I honestly don't know. I hope we are. When did you wrap your last season? Last year. Last May.

Last year. Oh, God. Yeah. It's tough because. So I have two projects where we're just in limbo, where I was supposed to be shooting one. Now it got pushed to August. It got pushed to September. It got pushed to September. It's pushed to October.

Another one that's pushed to August, but I don't know if we're going to actually shoot. Are you shooting things? Nothing. And I don't, I know that some productions are starting back up again in here in Los Angeles. Yeah. And I've been told to like,

to like, you know, like kind of like people know that i am doing the right thing right now i'm quarantining and not exposing myself to other people wearing the mask everything like that so if we're you know happen to be called in then then we're viable candidates but no i'm just hoping that uh we can go back for a second season of canada's drag race because canada as a whole has less cases than all of LA County combined. So I'm hoping that we can just take our asses back up to Canadians.

Also Canada did it right. You guys, they sent what? Three rounds of $2,000 checks to people. It's so insane that we got one round of $1,200. There's been no more talks. Now the Trump administration is taking information from hospitals. They're no longer reporting to the CDC. Oh, my God, it's so crazy. And you're just like, oh, this is all being handled so poorly.

And I'm like, is everyone in, like, the Senate and the House, like, just waiting until November to do something? I'm like, is everyone in like the Senate and the House like just waiting till November to do something? I'm like, we got time, bitches. Like fucking say that this is wrong. Like you can't fucking endorse Goya beans and like be a fascist. It's I feel literally insane. Productions here. I'm like, I don't know if they're going to go. We're like close to being fully shut down again with another stay-at-home order exactly this is the thing like like i just

don't see how it's how it's possible i certainly at this point would not feel very safe going back on a tv or film set personally no and well here's the thing it puts a lot of pressure on number one and like on a cast or whatever, because, no, I don't feel safe or comfortable doing working right now, but I'm not going to stop the bag of a crew. Like, you know, one of the lighting people's like I was depending on this job for my fucking family for the year. I can't be the person that goes, well, you're not going to get it. my fucking family for the year i can't be the person that goes well you're not gonna get it so i will go back to work and try to stay away like if i go back to work my home life is i wear a mask when i'm around my roommate and the man who lives with me my life is i spend as little time as possible with them until i can get another test. Like it's, and then a lot of the productions are testing throughout,

but I'm like, my home life is affected because I don't want to get anybody else sick. And it's, it's just, it's scary. It's like, it's a scary thing. It's not tangible.

And I feel like Americans are like, I can't say it. I can't smell it. It's not real. And you're like, Oh my God, you fucking Looney Tunes. You are Looney Tunes. We can't say it i can't smell it it's not real and you're like oh my god you fucking looney tunes you are looney tunes we can't leave the country they're 14 i think it's right now 14 countries that will take us and most of them you have to self-quarantine because they

don't trust us and then in like mexico they're like yeah come down but like you'll go to a resort right you'll just you'll literally go to a resort with other sick americans exactly it's i just i it feels insane and i'm like maybe we don't shame non-masks wearers maybe us who are wearing masks say to other mask wearers we go girl you look good yes get that mask so then everyone not wearing a mask goes i want to be cool i want compliments that's brilliant brilliant well lucky for me i have a canadian passport so i can escape if i ever deem necessary uh and i think maybe maybe you should do the same maybe we should get your ass up to canada get you a passport get you on the panel with us on canada's drag race find you a nice canadian man honestly i would love it i would

love a nice canadian man or whoever. I'm happy and open to whoever wants to love this little cartoon. Well, Jeffrey, we've come to the end. I usually ask all of my guests this. I think I only missed it like three times, but would you date me?

Honey, my heart is about to explode out of my chest. It would be the honor of a lifetime to date Nicole Byer. Jeffrey, thank you so much. Is there anything besides a Canadian's drag race that you want to promote? I have a film that I'm really,

really proud of coming out this September on shutter. It's called Spiral, and it's a psychological horror thriller. And it's one of the first, if not only queer thriller that I can think of. But it's a really, really, really dope project. And it explores um oh my gosh uh just the the the the energy of fear around otherness and how we you know how we how we fear what we least understand and so much of that is wrapped up in people of color and in queerness and it's a really interesting exploration of that and i'm really proud of it so that comes out this september on shutter called spiral yay that's i'm so excited for you truly i'm so excited for your success because i've truly loved you since unreal which was years ago but i watched all of unreal on a

plane and i was like whoa why did nobody tell me about this show i like this show i miss it it's such a great show yeah like you just like popped up in other things and I've been like, oh, wow, what a treat. And then getting to know you has been so delightful. Truly a dream. Yeah, ditto. Well, I can't wait to have you on my podcast, Conversations With Others. Yes. We'll get you over there soon.

Yes, yes, yes. Truly, next week, this bitch is free as a bird. Let's do it. I got nothing going on so we could get it done. Let's do it. Next week it is. Yeah, email me. Done.

So if you like this episode of Why Won't You Date Me, you can like, you can subscribe, you can rate it five stars, please, or one star. Those reviews are fun, too. I like when people don't like me because it's funny that you don't like me but took the time to write a review. It's funny. So if you write something hitting on me i will read it on the podcast this nice person said i just drove across the country

and back and listen listening to you is one of the highlights very nice thank you also i won't date you because i'm full up on relation or filled up on relationships but if you'll excuse my inexperience i'd love to bury my face between your legs and not come up till you tell me it's over that's really giving and really kind and only a gay man would say that and then not follow through with it so yeah that's amazing jeffrey thank you so much for doing this. Thanks, Nicole. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye.

This has been a Team Coco production.