Why Won't You Date Me? with Nicole Byer - Playing an Extra in a Porno (w/ Rose Dommu)

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Writer Rose Dommu (Out Magazine, Like a Virgin podcast) joins Nicole to chat about the story behind her transition, the dangers of dating a trans chaser, writing fan fiction, and her experience appearing as an extra on the set of a Cock Destroyers porno. Plus, they answer a listener's question about how to respond to someone when they say call themselves fat. Got a dirty message, question, or comment for Nicole? Email it to [e-mail]. Black Lives Matter.  Click here for an updated list of over 100 different things you can do to support racial justice.   Follow Nicole Byer: Twitter: @nicolebyerInstagram: @nicolebyerMerch: podswag.com/datemeNicole's book: indiebound.org/book/9781524850746

Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Please tell me why! Oh baby, welcome to another episode of Why Won't You Date Me? A podcast where me and Nicole Byer tries to figure out how I'm still single. Even though you could throw thumbtacks on the ground while I'm showering, I would say, ouchies, that really exfoliated and hurt.

My guest today is an esteemed writer, pop culture aficionado, and was the senior culture editor at Out Magazine. She now co-hosts the new pop culture podcast, Like a Virgin, which is available anywhere you get your podcasts. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I'm joined by Rose Damu. Hi, hi, hi. Let's just, do you want to just jump into it?

Yeah. you hi hi hi let's just do you want to just jump into it uh yeah i um as a florida girl i'm used to you know i just jump into the pool i'm a cannonballer so let's go where in florida are you from okay so i'm from boca raton which you know we referred to when i was a kid as god's waiting room because it is where old people go to die yeah it's lots of um buffets and country clubs and um publics is which you know iconic grocery store chain i don't know if you've ever visited i have i've been to florida okay have you had a chicken tender sub from publics no but No, but this sounds delightful and delicious, isn't it? It is. Have you ever wanted to eat cut up chicken tenders on a sandwich? I mean, no, but the thought of it seems good.

It is. It is really, really good. And I highly recommend. What kind of chicken tenders are they? Oh, I wish I could find this picture. I have a picture, a screenshot of chicken tenders that I prefer and ones I don't prefer. Are they breaded or are they battered? I don't know that I could tell you. I think maybe the closest analog to a Publix chicken tender is like a Popeye's chicken tender. Okay.

You know what? I said it was going to be hard to find, but I absolutely found it. Oh, okay. Okay. Is it left or right? It's left. Yeah. They're like, they look kind of, they look like crunchier.

Okay. So those are battered and those are not breaded. Those are like Dairy Queen chicken fingies. And I'm here for that. I don't like the other ones. I find them upsetting. The ones you make at home, disgusting. Get out of here.

Yeah. I had a bad experience recently with vegan chicken nuggets. I decided I was going to stop eating meat again. Like I've done that a couple points in my life that lasted for about a week because i really decided i was gonna lean into fake meat and spoiler alert fake meat is disgusting yeah um the other thing about fake meat is it really makes you toot i fart so fucking much when i eat fake meat it's terrible it is and i just you know that phrase it's like um nothing tastes as good as skinny feels i reject that and i would say a lot of the meat tastes better than being a vegetarian

i agree that saying is so upsetting nothing tastes as good as skinny feels um i don't know what skinny feels like so i don't either yeah i have no i have no basis for comparison and i will tell you a public public's chicken tender sub tastes really fucking good and i know what that tastes like okay what is on this sub i mean that is to your own discretion because it's the kind of you get to go to the deli counter and pick what you get on the sub so for me and my fantasy it's spinach cucumbers pickles olives banana banana peppers um maybe a tomato although i go back and forth about whether i like tomatoes on sandwiches i think sometimes it's a weird texture and then i'm not a sauce on the sandwich girl i i you're dipper. I'm a dipper.

And I reject mayonnaise completely. So there's no mayonnaise on my sandwich. Interesting. So I became a mayonnaise girl after I went to a lighter persuasion friend's home where their mother made a sandwich and put mayonnaise on it. And I was like, Dios Mios, what is this? Oh, my God. And then i like fell in love with mayonnaise okay my chicken tendy sandy is lettuce tomato mayo bacon if they have it um with a side of ranch to dip in oh yeah the ranch side is is very necessary but it like it also has to be the right

ranch because yes and i know that i'm i'm being stupid because ranch is just mayonnaise with the seasoning and i hate mayonnaise but i like ranch but it's a lie that my brain is able to tell myself like the little seasoning in it makes it not mayonnaise so it's fine yes and there are superior ranches like last night i was watching tiktok as I want to do. Yes. And I saw someone eating Wingstop, and I just had to order it. And they were talking about how Wingstop ranch is better than other ranch. And I think it's true. I can't really remember. I've had Wingstop.

I've had their ranch. I can't put my thingy on what it tastes like. But my hierarchy of ranch is craft ranch dressing and then hidden valley never wishbone never wishbone okay i i believe you um and i support you i think it's really about how present the dill is for me because i think that's what a lot of people forget with ranch is that dill is very important and i love dill is for me. Because I think that's what a lot of people forget with ranch is that dill is very important. And I love dill.

Always. Oh, so you don't like Kraft Ranch dressing. It's very dill-free. Yeah, that doesn't work for me. That's not part of your fantasy. My fantasy is no dill. I'm not a dill girl. No, that's, I'm sad for you.

I think you're missing out. But, you know, to each their own. Thank you. Rose, I have a question. I might have an answer. Oh, my God. Imagine if you don't. And then it's just me asking questions and you being like, I don't have an answer.

Okay, Rose, what is the first date you ever went on? Do you remember? Yes, I do. Do you remember? Yes, I do. I'm not going to count sort of things I did in my youth that were like, quote unquote, dates. I'm going to say, okay, so I grew up, you know, I was socialized as a man, a boy, a sign male at birth. I don't identify that way now. And I was one of the early people to come out in high school.

I was like one of the only out gay kids. And the first date I ever went on with a boy in high school, I decided it would be a great idea if we on our first date saw Brokeback Mountain. What a delicious date movie! Trauma-free! In theaters, yes. And when we arrived at the theater, the vibe was so awkward that I said,

we can't do this. We cannot sit and watch Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger fuck each other in the ass for two hours, so let's see Memoirs of a Geisha instead. Okay. Because those two were playing concurrently. So we met up at Barnes & Noble first. I made that, you know, executive decision.

We're not seeing the gay movie. We're seeing the other gay movie. The gay adjacent movie. Yes. Yes. And we saw Memoirs of a geisha i don't remember if it was good or not it was so uncomfortable we just like sat there in our chairs and didn't touch didn't try to put our arms around each other nothing there was no kiss at the end of the night. Oh, no. But it felt so necessary to me at the time to have that experience, and it allowed me to very pure innocent experience rather than a slutty one

because i've had plenty of those and i've had very few pure innocent romantic experiences oh i don't know if i've had no i've had some pure innocent romantic experiences they're very far and few in between um being a career single person it's very hard i do have a date on wednesday what are you gonna do on it um we're just going to dinner which i usually don't do because you're trapped at a dinner you say hello you go i don't know if I like you but like we put our name down so like we gotta eat the food and then it's like if the conversation sucks during dinner you're still like stuck there till you're done but you can just leave after like you could be like oh my tummy hurts I gotta go home but like a dinner is a commitment and I don't know why I've done this. Yeah, I mean, I will say, I think on a date, having an activity is nice,

but then sometimes the activity gets in the way of conversation. But then sometimes just the dinner is too much conversation with nothing to do. I very much can't sit across a table from someone and ask, what kind of music are you into? Like, it just doesn't... I can't sit across a table from someone and ask what kind of music are you into like it just doesn't i can't do that and that's why i always you know in my youth um and since then always preferred having sex first because then i felt like i felt like that cut through so much of the awkwardness like i wasn't once if i had seen someone naked i wasn't going to be asking them what kind of music do you listen to like where

did you grow up you know it was it was just gonna we were gonna get to just kind of real conversation and getting to know each other quicker so how do you go about having sex first you go come to my home and we'll have some sex and then we'll get dinner um the it was not necessarily first it was not necessarily that i was um having sex with people as a way to like reverse engineer a date it was more that i was a slut and i was having sex with people and if i liked having sex with them then i might say do you want to hang out you know next week or whatever i see i see i see i i guess i was doing that a little bit i mean i would like go for drinks with them fuck people and be like oh you wanna you wanna hang out a little bit but i can never get them to hang out without the drinking and then daytime hangs weren't like a thing um i don't know but i lately i've been

horny for a relationship lately i've been like oh nicole you've had a lot of sex i'm great some fucking terrible sex i think i want to have sex with somebody i like and like dare i say love nicole i am in the exact same place with you i had a fucking breakdown recently i had a come to jesus well i'm jewish so i had a come to moses moment with my therapist i had there's this very cute um young bisexual boy um who i hooked up with earlier in the summer and i was supposed to have him over again you know about a month ago and we had made plans and i realized when i was talking to my therapist that i couldn't do it i could no longer have sex with someone who like literally if i died the next day would never know and never care, like, did not care whether I lived or died. I am, I guess, at a point where I'm just unable to have casual sex anymore or don't want to because, honestly, I feel worse afterwards than if I had just not had sex at all.

Mm-hmm. I think that's where I'm getting, that's the point where I'm getting to, where I'm like, it's not worth feeling terrible afterwards. And it's not even like guilt or anything. It's just like what you said. If this person wouldn't give a shit if I died tomorrow, why am I fucking them?

Yeah, I want actual intimacy and i think sex can breed a certain kind of intimacy and i've certainly had very casual sex with people whose names i didn't know or don't remember that was incredibly intimate but i want to fuck someone who i know i want to fuck someone who who cares whether i live or die yeah that's what i want i fuck someone who i know i want to fuck someone who who cares whether i live or die yeah that's what i want i want someone to care if i live or die and make me come yeah triple threat well i guess that's only a double it's a double threat but it's okay um if you come twice then it's a triple threat are you on the apps i'm on the apps and it's bad. I'm also on the apps. It's also bad. I am on Hinge and Tinder primarily.

Yep. They're both awful in different ways. Yep. There's a guy on Hinge who just keeps messaging me every couple days, like, want to meet me in WeHo tonight? Want drinks tonight movie tonight and it's like we've had no substantial interaction and i guess i guess he's doing the thing that you should do which is let's meet in person and not like endlessly talk on this app but it also feels very presumptuous yes and then i you know i also uh am attracted to women. Well, I'm bisexual, so I'm attracted to plenty of people and have been finding it much harder to connect with women on the apps because I think as women, we are socialized to not reach out first.

So I don't know how to do that. And like I was chatting with a girl recently who I thought was very cute. that and like i was chatting with a girl recently who i thought was very cute and then she we had started talking about clueless okay because in one of my app photos i'm wearing like a sort of share um yellow black plaid skirt i love this i love it and she said something about it and then she mentioned that she was teaching a class on consent in rom-coms and was talking about Clueless in it. And I said, oh, that's cool. Are you a professor? And she said, no, I run a virtual consent school.

And I realized that there was something there that was not going to connect us sure a virtual consent school i mean how does one find out about that to take a class i guess you can find anything you want on the internet yeah i just realized for me and my fantasy again that i probably wasn't going to date someone who had taken those steps to figure out how to create or work at a virtual consent school. Yes, I get that. Yeah, I mean, I don't ever really reach out first. And the reason why I do it is because I think the gentleman persuasion tend to think black women are already aggressive so if i uh reach out first i think that like confirms their suspicions that i might be a little aggressive so i let the people come to me um and then with women i also let them come to i let the people come to me. I've chased for a very long time and I've decided to not chase, which might not be a great stance in dating.

No, I know. I'm going to let it wash over me, let it happen to me. And then also, I don't know, I don't identify as anything other than Nicole. And people keep asking me, they're like, what are you, bisexual? What are you? And I'm like, Nicole, I don't know. I don't identify as anything other than Nicole. And people keep asking me, they're like, what are you, bisexual? What are you? And I'm like, Nicole, I don't know. since I started transitioning, there is such a sort of fervor for trans women specifically on apps like that, that you really don't have to go looking for people, but the people who find you are not necessarily the ones that you want to fuck and or date.

I mean, I used to like when I, when I used to live in New York and was in Brooklyn, like there were days when I would sometimes get get 50 messages on Grindr a day. And I'm not saying that as like, I don't think I'm hot shit or anything. It's literally just like... Why not? You can think you're hot shit.

I think I'm hot shit. Okay, I'm hot shit. There you go. also like a lot of men specifically i mean speaking of chasing chasers who are specifically looking for trans women who would fuck literally anything with lipstick on i don't think i even had lipstick on in my profile picture that is an uncomfortable weird thing to navigate it's like what do you want from me am i being fetishized are you actually attracted to me are you fulfilling this like hole that you have with what i had like it's very it's i mean it's i'm not trans but you know people have a fetish with

black women or like i'm mildly successful it's like do you what are you trying to get something else from me it's uh it's hard it's hard when you're swiping and trying to discuss and and figure that out this man messaged me today he goes how do you feel about going on a date with someone less funny than you and i was like not thrilled honestly i was like, wow, why? Why? Like, I get like being self-deprecating, but that was truly just like you came in fully fucking negative. And then another person was like, wow, I'm really intimidated to be talking to you. And I was like, I'm a person, just like a fucking person. You're like literally telling me that you have expectations

and you think i'm going to be a certain type of way i don't know we could go out i might not be funny at all i might have had a hard day and i might not want to be funny you don't know i don't know rose everything is hard everything is hard and you know like talking about fetishization you know sometimes i would meet people or have sex with people and i would go like on their instagram and would look at who they were following and realize they were following every trans girl i knew and you know the the dolls like to talk and you know we like post post our our trade on our close friend stories and you get the girl sliding to your dms like oh i had sex with them last year like i used to date them whatever and you start realizing like i would look

at the other people that these people i was having sex with and we didn't look alike we didn't there was no type outside of us just all being trans and then so how are you not supposed to feel fetishized yeah fetishized or tokenized or whatever that is bewildering to me like that's really fucking wild to be like oh the only common denominator here is that we're all trans and that's the only thing that you like about me like that's that must be such a mind fuck it's also so curious that like in the year of our Lord 2022 that people just can't be more open about what they like. And I feel like people tend to put people in a box because they can't, you know, outwardly express what they like. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. I you know what? I want to be fetishized for being a podcaster. Exactly. I want someone to be like, it's so hot that you talk nonstop. That's what I, you have a microphone.

plug the mic in, plug the mic in before we fuck. Give me some hot takes before we fuck. What do you think about all this? discourse gets me going. Rose, real quick, we have to take a break and oh we're back rose can i ask this might be a question you're tired of answering but when did you start transitioning? I started transitioning in 2016.

So I was 27, my late 20s. I had spent the majority of my mid-20s being very immersed in queer nightlife in New York City. I used to throw raves for a living, which was very fun. That's wild. I like that. Yeah, I was a club kid. I was a party girl. I was an international party girl. And, you know, a lot of what came with that was some very deep gender fuckery and, you know, gender deviance and just like realizing the world was a much weirder place than I had ever understood. And starting to see that a lot of people had figured out a lot of things that I'd been questioning for a really long time. And also just seeing, you know, possibilities in a way that I never had before.

Also just seeing, you know, possibilities in a way that I never had before. And, you know, I think the last year before I started transitioning, when I was really questioning my gender, I decided to, I wanted to experiment. I wanted to, you know, like do a science fair situation where I had a hypothesis and I collected data. So I said, okay, so you were assigned male at birth. So are you a man? So I learned, I leaned really hard into masculine presentation and, you know, like grew out my facial hair and like had a lot of very like leather clad, you know, popper soaked sex and tried to see if that was real. And I realized, okay, that's not real. That's just like what you've been pretending to be your whole life. And so then I was like, okay, well, am I more of like a non-binary, like genderqueer? Is that my situation? And realized, no, that's not really

real either. And so then I thought, okay, well, am I a woman? And that was the thing that felt the most real. And also the thing that once I had sort of, I don't know, I guess shrugged off the safety of, you know, cis masculine presentation, the thing that once i kind of stopped lying to myself that that was who i was i was left with the actual reality um and so that's when i started transitioning and how long did that journey take i feel like that's a lot of a lot of time with your thoughts it is it involved a lot of drugs um there was there was one specific night when I took a bunch of acid and just walked around Brooklyn all night and did a lot of very deep thinking. And at the end of it, I just kind of decided, okay, I'm going to try this because I think I've unpeeled the layers too much to ever put them back on. And this was also at a time where, you know, trans healthcare had become more accessible than it ever had been. So I was able to, you know, just walk into a queer health center and say,

center and say, I want to start hormones and started them a month later. And yeah, I, you know, so I would say in terms of how long it took, I mean, it took 27 years. It took, I'm 34, it took 34 years. It took a year of questioning. It took, you know, my whole life in a lot of ways but uh yeah i think you know a couple years of really being immersed in a culture where people were doing expressing themselves in ways that i had never realized i was allowed to and i think that's a lot of what i don't know the the point where we are we're at in culture today is there's we just have more access to realizing that there's so many different ways to be um and that and that we get to be them if we want to yeah i feel like a lot of people talk about how social

media is like very negatively influencing people because of like unrealistic beauty standards and shit. But for me, I have had like a whole world of like non-binary and gender bending things open up to me because I get to see people I wouldn't normally see on Instagram and whatnot. So yeah, I like that you were so easily able to find resources to start a transition. Yeah, and the internet is so powerful for that. I also cannot emphasize enough how important it was for me to be an actual physical community with queer people. And I know that's something that a lot of queer kids especially don't have access to and they have to find those spaces online. But it was so important for me to be around specifically other trans women

um and you know that just made all the difference i have a question how did you like happen into writing uh is that a wild how did you happen into how did you how did you become a writer that's what i want to know i guess the the sort of um most honest answer is that it's something i was always good at without having to try really hard at it and i always loved stories i'm i mean i don't think it's very interesting to say i love books you know i don't want to be like the disney princess whose thing is that she likes books i love a book but i do love books i was a voracious reader when i was a kid i wrote a lot of i read and wrote a lot of fan fiction as a teenager and so that was some of my earliest experience of fan fiction please so you know no jk rowling but a lot of harry potter um a lot of buffy the vampire

slayer okay so that was some of my earliest experience with writing that was for not just myself but for other people and then you know when i was in new york after college the easiest way to make money as a writer is as a journalist. And so I found some sort of, you know, entry-level, you know, content writing and copywriting jobs and just went from there. And writing was always very much the way I defined myself because it was what i did and again like something i did and was good at without having to put too much effort into it um which is like not necessarily the right way to like be a thing is just like because it's easy and i think it's nice why why do something harder like if you enjoy it and you're good at it and it's easy why not do it

i think we tell each other that like things are hard and i struggle to get good at this sometimes you don't sometimes you're just good at it i have a question what do you remember any of your buffy fan fiction i'd like to know some um that i read or that I wrote? That you wrote. Oh. Did you write about Angel and Spike fucking? Because that's what I would write about. was expressed is that i always was writing from the perspective of i want to be the girl and so i wasn't reading and writing a lot of gay fan fiction or slash fan slash fic as you know is the is the terminology um i was writing het stuff which is like what's het like heterosexual it's called het het yes which is you know in in fandom in fan fiction is kind of is one of the only places where that's um the exception rather than the rule like fan fiction

is very gay um but i was reading and writing the straight stuff because you know i wanted to i wanted to be the girl that's who i identified with i. I was the Hermione. I was the Buffy. I love that. When I first read Harry Potter, I thought her name was Hermione. I thought it was Hermione. And then when I finally saw the movie, I was like, surely that's not it.

That can't be. But it was. And that was the worst thing she ever did, was naming her Hermione. You have gotten to interview the cock destroyers and appeared as an extra in their porn, A Tale of Two Cock Destroyers. What is it like being an extra in a porn it is really um weird but very fun especially that porn specifically it's a lot of downtime as i'm you know i think any set is obviously um and you are very much reminded that you are not the most important person there that's you know the people who are doing that's the people who are doing the fucking or the there. That's, you know, the people who are doing,

that's the people who are doing the fucking or the cock destroyers who are, you know, number one on the call sheet. That specifically was funny because I, I think a lot of people didn't know why I was there. They were like, who's this girl? Even the person who was doing hair and makeup who did me between the cock destroyers, which I know is something on a porn set doesn't quite mean what you might think it means, kind of tried to fit me in between them and gave me these really weird Shirley Temple curls.

I love this. And I was like, why is this my look in this Victorian era or maybe Regency era porn we're doing? And also, you know, the costumes don't fit because they're like party city. And they're supposed to come off. They're supposed to come off anyway. I had a corset that didn't lace up like all the way up the back. Although it did mean that I got to have a fun Titanic moment where one of the cock destroyers was lacing my corset for me. I had to wear men's period shoes that looked like pirate shoes.

I will say that the day that I was on set, they weren't shooting any actual sex. The day that I was on set, they weren't shooting any actual sex. So I don't know what it's like being on set at a porn shoot when they're actually shooting porn. The day I was there, they were only shooting the scenes, the acting scenes. But I loved that because that's my favorite part of a porn. I need the plot. One of my favorite porns, I'm sure you've seen it, is two guys fucking and a lady going in front of my salad i kind of got to be the in front of my salad girl in a tale of two cock destroyers i in fact was eating grapes in it so yeah so i carried on her legacy or tried to what a dream come true what a treat i would love to just

be in a porn just like oh no what's happening well but do you want to be in the background of a sex scene or do you want to be in the the plot i think i'd love to be in the plot and then someone who like happens to walk in on the sex scene yeah so like my character gets to evolve and gets to see some things that you don't think she's gonna say um I would be into that also did the Cocktasers break up or did I make that up yeah they are no longer a duo um I think they both they've both moved on to solo projects. But they are, I have to say, two of the sweetest women I've ever met. And I got to spend a lot of time with them that day on set doing some other stuff. One time they were in New York for something and just wanted to take me out to brunch. And we went to cafeteria in Chelseaelsea and it was like love

cafeteria and it's like the one place in new york city where they were extremely famous and so i if you can imagine if you if you don't live in new y, Caviteer is very gay. Very, very, very gay. So it's like the only place in New York City where every waiter in the restaurant was like, cock destroyers are here. You know, the guy whose hands were shaking bringing us our salads. I fucking, that brings me so much joy.

I love that. Okay, can you tell me the worst date you've ever been on? Oh, worse than the Brokeback Mountain one? Mm-hmm. but uh i did go on a date once that ended up with me performing oral sex on the steps of a church and so not worse but most blasphemous but again i'm jewish so i don't think it counts i don't know if it counts but also maybe god was like yum yum yum i, yum. I love. Wait, I have actually, oh my God, this is really repressed. I have a better answer. Well, a worse answer, which is that the worst date I ever went on, I didn't actually make

it to the date because I got hit by a car on the way there as a pedestrian. Oh my God. Did you have to go to the hospital? Did you have broken bones? Did you contact the person? So, I mean, let me clarify. I was on my way to hook up with someone. And I was a freshman in college, so I left my dorm and went over to their place, like, in the middle of the night.

They lived in Queens. And after I got off the subway, I was crossing the street and, you know, didn't look. And a car hit me. I rolled up up hit the windshield fell off um an ambulance the car drove off an ambulance came they like strapped me to a board brought me to the hospital i didn't break any bones or anything because that's the thing is i was 18 so my body was still you know like malleable yeah and i was generally fine but my aunt and uncle who lived in long island came and picked me up and i spent a couple days at their house with them recovering

and i very much just kind of shrugged it off like again like i mean the same thing with the body it was like i was young i was like well i guess that happened and you know it was very much talking to my friends about it like oh yeah lol i got hit by a car on my way to go hook up with someone did you tell the person that you got hit by so wait did you make it to the hookup no i didn't i did not did you message them i got hit by a car i did the next day and they didn't believe me i thought i would not have believed you i would have been like this motherfucker fucking lied to me. They could have just said that they didn't want to hook up or meet me or whatever. But now when I have had people flake on me in years since it is the first

thing I wonder is, did they get hit by a car or if someone's running late, did they get hit by a car? Because it does happen. It does happen. Yeah. I mean, you're not the only person who's ever been hit by a car and missed a date. It does happen. Yeah. I mean, you're not the only person who's

ever been hit by a car and missed a date. That's truly so wild. Real quick. We got to take a break. What's the best date you've been on? Again, maybe also more a memorable one is that I went on a date with someone once where we went out for drinks. We got back to my apartment. We put on Chicago the Musical, the film starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger. And he was inside me by Funny Honey. So we really didn't make it that far into the movie. You really didn't. Minutes.

Minutes into the movie. Fully inside. We made it through all that jazz, but it really got us going. I love all that jazz as foreplay into the main event. That's very funny. I mean, Catherine Zeta-Jones performing is foreplay.

I mean, it's a very good movie. It's very well done. And I loved it. So did I. I think it's one of the best movies ever made. Honestly, Cats, I think, is the best movie ever made. No. I love that Idris Elba is in a brown cat suit that looks like he is naked.

Judi Dench, they didn't finish her CGI. And I genuinely believe that jennifer hudson deserved an oscar nomination for her performance thank you so much that is my god i um i went to the the junket for cats um when i was still a journalist when i was working for out magazine and at that junket judy dench revealed to me that she played her character as trans and you could tell she really thought she was getting me with this she was like she was like this bitch is gonna be gagged uh by by this revelation and um i i was not quite the way I think she intended. Uh-huh.

You know? I also got to talk to Jennifer Hudson at that junket about the horrible purse that Carrie Bradshaw gives her assistant in the Sex and the City movie. It is a pretty nasty purse. It's like, sure, it's designer, but like, is it cute? The answer is no. She did her dirty with that gift yes um she did her dirty the whole that whole movie was interesting it was one movie and then it was a full this the third fourth fifth sixth act of that movie is a different movie than

the beginning a wild a wild romp but i did love it i love sex in the city rose okay i have a query from a listener and i want to read it and get some uh advice or we can answer this question okay hey nicole i was listening to your podcast with nori reed and y'all were talking about how people are to you telling a fat joke not that you speak for fat people but when someone is saying i'm fat how should one respond i hate saying ah but i also don't know what else to say i hate that i'm asking this question but i also want to know because i've always wondered what to say i hope this wasn't offensive mean or a dumb email which is probably dumb you won't respond but i'm looking forward to hear some to hearing something from you this is a a funny question. So this person wants to know,

if someone says, if I were to say, me, Rose, if I said, I'm fat, what should you say in response to that? Yes. What a weird question.

Nori and I were talking about how, on stage, we'll go, I'm fat, and then, without fail, and all fat comedians have this joke, where it's like, I say I'm fat, and then without fail, and all fat comedians have this joke where it's like, I say I'm fat.

And someone in the audience goes, oh, you're not fat. And it's like, I didn't say, but like I am, you can see it. But I think when someone goes, I'm fat, you just nod your head. Or just like stay neutral because you don't know what they want.

Because me as a comic on stage, I'm just giving you some information that's it i'm not like looking for anything i'm just telling you something and i think people in life might be looking for a no you're not fat or they're just giving you information in which case just you're like okay yeah that's what you say just okay yeah well we talk a lot about body neutrality you know that's a tiktok phrase i keep hearing people say is like that there should be no i guess um you know like judgment or positive or negative grafted onto our bodies so yeah if i say i'm fat just don't say anything there it doesn't unless i'm asking you a question or saying something about my body that requires a response, why should you have a response to the, you know, like objective fact of my fatness?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm never quite looking, like if I go, does this make me look fatter? I don't need you to go, oh my God, you're not fat. And it's like, no, no, I am. And I'm just wondering if this makes me look even bigger which isn't necessarily a bad thing maybe i am trying to take up space i have this one huge tent dress that i love to wear when i'm in the mood to take up space so it's like i don't know i think maybe when someone says they're fat you can't immediately jump to it's a bad thing and i have to comfort them it's

like oh they just might be giving you information, you know? Yeah. Because I think that says more about you and the way that you think about fatness or like their specific body than it does about them. Yeah. Okay. I think we answered that question really well.

Rose, I have a question for you. Yes. Do you prefer to meet people in person or on the apps? And do you like to be set up on dates i don't like to be set up on dates because it's always a read it's always a read to one of the people being set up on the date and i never want to find out if that's the other person um or if it's me uh i think that's a sticky situation and it shows you what kind of love your friends think you

deserve or what league they think you're in uh- context up front that you don't get on an app. Like, yes, the app kind of lets you cut through a lot of the bullshit and be very, you know, direct about what you're looking for. And can kind of sometimes you get to skip some of the, you know, the what kind of music are you into kind of conversations. You get to skip some of the, you know, the what kind of music are you into kind of conversations. I think, yeah, both in terms of dating and just sex, I would prefer to meet someone out in the world because I never want to have an experience where I talk to someone and then we meet up and the chemistry is really bad. Or they've decided like you don't look like your photos which i had a bad experience with that last year what happened so i was talking to this guy on grinder which is a hellscape um and we chatted we've been chatting for maybe a day shared a ton of photos i invited him over to my apartment he got there i opened the door and he said oh you look really different from your pictures i'm gonna

go oh no and it honestly is the cruelest thing that has ever happened to me not because this person didn't want to have sex with me that's fine there's so many people in the world who don't want to have sex with me i know that and really what it was about it was he should have just not said anything he should have said and i've been in this position before to show up and say you know what i'm not actually feeling it i'm gonna go by saying it like that it left this open question of what it was about me that was different was i fatter than i looked at my photos or uglier or not femme enough or whatever when of course in reality like who knows maybe he was nervous and got there and realized like he didn't actually you know maybe he hasn't hooked up with like a trans person before and like got there and got

nervous or whatever but all he did by phrasing it that way was leave the onus on me to be the one who's coming up with the answers, which only then spawn more questions. And it is really, I've had a lot of mean things happen to me. But doing it that way was one of the meanest things anyone has ever done to me. I don't know how I would come back from that that would rock my world and I mean bravo for going on more dates after that because I think I'd be like well we got to put a pin in that um I did I did kind of put a pin in it I yeah well you know since moving to LA I moved to LA two years ago peak pandemic I haven't really had a lot of casual sex. I haven't been on any dates.

I haven't been on a date since maybe like 2019, 2018. Yeah, I mean, that set me back even in terms of just casually hooking up with people, which I already wasn't doing a lot of because of the pandemic and being in a new city, blah, blah, blah, all those things. My God, how awful i know i truly i truly hope he's dead i hope he walked out of my apartment and got hit by a car i hope i hope he died no i truly honestly i'll hop on board because that's like that's the i think that's you're right it is one of the cruelest things it is truly cruel because yeah i would like look at my pictures and like look at myself

in the mirror and be like but i think i look like this i don't know yeah and and i and i post i try to post pretty realistic and not super flattering photos in all of my dating profiles like i don't post i don't post the photos where i think i look the best i try to do maybe like a six because i want i want it to i want it to be realistic like of course i want it to be a little heightened a little sexier a little more flattering but i now i'm so terrified of that happening again even though i really don't think it was about me but again i'll never know yeah you'll never know and that's like the worst thing because a lot of times it isn't about you but like in this case you truly don't know wait maybe he was like she's too pretty

that's what it was maybe i was so hot he was terrified he was like i can't do this too beautiful what am i doing here this is nuts i gotta get the fuck home um rose do you have any advice for me and dating should i like what should i do what what should i be doing i think you should lean into romance oh i mean my journey my fantasy is that i i'm accepting that i'm a romantic at heart i have a romantic soul and how that's played out for me is uh so you know as we talked about i'm a writer i'm i'm writing a book right now i'm writing a romantic comedy and what i've started trying to apply to my own life is if I wouldn't want to watch a character in a romantic comedy go through something I'm going through, I'm not going to do it. And so I think you should apply that to your dating life is you need to live your Julia Roberts fantasy. And if it wouldn't happen to Julia Roberts in a rom-com, it's not happening to you.

Okay. Well, I don't think Julia Roberts is scrolling through Tinder being like, wow, I can't believe that this is the crop of men or people that it's serving me. But maybe she would. Maybe there is a world where Julia Roberts is doing that. Also, I've been on Tinder for so long that it went from being like, oh, this is where people find relationships to this is a hookup app to, I think it's back to this is where people are finding relationships again.

And I can't believe that I've been on so long that I've cycled through this rose. Life is depressing. And I think I'm going to keep that in my heart. If Julia Roberts isn't going to be doing this in a romcom with George Clooney I Nicole Byers shouldn't be doing it

yeah it's the Julia rule the Julia rule I have to do the Julia rule keep it in my heart and live my life that way I like that wait what kind of person are you looking for I'm just a girl standing in kind of person are you looking for? I mean, this is so annoying and cliche, but again, rom-com, I want someone who makes me laugh. I think as a person who considers myself funny, I would like someone who also is funny, but not funnier than me.

Someone who wants to hold my hand, even if i don't want to i want them because i'm not like a pda kind of person i want someone who's going to at least reach for my hand in public even if i yank it away i want them to reach for it oh that's really sweet i think i want that too. I want to hold hands in public with somebody. I want someone to like look at me like they never want to not look at me and then just like kiss me on the forehead and hold my hand. I also, I've been feeling this a lot recently. I just want to have a crush on someone. I love crushes. I love crushes. I love that feeling of obsession, that like debilitating, replaying every sentence, every word they said to you, checking your phone every 30 seconds to see if they've texted you back, just writing fan fiction in your head of what your relationship is going to be like. I want to be obsessed with someone, and I want someone... And when I was younger, the way my crushes always played out was that

I only wanted them when they weren't into me and when I had to chase them. And as soon as they returned my interest, I immediately lost it and just wanted nothing to do with them. So now I want a person who is not going to play games and is just going to be into me and I'm going to be able to receive it and return it.

I like that. Not playing games and just like being open to receiving love and gifts and stuff. I think maybe I should open my heart and be ready to receive. I think I put up walls. And I gotta tear those walls down. Yeah, be an emotional bottom.

Yes! I want to be an emotional power bottom. Fucking rail me with your emotions. I'm here to take it. I love that for you. Rose, thank you. Okay, we have come to the end, Rose. I ask all of my guests this.

Would you date me? In a second. I love it. I would swipe right. I would send a little flame. I would even ask you what kind of music you're into. Oh my God. Well, I'll tell you.

I'm into shitty lady rap. Okay. Like, I love SoundCloud rappers. Tight. You have to give me some recs. I guess it's not like shitty. Sometimes, I mean mean i love the city girls and sometimes they're not rapping on beat but i love the attitude i love the flair for the

for the the drum the drama of them um who else do i like i'll give you a list later okay i would see brokeback mountain with you i would not i would not go to Memoirs of a Geisha. I would take you to Brokeback Mountain. That means a lot. Thank you so much. I would go see Brokeback Mountain with you. I honestly loved Brokeback Mountain. What a beautiful, sad story.

Those poor gay cowboys. What are you... Do you have anything you want to promote, Rose? Yes. So we are about to enter season two of my podcast, Like a Virgin. Very exciting. And all October, we're doing bonus episodes for Spooky Season, which is very exciting. So we're releasing two episodes for spooky season uh which is very exciting so we're releasing two episodes a week um one is on a specific piece of media and then one is kind of normal episode where we talk about something a little more thematic um so lots of content this month and

then yeah we'll be um you know kind of going directly into our second season, which is really exciting. I love that. And if you love this episode of Why Won't You Date Me, you can like it. You can rate it. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or whatever. And if you write me something hitting on me in a nasty way, I want it to be nasty, filthy. The nastiest thing you can think of, I will read it. You can send it to whywontyoudameypodcast at gmail.com. Mar is

my producer. She reads these. She sifts through them. Do not send her a dick pic or a pussy pic or your titties. She don't want them and I don't ever see them. What about butts? Marge, do you want butts? Sounds like a no yeah

okay a real belabored okay this nice person said Nicole I want to put a dog collar on you and make you crawl on all fours while I lead you around a leash and tell you how you were a good girl and a pretty puppy and the sexiest dog I've ever seen. Then I'll get you on bed and peg you while you start barking

and making howling noises. When I'm done, I'll yank your leash and tell you to start panting with your tongue hanging out. That's when I'll put on Baja men's who let the dogs out. I'll flip you over and scratch your belly when i start to eat that puppy pussy lapping it up like peanut butter while you pant and start to drool then after you come i'll pet your head and scratch your ears while i feed you treats and tell you again that you're a good girl wow okay i mean they had me up until who let the dogs out i mean for me that's when i got interesting i said oh okay we have a soundtrack to this fucking i can get behind that literally well she'll get behind that because i'm happy getting pegged thank you so much for being here rose bye-bye

pegged. Thank you so much for being here, Rose. Bye-bye. That's it for Why Won't You Date Me with me, Nicole Byer. Why Won't You Date Me is produced and engineered by, oh, the sweetest woman I know, Marissa Melnick. It is executive produced by other wonderful people, Adam Sachs, Joanna Solotaroff, and Jeff Ross. for listening I love you thank you so much we'll be seeing you next Friday with a brand new episode what a treat what a dream this has been a team cocoa production