[SPEAKER_00]: You can't allow yourself to believe that if only you massaged yourself to be a little bit different, then they would like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't position it where they have all of this power to reject you socially and you have no agency whatsoever because at the end of the day are these the kinds of people that you would want to be friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm assuming the answer is no.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have agency here as well to look at the situation and say, these are not the kinds of people that I would want to be friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's up, you guys?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're welcome back to emotionally online, the weekly sor party for hard to hearts and a hot gossip hosted by yours truly.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one and only Maddie Drawspeck, who's hitting you with a solo episode this week, because as you can see, if you watch the video version of this show, I am not in our usual setup.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually visiting my parents right now up in Maine, sitting on their front porch with a nice cold DC.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life doesn't quite get better than this people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've not been in grind city, but I have been in rant city, which I'm very familiar with and honestly you guys are probably very familiar with it too, because I have lived in rant city for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately for you and everyone else on earth, I do be talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do be talking and I do love to talk, and being in the town my parents live in this week has stirred up some thoughts inside my brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my parents live up in Maine now and where they live is where I use to spend summers as a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: My parents don't live in my hometown anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God because Lord knows I don't want to go back to Hopkins in Massachusetts with bees and love babe, except rarely any piece of love comes out of my mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm talking about my hometown.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, that's a different story for a different time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Growing up, I spent every single summer here, and I've said this before on the podcast, but I actually hated it at the time because we didn't have Wi-Fi at the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I only want it to be on YouTube.com making little videos to share with all of my virtual friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was always pissed because I'd be making videos, I'd be like, let's go record and I'm fully like walking around town with my little mini PC recording myself off the webcam.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so free.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really didn't experience or understand what people meant when they talked about being cringe or feeling embarrassed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I felt that emotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So growing up, I really didn't love it here because I did not have internet access and I was a brat.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then as I got older and we did get a Wi-Fi fucking router at this house, I grew to love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have many fond memories here as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of like the perfect summer town.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you think inside your head, like a perfect little beach town in a movie, it's like last day of summer, indie movie montage.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kids are ripping one last weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last weekend of summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to do it up and save.
[SPEAKER_00]: the community before we all go back to school, boo, and it's like the pop-up fair and you're making out on the Ferris wheel and then you're getting a twist, soft, serve ice cream in a cone with sprinkles and then you're hitting the arcade and then you're asleep it on the beach at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the vibes in this town, very much so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always found that vibe very charming.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think most of us do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last day of summer Andy movie montage, those are the vibes and in towns like this usually it's just a bunch of small businesses and so with that comes a lot of real like mom and pop looking graphic design which I love
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care if your business graphics were done by your fucking four-year-old nephew.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the charm, the personality, getting to walk down the boardwalk, getting to walk down the street and see all these little shops that have popped up with their very unique one-of-one
[SPEAKER_00]: I have something devastating to announce, which if you're alive in the world and have your eyes open, I'm sure you've noticed this as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was particularly heartbreaking to me to see this in the beach town that I grew up going to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing that I've noticed this time around is the
[SPEAKER_00]: graphic design and branding have absolutely stripped the beach boardwalk of any personality flavor and charm.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me feel a sickness deep inside my bones, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I look at a poster designed with AI and I feel a white hot rage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just burning inside of me and I feel very confused that other people don't seem to feel that white hot rage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what's going on, but I was thinking about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I'm like, you know how we look to like the 60s, 70s, 80s, and we're like, God, that's style, the vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: the fonts that were used, the style of cars, a furniture, it's not just clothes, it's everything, it's design styles.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look back at that time and we're like, oh, it was sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has such like an individual perspective to it, it's so specific to that era.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say 70s design style, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had a moment where I was like, oh my god, when people like 50, 100 years from now,
[SPEAKER_00]: talk about the design style of the the 2020s, they are going to talk about us like we are the ugliest swagless motherfuckers on the face of the planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm having you know right now that I'm not taking credit for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when your grandkids are like what the fuck is up with your generation?
[SPEAKER_00]: How come everything that came out of this era,
[SPEAKER_00]: Was absolutely fucking swagless and looks like it was designed by someone who hates art and hates being alive And actually wants a di tomorrow and they're all gonna look at you and be like, oh, how did you let this happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm gonna go, yeah, how did you let that happen big guy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh, cuz I'm not taking credit for it
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh no!
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not be blaming me for the poor design choices that you guys have adopted by embracing AI to the degree in which you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't take the charm out of the beach boardwalks.
[SPEAKER_00]: You beaches did.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the name of what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You sold your swag for productivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You sold your swag to speed run through your own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't really get me so fucking heated.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm truly not exaggerating even a little bit when I say that I would rather see art from your nephew as the logo of your brand than you using AI.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say I wish I had like a paper and pen in front of me right now because I literally draw what I think you should do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like let's say your ice cream shop name is called Cone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would rather you tell a preschooler to write the word cone as shilly as possible and then like draw a cloud around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it kind of looks like the top of an ice cream and then you draw a cone on it and then boom there it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got character, it's got charm, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's built, designed by the family by this four-year-old fucking prodigy we've got over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would rather you do that than give me some bullshit AI-slop designed and nonsense that is just aglifying the whole goddamn world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna have to answer for these crimes someday, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: The crimes that you guys are committing, making everything ugly and swagless.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, like I said, I'm not taking credit for this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not taking the blame.
[SPEAKER_00]: When all of your grandkids are like, what the fuck is wrong with your generation?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to sit next to them and go damn right.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the fuck was wrong with our generation?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get hung up on a new part of the AI fucking spiral every day of the week, but really positioning it like you sold your swag to speedrun through your own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I wrote that
[SPEAKER_00]: know that really bothers me, selling your swag to speedrun through your own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Giving up your ability to cultivate swag in pursuit of doing something as quickly as humanly possible,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I need to buy a gun, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell is going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't have to think it's so funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I rant about AI, someone's like, God, you're so negative.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to embrace the future queen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Theddeddedded, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, I actually feel that my resistance to this nonsense is an act of like,
[SPEAKER_00]: defiance and optimism.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel that I'm being pessimistic about it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually feel like accepting it is being pessimistic being like there's nothing we can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just live in Slop City now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, get with the times.
[SPEAKER_00]: We like Slop, Oink Oink.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not gonna do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's because I'm an optimist and it's because I believe in people to be better and do better and to have higher taste palettes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my
[SPEAKER_00]: other thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry to keep fucking going on with Dan Joe, but I find it perplexing.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I'll say, I said this to a family member recently, I was like, I think about AI every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were like, how, how do you think about AI every single day?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was exaggerating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the Roman Empire shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: They thought that I was doing men did two years ago where they were like, Yeah, I think I went with the Roman Empire, no the fuck you don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: They thought I was doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about AI every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I panic about AI every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, How do you do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, how do you not?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't avoid it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walk down the street, I look at a business's logo, the flyer in the window, and I'm pissed off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that I can just stop thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reminded of it every second of every goddamn day, because the world is becoming uglier.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I genuinely feel like if you don't notice that, you must not have your finger on the pulse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you not have a perspective on art and culture?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just have to believe that your taste palette isn't that refined.
[SPEAKER_00]: no offense or maybe offense.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can take offense to that if you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that we should believe in ourselves more.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should believe in people's ability to create more.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should be more comfortable with the process and with things being imperfect and
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that people should have more pride in doing something themselves, even if it's shitty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I fucking sucks, I would rather you do it yourself than do the AI Slop nonsense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because by the way, it doesn't look good.
[SPEAKER_00]: AI Slop successfully picks a font and puts every single word.
[SPEAKER_00]: you gave it on the page.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like I'm overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to a restaurant the other night where they had fucking AI images of every single meal which, by the way, completely unhelpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make me want to order a specific item any more than if you just gave me the name.
[SPEAKER_00]: but not only that, but they had like fucking every single special had its own graphic and it was like kids eat free Wednesdays and tinnitititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititititit
[SPEAKER_00]: The AI doesn't understand what is actually good design, what's effective design, what the best way to communicate, the message to your consumer is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's dumb, it's stupid, and it's making something shitty.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just successfully picking a fought for you and putting it on a page so you don't have to, it looks bad, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, call your nephew, he'll do a better job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sick, guys, I'm absolutely fucking sick about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyways, that's where I've been residing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feet firmly planted in Rant City because I am an optimist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do believe the continuing to talk about this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are better off for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have to keep talking and keep calling it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Putting our hands up and being like, well, well, can we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's already here, guess we're stuck and being like, oh, fuck it, I guess I'm going to do nothing because there's nothing I can do reacting to the world, like we're so powerless to do anything about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think is that's the pessimistic decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing that leaves you stuck in one place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're giving up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would rather see people angry and passionate and fired up and talking about the shit on a loop every single day
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what can we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Accept it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never accept bullshit nonsense, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am team artist and team creative until the day that I die.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I like living in a creative world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like living in a world where I walked on the street and get to look at all these tiny small businesses that have designed their own worlds in the signage and the way their shop looks like that means something to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck, this feels like a crazy conversation to be having, like, if you told 14-year-old me that this was going to be the conversation when I was damn near 30, I'd be like, so what do I do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we do to stop that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd be like, I don't even know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how we got here.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we get here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, in better news, because we need some optimism around you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I've got two pieces of good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a piece of good news that impacts the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've got another piece of good news that is a personal good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the good news that impacts the world is that I saw on the news a couple days ago that they have some really promising research
[SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to a vaccine that you can get to prevent a melanoma from coming back if you've had it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is so exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom has had skin cancer several times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this has been a hot topic in my household, and it's like, that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so incredible that we get to see in our lifetimes, science, advance in the healthcare space to the point where we'll be able to see something like melanoma, the rates for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: drop downwards exponentially, because we're actually finding treatments that work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it only points towards even more good news to come for other forms of cancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I was reading a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm not the most well-versed in this, but I was reading a little bit about how there's other trials for other types of cancers that are in late stages of trials that are also looking really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're ready for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've done the trials.
[SPEAKER_00]: The results look good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they it is moving along and I Yeah, and that was a good piece of news that I heard this week and I was like well that is something a smile about in a world of AI Slop find You know the little things to celebrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today we're choosing to the Melanoma Prevention in the future, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: and on a personal note, some of you might have picked up on this, but that little tiny white cat that you've been seeing in the videos, he walks around of the couch a lot during pump cast, and he sometimes is around for emotionally online as well, but that room is much smaller.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's hard to communicate that through the screen, but we film the show out of my bedroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's no pathway when we have all the lights and cameras set up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Meg has to go sit in the chair and then we set up all the lights and cameras around.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she can't move without crawling over me when we're filming.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Teddy doesn't really come in the room all that much because there's nowhere for him to walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that little white cat that you've been seeing around in the episodes.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you watch, I adopted him, I actually did it a month ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so every time you've been seeing him, he was already here for good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't tell anyone about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so everyone's just thought he was my foster, but there was definitely a bunch of you that picked up on the fact that I felt differently towards him and that I had an immediate fondness for Teddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wanted to enjoy the honeymoon phase of adopting Ted on my own and make a creative little video announcing that I adopted him, which I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're interested, go check that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called I Foster Failed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's on my YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really proud of the editing that I put into that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like printed out a bunch of frames and drew on them and did little stop motions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just am really proud of the editing that I put into that, so if you're interested, definitely go check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it has been such a joy to get to fall in love with Teddy, and it's also been like, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: just a roller coaster of emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously I never thought that I would be adopting this soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly didn't think that I would adopt for years and years and years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think it was in the cards for me at all because losing mango,
[SPEAKER_00]: year ago was so hard and so painful, and I knew that someday I would have the courage to love again, but I thought that it would take me a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I even had moments where I was like, do like will I ever have the courage to love again?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to believe that I do, but the idea of opting into a heartbreak, so painful was overwhelming to think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think, I
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, at the end of a pet's life, and you think about all the times you spent together, obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then when the prospect of bringing in a new animal to your life, like, for me, all I could think about was the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like,
[SPEAKER_00]: just remembering how I felt in my chest that day when I took her to the emergency vet and it it dawned on me and I had the moment of realization that this wasn't going to be something where we could fight out of it that there wasn't an amount of money I could pay you to save her that this was the end and having that realization that there's nothing you can do and that you're at the end
[SPEAKER_00]: and having to sit in that and then hold her in my arms while she's being put down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was the hardest thing I've ever done.
[SPEAKER_00]: hands down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a hard time thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let alone doing something that is essentially requiring me to do that again in the future, because death is a part of life and a part of love and there's nothing we can do to avoid it and
[SPEAKER_00]: If I adopt again, it means that I'm going to have to go through that same pain all over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's terrifying and it's overwhelming and it's scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't feel ready for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in came Teddy, truly when I least expected it, I was only supposed to foster him for like a week, because there were so many applications in for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was we so temporary, but I fell in love with him fucking instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just, I really, it's hard to explain the world
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm grieving, and I'm, you know, experiencing all of that still constantly, and then it comes Teddy, and I'm like, oh, I think I'd be so sad if I...
[SPEAKER_00]: had to leave him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'd be so sad if he got adopted and that was just it and I don't want him to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually I feel really good when he's around and I really quite like this guy but fuck that's scary to say out loud and be like I like him and want him to stay and maybe I do want to opt into the fucking nastiest heartbreak ever again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know it's hard to
[SPEAKER_00]: but I felt so connected to him immediately and I had to sit down and ask myself, like, do you really think you're ever going to be not scared?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there always going to be a part of you that is scared to love again, scared to lose again?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a normal natural human thing and do you have the capacity to do it scared?
[SPEAKER_00]: To do it crying, to just follow your heart and trust that you have what it takes to navigate the hard times and that the good times are worth that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, I decided that it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grandma's walking up the steps right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Nanny!
[SPEAKER_00]: But really the thing that made me want to just do it scared and do it crying just dive in head first and trust that I have the capacity.
[SPEAKER_00]: to love again and that I'm braver and stronger than I think I am is that I felt like I was getting signs galore that Teddy was supposed to be here to stay on top of like the personal urge that I felt how connected to him that I felt immediately and just yeah how much I love this fucking cat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also
[SPEAKER_00]: was so moved by the signs I felt I was receiving from the universe that this was the direction I needed to go in and listen I am not a religious person but I am spiritual and I do believe in signs from the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe in a higher power but I do believe in my like guardian angels and people that I have loved that have passed being able to protect
[SPEAKER_00]: send me guidance and messages from wherever they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I search for those throughout my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when I talk to my guardian angels, I talk to two individuals primarily, though I assume that there are other family members that I never got to meet, that probably look out for me and protect me as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I imagine that my grandfather's mother looks after me because my parents
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, have always said that she would have loved me and that she, she passed like shortly before I was born and she was so excited for me to be born and to know me and they always said that I would have loved her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and then I did go to a psychic last year and um, she told me that there were two women on my grandmother's side and she gave me initials and I've checked it with my grandmother and it was,
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of her grandmothers, I think it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, that's neither her nor there, but that's kind of how I see it and How I experience my spirituality when I talk to my guardian angels.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are more angels than I know of, but obviously I tend to speak to the ones
[SPEAKER_00]: that I'm sure are there, and so I talked to the two losses that I've really had in my life, one of which is mango, and the other big loss I went through in my life was my grandfather, whose name, if you believe it, was Ted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I couldn't shake, paired with how I felt, paired with the fact that all of Teddy's favorite spots in the apartment were mangoes, favorite spots in the apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: He keeps sitting on the one chair underneath my dining table that Mango used to sit under, the one that my friend mecha did a watercolor painting of.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, the first time he crawled up into the cat tree and sat in her little home that she always used to sit in that I have the denim pants inside of.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sat there for so long and it was the longest time I had ever seen him sit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was, you know, he follows me around from room to room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like my shadow and the one time he stopped following me around was when he went to go sit in man goes house and then when I'm sitting in my computer working, he's sitting right behind me the way that man go dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had so many moments where I'm like, oh, it feels like she's whispering in your ear telling you to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the best spot to set.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maddie likes when you do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it had a, and I think paired with the fact that his name was Teddy, and my two guardian angels are my mango and my grandpa.
[SPEAKER_00]: It felt like the two of them conspired.
[SPEAKER_00]: They collaborated together to send me a cat with some similar traits to Mango with the name of my grandfather.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, after all of that, I decided that I couldn't bear to part with him and I just had to keep him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's officially an honorary member of Love Girls HQ and
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's been such an unexpected sweetness in my life, and I'm just, yeah, excited to get to go through the process of being a cat mom again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've been pleasantly surprised at,
[SPEAKER_00]: how comforting it's been.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was part of me that thought that going through the process of adoption and getting to do all the same things I did with mango with another cat would make me feel sad, but it actually has done the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me feel so happy because it makes me feel connected to the version of me I was when I was loved by her.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I knew her, when I loved her, this is what my life looked like, and it feels like a testimonial to her to get to love another cat and the way that she loved me and the way that she loved the fosters like,
[SPEAKER_00]: to get to continue forward in my life and yeah, just live the same way that we did.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the dreams that I spoke into the world when I was with mango, I'm gonna do, I'm still gonna do all of them in honor of her and I'm gonna love a new cat that needs love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as hard as I loved mango in the way that she taught me and it's like I just feel like every cat I love from here on out We'll be touched by mango because of how impacted I was by her and that makes me feel Comforted
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel like she is always a part of me now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, getting to love another cat really brings out that side of me, which feels good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels good to be so connected to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's my little piece of personal sweetness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the fam, Teddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you'll see him a bunch in.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the episodes passed at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do some audience missions.
[SPEAKER_00]: As always, we do have a submission box where you guys can submit your requests for advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any drama and juice and tea you've got going on in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's any pop culture, internet topics you want us to touch on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feel free to add them to the box and we may or may not talk about them on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's kick off with a cat submission, since we've been talking about Teddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Maddie.
[SPEAKER_00]: We said goodbye to my childhood cat recently and alongside the devastation and grief I feel from losing one of the loves of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also feel let down by many of the people around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: For context, I'm a mid-20s girl doing a PhD and working part-time to support my studies.
[SPEAKER_00]: The day that my love was put down, I messaged my manager telling my couldn't come in for my shift the next day and why.
[SPEAKER_00]: He read the message and didn't respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has since messaged me about other shifts without acknowledging my previous message.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told my PhD supervisors over Zoom meeting as a way of explaining why I hadn't gotten much work done.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was less than a week after we lost him, and none of my supervisors said anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sat blankly with their microphones muted just staring at me, and I had to awkwardly try to transition to another topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my best friends reaction is hurt me the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are going on nine years as besties, and we've been long distance for seven of those years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her birthday party was the day after my cat was put down.
[SPEAKER_00]: After messaging her about what had happened, I pulled myself together enough to go to the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to support her, especially because we hardly see each other in person.
[SPEAKER_00]: She did not acknowledge anything that had happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, she barely spoke to me the whole night.
[SPEAKER_00]: All our friends checked in on me, but not her.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple days later, we spent an entire day just us two chatting on my couch and still no acknowledgement.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels especially hurtful because she knows how important my cat is to me and how much I treasured him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, she's a huge cat person herself and she lost her childhood cat a couple years ago so she knows how hard it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are my expectations for support too high?
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I just accept that some people don't see losing a pet as a big deal?
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do I overcome the hurt and resentment I feel towards my friend for letting me down?
[SPEAKER_00]: to start off, know your expectations are not too high.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the unfortunate reality is that we live in a world that doesn't allow nearly enough time or grace for any kind of grief or bereavement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it is truly inhumane the kind of non-understanding that people have for grief in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: whether it's a pet or a Philly member, a grandparent, a friend, whatever, I think that across the board, our society does not make enough room for grief and acknowledge how it impacts people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is another like consequence of capitalism and just like the death grip that productivity culture and money has on everything that we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because ultimately, like when we strip everything back, there is nothing more important than our humanity and the way that we speak to and treat each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who cares if you miss one day at work or your late to submit a paper when you're experiencing a profound loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, because of the passing of a person or animal that you have loved.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing more important than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything else can wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I find it really frustrating when people act like fucking anything is more important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know, clocking into a shift at Urban Outfitters is more important than like grieving.
[SPEAKER_00]: and letting yourself feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is very minimal circumstances in this world where people allow you to just like feel everything and take a proper time for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember when my great grandfather passed, I was asked by my boss at the time to prove that he had died and to bring in the obituary, or also I was going to get written up for not coming into my shift
[SPEAKER_00]: which I think is an insane way to react to someone who is telling you that they just had a relative pass away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's bonkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like making someone do that because you think that on the off chance you might be lying about it, here come and prove it and it's like, okay, on the off chance you might be lying, that's why you're doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what about on the more likely chance that the person is not lying about it
[SPEAKER_00]: in the midst of them processing the loss of someone close to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's taking their crazy pills this morning like I do not understand how people do not have more empathy and understanding and yeah it's it sucks how much capitalism and money and just
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, keep in keep in the ball rolling, sticking with the rules, sticking with the thing that makes us the most profit is the thing that matters more than our humanity and the way we understand people and understand loss and grief and how much that impacts a person and that's true across all kinds of grief.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'll speak specifically to the experience of losing a pet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there are obviously lots of people who do understand it because I think that anybody who's had a very special relationship with an animal before understands how painful that is and how truly it rocks your world.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I can understand that people who have not have that relationship with an animal don't understand that or don't have the like reference point for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my thing is like, I don't think that you should need to have a reference point for something in order to have empathy and understanding for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you don't understand why someone is so upset about something, the reality is that they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you as a friend, as a colleague, as a coworker, or as a boss, as a teacher, whoever you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: If someone is coming to you and saying like, I've gone through this thing and I'm devastated about it, I'm really struggling in my grief right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It actually doesn't matter if you understand it on a personal level or relate to it or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: because the reality is that you are saying that it's important to you and that it's devastated you and you're really struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the truth and that's all the matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I find it very strange that people don't have that reaction and that when people don't understand something, they have this reaction of like
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a cat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a dog, whatever the animal is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, they want to minimize it into something they can understand rather than push themselves to understand something beyond their own lived experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: But
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe that's just me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I totally understand why you'd have a particular kind of hurt associated with your friend because you know that they understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've gone through it themselves and they have not shown up for you in the process.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now whatever that reason is, let's give your friend the benefit of the doubt for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe your friend didn't show up for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: because their grief is still quite heavy on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they didn't know how, or they couldn't figure out how to process their grief in a way to be able to show up for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a possibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's true, you're still allowed to be upset that they were not supportive of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's say that that is the reasoning for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like, you know, the other end of this picture, and where it's like, your friend doesn't give a single solitary fuck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I don't think is the case, or I hope is not the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: I assume we're probably somewhere in the middle ground here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes people get in their heads or they don't know what to say to people who are grieving, even people who have experienced grief before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes understanding the experience still doesn't give us the words to know what to say to someone else when they're experiencing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people get caught up on not knowing what the right thing to say or do is when most of the time the right thing to say or do is just to show up and make yourself available and allow yourself to be vulnerable in your own curiosity about the other person's grief like it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes uncomfortable to not know what the right thing to say is, but sometimes part of being a good friend is like pushing through that fear of saying the wrong thing and showing up anyways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because at the end of the day, your friend is going to remember the fact that you showed up, that you asked them how they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you asked them if they needed help with something, if they wanted you,
[SPEAKER_00]: to send them dinner or come over and do chores for them if they just needed someone around to pass the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when when Mango died, my friends really rallied around me in a way that I will always, always remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were absolutely people who didn't, you know, there were some people that were less present in my life at that time and I think I read it in that moment and still now as people not knowing what to say to me in people knowing how devastated I was and just feeling uncomfortable with it and not knowing how to hold space for how big of a reaction I was having to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I obviously don't think that saying nothing is the proper response to that, like I think there are other ways to move through our uncomfortability and not wanting to say the wrong thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also can understand that it is hard to know what to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: the people that were more absent around the time that mango died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I did notice it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some I had moments where I took it personally, but for the most part, I was like, I have to assume that they mean well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're just, yeah, they're uncomfortable, they don't want to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to not check in at all is really tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: To not say anything is really weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think especially if they're like your best friend That like perplexes me.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is a best friend?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you not like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you need?
[SPEAKER_00]: What can I do for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's just not how best friends?
[SPEAKER_00]: act, in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think as a best friend, you should be concerned about what your friend is going through and how they're feeling and how you can best support them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it's hard for you to support them because of your own grief or you don't know what to say, you're afraid of saying the wrong thing, with your best friend, you should feel comfortable voicing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: With your best friend, you should feel comfortable going to them and being like, I'm devastated for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like an unfathomable loss, and I understand because I've been through it too, and I have to be honest with you, in that I have so much more processing to do in my own grief journey that like being your like right hand person and processing this is a little difficult for me because of what it brings up personally, but I love you so much, and I'll check in when I can.
[SPEAKER_00]: That seems like a perfectly appropriate response, or if someone is like, I love you so much, I'm so sorry this happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I wanna do anything I can to show up for you, and I wanna acknowledge that I really don't know what to say right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing I can say to make this better, and I don't wanna say the wrong thing, but just know that like, I'm so sorry, and I love you so much, and like, I am here for you no matter what.
[SPEAKER_00]: but like saying out loud that I don't know what the right thing to say is and I don't really know what to do and this just sucks and I'm just gonna sit here in the suck with you and sometimes that's all that matters is your friend just wants you just want to know that your friend is there and and that they're gonna sit through this weird awful time with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's weird that your friend didn't do or say any of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Additionally, I am curious as to why you didn't bring it up with your friend when you guys were together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it because you didn't know what to say or you didn't want to bum them out or switch the vibe of things or did you just not want to talk about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or, yeah, why didn't you yourself bring it up because I think sometimes?
[SPEAKER_00]: And like we get in these like standoffs with people we love where they don't act the way we think they should.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course there's a range of explanations for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like the worst case to do explanation where it's like they don't give a fuck and they hate me, which is probably not the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the other side of it where it's like, oh they are also experiencing grief and they're a complicated person.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, maybe they didn't react to this the best way that they could, but I can understand where they're coming from and why they have reacted the way that they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that sometimes we get into these standoffs with people where we want the explanation to come from them, but I think that like when you guys sat down to have your like one on one hang,
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was even a situation if your friend being like, I don't want to bring it up and ruin the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are not trying to talk about it, like I if you're so upset about this and you're just trying to have a good night and keep your mind off of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then maybe I'm not going to bring it up unless you do kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I obviously I still think that your friend should have brought it up with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying that I think there are other possibilities that add more color to the situation and it can be a situation of like your friend should have shown up for you should have asked you about it, they didn't because of something that we can understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really feel like until it has brought up directly, you're not going to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not worth sitting here being like, you know, should I forgive my friend for this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do I overcome the hurt?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the reality is that you just have to say it out loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes we do just have to, like, tell people what we want, tell people how we want to be treated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, open up to your friends and let them show up for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that I'm someone who like, nobody ever has to pry with me because I will just tell you what's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I cannot keep it in, which I think is helpful for people when navigating how to show up for me because I will tell you exactly what's helpful for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never in the history of my life has anyone had to be like, so it seems like something's bothering you, do you want to talk about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I will talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will and I do and I think it's helpful for people because they know exactly how to respond to me, how to show up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're never left guessing of like, should we talk about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Should we not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they know that if I want to talk about it, I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I think that is helpful in just like being the person to start the conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think particularly sometimes with grief, people really do feel so uncomfortable touching it that sometimes you do have to be the person to start the conversation and be like, look, I'm really struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a really hard week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I, you know, sit and vent to you for a little bit about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just really need a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really need support.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really need perspective from someone who's gone through this before, you know, when you lost your pet, what were the things that you clung to, what were the reflections and, um, I don't know, pieces of media that felt comforting to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how did you get through those first couple weeks?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know and approaching with curiosity and I also think it's okay if you want to tell your friend that you are disappointed with their lack of support for you because I do find it really weird that your friend didn't do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially like you pulled yourself together to go to her birthday party the day after your cat was put down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're
[SPEAKER_00]: better than I would be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's no way I would have done that and it does feel weird that she didn't acknowledge it and yeah, this is supposed to be your best friend and other people are checking in but they're not and
[SPEAKER_00]: then you hung out just the two of you and still no acknowledgement at all like how do you not that seems bizarre like even if there's not a big conversation there should at least be a text that's like I'm so sorry I love you so much like whatever you need I'm here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in conclusion, this fucking sucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sucks that that was the reaction of your boss and your professors and especially your best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all should have had different reactions to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not overreacting, your expectations for support are not too high.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a very reasonable, acceptable expectations for how people should act.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sorry that people did not show up and support you in the way that you needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope for your sake that there is some understanding that can be found with your best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there is a piece of information that we could learn that could change things a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make it right, but can bring more understanding and peace to your dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think you'll eventually have to talk about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: express that it really hurt you, that she didn't check in on you or support you through this loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the only way we get to the other side of that and learn to let go of that resentment is by like having radically honest conversations with each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that by not talking about it you're ever gonna get over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really fucking hurtful thing to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think to get to the other side of it there needs to be a conversation where there is understanding for how you feel and
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just an acknowledgement of the pain caused as a result, but trust that you are not alone, that you're not overreacting, and that I too wish the world was kinder to people that are grieving, no matter what that grief looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Matty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've just begun grad school and emits all the overwhelm and joy of meeting new people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something has been persistently upsetting me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before this semester began, I was texting two girls in my class, both of whom I met at admitted students' event.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were very cool and friendly and I was excited to connect with them once school began.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, as the first weeks of school progressed, I quickly began to feel like they were icing me out.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we were with a group of people, they stopped acknowledging me unless I make the first move.
[SPEAKER_00]: In every class-wide event of which there were many, they do not say hi to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I'm speaking with someone who one of them knows she would join our conversation just to draw that person away from me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the while they seem to be engaging exclusively with each other, actively drawing in a couple of girls into their small group.
[SPEAKER_00]: They posted a photo together from our class night out and I'm just hit with the thought that these people I so eagerly thought I'd vibe with have rejected me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm completely confused and dismayed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find myself in spirals of resentment and insecurity trying to rationalize their exclusion
[SPEAKER_00]: I would think it's because they're tall, pretty, and skinny.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because I came on too strong, trying to defend them and open myself up to them too soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's mystifying to me that we're in our mid-20s and in grad school, and this is still happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: All I really want is to connect with people and make friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: To feel like I belong at my new school.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so proud of myself for having gotten here, and I've dreamt of this for so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: The me five years ago would cry tears of joy if she knew where I am now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really just wish I wasn't made so unhappy by this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone around me seems to be having such a genuinely good time meeting one another, while I seem to be filmed filled with all the doubt and negativity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would appreciate your thoughts and any lived experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: So much love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well for starters, these just sound like textbook mean girls.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't sound like people that you'd ever want to be friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so sorry that you found yourself in the position of
[SPEAKER_00]: you know thinking that they could have been cool and you guys could have vibed in Ben Friends and them just turning around and being really nasty and exclusionary for no reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the day, there's going to be people you connect with and click with in this life and there's going to be people that you don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes with the people that you don't click with, the people that for whatever reason, it's just not yelling.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't allow yourself to believe that if only you massaged yourself to be a little bit different, then they would like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't position it where they have all of this power to reject you socially and you have no agency whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: because at the end of the day, are these the kinds of people that you would want to be friends with?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm assuming the answer is now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have agency here as well to look at the situation and say, these are not the kinds of people that I would want to be friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people that I would want to be friends with would never treat someone like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's allowed to be in
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that sometimes when we feel rejected or we really put ourselves out there and it seems like it's a one sided rejection where we were very into something and then people sort of They put walls up and they reject us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very easy to look at yourself and think like if only I was thinner and prettier if I dressed like this if I had more money if I
[SPEAKER_00]: was XYZ different.
[SPEAKER_00]: If only I had not come on too strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: If only I was different in XYZ away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we try to shove ourselves into smaller and smaller boxes to ensure that we'll be accepted and embraced the next time we put ourselves out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is that we have no way to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single time we put ourselves out there, sometimes it's going to be a hit and you're going to click and you're going to vibe together and sometimes it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when those things happen, you cannot take them so personally and allow them to become a reflection of who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're allowed to look at these people that are excluding you and rejecting you, that you put an effort to be their friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been so nice and kind to them, you really wanted to get to know them and they have been so rude to you in return.
[SPEAKER_00]: you're allowed to look at that and be like, whoa, okay, not my initial impression of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Off my first impression of you, I thought that we could have gotten along and bend people that vibe, but now after learning a little bit more about you, it's become clear that you are not the kind of people that I would want to be friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be friends with anybody who would exclude someone and, you know, try to pull people away from conversation with me, take photos and post on social media after you've been knowingly ice-down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be friends with people who behave like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's textbook mean girl behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of looking at it and being like, oh, what could I have done?
[SPEAKER_00]: What could be different about me in order to make sure I was accepted by these people?
[SPEAKER_00]: Embrace that you actually don't want to be accepted by these people, because they sound like fucking losers, losers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have more agency in this than you are allowing yourself to believe that you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you see yourself as just the person that was rejected, you see yourself as like, you had no power in the decision, the decision wasn't yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was completely out of your hands and, you know, you were just the person that was rejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: There must be something wrong with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When really there's nothing wrong with you, and you also have the ability to look at them and reject them in return.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be friends with people like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Boom, now they're also rejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really believe that the people that are meant for you in this life won't miss you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when people are really meant to be your friends and meant to be in your life, it won't be such a struggle to keep them there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that sometimes it's fucking hard to find the right people for you, but when you do, I think it becomes quite easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am someone who, um, I think I'm pretty good at making friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have always prided myself on my, like, courage in putting myself out there and friendships specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have struggled in dating in ways that I have never struggled with friendships.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with that being said, I have absolutely been in situations where I feel like I was trying so hard to make friends and I just couldn't swing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely referenced this before on the show, but I was, I did cheerleading for most of my young life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I did rack cheerleading with like my friends from high school, when I was in elementary and middle school, and then when I was in high school, I joined a
[SPEAKER_00]: Competitive gym a couple towns over where I didn't know a single person there and I could not make friends with that group of girls for the life of me And I think the reality is just that we were very different people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there was really anyone in that group that I was like a total match with
[SPEAKER_00]: um, vibe wise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, the point of me sharing that is just to say that like, sometimes it's not you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's not anything that you're doing right or wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you're just literally not meant to be friends with those people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a match.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys are not on the same vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not on the same wavelength.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I, I like to believe, um, I guess like a reframe that I'll do inside my head is that like my guardian angels will protect me from people that aren't meant to be in my path.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so sometimes I'll look at things that end or things that don't really work out the way I hoped they would and I'm like, you know what, it wasn't meant to be that I have to believe that there's someone out there that's protecting me that's like, oh, those people don't deserve you.
[SPEAKER_00]: These people are nasty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's let her find out sooner rather than later than these people are nasty and that they are not worth your time because you're a precious and your heart deserves to be protected at all costs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I just.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that sometimes there really is nothing that you could have done, there's nothing that you should have done.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just weren't your people, and that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, thank God, they're not your fucking people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of losers in the world, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God, they are not your people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's just that some people are fucking weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I, I think I talked about this on the post show before, but I, there was an experience that I had in college where I was trying to befriend someone new.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought they were cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had classes together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I invited them to hang out with me and my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: And long story short, we were playing a game that involved writing things on cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Fishball.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know what fishball is, you know what I'm about to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you write your own cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, and you put them in a bowl and you shake them up and then you do different rounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the rounds is charades and whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody had wrote something mean about me in the bucket.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like a group of all my friends and we're all looking at you and they're like, what the fuck?
[SPEAKER_00]: who wrote that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the person that I invited that I was trying to become friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that they thought it was funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: They thought that I don't think, I don't know what they thought honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if they thought that it wouldn't have hurt my feelings or that I would have taken it as a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was an insult about my appearance, specifically my eyebrows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how they thought that was going to hit, but the whole room was like, what the fuck?
[SPEAKER_00]: and obviously me and this person never really became friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were always friendly, that was about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it was one of those moments for me where I was like, I'm not even gonna deep this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to be this person's friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've now shown me that they're probably not the kind of person I want to be friends with.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just gonna back off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that has nothing to do with me or what type of friend I am or what I'm worth as a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's entirely where a reflection of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was putting my best foot forward, earnestly trying to make a friend, and someone was mean to me as a result.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and again, I don't even necessarily think this person thought they were being mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's just the way they are and the way they talk, at least it was at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I didn't want any part of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you know what, noted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually don't think we're a match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm too sensitive to be friends with people who think it's funny to make fun of my appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd happen, sometimes people are weird, but you can't take it too personally and internalize it as being something wrong with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost everything is not about you, it's not because you weren't good enough or pretty enough or thin enough or wealthy enough or whatever it is, it's because they have judgment issues and preconceived notions about what XYZ a person should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are superficial and surface deep and
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are not things that you want in a friend and a partner and whoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The right people for you will not miss you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The right people for you will not require you to mold and shape your shape shift yourself in order to be accepted.
[SPEAKER_00]: That just wouldn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm sorry that grad school has proven to be a little bit more challenging than you hoped it would be in the social department.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that the right people for you find you soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a feeling they're on their way to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: something just tells me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's today's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to hang out with me a little bit more, I'm going to throw us on over to the post show right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to follow the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mostly online pod on Instagram and TikTok would love to get the 10k on TikTok.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be a sleigh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love you guys so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will see you back in the bedroom with Meg for next week's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.