August 10, 2023 • 49 mins
Billy Eichner is in the studio today to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of using anger to fuel your creativity, the loss of his parents as a young man, and exactly which 1980s baseball players made him realize he was gay. Then: A 50-something finds that he’s no longer as interested in bar-hopping as his husband. A mom’s concern grows when she discovers her grade-schooler has gone full Mean Girl. And a Texan with a mullet wonders if it’s okay to fly solo.
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Note: This episode was recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at DearChelseaPodcast@gmail.com
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Executive Producer Catherine Law
Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert
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The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees. This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everybody. Hello, Yo, Hi Chelsea, Hi, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You know all over the shop? I'm all over the shop.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Indeed, Chelsea, can I ask you for a piece of advice?
Or really it's a general question for the Hoi POLOI
the hoy bleet, for our dear listeners. What's the ideal
length for a dinner with friends?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Well, if it's an obligatory dinner, okay, I would say
ninety minutes.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I like to make a dinner two hours.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
When you're with friends and it's not obligatory and you're
catching up, I would say two hours, two and a
half hours, okay. And if it goes anything longer than that,
you're having a fucking blast.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That is true. Lunch is better if it's obligatory, because
that can.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Be an yeah and everyone No one expects for that
to go to in a half hours, because people.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Got no, no, no, no, unless you're in Europe and everyone's
shit faced, which is my kind of LuFe shit.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
So if you're ready for people to leave, Let's say
you had a dinner at your house, and.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I already that.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I don't do that anymore for that reason. But I
actually haven't had a house at a long time. I
mean I've been in that rental house. I was in
that rental house for two years, so I wasn't really
into entertaining there. I have had people over for dinner,
like for certain you know, but very casually, not dinner parties.
When I had my old house, I would I would
have dinner parties a lot. So I hope that when
I move into my new house, I will continue to
(01:25):
do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm sure I.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Will, because then i'll have you'll have your own, my
own prime. And I don't like showing off a rental house,
right right, Not that I have people over to show
off my house, but there it feels more like you're
it's representative of.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Who you are, totally.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
So like my rental house feels like I'm in an
apartment that I don't know about.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Like and I don't know my way around.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, and I know that when we were in MAYORCA
with you, when you were ready for the party to
be over or you were done with the dinner, you would.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Just go to bed, which yeah, yeah, I've done.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
That's my move. I just go to sleep, And I
don't mind if people hang out without me. You know,
like at my house. Oh see that's great. Yeah, so
what I'm done.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
I mean, I do go to bed early, you know,
I typically like even, but in my Orca like early
is like eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
But yeah, I don't stay up late. It's just not
my thing.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We've had a couple of times recently where we've had
people over and I'm like, okay, there's like the few
stragglers and I'm like, what is the thing that you
say to be like it's time to leave?
Speaker 4 (02:23):
If you just have to say I'm wrapping it up.
You guys are welcome to stay, but I've got to
get into bed.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Oh I love that and I love it.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
And then they can decide if they want to hang
out while you're in bed in your own house. Yeah,
you know which to me, Actually, I love having people around,
but it's like I'm not I can't be beholden too
the situation for too long.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, I know what you mean. You kind of got
to get it rid of people sometimes.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, we have a very exciting guest today.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Oh yeah, very very funny. Little birdie in a tree.
His name you might recognize him from how many things?
As would you recognize he's an actor, writer, producer, Billy.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I can never well, I'm happy to see you you.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Ever be we've met, not in person.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I don't think it can't be possible, I know, but.
Speaker 6 (03:05):
I don't think we did ever. Maybe No, wait, I
think we maybe did at March for our Lives in DC.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Okay, were you there?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Sounds about right?
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Yeah, I think I met you very briefly. Wow, Charlie's
was there?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yes, Yes, a group of us went.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
We were like in a big group.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
That's when marches first started happening again.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Now we're desensitized. Oh another march.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
This world is so it is that we're living in
it is.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I'm like, the more depressing it becomes, the more optimistic
I become because I took good thing I have to.
I can't go down that road again from like when
I talk about that, I mean when Trump was president,
but all the dissension, the divisiveness, the hate, the meanness,
the discrimination, Like I can't even look at it for
(03:57):
too long.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I've understood now how important is to.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Remain optimistic and invoke hope and other people, even if
it's faking it. I want other people to feel better
after they see me.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Yeah, No, you're right. I mean, God, who knew it?
March for our lives? Like how much worse it would be?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
How much marching we were going to have to do
about everything?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Yeah, nothing is really a wake up call.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
That's the problem, because everything is so ephemeral, and I
think that is a direct result of well, I would
say the Kardashians, but I would say more social media.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
Right, I was just going to say it's social media.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Nothing seems important because no one cares about anything because
there's such an influx of information that who what are
you supposed.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
To care about? And I'm happier like Billy Iikner. I
want to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
First of all, congratulations on the first major gay movie production.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I wanted to specifically talk to you about a scene
in the movie where you talk about confidence, huh, because
Catherine agreed that that was a very poignant part of
the movie. And I want to talk to you about
confidence because the conversation talks about whether you're faking it
or whether you have it, and I find those two
things to blend together a pretty right.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
Yeah, you know, it is essentially fake it till you
make it, and anyone in show business understands that. I think,
I mean, you have to in order to keep going.
But I'm talking about how confidence is a choice like
any other, and it really is you have to wake
up and decide to be confident. It's not like you're
born with it.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You know, it's not a tree, not you guys. It's
not much more serious than that. But I do think
it's an interesting topic because there's arrogance, right, which is
different than confidence.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Arrogance.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
I've been very guilty of arrogance in my life likewise,
and I've also had a lot of confidence too, And
some people say, oh, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Those two things can get money as well.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
And I think from an early age you kind of
decide what kind of person you are naturally, and as
you get older, you're kind of always if you're looking within,
you're trying to chip away or add and make that
person the potential of who you can be, right, the
best potential of who you can be. Yeah, So tell
(06:17):
me about your kind of experience with that.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Do you go to therapy? Do you have a therapist?
Speaker 6 (06:22):
I do, although only I started therapy about a year
and a half ago for the first time ever in
my life, and I was always very pro therapy. I
lost both of my parents, but just even then, never
felt the need to go to therapy until about a
(06:42):
year and a half ago, and I'm glad that I did.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
It's great.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
How did you decide that you needed to go to therapy?
What was happening in your life that you decided, If.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
You want to know the truth, it was. We had
just wrapped shooting. It was challenging. It was really hard,
and sometimes it would really stress me out, and my
anxiety about it was, I think, looking back, irrational sometimes,
but I just put so much pressure on myself and
(07:14):
I wanted it to be so many things, and that
movie had very specific challenges, you know, like stay honest
for the gay people and for yourself, but make it
clear for straight people and you know, not alienating. And
I lost sleep at night worrying about studio notes and
things like that. So I got through the writing process
(07:35):
we shot the movie. Shooting the movie was wonderful, and
the cast was incredible, and the whole cast was openly LGBTQ,
which never happens, and so the set felt felt very special.
We got to shoot it in New York that was magical.
But when we wrapped the movie. I was really worried
about the post production process and about editing the movie
(08:00):
because I thought, Okay, well, I was a co writer,
so I had some control over the script, and I'm acting.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
In the movie.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
I'm starring in the movie, and I've been on many
sets and I've acted in many things. So the shooting
of the movie I felt good about. But the editing process,
I thought, I don't have power here. Technically, I'm not
the director, I'm not an editor.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
I'm an EP. But EP is kind of a bullshit thing.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
And I thought, oh god, I'm going to lose control
of the movie over the quality of the movie, which
actually didn't happen at all, and so many things that
I it was interesting. So many things that I worried
about ended up being things I did not need to
worry about, and things I never really thought about ended
up being things maybe I should have thought about more.
(08:44):
But I got a therapist because I was so worried
about the post production, which is really where the movie
comes together. The movie can live and die in the
editing room, and I was so stressed about that that
I thought I am going to get a therapist. At
the beginning of this process to help me navigate all
of this, because there were times where I would get
(09:06):
into my car after a meeting or something and I
would like get into a fetal position. I was like
so stressed, and that's why I got a therapist, honestly,
was to guide me through that process. And I'm really
glad I did.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And within your therapy did the death of your parents.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Obviously that's something a topic that you have to discuss
in therapy, right How no were you?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Can?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I ask you how old you were?
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (09:29):
I was young when my mom died. I was twenty
years old when my mom died. I was in college
and it happened out of nowhere. She had a heart
attack and died. Which is that you know, people have
parents died at a younger age. It's very different to
have a parent die when you're five than to have
a parent die when you're twenty. I had my mom
through my formative childhood years and teenage years and she
(09:52):
was fantastic, But twenty is still young. And then my dad,
my dad was older than my mom, had me late
later in life, so he died about eleven twelve years ago.
He was eighty, you know, he wasn't young, but also
was somewhat unexpected.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
He was pretty healthy for.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
An eighty year old, and all of a sudden was
diagnosed with leukemia. The doctor said he has two to
nine months to live, and less than three months later
he was gone. So but you know, strangely enough, I
haven't really talked about that in therapy much.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Really.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Yeah, he's my.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Therapist, isn't very he'sn't like one of these like let's
deal with your childhood types of guys. It's more practical,
like the day to day Uh huh, you know, for
better or worse.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, no, I think I think all of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
You know, I think, well, when it happens when you're twenty,
I think you're still a baby. You know, that trauma
when someone's snatched away from you in your life, it
is definitely traumatic. But yeah, there are all sorts of
different types of therapy. From what I gleaned from therapy,
which was a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
If you don't deal with your.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Trauma, it will deal with you at a certain point,
and it'll deal with you in situations like you're talking about,
like where we get in our heads and we're totally
stressed out because our trauma does work for us for
a while, because that's your motivation. Like you almost have
more gas because you've been so hurt or you've.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Felt such loss that you're even more motivated.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
Anger can be such a motivated factor. Yeah, both creatively
for me. I mean, I've really leaned into anger as
a comedic tool. Obviously I did in my early live
stage shows in New York, So that persona I realized
kind of early on, not as an actor per se,
but as a comedian. Once I had to generate my
(11:45):
own material, people really loved it. The angrier I got,
the more the audience loved it. And I thought, oh,
that's interesting because it's really not how I am in
real life. I know people always kind of don't believe that,
but if you know me, the whole angry thing, it's
very divorced from who I am in real life, and
yet I.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Can really turn it on.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
I'm good at it from a performance standpoint, and people
really liked when I did it. And then behind the
scenes anger, the rejection and all of that, you know,
the oh I'm openly gay. I was always openly gay
at a time in comedy, you know, twenty plus years ago,
when there weren't many.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Of them, only tig. It was only tigh.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
I mean literally there were a few. You know, Guy
Brandham was around, but I didn't know him.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I knew Guy, I knew guy I worked with me.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Yeah, of course, and so but at the time I
was looking around, you know, and I was I just
didn't have many gay peers in comedy.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Now there are so many.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
I'm so like envious of these younger kids in comedy
because so many of them are gay, queer, non binary,
and they have each other to lean on and to
work with.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
I didn't.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
I didn't really have that, and yet that became a
motivating force. Like I remember, I had a manager in
New York, a straight woman actually, who told me that
she was going to invite a bunch of agents to
see me and asked me if I could make the
show less Gay that month, right, just flat out asked me.
That This was at a time. This is two thousand
(13:18):
and six, so you could still ask that question, I guess,
and not fear, you know that someone was gonna tweet
about it and destroy your career. And she was asking
me that because she wanted the best for me, and
she thought that was in my best interest, and I
did the show that month. The agents came and they
signed me, and it was, you know, worked out. And
she said to me, you know, I have to ask
(13:39):
the agents. Loved it, but I think you made the
show gayer this month than it's ever been. Why did
you do that when I asked you to do the opposite?
And I was like, I don't know. I mean I
didn't sit down and say I am going to rebel
against what you told me. But I think subconsciously maybe
I did. I always had that in me. It was
like I was that gay kid who like I loved
(14:01):
Madonna growing up and like she was so rebellious and
like I had that in me. And I also think
because my parents were so supportive as a kid, they
were so supportive and overprotective. It was I had a
lot of unconditional love as a kid, even as a
gay kid.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I was really lucky.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Even what age did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 6 (14:24):
I mean, I don't remember the exact moment I thought,
oh I'm gay.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
You know, tell you were gay?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Basically they knew.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
I was like, you know, when you took me to
the you know, Barbar Streisan concert.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
I think that you knew. Well, yeah, it was exactly.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
The first guy I remember having a crush on was
this is funny Keith Hernandez of the nineteen eighty six
Oh I got that.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Was the year of the World Series.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Yes, and they won. And I grew up in Queens
where with Gary Carter.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I was obsessed with Gary Carter.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
It was an amazing team. Let me extra all the mookie.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well she became Coast Strawberry mookie.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
That's right, Yes, they became awful people.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I remember seeing this like what it was before Cribs,
but whenever they showcased someone's house, and they were showcasing
Darryl Strawberry's apartment in New York City, and he had
white leather sofas everywhere, and the whole house was decorated
in a way. And even at that age, I was like,
this guy is doing cocaine. I could tell by his
furniture that he was fucking doing cocaine.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
Absolutely, and so and I remember a few years ago.
So my first crush was Keith Hernandez. This was nineteen
eighty six. I was eight years old, and I remember
and I at the time, I wouldn't have said like, oh,
I have a crush on him, but I remember just
being very drawn to him, like there was an attraction.
And I got so bummed because then a few years
(15:42):
ago I saw a photo of him and his wife
walking into mar A Lago. Of course, you know, it
was such a bummer, but yeah, him and John bon Jovi.
I really loved John bon Jovi as a kid.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, well that's hard not to do.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Yeah, and he was great looking and.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
So yeah and so yeah, I was always like a
little rebellious, and I think I needed that. That anger
was a motivating.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
It's a driving factor for sure, because I never knew
what people said when like it works until it will
work for you until it doesn't. I never understood that
phrase until I experienced it myself. Because my anger, my
personality was a huge driving force gave me a lot
of success. And then all of a sudden, it was
a big dark shadow on me. You know, all of
a sudden, I felt like, wait, I have it. And
(16:28):
it was because I had unrealized you know, grief trauma.
My brother died when I was a little girl, so
it was all that stuff, and it's amazing how far
can take you.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's just really is like lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
When somebody's angry and wants to get away from their feelings,
they will become successful.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
It's true.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
But you have to be careful because it can end
up defining you too in a way that you're not
comfortable with.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Well, that's yeah, and especially if you don't make the
pivot or you don't like look in, you know, because
it isn't the most pleasant work all the time. Anyway,
We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
And we're back perfect.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
So we give advice to real live callers on this podcast,
so we have people call it hopefully curated towards Billy
and his gayness.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Oh boy.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Our first question comes from Trev. Trev says, Dear Chelsea,
First time, long time. I'm a gay man in my
early fifties, and I'm married to a man who is
five years my junior. The age difference doesn't really come
into play often, but I'm dealing with one area of
our lives that I'm starting to grow out of and
he isn't, and that is alcohol. Don't get me wrong,
(17:38):
I'm not a teetotaler. I've had plenty of wild years
in my life. You name it, I drank it, snorted it,
put it on my tongue, fucked it, and lived to
tell the tale. I don't judge, and I believe the
body and mind are fun toys and you should experience
all the things they can do while you're alive. But
as I'm getting older, I find myself moving away from
wanting all of that, partially because I don't have the
energy or patience to deal with hangovers anymore, and partially because,
(18:02):
let's face it, a sloppy, drunk fifty something man ain't cute.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Amen, sister Amen.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Meanwhile, my spouse still loves to get trashed with buddies
on the weekends. I used to go along with it
and try to enjoy the raiders with him, but over
the past year or two I realized I honestly don't
enjoy getting drunk. I don't feel the need to chase
that buzz anymore. My husband isn't at that point yet.
Getting drunk is still kind of a hobby for him.
It's how he socializes with people. I don't think he
(18:31):
has any kind of serious problem, and he's responsible about
it generally. He's only a weekend day drinker, and his
drinking has never compromised his job or our household. But
when he throws down, he really throws down. He knows
I'm trying to bow out of the heavy drinking lifestyle.
But he does provide a little pressure with like, you
haven't gone to the bar with me in a long time,
and our friends are starting to ask about you. I
(18:53):
certainly don't want to give up drinking altogether. I will
always like a glass of wine or a good craft cocktail,
but I feel like my mind and body are both
aging out of wanting to drink just to get drunk.
I'm really excited about the thought of hanging out with
friends without having to get shit faced. After writing all this,
I need a stiff drink of kamboo chap.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Thanks Trev.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
I was gonna say she's still on adderall because that's
a very long letter, and that's the.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Trimmed down version. Yeah, we got it.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
Yeah, you don't want to drink as much as your
boyfriend got Yeah, some of.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
These are very long winded lately. Indeed, indeed, I'll go first.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I think that if somebody if you're not into drinking,
that's great, And if your partner is responsible and doing
all the right things, but just gets ship faced and
sloppy once a week. Then I think you can tolerate
that and let him do his thing. He's going to
outgrow alcohol too. Probably it happens with age. You're not
as interested in getting shit faced when you're older.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I mean most of the time.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
I think with most people, I'm trying to think of
some old ship face drunks that I know, But I'm like, wait,
I do.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Actually know a couple old drunks. Of course I do.
But yeah, I would say, let him do his thing.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Nobody wants to be policed or told what to do
within a relationship. And if you don't want to go
to the bar with him, you could just totally be
honest with him and say like, I'm not into that
right now, and don't frame it as that forever. Frame
it as right now, Like I'm just not interested in
that right now. I'm not interested in getting sloppy drunk.
And you know, who knows, maybe he'll be like, oh,
you know, once it's out there, and you know, without
(20:21):
judgment on him, you do your thing, let him do
his thing, and as long as it's not interrupting your lifestyle,
then there's really nothing for you to do except tolerate
it and go do something else on a Saturday night,
whatever you want to do.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Yeah, I agree. I think not framing it as forever
is really good advice. It could be tough in the
gay world. I know, it's obviously alcoholism exists everywhere, but
there's a lot of like social anxiety when gay men
get together. You know, it's very sexually charged, even if
you're in a long term couple, you know, because that
can be its own pressure. And you see a lot
(20:54):
of jug and alcohol abuse in the gay world, you do.
I have a lot of sober friends. They're sober because
for a long time they were very much not sober.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Is that how it works?
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Have you ever heard of that?
Speaker 6 (21:06):
Well, you know, gay guys party hard, sometimes not all.
I don't want to make generalizations, so and I would
imagine that, Yeah, there can be pressure to sort of
keep doing that, especially if you know your other half
is still doing it. But I think as long as
you communicate the fact that you have no problem with
him having a good time and that you just are
(21:27):
kind of, you know, shifting your behavior a little bit,
it shouldn't be an issue.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, I think that's a simple one.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
I think we've I think we uh, we're not going
to talk as long as it took him to write
that letter.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Do you think he should still like go out, have
a couple of mocktails and then be like, see you
guys have fun getting shit faced, like I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Go see a movie.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Or is it sort of like say how many your jammies?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah? Yeah, totally, Like that's nice.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
That's a great suggestion, but go before everybody gets sloppy.
The sloppy part, Like, I couldn't agree with you more.
Nobody wants to be around a slop drunk, So I
mean that might be a motivation for his partner to
like not get so sloppy, you know, knowing how he
feels or knowing that he's not going to be part
of the equation.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It becomes a little bit lonely. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Well, our first caller today is Amber. Amber says, dear Chelsea,
I'm writing to you as a long standing good girl
with codependent tendencies who's working hard to overcome my people
pleasing ways, all while raising a little badass eight year
old girl who has a strong ability to set boundaries.
Say it like it is with no filter, steps toe
to toe with anyone who challenges her, and is leading
(22:33):
the rest of the second grade girls into her sassy ways.
Problem is, I'm now discovering that she's not always using
her power for good. She's the leader of the mean
girls in second grade. Wow, I'm a long I know.
I'm a long standing fan and admirer of women like
my daughter, women like you who are comfortable in their
skin and don't seem to give a shit what others think,
(22:55):
free to set boundaries and live a life out loud.
I love it, I admire it, and I'm working hard
to be more like women like you and my daughter.
Question is how do I raise my little badass to
be powerful and kind? I don't want her to be
the asshole of everyone's childhood, but seriously don't want to
stunt her strength and power. What would you have wanted?
Thanks for the laughs and inspiration, Amber, And she's joining us.
Speaker 7 (23:18):
Here, Hi Amber, Hi Chelsea, how are you?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Hi?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Billy Eichner's here as a special guest.
Speaker 7 (23:24):
Billy's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That's so annoying.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I mean, I know what you mean, but I don't
think listen, I don't think of having a conversation about
kindness is going to put out her flame for life.
Kindness is part of being powerful, and I wish I
had learned that lesson at a very early age.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Was she bullied?
Speaker 7 (23:44):
You know, that's interesting. You should ask that she did
deal with a bully a couple of years ago. And
I think that what's happening is she's she's learned she
is powerful, and so she's willing to step toe to toe.
So she's also perceiving aggression when sometimes there isn't a
gre I also think it goes a little bit deeper
in one of the reasons. She's got some things going
(24:04):
on in her world too that are upsetting her. And
I think that she's trying to control things that she
thinks she can control, and she's doing it because she's
leading the all the girls in school to be mean girls.
But her brother, she's really close to him. He's ten
years older than her. He is leaving on a morm
(24:24):
admission and he'll be gone for two years, and she's
preparing for abandonment. And so she's got all these uncontrollables
that are happening in her world right now. And so
now I feel like she's punching back at the world
when she's at school and controlling all the other girls
and getting into you know, mean girl.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Scenarios, right, and so have you had an open conversation
with her about all of this. That's a good analysis
of the situation, lots of conversations.
Speaker 7 (24:51):
But what I'm also starting to see is kind of
she's starting to lose a little bit of a spark
in her eyes. She's like, I'm tired of talking about
being nice.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Mom.
Speaker 7 (25:00):
I get it, but I mean we're in the principal's.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Eye and it's not about being nice.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I think maybe you should change the word to kind,
because nice doesn't mean anything anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Who gives a shit if somebody's nice. I hate when
people say, oh, she was so nice, Who cares? That's
that memorable?
Speaker 5 (25:13):
It also feels deeply uncool, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yes, it feels deeply uncool.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
But like, I think, what would be a good conversation
to have, and tell me if I'm repeating something you've
already said, is using all that power she has and
that personality for good rather than bad, you know, using
that to look at the power she has.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
She's a leader, She's.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Got all these girls behind her, and she's setting the
tone for how everybody's going to be treated. Wouldn't she
want to be the good witch instead of the bad witch?
Speaker 7 (25:46):
She did tell me just yesterday, she said, I feel
like I have an anger. I feel like I'm mad
inside and I need to get it out. And I
know she's got a friend that's in therapy, so she's
actually been talking about that, But I don't know point
we figure that out.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
No, I think you listen, you have a responsibility to
the other little kids at that school to get her help,
because that's not fair. Bullies ruin people's lives. There are
things that happen as a child that are cemented in
your brain that are traumatizing when you are attacked by
another kid at school, whether it's verbally, emotionally, physically, whatever.
But you you have a responsibility to everybody else to
(26:21):
make sure you get her on the straight and narrow.
And yes, you absolutely must bring her to therapy right
away because you don't want her growing up and being
like that.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You know what I mean? How old is she again? Eleven?
Speaker 5 (26:33):
Eight? Wow? Is she on social media yet?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Good? Good keep her off of that.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
That'll only make it worse, So go to therapy.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Now, yeah, you have to have I think you've got
to switch your your approach as well, because obviously what
you're saying is falling on deaf ears, which is a
natural thing to happen between a parent and a child.
But I think you should also switch your terminology and
talk about kindness and spreading you and spreading love and
not in a way that she's gonna be like it's
so stupid. It's like, use examples of people that are
(27:06):
doing that, you know, on a grand scale. Think of
people that she looks up to that would never tolerate
her that behavior. You know, who does she admire Taylor Swift?
Is she into Miley Cyrus?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
What's she into?
Speaker 7 (27:18):
I don't think she's exposed to them as much. I
have a good friend Diana, who she really admires that
I could really lean into. And Diana is all love
and all kindness and all joy. So that's a really
good point of thinking of mentors that she has in
her life that she does admire that are kind.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
When I was really irresponsible at a point in my life,
I was just I didn't give a shit about my family.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I was rebelling rebelling, rebelling my.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Sister, my oldest sister, who's the person in my family
I respect the most. She sat me down and said
to me, like, you're going down the wrong road. This
is your opportunity right now, and this is your last chance.
You either stay with the family or we're not going
to put up with us anymore. I was like seventeen,
eighteen years old, but I was bad, and that changed
my life because I respected her the most.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
She had never said anything.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
She just showed me unconditional love, unconditional love, and that
didn't deter me. That didn't change my course because she
was just showing me so much love, and until she
threatened to turn that love off, even though that would
be impossible, I believed it and I got scared. So
I think you have to find the person that you're
talking about. You have to get her into therapy. That's
not a question, And you have to have different conversations
(28:26):
around the subject matter because your approach isn't working and
she's not listening to you in that way. It has
to be spoken to her. I would enlist your friend
try and do it that way. But also, you know,
read some books about children and their anger and how
to exhaust it, you know, so she's not taking it
out on other people. And there are a lot of
movies about.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Bullying, you know.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I mean, Mean Girls is a great one. But she
probably might see that at this point and think, I
like that. I want to be one of those girls,
and you want her to actually see the light.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Were you bullied?
Speaker 6 (28:56):
Not significantly, which is surprising considering I was pretty obviously gay,
But I think you know, I grew up in New
York City, and I think that helped the cause. Yeah,
you know, I was bullied a little bit, but not
not extensively.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I was very lucky in that way.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So I think, listen, anyone who's a bully was bullied.
That's what happens.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I was bullied. I became a bully. But you have
to dismantle that, and you have somebody, and have somebody
who's a professional deal with it, because you know you're
coming up empty handed. And she's eight years old, and
this is really the time between eight and eleven that
you want to get girls in their heads to be kind.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Agreed, Yeah, And just as a couple of ways to
help sort of exhaust that anger and let her have
an outlet for that anger. This might be a one
or two time thing, but I know when my niece
and nephew had a loss in their family, my nephew
had so much pent up anger and he said to
my sister one day, He's like, I just feel like
I want to break something. And so she went out
(29:55):
to the thrift store and bought a whole bunch of plates,
and we all put on our safety glasses and we
grab these plates and we like threw them down on
the ground and just broke plates. And it was so
such a relief to sort of express that anger. But
maybe there are other things that are more long term.
Like I mean, eight is probably young for a girl
to start boxing, but like some other physical activity, they'll
(30:17):
allow her to sort of get some of that aggression
out of her body rather than sort of trapping it
inside where it comes out in these nasty ways. In addition,
of course, to a therapist.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
And I say, it's an emergent situation because eight years old,
you shouldn't even know how to be that mean yet,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (30:34):
An eight year old throwing plates.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
While she has her safety goggles.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Don't forget about that part.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
I don't know where did she get the safety goggles
at the thrift store too, because who has safety.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Goggles lying around in the carpenter?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
But yes, please get enlist other people to help you,
you know, and get on it right away. And I
know you are, and I know you're trying to figure
it out because it's embarrassing to have a kid that's
acting like that.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I'm sure you're dealing with all these other parents.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
And and her father and I are both kind of
at a loss, like, oh my gosh, what's happening. We
are having all these conversations, and candidly, we just found
out about the level of what's happening. We thought it
was just drama, just girl drama, and we found out
on Saturday that I'm actually the ring leader of mean girls.
And so I appreciate your rapid response. Forty. I'm getting
(31:24):
great advice from.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
You, and also talk to the teachers at the school
and the counselors at the school and how and come
up with a plan that you guys are all coordinated on,
you know what I mean, Because there has to be
repercussions for her bad behavior, and there has to be
a form of punishment, and that you're working with the
teachers and that there are eyes everywhere will have an
impact on an eight year old, you know, as soon
(31:45):
as she starts paying the price for her behavior and
realizes popularity isn't you know, she's not gonna want to
stay after school. She's not gonna want to get punished
when she comes home. So have you exercised any of
those options yet?
Speaker 7 (31:57):
I am following up and saying no, I want her
one on one with the school counselor to discuss this specifically,
they do friendship circles that I requested before.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
The end of the school year. Good because I don't really.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
Worried about one girl in particular that's been targeted.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Yeah, well, get on it and spend your summer working
on her, you know, and spend as much time as
you can with her, because a lot of that probably
comes from you know, I think girls can easily not easily,
but girls and their moms. There's just a huge healing
effect that being around your mom has. I mean even
little boys, especially at that age. You know, Just spend
(32:31):
as much one on one time with her as you can,
and be as communicative as you can, and engage as
much as you can with therapists and help and you know,
hopefully over the summer you can make some major improvements.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah. Was that helpful to you at all?
Speaker 7 (32:46):
Yeah, it really is. I think really supporting that idea
of like, we got to get into therapy sooner than later,
because you know, I'm doing all the things, saying things,
I'm highly communicative, but I need backup. I need that village.
I need to start building a village around her because
I her father and I can't do it on her own.
Need we need backup.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, yeah, and that's okay.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
And also being communicative with the other parents that you're
working on it, you know, so that they you can
alay some of their fears, because it's so scary for
other parents to have to deal with that. I was
just in a doctor's appointment yesterday and he was talking
about this poor girl. She's eleven and she got kicked
out of her friend group and now she's in a
new friend group and the old friend group is making
the new friend group dumper too.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Oh god, And I.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Was just like, oh my god, it makes my vagina
shut tight, Like the idea of children going through this
is just heartbreaking, you know, on both.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
Ends, it is I'm also concerned about the Mormon mission,
just for the records.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
All right, we'll get to that next.
Speaker 7 (33:45):
Okay, good, we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Are you not Mormon?
Speaker 7 (33:50):
Now?
Speaker 5 (33:52):
Why is he going on at Mormon mission if you're
not Mormon?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Oh my god, I was trying to respect.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
I could feel Chelsea each to be polite.
Speaker 7 (34:01):
I'm healing. It's post post Mormon healing for me, my friends.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
So my sisters are recovering Mormon.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
Your kids have a lot going on.
Speaker 7 (34:09):
They called him to New Zealand, which is a really
cool place. So I was like, I was hoping he'd
back out, but not no.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Leck so far, How did can I just how did
he find Mormonism without you guys?
Speaker 7 (34:21):
Well, I grew up Mormon and left the church gosh
till twelve years ago or something. But his father's still active.
And so he through COVID, went up to Canada and
is in Canada now, and went to high school there
and it's a very predominantly Mormon community and that's where
he found community and belonging was in the church and
with his friends that are members, and so he's fully indoctrinated.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
And it is.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
Said it's another issue all right in.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, well, I guess we'll all talk to you next week.
Speaker 6 (34:51):
Send him to a therapist too, while you're yeah.
Speaker 7 (34:54):
And me, all three of us.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
We all need yeah you that's healthy.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
It sounds like you do there. All right, Well, it
was nice to speak with you. Thanks for calling in.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Thanks thanks Samber. What about an eight year old bully?
What about that?
Speaker 4 (35:12):
How did would she even learn I don't be me
because someone did it to her?
Speaker 5 (35:16):
That's all right?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah right, yeah, but I like your idea about movies
and like fill her summer reading list with all Judy
bloom books, bully books, all this stuff, because when you
see how awful it is, you don't want to be that.
Like my one girlfriend, her kid's eleven, she's like, being
called a bully is the worst thing you can get
called at this school.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I told my friend the other day.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
She was harassing me about something and I was like,
you're being a bully, and she goes.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Don't ever say that. I was like, oh god, sorry,
that hit a little too close to home. I guess.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Well.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Our next caller is Alan. Alan says, dear Chelsea, I'm
a gay male in my thirties and I've found myself
in a bit of a strange, disorienting space when it
comes to relationships, including friends. I guess I had my
share of fun times and entry level relationships in college
and through most of my twenties when I found my
first real relationship that brought me into my thirties after
(36:11):
a brief break. I was blindsided with an unforeseen relationship
break in the first year of COVID. It ended with
him cheating on me probably sixty percent of the time
while I was recovering from a physical accident. It was
my first time being cheated on. I've always been self sufficient,
and I get older, I don't seem to have much
of a sexual drive for just hookups less I decided
(36:31):
to take time for just me again. Now I'm in
the spot where I've been putting my dating feelers out again,
But most of the guys I find turn out to
be boring or way too simple. I followed you for
a long time, and I've always thought I'd also have
a similar trail of being an independent, single boss. But
I can't shake this craving. I'd hook up more, but
men are so predictable and boring, lackluster sex and lame
(36:53):
what do you think is my relationship block? Have you
had times like this before in your life? Love you? Alan?
A gay and a gay city?
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Hi Alan, Hi Alan?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Oh my gosh, Alan, we have Billy here today, Billy Eichner.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
For you, of course it would be Billy especial.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Are those headphones on your ears or is that a
mullet that's coming down behind your neck?
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
No, this is mullet baby. Oh yeah, the summer cut.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
That's cute.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Okay, So well, your attitude is what's in the way.
But that's okay because you're not you're I mean, you
sound just slightly depressed.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Do you feel depressed?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
No, not in any way. Okay, I kind of feel
like a ghost a ghost, yeah, like not really a hermit.
But I'm just kind of there. I'm just going out
doing my thing, put myself out there. But I'm just
really not interested in a lot of other people. I'm
kind of just like so consumed and like becoming more
(37:52):
of a better person.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Oh well, then that's the opposite of depressed.
Speaker 5 (37:56):
Yeah. I think that's good.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Actually, it is good.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I mean that's great. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.
I think there are periods of time. Listen, I have
no desire to have sex with fucking anybody, And that's
how I've felt for the last six months, probably just none.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Like I have to make myself go and look for.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Sex, yeah, and like set things up so that I
can get sex because I don't want to forget. But
I think that's a normal thing for people to go through,
especially when you're doing some self reflection, and like in
our work, I don't think that there's anything.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Wrong with that.
Speaker 6 (38:27):
I think that society and culture, especially gay culture, sometimes
makes you feel like you're supposed to always be on
the hunt for like sex or a boyfriend or a
relationship or something right, And we don't really talk about
the periods of your life where you just sort of
take for yourself. You know, that's not as sexy to
(38:49):
talk about when you have those like introspective periods, especially
in the gay world, where again especially on social media,
everyone's like naked in they're here and you know, they're
on vacation and they're with these guys, those guys, and
I don't know, I think we need to value just
as much the times that we're again being more introspective
and self reflective.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
There's a season for sewing and there's a season for reaping.
Like you're not always on the it's not always incoming.
Sometimes it's outgoing, and sometimes it's just you and self reflection.
Like that's very cyclical in all all of our lives.
So you're not alone.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, And I live in Austin, Texas, which is one
of the gayest things. Yeah, so I'm surrounded by very
much that where everything is so like sexually driven, and like,
I want an open relationship. I wants many partners. I
just need the sex, you know, and I'm just not
for that at this age.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
And you really desire what your long term plan is
to be in a committed relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, ultimately, uh huh. And really from my early twenties
until now, I've been in a relationship. So I got
my kind of hookup phase out of the way, established
a really strong relationship that was really great, and I
thought it was going to go somewhere, but we were
on different pages and then was taking a break and
(40:05):
immediately got sideswiped by a relationship during COVID, and so
we were kind of stuck together necessarily. So since we
broke up, I've been taking a lot more time for
myself and I've really built myself up in a lot
of different aspects in my life, and now I'm putting
the feelers back out there, and it's just I don't know,
I don't have any desire or nothing seems appetizing, for
(40:30):
lack of.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
Better words, Well, I think oftentimes nothing is appetizing. Yeah,
it can be a grind. It can feel like a chure,
like another thing on your to do list, like go
on dates, and that takes the fun out of it
and the spontaneity out of it.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
So yeah, it's amost like another job exactly.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
It is another job, and then a relationship itself is
another job, you know, and you have to be prepared
for that and wanting that. I think it's perfectly fine
and actually a good thing to be in a phase
where you're not aggressively wanting that.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
Actually, yeah, I think you should embrace that, embrace like
the moment that you're in and actually treasure it because
you may not be single for very long, and you're
certainly not going to be single forever. There are going
to be people that come in and out of your life,
so you want to really treasure this time alone with yourself,
Like I have the best time with myself and I
don't feel guilty about that at all.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, me neither. But when I get on you know,
dates or dating aps and they're like, what do you
I've been asked like do you have any friends? And
I'm like, of course I do. I just like myself,
is there a problem with that?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
And why do people ask you if you have any friends?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Because like what do you do? Well? I do a
lot of things that involve myself. You know, I don't
mind going out to eat by myself. I don't mind
going to the library or a bar to read a
book by myself.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
I like me, Yeah, well that's those are all healthy things.
Speaker 5 (41:52):
Those are good things.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I don't understand what the problem is.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
I mean, you're just not attracted to people right now,
and that's okay, that's okay. You have to give yourself
permission to be in that phase without judging yourself for
not being interested in sex, because that's what you're doing.
You're kind of playing a game with yourself and a
trick on yourself because you're like looking at society and
what everyone's expecting of you and thinking you have to
deliver to them, and really you only have to deliver
to yourself, So enjoy this time, don't judge yourself, be like,
(42:18):
this is what I'm going to do. Do you know
how fucking healthy it is to go be able and
read a book by yourself?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
And how people how few people can do that in
this world?
Speaker 5 (42:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Like that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
And you're just think of this time as preparing for
the person that you're going to end up with, Like
you're doing the inner work and the self work and
spending time alone to prepare for your long term relationship.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I think being an extrovert is the counterpart of that.
I don't need a relationship to make me feel fulfilled,
but I recharge my battery with relationships and being around people.
So I think that's what's getting me stuck where I'm like,
I'm good with this, but I also want to recharge
my batteries in a different way.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
Do you have like a circle of friends that you hang.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
With, Well, most of my people will have moved out
of town. Oh so I really don't have anybody left.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
That might be the bigger issue. Because I'm a very
social person. I rarely feel a need to go on
a ton of dates or be in a relationship, but
I couldn't exist without my friends around me. I really
rely on them, you know, so that might be the
bigger issue, you know, like where are you fulfilling that
(43:33):
need to be social? Not to date someone or even
go on a date or have sex, but to just
interact with friends is really important.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, most of my friendships right now are on the phone, because.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
They're all that's good. You should keep those going.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Make sure you're having phone calls and facetimes or whatever
you're into on a consistent basis. But you can go
make friends in Austin. That's not going to be hard
and it's important. I think Billy's exactly right, Like you're
looking to fill a void and you're not really sure
what that void is. And I think, yeah, you should
work a little bit on making friendships rather than dating.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
What do you do like to do? Do you do
stuff outdoors? Hike?
Speaker 4 (44:11):
Do you are you into exercise? Are you into like chess?
What's your story?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yes, So that's the other thing. I'm a very straight
acting male. I come across a very masculine in my realm.
I like the BMX, I like the outdoors, I like
the camp, swim and the guys I've gone on dates
with are like, I've never been camping before. I've never gone.
I don't like swimming or I don't like hiking. Like
(44:36):
what do you do? Just sit inside, go to the bar,
Like that's basic to me.
Speaker 5 (44:41):
There are gay guys out there that like camping.
Speaker 6 (44:44):
I know many gay people who swim, who have the
ability to swim.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
A ton of day swimmers.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
Yes, any swim team is full of closeted gay men.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
How old are you thirty five?
Speaker 6 (44:57):
Yeah, it can be hard to meet friends. That can
actually be harder, I mean with for boyfriends and dating.
While there's an ad, there's like a million apps, right,
but just to meet friends, which I see a lot
of people suffering from at all different stages of their lives,
straight and gay and everyone. You know, it can be
hard to meet friends. I know guys who when they
(45:18):
move to a new city, gay guys, they'll join a team.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
You know, they'll be like a gay dodgeball team or
a gay softball team or whatever it is. Gay campers,
gay campers.
Speaker 6 (45:28):
I'm sure all of those things exist actually, and so
I don't know, maybe maybe that's a.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
I think that you should join something you know, go online,
do a little research either whether it's camping, swimming, hiking,
whatever your outdoor stuff is that you've mentioned, and that's
out of your comfort zone. So that's like a good step,
like a proactive step towards addressing the issue, and that
kind of I think you're feeling a little bit lonely,
and do that, make active steps to just change your
(45:55):
life in little small ways, and before you know it,
you will develop friendships and you will have ale there
and you'll probably worry a lot less about this relationship
issue once you have some more community.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah. Now that they hear that, I think maybe I'm
trying to fill two things instead of focus on one.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, So can you do that?
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Can you go and just just go online after this
call and just start researching hiking groups, camping groups, there's one,
there's something for fucking everybody online, definitely.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (46:24):
Or just post on Instagram I have no friends or
a or a book club.
Speaker 5 (46:28):
Yeah, that works.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Looking for friends.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Thank Chelsea Handler and Billy Eichner told me I need.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
To get some friends.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
I can do that.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Yeah, yeah, but try not to judge yourself within the process.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Just have a good time. You're going to meet some friends.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
You're going to meet a guy, and just you got
to do a little bit of different stuff to get different.
Speaker 5 (46:49):
Results for sure.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Okay, well thanks for calling. I love your fucking mullet.
Rock that out hard.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
It looks good.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we're
going to come back to wrap it up with Billy Eibner.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
And we're back.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Well, that was all over the place, yeah, and then
it Yeah.
Speaker 6 (47:18):
There have been so many articles lately about how loneliness
is one of the biggest epidemics that we face, and
and I think for especially younger people. It's everyone, actually,
but at least people in our generation and older. We
had to communicate with each other in person. We didn't
(47:38):
have our phones, and so phones have replaced actual human
interaction and it's kind of tricked people into thinking they
don't need it or they're getting it, but they're not, like,
that's not real human connection. And especially post COVID, I
think people got stuck in their homes, you know, there
is a little less socializing going on in certain places.
(47:58):
Maybe it's it's really important right to get out there
and meet people, not to date, just for friendship.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, and also just to change it up. It's always
good to challenge yourself. It's always good something to do.
Like I would never want to join a book club
or a hiking club, but if I were in that situation,
I would make myself do that, you know, because it's
about doing that, like you have to stretch a little bit, Billy.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Thanks for coming in, Thanks.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
For having me in New York City on this beautiful
summer day.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Have a great afternoon, everybody.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Okay, guys, we have added more shows to my Little
Big Bitch tour because I'm coming all over. We added
a second show at the Pantagius in Los Angeles, so
that's October twelfth and Friday the thirteenth. We added a
second show in Boston at the Waying Center September twenty
ninth and thirtieth is two shows in New York. I
also have a show in East Hampton, New York August
(48:50):
twenty six. We added a second show in Portland, so
Thursday November tewod Friday November third, and Portland November fourth
and fifth. In San Francisco, two shows there. We added
a second show with Seattle November tenth and eleventh. Two
shows Boston are November sixteenth and seventeenth at the Boch
Center at Wang Theater. And I'm also coming to Toronto
(49:14):
and Montreal and Ottawa and so many other cities Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Louisville.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
So i will see everybody at all of these shows.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (49:26):
Get your tickets at Chelseahandler dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
and engineered by Brad Dickert executive producer Catherine Law and
be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot
com
Hello everybody. Hello, Yo, Hi Chelsea, Hi, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You know all over the shop? I'm all over the shop.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Indeed, Chelsea, can I ask you for a piece of advice?
Or really it's a general question for the Hoi POLOI
the hoy bleet, for our dear listeners. What's the ideal
length for a dinner with friends?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Well, if it's an obligatory dinner, okay, I would say
ninety minutes.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I like to make a dinner two hours.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
When you're with friends and it's not obligatory and you're
catching up, I would say two hours, two and a
half hours, okay. And if it goes anything longer than that,
you're having a fucking blast.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That is true. Lunch is better if it's obligatory, because
that can.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Be an yeah and everyone No one expects for that
to go to in a half hours, because people.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Got no, no, no, no, unless you're in Europe and everyone's
shit faced, which is my kind of LuFe shit.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
So if you're ready for people to leave, Let's say
you had a dinner at your house, and.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I already that.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I don't do that anymore for that reason. But I
actually haven't had a house at a long time. I
mean I've been in that rental house. I was in
that rental house for two years, so I wasn't really
into entertaining there. I have had people over for dinner,
like for certain you know, but very casually, not dinner parties.
When I had my old house, I would I would
have dinner parties a lot. So I hope that when
I move into my new house, I will continue to
(01:25):
do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm sure I.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Will, because then i'll have you'll have your own, my
own prime. And I don't like showing off a rental house,
right right, Not that I have people over to show
off my house, but there it feels more like you're
it's representative of.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Who you are, totally.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
So like my rental house feels like I'm in an
apartment that I don't know about.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Like and I don't know my way around.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, and I know that when we were in MAYORCA
with you, when you were ready for the party to
be over or you were done with the dinner, you would.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Just go to bed, which yeah, yeah, I've done.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
That's my move. I just go to sleep, And I
don't mind if people hang out without me. You know,
like at my house. Oh see that's great. Yeah, so
what I'm done.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
I mean, I do go to bed early, you know,
I typically like even, but in my Orca like early
is like eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
But yeah, I don't stay up late. It's just not
my thing.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We've had a couple of times recently where we've had
people over and I'm like, okay, there's like the few
stragglers and I'm like, what is the thing that you
say to be like it's time to leave?
Speaker 4 (02:23):
If you just have to say I'm wrapping it up.
You guys are welcome to stay, but I've got to
get into bed.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Oh I love that and I love it.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
And then they can decide if they want to hang
out while you're in bed in your own house. Yeah,
you know which to me, Actually, I love having people around,
but it's like I'm not I can't be beholden too
the situation for too long.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, I know what you mean. You kind of got
to get it rid of people sometimes.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, we have a very exciting guest today.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Oh yeah, very very funny. Little birdie in a tree.
His name you might recognize him from how many things?
As would you recognize he's an actor, writer, producer, Billy.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I can never well, I'm happy to see you you.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Ever be we've met, not in person.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I don't think it can't be possible, I know, but.
Speaker 6 (03:05):
I don't think we did ever. Maybe No, wait, I
think we maybe did at March for our Lives in DC.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Okay, were you there?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Sounds about right?
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Yeah, I think I met you very briefly. Wow, Charlie's
was there?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yes, Yes, a group of us went.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
We were like in a big group.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
That's when marches first started happening again.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Now we're desensitized. Oh another march.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
This world is so it is that we're living in
it is.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I'm like, the more depressing it becomes, the more optimistic
I become because I took good thing I have to.
I can't go down that road again from like when
I talk about that, I mean when Trump was president,
but all the dissension, the divisiveness, the hate, the meanness,
the discrimination, Like I can't even look at it for
(03:57):
too long.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I've understood now how important is to.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Remain optimistic and invoke hope and other people, even if
it's faking it. I want other people to feel better
after they see me.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Yeah, No, you're right. I mean, God, who knew it?
March for our lives? Like how much worse it would be?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
How much marching we were going to have to do
about everything?
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Yeah, nothing is really a wake up call.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
That's the problem, because everything is so ephemeral, and I
think that is a direct result of well, I would
say the Kardashians, but I would say more social media.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
Right, I was just going to say it's social media.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Nothing seems important because no one cares about anything because
there's such an influx of information that who what are
you supposed.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
To care about? And I'm happier like Billy Iikner. I
want to talk to you.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
First of all, congratulations on the first major gay movie production.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I wanted to specifically talk to you about a scene
in the movie where you talk about confidence, huh, because
Catherine agreed that that was a very poignant part of
the movie. And I want to talk to you about
confidence because the conversation talks about whether you're faking it
or whether you have it, and I find those two
things to blend together a pretty right.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
Yeah, you know, it is essentially fake it till you
make it, and anyone in show business understands that. I think,
I mean, you have to in order to keep going.
But I'm talking about how confidence is a choice like
any other, and it really is you have to wake
up and decide to be confident. It's not like you're
born with it.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You know, it's not a tree, not you guys. It's
not much more serious than that. But I do think
it's an interesting topic because there's arrogance, right, which is
different than confidence.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Arrogance.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
I've been very guilty of arrogance in my life likewise,
and I've also had a lot of confidence too, And
some people say, oh, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Those two things can get money as well.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
And I think from an early age you kind of
decide what kind of person you are naturally, and as
you get older, you're kind of always if you're looking within,
you're trying to chip away or add and make that
person the potential of who you can be, right, the
best potential of who you can be. Yeah, So tell
(06:17):
me about your kind of experience with that.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Do you go to therapy? Do you have a therapist?
Speaker 6 (06:22):
I do, although only I started therapy about a year
and a half ago for the first time ever in
my life, and I was always very pro therapy. I
lost both of my parents, but just even then, never
felt the need to go to therapy until about a
(06:42):
year and a half ago, and I'm glad that I did.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
It's great.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
How did you decide that you needed to go to therapy?
What was happening in your life that you decided, If.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
You want to know the truth, it was. We had
just wrapped shooting. It was challenging. It was really hard,
and sometimes it would really stress me out, and my
anxiety about it was, I think, looking back, irrational sometimes,
but I just put so much pressure on myself and
(07:14):
I wanted it to be so many things, and that
movie had very specific challenges, you know, like stay honest
for the gay people and for yourself, but make it
clear for straight people and you know, not alienating. And
I lost sleep at night worrying about studio notes and
things like that. So I got through the writing process
(07:35):
we shot the movie. Shooting the movie was wonderful, and
the cast was incredible, and the whole cast was openly LGBTQ,
which never happens, and so the set felt felt very special.
We got to shoot it in New York that was magical.
But when we wrapped the movie. I was really worried
about the post production process and about editing the movie
(08:00):
because I thought, Okay, well, I was a co writer,
so I had some control over the script, and I'm acting.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
In the movie.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
I'm starring in the movie, and I've been on many
sets and I've acted in many things. So the shooting
of the movie I felt good about. But the editing process,
I thought, I don't have power here. Technically, I'm not
the director, I'm not an editor.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
I'm an EP. But EP is kind of a bullshit thing.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
And I thought, oh god, I'm going to lose control
of the movie over the quality of the movie, which
actually didn't happen at all, and so many things that
I it was interesting. So many things that I worried
about ended up being things I did not need to
worry about, and things I never really thought about ended
up being things maybe I should have thought about more.
(08:44):
But I got a therapist because I was so worried
about the post production, which is really where the movie
comes together. The movie can live and die in the
editing room, and I was so stressed about that that
I thought I am going to get a therapist. At
the beginning of this process to help me navigate all
of this, because there were times where I would get
(09:06):
into my car after a meeting or something and I
would like get into a fetal position. I was like
so stressed, and that's why I got a therapist, honestly,
was to guide me through that process. And I'm really
glad I did.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And within your therapy did the death of your parents.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Obviously that's something a topic that you have to discuss
in therapy, right How no were you?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Can?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I ask you how old you were?
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (09:29):
I was young when my mom died. I was twenty
years old when my mom died. I was in college
and it happened out of nowhere. She had a heart
attack and died. Which is that you know, people have
parents died at a younger age. It's very different to
have a parent die when you're five than to have
a parent die when you're twenty. I had my mom
through my formative childhood years and teenage years and she
(09:52):
was fantastic, But twenty is still young. And then my dad,
my dad was older than my mom, had me late
later in life, so he died about eleven twelve years ago.
He was eighty, you know, he wasn't young, but also
was somewhat unexpected.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
He was pretty healthy for.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
An eighty year old, and all of a sudden was
diagnosed with leukemia. The doctor said he has two to
nine months to live, and less than three months later
he was gone. So but you know, strangely enough, I
haven't really talked about that in therapy much.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Really.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Yeah, he's my.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Therapist, isn't very he'sn't like one of these like let's
deal with your childhood types of guys. It's more practical,
like the day to day Uh huh, you know, for
better or worse.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, no, I think I think all of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
You know, I think, well, when it happens when you're twenty,
I think you're still a baby. You know, that trauma
when someone's snatched away from you in your life, it
is definitely traumatic. But yeah, there are all sorts of
different types of therapy. From what I gleaned from therapy,
which was a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
If you don't deal with your.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Trauma, it will deal with you at a certain point,
and it'll deal with you in situations like you're talking about,
like where we get in our heads and we're totally
stressed out because our trauma does work for us for
a while, because that's your motivation. Like you almost have
more gas because you've been so hurt or you've.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Felt such loss that you're even more motivated.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
Anger can be such a motivated factor. Yeah, both creatively
for me. I mean, I've really leaned into anger as
a comedic tool. Obviously I did in my early live
stage shows in New York, So that persona I realized
kind of early on, not as an actor per se,
but as a comedian. Once I had to generate my
(11:45):
own material, people really loved it. The angrier I got,
the more the audience loved it. And I thought, oh,
that's interesting because it's really not how I am in
real life. I know people always kind of don't believe that,
but if you know me, the whole angry thing, it's
very divorced from who I am in real life, and
yet I.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Can really turn it on.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
I'm good at it from a performance standpoint, and people
really liked when I did it. And then behind the
scenes anger, the rejection and all of that, you know,
the oh I'm openly gay. I was always openly gay
at a time in comedy, you know, twenty plus years ago,
when there weren't many.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Of them, only tig. It was only tigh.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
I mean literally there were a few. You know, Guy
Brandham was around, but I didn't know him.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I knew Guy, I knew guy I worked with me.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
Yeah, of course, and so but at the time I
was looking around, you know, and I was I just
didn't have many gay peers in comedy.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Now there are so many.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
I'm so like envious of these younger kids in comedy
because so many of them are gay, queer, non binary,
and they have each other to lean on and to
work with.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
I didn't.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
I didn't really have that, and yet that became a
motivating force. Like I remember, I had a manager in
New York, a straight woman actually, who told me that
she was going to invite a bunch of agents to
see me and asked me if I could make the
show less Gay that month, right, just flat out asked me.
That This was at a time. This is two thousand
(13:18):
and six, so you could still ask that question, I guess,
and not fear, you know that someone was gonna tweet
about it and destroy your career. And she was asking
me that because she wanted the best for me, and
she thought that was in my best interest, and I
did the show that month. The agents came and they
signed me, and it was, you know, worked out. And
she said to me, you know, I have to ask
(13:39):
the agents. Loved it, but I think you made the
show gayer this month than it's ever been. Why did
you do that when I asked you to do the opposite?
And I was like, I don't know. I mean I
didn't sit down and say I am going to rebel
against what you told me. But I think subconsciously maybe
I did. I always had that in me. It was
like I was that gay kid who like I loved
(14:01):
Madonna growing up and like she was so rebellious and
like I had that in me. And I also think
because my parents were so supportive as a kid, they
were so supportive and overprotective. It was I had a
lot of unconditional love as a kid, even as a
gay kid.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I was really lucky.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Even what age did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 6 (14:24):
I mean, I don't remember the exact moment I thought,
oh I'm gay.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
You know, tell you were gay?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Basically they knew.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
I was like, you know, when you took me to
the you know, Barbar Streisan concert.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
I think that you knew. Well, yeah, it was exactly.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
The first guy I remember having a crush on was
this is funny Keith Hernandez of the nineteen eighty six
Oh I got that.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Was the year of the World Series.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Yes, and they won. And I grew up in Queens
where with Gary Carter.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I was obsessed with Gary Carter.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
It was an amazing team. Let me extra all the mookie.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well she became Coast Strawberry mookie.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
That's right, Yes, they became awful people.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I remember seeing this like what it was before Cribs,
but whenever they showcased someone's house, and they were showcasing
Darryl Strawberry's apartment in New York City, and he had
white leather sofas everywhere, and the whole house was decorated
in a way. And even at that age, I was like,
this guy is doing cocaine. I could tell by his
furniture that he was fucking doing cocaine.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
Absolutely, and so and I remember a few years ago.
So my first crush was Keith Hernandez. This was nineteen
eighty six. I was eight years old, and I remember
and I at the time, I wouldn't have said like, oh,
I have a crush on him, but I remember just
being very drawn to him, like there was an attraction.
And I got so bummed because then a few years
(15:42):
ago I saw a photo of him and his wife
walking into mar A Lago. Of course, you know, it
was such a bummer, but yeah, him and John bon Jovi.
I really loved John bon Jovi as a kid.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, well that's hard not to do.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Yeah, and he was great looking and.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
So yeah and so yeah, I was always like a
little rebellious, and I think I needed that. That anger
was a motivating.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
It's a driving factor for sure, because I never knew
what people said when like it works until it will
work for you until it doesn't. I never understood that
phrase until I experienced it myself. Because my anger, my
personality was a huge driving force gave me a lot
of success. And then all of a sudden, it was
a big dark shadow on me. You know, all of
a sudden, I felt like, wait, I have it. And
(16:28):
it was because I had unrealized you know, grief trauma.
My brother died when I was a little girl, so
it was all that stuff, and it's amazing how far
can take you.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
It's just really is like lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
When somebody's angry and wants to get away from their feelings,
they will become successful.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
It's true.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
But you have to be careful because it can end
up defining you too in a way that you're not
comfortable with.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Well, that's yeah, and especially if you don't make the
pivot or you don't like look in, you know, because
it isn't the most pleasant work all the time. Anyway,
We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
And we're back perfect.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
So we give advice to real live callers on this podcast,
so we have people call it hopefully curated towards Billy
and his gayness.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Oh boy.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Our first question comes from Trev. Trev says, Dear Chelsea,
First time, long time. I'm a gay man in my
early fifties, and I'm married to a man who is
five years my junior. The age difference doesn't really come
into play often, but I'm dealing with one area of
our lives that I'm starting to grow out of and
he isn't, and that is alcohol. Don't get me wrong,
(17:38):
I'm not a teetotaler. I've had plenty of wild years
in my life. You name it, I drank it, snorted it,
put it on my tongue, fucked it, and lived to
tell the tale. I don't judge, and I believe the
body and mind are fun toys and you should experience
all the things they can do while you're alive. But
as I'm getting older, I find myself moving away from
wanting all of that, partially because I don't have the
energy or patience to deal with hangovers anymore, and partially because,
(18:02):
let's face it, a sloppy, drunk fifty something man ain't cute.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Amen, sister Amen.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Meanwhile, my spouse still loves to get trashed with buddies
on the weekends. I used to go along with it
and try to enjoy the raiders with him, but over
the past year or two I realized I honestly don't
enjoy getting drunk. I don't feel the need to chase
that buzz anymore. My husband isn't at that point yet.
Getting drunk is still kind of a hobby for him.
It's how he socializes with people. I don't think he
(18:31):
has any kind of serious problem, and he's responsible about
it generally. He's only a weekend day drinker, and his
drinking has never compromised his job or our household. But
when he throws down, he really throws down. He knows
I'm trying to bow out of the heavy drinking lifestyle.
But he does provide a little pressure with like, you
haven't gone to the bar with me in a long time,
and our friends are starting to ask about you. I
(18:53):
certainly don't want to give up drinking altogether. I will
always like a glass of wine or a good craft cocktail,
but I feel like my mind and body are both
aging out of wanting to drink just to get drunk.
I'm really excited about the thought of hanging out with
friends without having to get shit faced. After writing all this,
I need a stiff drink of kamboo chap.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Thanks Trev.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
I was gonna say she's still on adderall because that's
a very long letter, and that's the.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Trimmed down version. Yeah, we got it.
Speaker 6 (19:20):
Yeah, you don't want to drink as much as your
boyfriend got Yeah, some of.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
These are very long winded lately. Indeed, indeed, I'll go first.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I think that if somebody if you're not into drinking,
that's great, And if your partner is responsible and doing
all the right things, but just gets ship faced and
sloppy once a week. Then I think you can tolerate
that and let him do his thing. He's going to
outgrow alcohol too. Probably it happens with age. You're not
as interested in getting shit faced when you're older.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I mean most of the time.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
I think with most people, I'm trying to think of
some old ship face drunks that I know, But I'm like, wait,
I do.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Actually know a couple old drunks. Of course I do.
But yeah, I would say, let him do his thing.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Nobody wants to be policed or told what to do
within a relationship. And if you don't want to go
to the bar with him, you could just totally be
honest with him and say like, I'm not into that
right now, and don't frame it as that forever. Frame
it as right now, Like I'm just not interested in
that right now. I'm not interested in getting sloppy drunk.
And you know, who knows, maybe he'll be like, oh,
you know, once it's out there, and you know, without
(20:21):
judgment on him, you do your thing, let him do
his thing, and as long as it's not interrupting your lifestyle,
then there's really nothing for you to do except tolerate
it and go do something else on a Saturday night,
whatever you want to do.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Yeah, I agree. I think not framing it as forever
is really good advice. It could be tough in the
gay world. I know, it's obviously alcoholism exists everywhere, but
there's a lot of like social anxiety when gay men
get together. You know, it's very sexually charged, even if
you're in a long term couple, you know, because that
can be its own pressure. And you see a lot
(20:54):
of jug and alcohol abuse in the gay world, you do.
I have a lot of sober friends. They're sober because
for a long time they were very much not sober.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Is that how it works?
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Have you ever heard of that?
Speaker 6 (21:06):
Well, you know, gay guys party hard, sometimes not all.
I don't want to make generalizations, so and I would
imagine that, Yeah, there can be pressure to sort of
keep doing that, especially if you know your other half
is still doing it. But I think as long as
you communicate the fact that you have no problem with
him having a good time and that you just are
(21:27):
kind of, you know, shifting your behavior a little bit,
it shouldn't be an issue.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, I think that's a simple one.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
I think we've I think we uh, we're not going
to talk as long as it took him to write
that letter.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Do you think he should still like go out, have
a couple of mocktails and then be like, see you
guys have fun getting shit faced, like I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Go see a movie.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Or is it sort of like say how many your jammies?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah? Yeah, totally, Like that's nice.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
That's a great suggestion, but go before everybody gets sloppy.
The sloppy part, Like, I couldn't agree with you more.
Nobody wants to be around a slop drunk, So I
mean that might be a motivation for his partner to
like not get so sloppy, you know, knowing how he
feels or knowing that he's not going to be part
of the equation.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It becomes a little bit lonely. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Well, our first caller today is Amber. Amber says, dear Chelsea,
I'm writing to you as a long standing good girl
with codependent tendencies who's working hard to overcome my people
pleasing ways, all while raising a little badass eight year
old girl who has a strong ability to set boundaries.
Say it like it is with no filter, steps toe
to toe with anyone who challenges her, and is leading
(22:33):
the rest of the second grade girls into her sassy ways.
Problem is, I'm now discovering that she's not always using
her power for good. She's the leader of the mean
girls in second grade. Wow, I'm a long I know.
I'm a long standing fan and admirer of women like
my daughter, women like you who are comfortable in their
skin and don't seem to give a shit what others think,
(22:55):
free to set boundaries and live a life out loud.
I love it, I admire it, and I'm working hard
to be more like women like you and my daughter.
Question is how do I raise my little badass to
be powerful and kind? I don't want her to be
the asshole of everyone's childhood, but seriously don't want to
stunt her strength and power. What would you have wanted?
Thanks for the laughs and inspiration, Amber, And she's joining us.
Speaker 7 (23:18):
Here, Hi Amber, Hi Chelsea, how are you?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Hi?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Billy Eichner's here as a special guest.
Speaker 7 (23:24):
Billy's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That's so annoying.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I mean, I know what you mean, but I don't
think listen, I don't think of having a conversation about
kindness is going to put out her flame for life.
Kindness is part of being powerful, and I wish I
had learned that lesson at a very early age.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Was she bullied?
Speaker 7 (23:44):
You know, that's interesting. You should ask that she did
deal with a bully a couple of years ago. And
I think that what's happening is she's she's learned she
is powerful, and so she's willing to step toe to toe.
So she's also perceiving aggression when sometimes there isn't a
gre I also think it goes a little bit deeper
in one of the reasons. She's got some things going
(24:04):
on in her world too that are upsetting her. And
I think that she's trying to control things that she
thinks she can control, and she's doing it because she's
leading the all the girls in school to be mean girls.
But her brother, she's really close to him. He's ten
years older than her. He is leaving on a morm
(24:24):
admission and he'll be gone for two years, and she's
preparing for abandonment. And so she's got all these uncontrollables
that are happening in her world right now. And so
now I feel like she's punching back at the world
when she's at school and controlling all the other girls
and getting into you know, mean girl.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Scenarios, right, and so have you had an open conversation
with her about all of this. That's a good analysis
of the situation, lots of conversations.
Speaker 7 (24:51):
But what I'm also starting to see is kind of
she's starting to lose a little bit of a spark
in her eyes. She's like, I'm tired of talking about
being nice.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Mom.
Speaker 7 (25:00):
I get it, but I mean we're in the principal's.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Eye and it's not about being nice.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
I think maybe you should change the word to kind,
because nice doesn't mean anything anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Who gives a shit if somebody's nice. I hate when
people say, oh, she was so nice, Who cares? That's
that memorable?
Speaker 5 (25:13):
It also feels deeply uncool, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yes, it feels deeply uncool.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
But like, I think, what would be a good conversation
to have, and tell me if I'm repeating something you've
already said, is using all that power she has and
that personality for good rather than bad, you know, using
that to look at the power she has.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
She's a leader, She's.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Got all these girls behind her, and she's setting the
tone for how everybody's going to be treated. Wouldn't she
want to be the good witch instead of the bad witch?
Speaker 7 (25:46):
She did tell me just yesterday, she said, I feel
like I have an anger. I feel like I'm mad
inside and I need to get it out. And I
know she's got a friend that's in therapy, so she's
actually been talking about that, But I don't know point
we figure that out.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
No, I think you listen, you have a responsibility to
the other little kids at that school to get her help,
because that's not fair. Bullies ruin people's lives. There are
things that happen as a child that are cemented in
your brain that are traumatizing when you are attacked by
another kid at school, whether it's verbally, emotionally, physically, whatever.
But you you have a responsibility to everybody else to
(26:21):
make sure you get her on the straight and narrow.
And yes, you absolutely must bring her to therapy right
away because you don't want her growing up and being
like that.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You know what I mean? How old is she again? Eleven?
Speaker 5 (26:33):
Eight? Wow? Is she on social media yet?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Good? Good keep her off of that.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
That'll only make it worse, So go to therapy.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Now, yeah, you have to have I think you've got
to switch your your approach as well, because obviously what
you're saying is falling on deaf ears, which is a
natural thing to happen between a parent and a child.
But I think you should also switch your terminology and
talk about kindness and spreading you and spreading love and
not in a way that she's gonna be like it's
so stupid. It's like, use examples of people that are
(27:06):
doing that, you know, on a grand scale. Think of
people that she looks up to that would never tolerate
her that behavior. You know, who does she admire Taylor Swift?
Is she into Miley Cyrus?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
What's she into?
Speaker 7 (27:18):
I don't think she's exposed to them as much. I
have a good friend Diana, who she really admires that
I could really lean into. And Diana is all love
and all kindness and all joy. So that's a really
good point of thinking of mentors that she has in
her life that she does admire that are kind.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
When I was really irresponsible at a point in my life,
I was just I didn't give a shit about my family.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I was rebelling rebelling, rebelling my.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Sister, my oldest sister, who's the person in my family
I respect the most. She sat me down and said
to me, like, you're going down the wrong road. This
is your opportunity right now, and this is your last chance.
You either stay with the family or we're not going
to put up with us anymore. I was like seventeen,
eighteen years old, but I was bad, and that changed
my life because I respected her the most.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
She had never said anything.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
She just showed me unconditional love, unconditional love, and that
didn't deter me. That didn't change my course because she
was just showing me so much love, and until she
threatened to turn that love off, even though that would
be impossible, I believed it and I got scared. So
I think you have to find the person that you're
talking about. You have to get her into therapy. That's
not a question, And you have to have different conversations
(28:26):
around the subject matter because your approach isn't working and
she's not listening to you in that way. It has
to be spoken to her. I would enlist your friend
try and do it that way. But also, you know,
read some books about children and their anger and how
to exhaust it, you know, so she's not taking it
out on other people. And there are a lot of
movies about.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Bullying, you know.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I mean, Mean Girls is a great one. But she
probably might see that at this point and think, I
like that. I want to be one of those girls,
and you want her to actually see the light.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Were you bullied?
Speaker 6 (28:56):
Not significantly, which is surprising considering I was pretty obviously gay,
But I think you know, I grew up in New
York City, and I think that helped the cause. Yeah,
you know, I was bullied a little bit, but not
not extensively.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I was very lucky in that way.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So I think, listen, anyone who's a bully was bullied.
That's what happens.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I was bullied. I became a bully. But you have
to dismantle that, and you have somebody, and have somebody
who's a professional deal with it, because you know you're
coming up empty handed. And she's eight years old, and
this is really the time between eight and eleven that
you want to get girls in their heads to be kind.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Agreed, Yeah, And just as a couple of ways to
help sort of exhaust that anger and let her have
an outlet for that anger. This might be a one
or two time thing, but I know when my niece
and nephew had a loss in their family, my nephew
had so much pent up anger and he said to
my sister one day, He's like, I just feel like
I want to break something. And so she went out
(29:55):
to the thrift store and bought a whole bunch of plates,
and we all put on our safety glasses and we
grab these plates and we like threw them down on
the ground and just broke plates. And it was so
such a relief to sort of express that anger. But
maybe there are other things that are more long term.
Like I mean, eight is probably young for a girl
to start boxing, but like some other physical activity, they'll
(30:17):
allow her to sort of get some of that aggression
out of her body rather than sort of trapping it
inside where it comes out in these nasty ways. In addition,
of course, to a therapist.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
And I say, it's an emergent situation because eight years old,
you shouldn't even know how to be that mean yet,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (30:34):
An eight year old throwing plates.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
While she has her safety goggles.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Don't forget about that part.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
I don't know where did she get the safety goggles
at the thrift store too, because who has safety.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Goggles lying around in the carpenter?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
But yes, please get enlist other people to help you,
you know, and get on it right away. And I
know you are, and I know you're trying to figure
it out because it's embarrassing to have a kid that's
acting like that.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I'm sure you're dealing with all these other parents.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
And and her father and I are both kind of
at a loss, like, oh my gosh, what's happening. We
are having all these conversations, and candidly, we just found
out about the level of what's happening. We thought it
was just drama, just girl drama, and we found out
on Saturday that I'm actually the ring leader of mean girls.
And so I appreciate your rapid response. Forty. I'm getting
(31:24):
great advice from.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
You, and also talk to the teachers at the school
and the counselors at the school and how and come
up with a plan that you guys are all coordinated on,
you know what I mean, Because there has to be
repercussions for her bad behavior, and there has to be
a form of punishment, and that you're working with the
teachers and that there are eyes everywhere will have an
impact on an eight year old, you know, as soon
(31:45):
as she starts paying the price for her behavior and
realizes popularity isn't you know, she's not gonna want to
stay after school. She's not gonna want to get punished
when she comes home. So have you exercised any of
those options yet?
Speaker 7 (31:57):
I am following up and saying no, I want her
one on one with the school counselor to discuss this specifically,
they do friendship circles that I requested before.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
The end of the school year. Good because I don't really.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
Worried about one girl in particular that's been targeted.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Yeah, well, get on it and spend your summer working
on her, you know, and spend as much time as
you can with her, because a lot of that probably
comes from you know, I think girls can easily not easily,
but girls and their moms. There's just a huge healing
effect that being around your mom has. I mean even
little boys, especially at that age. You know, Just spend
(32:31):
as much one on one time with her as you can,
and be as communicative as you can, and engage as
much as you can with therapists and help and you know,
hopefully over the summer you can make some major improvements.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah. Was that helpful to you at all?
Speaker 7 (32:46):
Yeah, it really is. I think really supporting that idea
of like, we got to get into therapy sooner than later,
because you know, I'm doing all the things, saying things,
I'm highly communicative, but I need backup. I need that village.
I need to start building a village around her because
I her father and I can't do it on her own.
Need we need backup.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, yeah, and that's okay.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
And also being communicative with the other parents that you're
working on it, you know, so that they you can
alay some of their fears, because it's so scary for
other parents to have to deal with that. I was
just in a doctor's appointment yesterday and he was talking
about this poor girl. She's eleven and she got kicked
out of her friend group and now she's in a
new friend group and the old friend group is making
the new friend group dumper too.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Oh god, And I.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Was just like, oh my god, it makes my vagina
shut tight, Like the idea of children going through this
is just heartbreaking, you know, on both.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
Ends, it is I'm also concerned about the Mormon mission,
just for the records.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
All right, we'll get to that next.
Speaker 7 (33:45):
Okay, good, we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Are you not Mormon?
Speaker 7 (33:50):
Now?
Speaker 5 (33:52):
Why is he going on at Mormon mission if you're
not Mormon?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Oh my god, I was trying to respect.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
I could feel Chelsea each to be polite.
Speaker 7 (34:01):
I'm healing. It's post post Mormon healing for me, my friends.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
So my sisters are recovering Mormon.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
Your kids have a lot going on.
Speaker 7 (34:09):
They called him to New Zealand, which is a really
cool place. So I was like, I was hoping he'd
back out, but not no.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Leck so far, How did can I just how did
he find Mormonism without you guys?
Speaker 7 (34:21):
Well, I grew up Mormon and left the church gosh
till twelve years ago or something. But his father's still active.
And so he through COVID, went up to Canada and
is in Canada now, and went to high school there
and it's a very predominantly Mormon community and that's where
he found community and belonging was in the church and
with his friends that are members, and so he's fully indoctrinated.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
And it is.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
Said it's another issue all right in.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, well, I guess we'll all talk to you next week.
Speaker 6 (34:51):
Send him to a therapist too, while you're yeah.
Speaker 7 (34:54):
And me, all three of us.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
We all need yeah you that's healthy.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
It sounds like you do there. All right, Well, it
was nice to speak with you. Thanks for calling in.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Thanks thanks Samber. What about an eight year old bully?
What about that?
Speaker 4 (35:12):
How did would she even learn I don't be me
because someone did it to her?
Speaker 5 (35:16):
That's all right?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah right, yeah, but I like your idea about movies
and like fill her summer reading list with all Judy
bloom books, bully books, all this stuff, because when you
see how awful it is, you don't want to be that.
Like my one girlfriend, her kid's eleven, she's like, being
called a bully is the worst thing you can get
called at this school.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I told my friend the other day.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
She was harassing me about something and I was like,
you're being a bully, and she goes.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Don't ever say that. I was like, oh god, sorry,
that hit a little too close to home. I guess.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Well.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Our next caller is Alan. Alan says, dear Chelsea, I'm
a gay male in my thirties and I've found myself
in a bit of a strange, disorienting space when it
comes to relationships, including friends. I guess I had my
share of fun times and entry level relationships in college
and through most of my twenties when I found my
first real relationship that brought me into my thirties after
(36:11):
a brief break. I was blindsided with an unforeseen relationship
break in the first year of COVID. It ended with
him cheating on me probably sixty percent of the time
while I was recovering from a physical accident. It was
my first time being cheated on. I've always been self sufficient,
and I get older, I don't seem to have much
of a sexual drive for just hookups less I decided
(36:31):
to take time for just me again. Now I'm in
the spot where I've been putting my dating feelers out again,
But most of the guys I find turn out to
be boring or way too simple. I followed you for
a long time, and I've always thought I'd also have
a similar trail of being an independent, single boss. But
I can't shake this craving. I'd hook up more, but
men are so predictable and boring, lackluster sex and lame
(36:53):
what do you think is my relationship block? Have you
had times like this before in your life? Love you? Alan?
A gay and a gay city?
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Hi Alan, Hi Alan?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Oh my gosh, Alan, we have Billy here today, Billy Eichner.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
For you, of course it would be Billy especial.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Are those headphones on your ears or is that a
mullet that's coming down behind your neck?
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (37:15):
No, this is mullet baby. Oh yeah, the summer cut.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
That's cute.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Okay, So well, your attitude is what's in the way.
But that's okay because you're not you're I mean, you
sound just slightly depressed.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Do you feel depressed?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
No, not in any way. Okay, I kind of feel
like a ghost a ghost, yeah, like not really a hermit.
But I'm just kind of there. I'm just going out
doing my thing, put myself out there. But I'm just
really not interested in a lot of other people. I'm
kind of just like so consumed and like becoming more
(37:52):
of a better person.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Oh well, then that's the opposite of depressed.
Speaker 5 (37:56):
Yeah. I think that's good.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Actually, it is good.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I mean that's great. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.
I think there are periods of time. Listen, I have
no desire to have sex with fucking anybody, And that's
how I've felt for the last six months, probably just none.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Like I have to make myself go and look for.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Sex, yeah, and like set things up so that I
can get sex because I don't want to forget. But
I think that's a normal thing for people to go through,
especially when you're doing some self reflection, and like in
our work, I don't think that there's anything.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Wrong with that.
Speaker 6 (38:27):
I think that society and culture, especially gay culture, sometimes
makes you feel like you're supposed to always be on
the hunt for like sex or a boyfriend or a
relationship or something right, And we don't really talk about
the periods of your life where you just sort of
take for yourself. You know, that's not as sexy to
(38:49):
talk about when you have those like introspective periods, especially
in the gay world, where again especially on social media,
everyone's like naked in they're here and you know, they're
on vacation and they're with these guys, those guys, and
I don't know, I think we need to value just
as much the times that we're again being more introspective
and self reflective.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
There's a season for sewing and there's a season for reaping.
Like you're not always on the it's not always incoming.
Sometimes it's outgoing, and sometimes it's just you and self reflection.
Like that's very cyclical in all all of our lives.
So you're not alone.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, And I live in Austin, Texas, which is one
of the gayest things. Yeah, so I'm surrounded by very
much that where everything is so like sexually driven, and like,
I want an open relationship. I wants many partners. I
just need the sex, you know, and I'm just not
for that at this age.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
And you really desire what your long term plan is
to be in a committed relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, ultimately, uh huh. And really from my early twenties
until now, I've been in a relationship. So I got
my kind of hookup phase out of the way, established
a really strong relationship that was really great, and I
thought it was going to go somewhere, but we were
on different pages and then was taking a break and
(40:05):
immediately got sideswiped by a relationship during COVID, and so
we were kind of stuck together necessarily. So since we
broke up, I've been taking a lot more time for
myself and I've really built myself up in a lot
of different aspects in my life, and now I'm putting
the feelers back out there, and it's just I don't know,
I don't have any desire or nothing seems appetizing, for
(40:30):
lack of.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
Better words, Well, I think oftentimes nothing is appetizing. Yeah,
it can be a grind. It can feel like a chure,
like another thing on your to do list, like go
on dates, and that takes the fun out of it
and the spontaneity out of it.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
So yeah, it's amost like another job exactly.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
It is another job, and then a relationship itself is
another job, you know, and you have to be prepared
for that and wanting that. I think it's perfectly fine
and actually a good thing to be in a phase
where you're not aggressively wanting that.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
Actually, yeah, I think you should embrace that, embrace like
the moment that you're in and actually treasure it because
you may not be single for very long, and you're
certainly not going to be single forever. There are going
to be people that come in and out of your life,
so you want to really treasure this time alone with yourself,
Like I have the best time with myself and I
don't feel guilty about that at all.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, me neither. But when I get on you know,
dates or dating aps and they're like, what do you
I've been asked like do you have any friends? And
I'm like, of course I do. I just like myself,
is there a problem with that?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
And why do people ask you if you have any friends?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Because like what do you do? Well? I do a
lot of things that involve myself. You know, I don't
mind going out to eat by myself. I don't mind
going to the library or a bar to read a
book by myself.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
I like me, Yeah, well that's those are all healthy things.
Speaker 5 (41:52):
Those are good things.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
I don't understand what the problem is.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
I mean, you're just not attracted to people right now,
and that's okay, that's okay. You have to give yourself
permission to be in that phase without judging yourself for
not being interested in sex, because that's what you're doing.
You're kind of playing a game with yourself and a
trick on yourself because you're like looking at society and
what everyone's expecting of you and thinking you have to
deliver to them, and really you only have to deliver
to yourself, So enjoy this time, don't judge yourself, be like,
(42:18):
this is what I'm going to do. Do you know
how fucking healthy it is to go be able and
read a book by yourself?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
And how people how few people can do that in
this world?
Speaker 5 (42:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Like that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
And you're just think of this time as preparing for
the person that you're going to end up with, Like
you're doing the inner work and the self work and
spending time alone to prepare for your long term relationship.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I think being an extrovert is the counterpart of that.
I don't need a relationship to make me feel fulfilled,
but I recharge my battery with relationships and being around people.
So I think that's what's getting me stuck where I'm like,
I'm good with this, but I also want to recharge
my batteries in a different way.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
Do you have like a circle of friends that you hang.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
With, Well, most of my people will have moved out
of town. Oh so I really don't have anybody left.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
That might be the bigger issue. Because I'm a very
social person. I rarely feel a need to go on
a ton of dates or be in a relationship, but
I couldn't exist without my friends around me. I really
rely on them, you know, so that might be the
bigger issue, you know, like where are you fulfilling that
(43:33):
need to be social? Not to date someone or even
go on a date or have sex, but to just
interact with friends is really important.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, most of my friendships right now are on the phone, because.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
They're all that's good. You should keep those going.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Make sure you're having phone calls and facetimes or whatever
you're into on a consistent basis. But you can go
make friends in Austin. That's not going to be hard
and it's important. I think Billy's exactly right, Like you're
looking to fill a void and you're not really sure
what that void is. And I think, yeah, you should
work a little bit on making friendships rather than dating.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
What do you do like to do? Do you do
stuff outdoors? Hike?
Speaker 4 (44:11):
Do you are you into exercise? Are you into like chess?
What's your story?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yes, So that's the other thing. I'm a very straight
acting male. I come across a very masculine in my realm.
I like the BMX, I like the outdoors, I like
the camp, swim and the guys I've gone on dates
with are like, I've never been camping before. I've never gone.
I don't like swimming or I don't like hiking. Like
(44:36):
what do you do? Just sit inside, go to the bar,
Like that's basic to me.
Speaker 5 (44:41):
There are gay guys out there that like camping.
Speaker 6 (44:44):
I know many gay people who swim, who have the
ability to swim.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
A ton of day swimmers.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
Yes, any swim team is full of closeted gay men.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
How old are you thirty five?
Speaker 6 (44:57):
Yeah, it can be hard to meet friends. That can
actually be harder, I mean with for boyfriends and dating.
While there's an ad, there's like a million apps, right,
but just to meet friends, which I see a lot
of people suffering from at all different stages of their lives,
straight and gay and everyone. You know, it can be
hard to meet friends. I know guys who when they
(45:18):
move to a new city, gay guys, they'll join a team.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
You know, they'll be like a gay dodgeball team or
a gay softball team or whatever it is. Gay campers,
gay campers.
Speaker 6 (45:28):
I'm sure all of those things exist actually, and so
I don't know, maybe maybe that's a.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
I think that you should join something you know, go online,
do a little research either whether it's camping, swimming, hiking,
whatever your outdoor stuff is that you've mentioned, and that's
out of your comfort zone. So that's like a good step,
like a proactive step towards addressing the issue, and that
kind of I think you're feeling a little bit lonely,
and do that, make active steps to just change your
(45:55):
life in little small ways, and before you know it,
you will develop friendships and you will have ale there
and you'll probably worry a lot less about this relationship
issue once you have some more community.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah. Now that they hear that, I think maybe I'm
trying to fill two things instead of focus on one.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, So can you do that?
Speaker 4 (46:13):
Can you go and just just go online after this
call and just start researching hiking groups, camping groups, there's one,
there's something for fucking everybody online, definitely.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (46:24):
Or just post on Instagram I have no friends or
a or a book club.
Speaker 5 (46:28):
Yeah, that works.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Looking for friends.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Thank Chelsea Handler and Billy Eichner told me I need.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
To get some friends.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
I can do that.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Yeah, yeah, but try not to judge yourself within the process.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Just have a good time. You're going to meet some friends.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
You're going to meet a guy, and just you got
to do a little bit of different stuff to get different.
Speaker 5 (46:49):
Results for sure.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Okay, well thanks for calling. I love your fucking mullet.
Rock that out hard.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
It looks good.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Okay, bye bye.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we're
going to come back to wrap it up with Billy Eibner.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
And we're back.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Well, that was all over the place, yeah, and then
it Yeah.
Speaker 6 (47:18):
There have been so many articles lately about how loneliness
is one of the biggest epidemics that we face, and
and I think for especially younger people. It's everyone, actually,
but at least people in our generation and older. We
had to communicate with each other in person. We didn't
(47:38):
have our phones, and so phones have replaced actual human
interaction and it's kind of tricked people into thinking they
don't need it or they're getting it, but they're not, like,
that's not real human connection. And especially post COVID, I
think people got stuck in their homes, you know, there
is a little less socializing going on in certain places.
(47:58):
Maybe it's it's really important right to get out there
and meet people, not to date, just for friendship.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, and also just to change it up. It's always
good to challenge yourself. It's always good something to do.
Like I would never want to join a book club
or a hiking club, but if I were in that situation,
I would make myself do that, you know, because it's
about doing that, like you have to stretch a little bit, Billy.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Thanks for coming in, Thanks.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
For having me in New York City on this beautiful
summer day.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Have a great afternoon, everybody.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Okay, guys, we have added more shows to my Little
Big Bitch tour because I'm coming all over. We added
a second show at the Pantagius in Los Angeles, so
that's October twelfth and Friday the thirteenth. We added a
second show in Boston at the Waying Center September twenty
ninth and thirtieth is two shows in New York. I
also have a show in East Hampton, New York August
(48:50):
twenty six. We added a second show in Portland, so
Thursday November tewod Friday November third, and Portland November fourth
and fifth. In San Francisco, two shows there. We added
a second show with Seattle November tenth and eleventh. Two
shows Boston are November sixteenth and seventeenth at the Boch
Center at Wang Theater. And I'm also coming to Toronto
(49:14):
and Montreal and Ottawa and so many other cities Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Louisville.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
So i will see everybody at all of these shows.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (49:26):
Get your tickets at Chelseahandler dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
and engineered by Brad Dickert executive producer Catherine Law and
be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot
com
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