May 16, 2022 • 26 mins
Director Leann Welham talks us through the episode. Sex therapist Dr. Martha Kauppi tells us about the different ways we process and protect ourselves from difficult feelings. Maggie and Noam make the mistake of searching through our personal emails for the word ‘feelings.’ And stories about the minefields in dating when your ability to feel sexual attraction is dependent on a strong foundation of intimacy, moving across country for love, and realizing you’re much more emotional than you thought.
Martha Kauppi
https://www.instituteforrelationalintimacy.com/
Daysmel’s music projects
https://fractureband.bandcamp.com/album/silent-spring
https://theradiumdial.bandcamp.com/
Andrea Guzzeta’s podcast Podvant Garde
https://open.spotify.com/show/4Nq7kXBRJcLhEZK1yUWa3r
https://www.instagram.com/andreaguzzetta/
Michael and Matt
https://www.instagram.com/michaelandmatt/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc674znCShhfbB60_-cg6aQ
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/conversations-with-friends-strangers--5711089/support.
Martha Kauppi
https://www.instituteforrelationalintimacy.com/
Daysmel’s music projects
https://fractureband.bandcamp.com/album/silent-spring
https://theradiumdial.bandcamp.com/
Andrea Guzzeta’s podcast Podvant Garde
https://open.spotify.com/show/4Nq7kXBRJcLhEZK1yUWa3r
https://www.instagram.com/andreaguzzetta/
Michael and Matt
https://www.instagram.com/michaelandmatt/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc674znCShhfbB60_-cg6aQ
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/conversations-with-friends-strangers--5711089/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawt Media. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I have like really strong feelings about tall people.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Michael being gay with not feeling very attracted to either
of us, but was loving the secrecy.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
And I deny that feeling of being left delight.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Weird feeling, romantic feelings.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
Personal feelings.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It's really really important to remember, like your feelings about
sex or your feelings about sex. On today's show, we're
talking about feelings. Welcome to Conversations with Friends and Strangers.
I'm Maggie, I'm Nolam. In the show, we take a
closer look at the complicated relationships In the Hulu series
Conversations with Friends, we'll.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
Meet some of the cast and crew, chat with experts,
and share our own kind of sexy, kind of uncomfortable,
but relatable stories about the messy relationships we find ourselves in.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Is it true that some of us really do feel
things more intensely than other people?
Speaker 6 (00:56):
Director Leanne Wilhelm talksas through the episode.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And sex therapists are Martha Colpe tells us about the
different ways we process and protect ourselves from difficult feelings.
Maggie and I make the mistake of searching through our
personal emails for the word feelings, Big Mistake, and we
hear a story about the mind fields of dating when
your ability to feel sexual attraction is dependent on a
strong foundation of intimacy.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
YouTube husbands Michael and Matt talk about how they appreciate
each other's differences.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Is YouTube Husband's a phrase? I just coined it great.
Let's get emotional then, but first quick recap. Francis goes
back home and the period pain is back, and it's
so bad. Her mom worried she might be having a
miscarriage and takes her to the hospital.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
The doctor exam is painful on many levels. She calls Nick,
but he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Understand what's going on. I thinks he's drunk. She's not pregnant,
but she spends the night in the hospital and gets
her referral for an ultrasound. She goes to see her dad.
His flat is a mess and she finds him drunk
at the pub. When Francis goes back to Dublin, she
meets up with Bobby to apologize and they can finally
talk about Nick.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
But Bobby, it's hard to say any things sometimes.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So we start off for quite an interesting place where
Francis and Bobby are actually quite away from each other
in Pretty Apart.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
This is Leanne Wilhelm. She directed episodes six through ten.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
And it's the process of their relationship kind of finding
a new way to exist, I suppose in a way
that it hasn't before, And in order to get to
that place, they're both kind of forced to really express themselves,
I think, in a way to each other that they
that they haven't before. So it's quite an interesting place
(02:34):
to join Francis and Bobby. So I felt like I
was quite lucky really in getting to jump onto the
story at this particular point.
Speaker 8 (02:41):
I told you about kissing Melissa. The fact that you
didn't tell me about Nick is embarrassing. It makes me
feel really stupid as I for unwildly different versions of
this friendship.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
And I think also for Nick and franc it's their
relationship from this point forward is also trying to find
and kind of trying to discover what it is once
they've gone past the initial kind of flush of the
initial stage of the affair, and they're both trying to
navigate what that means and how that feels. And so
(03:15):
I think for me as a director, there was a
lot there to kind of really dig into and explore.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
In this episode, we spend a lot of time in
the hospital with Francis.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That scene when Francis's mum leaves her in the hospital
and she's sort of told to go home and get
some rest, and you know, she decides to go and
she walks off and Francis is left. It was so
heartrending that moment, and much more powerful than I think
I had imagined that it would be. And obviously Justine
and Allison are such amazing actresses that but it was just,
(03:48):
I don't know, that feeling of being left alone and
sort of isolated, and she looked like a like a
really young child almost in that moment, and it was
It was really interesting how moments that you don't maybe
necessarily think are going to be those really powerful moments
on set are the ones that kind of come along
and really surprise you. And that's definitely one for me.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
When frances is back in her room in Dublin, she
pulls up her message history with Bobby and searches for
the word feelings. Well, you don't really talk about your feelings.
Speaker 7 (04:18):
You're committed to this view of me as having some
kind of undisclosed emotional life. Why I'm just not very emotional.
Speaker 8 (04:34):
I don't think unemotional as equality someone can have. That's
like claiming not to be very alive.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
Would you live an emotionally intense life? So you think
everyone else does and if they're not talking about it,
then they're hiding something. Well, okay, we.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Differ on that. So Noam and I thought that would
be a fun thing for us to do. Turns out
not super fun. No, No, So Maggie, what did you find?
What came up for me was an email with the
subject line of feelings Surprise Surprise that I sent April nineteenth,
(05:11):
twenty fifteen to I guess technically an X at the
time was what was the situation between you two when
you had when you sent the email, I'd been living abroad.
We had dated for three months before I moved, and
we had kept in contact, and we had been kind
of like at each other's throats, a little bit like
bad texts, bad skypes, kind of like Nick and Francis Guy.
(05:34):
So I wrote this long thing. It ends. I say,
I'm afraid to lose you because what I felt with
you was truly special. But I'm afraid to hold on
in case we were too hasty, too eager to be
in love and didn't take the time to think any
of this through. Sounds like a heavy email, and what
(05:55):
was his reply? Well, actually, he said, good timing. This
song just came on. I will survive as long as
I know how to love. I know I'll be alive.
I've got all my life to live, I've got all
my love to give. He really did say that in
that email, and he said he said there was nothing
he could do but move on. So I thought that
(06:16):
was the end of our relationship, but just a couple
weeks later, in this same thread, he tells me he's
going to be in the area visiting, and he asks
me for help finding a place to stay.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
So the next email he sends you is what.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I hope you're enjoying your vacation. AnyWho, my friend and
I will be in Paris. So we exchanged a few
emails where I was sending him airbnbs and things like that.
Three practical emails, still with the subject like feelings though,
that's an incredible He came to visit and we slept
together and we realized that there was something really special there.
(06:52):
That we weren't ready to let go of Maggie wasn't
ready to let go. Yeah, that's also a big theme
in my life. And we're getting married in a couple
of weeks. So talk about your feelings kids. Sometimes it'll
work out. Noan, what did you find when you searched
your email? Well, actually I found two emails. I feel
(07:12):
like it's time, Maggie that we tell our story. Yeah,
it's time. Are you ready to share it? I'm ready? Okay.
So Maggie and I met on bumble. I love to
say that it's one of my favorite jokes. I went
on my first ever bumble date with a very nice
man who also happens to be Ryan, Maggie's piance's best friend.
And we started dating and it went really well, and
(07:35):
he invited me to meet his friends. As you know
from earlier episodes, is a very big deal in France,
and this was my first year in the US, and
I was so nervous, and he brought me to Maggie's
house where we are currently. It really was one of
the first times that I'm like, I really love this person.
I like her, She's so cool. I feel like it
(07:55):
makes it sound more one sided. You know, it wasn't
one sided. But anyway, when that relationship not with Maggie dissolved,
Maggie reached out and she wasn't ready to let go,
and I was very very happy about that.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
So yeah, that was the first email. It was a
breakup email, and he wrote a very sweet breakup email,
and my reply was not as kind. And I really
regret that I didn't read these emails since they were
sent back in twenty eighteen. And now I'm kind of like, oh,
fuck me. I remembered a different story. I lived a
(08:31):
different story than what was really there. So this is
my official apology. So I decided to search the word reschot,
which is feelings in Hebrew, and came up with an
even worse email that I'm going to share.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Feelings are hard, man, feelings are hard.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
So this is an email in Hebrew form myself to myself.
The subject line is I'm going to translate it.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Ushum da va. I will write to you in Hebrew
because you don't understand anything anyway. You also didn't write
it to yourself. Now. It was directed to Atwine, which
he will come up later. He came up. Before he
comes up, he comes up a lot.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
But yeah, at this point in our relationship, it was
a not and off relationship, and I started getting tired
of that. But a lot of very strong emotions. I
feelt very strongly about him, and I'm very happy that
I experienced those feelings, but they came with a very
dark side.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Read me a couple of the lines from this email
intended Frantoine that never made it to him.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Yes, I am angry, and yes I'm entitled to be,
But the thing is that I'm not even hurt. I
just feel relieved. You're an almost, a very tiny little
almost of a lot of things, and I don't want
to be next to people like that, especially not how
close I am to you. And this is the last
time I let myself be this vulnerable and open the
(09:57):
shits like you. You have to understand. You planted a lump
of nausea in my stomach. From it, waves of insecurity
generates throughout my body. I'm not good enough? Is that it?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Oof? That's all I gotta say is I'm curious about something.
Did you ever express any of these things to him? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (10:22):
And every time that I managed to make myself clear
to him, he would give it another try. He would
be really present, But I was trying to be in
a relationship with someone that was not ready to have
a relationship because of reasons that have nothing to do
with me.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Heavy stuff. I feel like we should take a break
and you know, maybe hug it out, have a drink.
What do you think? Yes? And when we come back,
we'll hear stories about the perils of dating as a demisexual,
the pressure of moving across country for love, and what
it feels like to real you're a lot more emotionally
(11:01):
complex than you thought you were. Welcome back today, we're
talking about our feelings and it's kind of a lot,
So let's hear from someone else for a while. We
(11:22):
talk to someone who has a very specific complication when
it comes to dating and feelings.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
For me, demisexual essentially means that you are sort of
on the asexual spectrum.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
This is Andrea Gazetta. She's an artist and also hosts
a podcast called Pod vant Garde.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And for me, how that manifests is that I don't
often feel sexual attraction for people until I've known them
a very long time. It can take me. It's generally
around like six months of like close contact someone being
my friend for a long time before I begin to
(11:59):
experience sexual attraction towards them. I consider myself bisexual, but
for the most part, I've pretty much only dated men
because men are very perseverant. If you say, hey, like
I'm not really looking to date right now, they'll be
like cool, I'll just like hang out with you and
try to change your mind. And for most women that's
(12:21):
very annoying, and for me, that's the only way I
have sex. So I really have to essentially love and
trust someone fully before I feel any sort of sexual
attraction towards them. And it does mean that I pretty
much only date my best friends, and then when we
break up, it's the worst. So zero stars. If you
(12:45):
can choose anything else, would highly recommend not doing this.
So it does take me a long time to date.
But I find something that happens that's very interesting is
oftentimes the men I will tell me like, I've never
dated anyone like you, I've never had a relationship like
(13:05):
this before, because they really have to be invested emotionally
before we have a sexual connection, and I think it
makes the relationships much richer, but again, it makes the
breakups much harder. So yeah, it's a fun and complicated,
horrible thing that I get to experience.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Have you managed to stay close friends with anybody you've dated.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Or I think there are people that I've dated where
like I cared about them a lot, I really like
love them, but I wasn't like that like all encompassing
in love, and I feel pretty cool with them now.
My most recent ex has like wants to be my friend,
(13:50):
but like it's I'm not ready to do that. Really,
it's too hard for me. Still, I wish I could,
but it's sort of this thing where it's like, yeah,
I loved you with everything, like I was all in
and you pieced out, and so it's hard for me
to spend time with you without feeling that like abandonment
(14:12):
trauma come up and without feeling rejected. And it's hard
for me, Like I am happy for you, I want
you to be happy, but it's hard for me to
do that and be around you all the time. So
I just don't have the space for that emotionally, you know,
that's really hard for me.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
When we talked to Andrea, she was dating someone new.
Everything seems to be going really well. Beside a few
physical limitations.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
He's six foot seven, which doesn't fit in my bed.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Looks like Andrea really knows how to set some boundaries,
you know. I can definitely learn from her.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I think it's a process, you know. And here's a
story about a couple who decided to go all in
and figure it out along the way.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Michael and I met online through are coming out videos
on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
This is Matt. He and his husband Michael have a
popular and very sweet tube channel where they document their
life and relationship. And in twenty fourteen, just two and
a half months after they first met, Matt packed up
his car and drove halfway across the country to be
with Michael.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So if you can imagine twenty one year old Matthew
moving from Seattle to Nebraska and his little Subaru nineteen
ninety seven, cruising across the country with just a few
bags of stuff, and then going and living in this
grandmother's basement in the middle of Nebraska because it was
(15:33):
cheap rent and that's all I could afford, and it
was a crosstown from Michael. I was in love. Everything
was great, Everything was great. Everything was great.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
When we talked to Michael and Matt, they were reclining
on their bed, sharing a set of headphones.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I think at that point I was kind of like
a mess of a person and really trying to figure
myself out and figure out what I wanted in life,
and my extations for other people were astronomically high, and
I didn't have a very long fuse for like things
(16:09):
that were going on. Everything seemed very like, I don't know,
when you remove yourself from friends and family and an
environment that you're used to and you're placed in just
a completely different universe, it feels like the stakes are
higher and things that wouldn't normally matter just would turn
(16:31):
into these giant problems. So I think we had a
couple of heart to hearts in those moments where Michael
called me out and said, like, you're not acting fairly.
You know, you're putting too much pressure on me. We're
both in a vulnerable position. We've never been through anything
like this before, We've never been in a relationship this
intense before, and we're still learning you need to back
(16:55):
up and cool it and just go with the flow
and allow things to develop, because for me it felt
like anything that went wrong, you know, oh you don't
like my taste in music, Oh, you don't know how
to cook a chicken breast to the right tenderness that
I needed chicken. So like, little things like this turn
(17:18):
into huge things where I'm like, I can't marry this
man because he literally almost like doesn't pick my chicken,
right is because I like different music than him, And
I was like, oh my goodness, like we do not
have to be the same person, Like, calm down.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Yes, I also think that some people feel different than others.
Some people feel a little more in certain areas and
their skin is a little thinner when it comes to
music and chicken, but maybe it's a little sicker, like
being brave and driving across the country, you know. So
(17:53):
it's kind of you know, that's just what the stuff
that makes us us.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, And that's tie it's tied to repression because it's
you know, you're denying your own feelings and getting angry
about the little things because you're not really acknowledging how
you truly feel. And m yeah, oh you acknowledged how
you fill out plenty of times.
Speaker 9 (18:14):
But maybe the cause of it, you know, the insecurity
that it comes from, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's what it's rooted in. This insecurity.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
What are your gathering stories? To put this podcast together,
we did a lot of outreach through different social media
platforms and we heard so many different stories about the
ways we navigate our own relationships and emotions.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And I also got to reconnect with some people I
hadn't seen or spoken to in years, and that was
pretty cool. And one of those people is an old
friend from Long Beach. His name is Dicemel and he
lives up in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 10 (18:51):
Now, yeah, I've been living here for about five years
that I moved up from Long Beach. I'm originally from Cuba.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Dice smells a musician and right now he lives in
a house with his fiance and a few other couples.
Speaker 10 (19:02):
I had this big awakening recently of realizing like I
just sort of lived my life like casually, just surfing
through those relationships, and sometimes I feel like I'm not
really paying attention to like all the factors and dynamics
and like how people might be feeling and how they're thinking.
So it's interesting being in community with a lot of
(19:24):
people and opening up to like, oh, I don't know anything.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
You know.
Speaker 10 (19:29):
That's that's the thing that hit me. It's like I
don't know. I can't say I know anything. For a fact,
I don't even know myself. I'm barely figuring this out.
So but you know, I reflected on, well what does
that mean? Like how do I relate? And I don't
know if anyone has more or less like capacity to
(19:52):
feel these feelings like we ought, but it seems sometimes
that people are so much more are able to navigate
these feelings or like be in them. I feel them
in ways that like my body freaks out and like
I shut off, and maybe I've created this like distance
(20:16):
between those feelings to like protect myself. And now I say,
like I don't feel those feelings. But it's funny that
I'm going through this real reconsideration. I've been feeling so
much more than ever before, So it really feels like
part of me was creating like distance to be close
(20:36):
off to my own emotions. So that's a personal thing
I'm going through. But also I think where this fact
is coming from. It's like I just feel as I
walk around the planet and look at other people, I
see sharp lines of this dynamic thing. And I think,
as men too, like you are put in that box
(20:58):
of like, yeah, you think more you want solutions, and
guys don't really feel things and women are more emotional
or hysterical or whatever. However it's been created a society.
It's like you're just beat over the head with that
as well. And it's growing up, it's you just learn
(21:20):
to deny your feelings.
Speaker 9 (21:22):
Like yeah, I've you know, come across that a lot
of like, well, I'm just like not that emotional, you know,
like I you know, I'm sure I feel things, I
love people and that kind of thing, but like I'm
you know, some people would say, like it's like and
I'm not necessarily saying me, I'm a fucking emotional wreck constantly.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I was surprised.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I'm like, looking at Maggie, are you talking about yourself
in conversation with friends?
Speaker 9 (21:47):
And also like ex partners and stuff, and even Ryan,
who I'm who I'm getting married in a month anyway,
he is self aware but not as emotional, I'd say,
as me, you know what I mean. And I think
that's probably a common dynamic between like male female relationships
of like men feeling like they're the less emotional one
(22:07):
than the woman.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
But like it.
Speaker 9 (22:09):
Always, you know, raises the question of like are you
really less emotional or are you just like not allowing
yourself the space to feel the feelings that you have
and instead, like you know, repressing them or pushing them down.
And so anytime anybody says I'm just not that emotional
or I'm not as emotional as you or as ex
or like my mother, that it makes me question, like,
(22:31):
how do you know?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Because I also think that there's possibility.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
I think there must be space because if everybody else
was feeling like I feel all the time, the fucking
world would be on fire, you know what I mean,
Like we would all be dead, and so like there
must be or maybe it's just like ability to compartmentalize,
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I don't look at me. I'm definitely I'm highly sensitive
and for a really long time just walked around this
globe thinking everyone feels just like me and didn't understand
the way everyone was such fucking assholes. Was someone cutting
me off and giving me the finger for no fucking reason,
and I'm like rethinking my whole existence. We could wax
(23:15):
philosophic all day. So let's let Martha Colp take over.
She's a certified sex therapist.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Certified with the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
And she founded the Institute for Relational Intimacy in Madison, Wisconsin,
where she offers trainings in addition to private counseling.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
For one thing, people who don't perceive that they experience
a lot of emotions may actually be turning away from
their emotions, or not sharing a lot about their emotions,
or avoiding conflict. I do think that there's some just
sort of wiring where we're different, But I also think
(23:55):
that avoiding conflict and avoiding emotions is something that we
all do, and some of the ways that we avoid
emotions are to create distractions from them. Even having a
big emotional outburst is a way to avoid a certain
kind of conflict if you think about it. So if
you have something really hard to say to me and
(24:15):
I dissolve in tears, how likely is it that you're
going to keep going. We all have our ways of
moving away from uncomfortable situations. We all have different tolerance
for discomfort, and we all have different ideas about what
kind of discomfort is really uncomfortable. Right, So, an easy
conversation for one person is somebody else's kryptonite.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
But Bobby, it's hard to tell you things. Sometimes you're judgmental,
you don't like Nicky, you think he's boring, or convention
give you every opportunity to slack them off. To me,
I was supposed to Sudy.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
And then we all have varying capacity for managing our
emotions when they have to, and that's a very important
skill to gain in any kind of a relationship. To
be able to identify what it is that you're experiencing,
figure out how it relates to what you want, and
to communicate about it and to tolerate it. Sounds so simple,
(25:16):
doesn't it, But these are really high level skills and
ones that most of us take a lifetime honing.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Listeners, we believe in you. Yeah, you can do it,
you can do it.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
I know.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's had a show.
Speaker 10 (25:47):
I don't know anything in all.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
This show is hosted and produced by me, Maggie Boles
and me no I'm Gadweiser. It's written and edited by me,
with assistant editing by Noam. Our supervising producer is Ryan Tillotson,
with help from Tyler Nielsen, Frank Driscoll, Nick Bailey, and
the entire Straw Hut team. Theme music is by Maggie
Glass and Square Fish, and big thanks to Aria via Shi,
Lauren Thorpe, Exavior Salas, and the Hulu team.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
To make her smile.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Also, Little Child, A Little Child,
Strawt Media. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I have like really strong feelings about tall people.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Michael being gay with not feeling very attracted to either
of us, but was loving the secrecy.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
And I deny that feeling of being left delight.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Weird feeling, romantic feelings.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
Personal feelings.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It's really really important to remember, like your feelings about
sex or your feelings about sex. On today's show, we're
talking about feelings. Welcome to Conversations with Friends and Strangers.
I'm Maggie, I'm Nolam. In the show, we take a
closer look at the complicated relationships In the Hulu series
Conversations with Friends, we'll.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
Meet some of the cast and crew, chat with experts,
and share our own kind of sexy, kind of uncomfortable,
but relatable stories about the messy relationships we find ourselves in.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Is it true that some of us really do feel
things more intensely than other people?
Speaker 6 (00:56):
Director Leanne Wilhelm talksas through the episode.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And sex therapists are Martha Colpe tells us about the
different ways we process and protect ourselves from difficult feelings.
Maggie and I make the mistake of searching through our
personal emails for the word feelings, Big Mistake, and we
hear a story about the mind fields of dating when
your ability to feel sexual attraction is dependent on a
strong foundation of intimacy.
Speaker 6 (01:18):
YouTube husbands Michael and Matt talk about how they appreciate
each other's differences.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Is YouTube Husband's a phrase? I just coined it great.
Let's get emotional then, but first quick recap. Francis goes
back home and the period pain is back, and it's
so bad. Her mom worried she might be having a
miscarriage and takes her to the hospital.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
The doctor exam is painful on many levels. She calls Nick,
but he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Understand what's going on. I thinks he's drunk. She's not pregnant,
but she spends the night in the hospital and gets
her referral for an ultrasound. She goes to see her dad.
His flat is a mess and she finds him drunk
at the pub. When Francis goes back to Dublin, she
meets up with Bobby to apologize and they can finally
talk about Nick.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
But Bobby, it's hard to say any things sometimes.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So we start off for quite an interesting place where
Francis and Bobby are actually quite away from each other
in Pretty Apart.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
This is Leanne Wilhelm. She directed episodes six through ten.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
And it's the process of their relationship kind of finding
a new way to exist, I suppose in a way
that it hasn't before, And in order to get to
that place, they're both kind of forced to really express themselves,
I think, in a way to each other that they
that they haven't before. So it's quite an interesting place
(02:34):
to join Francis and Bobby. So I felt like I
was quite lucky really in getting to jump onto the
story at this particular point.
Speaker 8 (02:41):
I told you about kissing Melissa. The fact that you
didn't tell me about Nick is embarrassing. It makes me
feel really stupid as I for unwildly different versions of
this friendship.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
And I think also for Nick and franc it's their
relationship from this point forward is also trying to find
and kind of trying to discover what it is once
they've gone past the initial kind of flush of the
initial stage of the affair, and they're both trying to
navigate what that means and how that feels. And so
(03:15):
I think for me as a director, there was a
lot there to kind of really dig into and explore.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
In this episode, we spend a lot of time in
the hospital with Francis.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That scene when Francis's mum leaves her in the hospital
and she's sort of told to go home and get
some rest, and you know, she decides to go and
she walks off and Francis is left. It was so
heartrending that moment, and much more powerful than I think
I had imagined that it would be. And obviously Justine
and Allison are such amazing actresses that but it was just,
(03:48):
I don't know, that feeling of being left alone and
sort of isolated, and she looked like a like a
really young child almost in that moment, and it was
It was really interesting how moments that you don't maybe
necessarily think are going to be those really powerful moments
on set are the ones that kind of come along
and really surprise you. And that's definitely one for me.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
When frances is back in her room in Dublin, she
pulls up her message history with Bobby and searches for
the word feelings. Well, you don't really talk about your feelings.
Speaker 7 (04:18):
You're committed to this view of me as having some
kind of undisclosed emotional life. Why I'm just not very emotional.
Speaker 8 (04:34):
I don't think unemotional as equality someone can have. That's
like claiming not to be very alive.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
Would you live an emotionally intense life? So you think
everyone else does and if they're not talking about it,
then they're hiding something. Well, okay, we.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Differ on that. So Noam and I thought that would
be a fun thing for us to do. Turns out
not super fun. No, No, So Maggie, what did you find?
What came up for me was an email with the
subject line of feelings Surprise Surprise that I sent April nineteenth,
(05:11):
twenty fifteen to I guess technically an X at the
time was what was the situation between you two when
you had when you sent the email, I'd been living abroad.
We had dated for three months before I moved, and
we had kept in contact, and we had been kind
of like at each other's throats, a little bit like
bad texts, bad skypes, kind of like Nick and Francis Guy.
(05:34):
So I wrote this long thing. It ends. I say,
I'm afraid to lose you because what I felt with
you was truly special. But I'm afraid to hold on
in case we were too hasty, too eager to be
in love and didn't take the time to think any
of this through. Sounds like a heavy email, and what
(05:55):
was his reply? Well, actually, he said, good timing. This
song just came on. I will survive as long as
I know how to love. I know I'll be alive.
I've got all my life to live, I've got all
my love to give. He really did say that in
that email, and he said he said there was nothing
he could do but move on. So I thought that
(06:16):
was the end of our relationship, but just a couple
weeks later, in this same thread, he tells me he's
going to be in the area visiting, and he asks
me for help finding a place to stay.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
So the next email he sends you is what.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I hope you're enjoying your vacation. AnyWho, my friend and
I will be in Paris. So we exchanged a few
emails where I was sending him airbnbs and things like that.
Three practical emails, still with the subject like feelings though,
that's an incredible He came to visit and we slept
together and we realized that there was something really special there.
(06:52):
That we weren't ready to let go of Maggie wasn't
ready to let go. Yeah, that's also a big theme
in my life. And we're getting married in a couple
of weeks. So talk about your feelings kids. Sometimes it'll
work out. Noan, what did you find when you searched
your email? Well, actually I found two emails. I feel
(07:12):
like it's time, Maggie that we tell our story. Yeah,
it's time. Are you ready to share it? I'm ready? Okay.
So Maggie and I met on bumble. I love to
say that it's one of my favorite jokes. I went
on my first ever bumble date with a very nice
man who also happens to be Ryan, Maggie's piance's best friend.
And we started dating and it went really well, and
(07:35):
he invited me to meet his friends. As you know
from earlier episodes, is a very big deal in France,
and this was my first year in the US, and
I was so nervous, and he brought me to Maggie's
house where we are currently. It really was one of
the first times that I'm like, I really love this person.
I like her, She's so cool. I feel like it
(07:55):
makes it sound more one sided. You know, it wasn't
one sided. But anyway, when that relationship not with Maggie dissolved,
Maggie reached out and she wasn't ready to let go,
and I was very very happy about that.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
So yeah, that was the first email. It was a
breakup email, and he wrote a very sweet breakup email,
and my reply was not as kind. And I really
regret that I didn't read these emails since they were
sent back in twenty eighteen. And now I'm kind of like, oh,
fuck me. I remembered a different story. I lived a
(08:31):
different story than what was really there. So this is
my official apology. So I decided to search the word reschot,
which is feelings in Hebrew, and came up with an
even worse email that I'm going to share.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Feelings are hard, man, feelings are hard.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
So this is an email in Hebrew form myself to myself.
The subject line is I'm going to translate it.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Ushum da va. I will write to you in Hebrew
because you don't understand anything anyway. You also didn't write
it to yourself. Now. It was directed to Atwine, which
he will come up later. He came up. Before he
comes up, he comes up a lot.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
But yeah, at this point in our relationship, it was
a not and off relationship, and I started getting tired
of that. But a lot of very strong emotions. I
feelt very strongly about him, and I'm very happy that
I experienced those feelings, but they came with a very
dark side.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Read me a couple of the lines from this email
intended Frantoine that never made it to him.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Yes, I am angry, and yes I'm entitled to be,
But the thing is that I'm not even hurt. I
just feel relieved. You're an almost, a very tiny little
almost of a lot of things, and I don't want
to be next to people like that, especially not how
close I am to you. And this is the last
time I let myself be this vulnerable and open the
(09:57):
shits like you. You have to understand. You planted a lump
of nausea in my stomach. From it, waves of insecurity
generates throughout my body. I'm not good enough? Is that it?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Oof? That's all I gotta say is I'm curious about something.
Did you ever express any of these things to him? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (10:22):
And every time that I managed to make myself clear
to him, he would give it another try. He would
be really present, But I was trying to be in
a relationship with someone that was not ready to have
a relationship because of reasons that have nothing to do
with me.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Heavy stuff. I feel like we should take a break
and you know, maybe hug it out, have a drink.
What do you think? Yes? And when we come back,
we'll hear stories about the perils of dating as a demisexual,
the pressure of moving across country for love, and what
it feels like to real you're a lot more emotionally
(11:01):
complex than you thought you were. Welcome back today, we're
talking about our feelings and it's kind of a lot,
So let's hear from someone else for a while. We
(11:22):
talk to someone who has a very specific complication when
it comes to dating and feelings.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
For me, demisexual essentially means that you are sort of
on the asexual spectrum.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
This is Andrea Gazetta. She's an artist and also hosts
a podcast called Pod vant Garde.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And for me, how that manifests is that I don't
often feel sexual attraction for people until I've known them
a very long time. It can take me. It's generally
around like six months of like close contact someone being
my friend for a long time before I begin to
(11:59):
experience sexual attraction towards them. I consider myself bisexual, but
for the most part, I've pretty much only dated men
because men are very perseverant. If you say, hey, like
I'm not really looking to date right now, they'll be
like cool, I'll just like hang out with you and
try to change your mind. And for most women that's
(12:21):
very annoying, and for me, that's the only way I
have sex. So I really have to essentially love and
trust someone fully before I feel any sort of sexual
attraction towards them. And it does mean that I pretty
much only date my best friends, and then when we
break up, it's the worst. So zero stars. If you
(12:45):
can choose anything else, would highly recommend not doing this.
So it does take me a long time to date.
But I find something that happens that's very interesting is
oftentimes the men I will tell me like, I've never
dated anyone like you, I've never had a relationship like
(13:05):
this before, because they really have to be invested emotionally
before we have a sexual connection, and I think it
makes the relationships much richer, but again, it makes the
breakups much harder. So yeah, it's a fun and complicated,
horrible thing that I get to experience.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Have you managed to stay close friends with anybody you've dated.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Or I think there are people that I've dated where
like I cared about them a lot, I really like
love them, but I wasn't like that like all encompassing
in love, and I feel pretty cool with them now.
My most recent ex has like wants to be my friend,
(13:50):
but like it's I'm not ready to do that. Really,
it's too hard for me. Still, I wish I could,
but it's sort of this thing where it's like, yeah,
I loved you with everything, like I was all in
and you pieced out, and so it's hard for me
to spend time with you without feeling that like abandonment
(14:12):
trauma come up and without feeling rejected. And it's hard
for me, Like I am happy for you, I want
you to be happy, but it's hard for me to
do that and be around you all the time. So
I just don't have the space for that emotionally, you know,
that's really hard for me.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
When we talked to Andrea, she was dating someone new.
Everything seems to be going really well. Beside a few
physical limitations.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
He's six foot seven, which doesn't fit in my bed.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Looks like Andrea really knows how to set some boundaries,
you know. I can definitely learn from her.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
I think it's a process, you know. And here's a
story about a couple who decided to go all in
and figure it out along the way.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Michael and I met online through are coming out videos
on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
This is Matt. He and his husband Michael have a
popular and very sweet tube channel where they document their
life and relationship. And in twenty fourteen, just two and
a half months after they first met, Matt packed up
his car and drove halfway across the country to be
with Michael.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So if you can imagine twenty one year old Matthew
moving from Seattle to Nebraska and his little Subaru nineteen
ninety seven, cruising across the country with just a few
bags of stuff, and then going and living in this
grandmother's basement in the middle of Nebraska because it was
(15:33):
cheap rent and that's all I could afford, and it
was a crosstown from Michael. I was in love. Everything
was great, Everything was great. Everything was great.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
When we talked to Michael and Matt, they were reclining
on their bed, sharing a set of headphones.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I think at that point I was kind of like
a mess of a person and really trying to figure
myself out and figure out what I wanted in life,
and my extations for other people were astronomically high, and
I didn't have a very long fuse for like things
(16:09):
that were going on. Everything seemed very like, I don't know,
when you remove yourself from friends and family and an
environment that you're used to and you're placed in just
a completely different universe, it feels like the stakes are
higher and things that wouldn't normally matter just would turn
(16:31):
into these giant problems. So I think we had a
couple of heart to hearts in those moments where Michael
called me out and said, like, you're not acting fairly.
You know, you're putting too much pressure on me. We're
both in a vulnerable position. We've never been through anything
like this before, We've never been in a relationship this
intense before, and we're still learning you need to back
(16:55):
up and cool it and just go with the flow
and allow things to develop, because for me it felt
like anything that went wrong, you know, oh you don't
like my taste in music, Oh, you don't know how
to cook a chicken breast to the right tenderness that
I needed chicken. So like, little things like this turn
(17:18):
into huge things where I'm like, I can't marry this
man because he literally almost like doesn't pick my chicken,
right is because I like different music than him, And
I was like, oh my goodness, like we do not
have to be the same person, Like, calm down.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Yes, I also think that some people feel different than others.
Some people feel a little more in certain areas and
their skin is a little thinner when it comes to
music and chicken, but maybe it's a little sicker, like
being brave and driving across the country, you know. So
(17:53):
it's kind of you know, that's just what the stuff
that makes us us.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, And that's tie it's tied to repression because it's
you know, you're denying your own feelings and getting angry
about the little things because you're not really acknowledging how
you truly feel. And m yeah, oh you acknowledged how
you fill out plenty of times.
Speaker 9 (18:14):
But maybe the cause of it, you know, the insecurity
that it comes from, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's what it's rooted in. This insecurity.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
What are your gathering stories? To put this podcast together,
we did a lot of outreach through different social media
platforms and we heard so many different stories about the
ways we navigate our own relationships and emotions.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And I also got to reconnect with some people I
hadn't seen or spoken to in years, and that was
pretty cool. And one of those people is an old
friend from Long Beach. His name is Dicemel and he
lives up in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 10 (18:51):
Now, yeah, I've been living here for about five years
that I moved up from Long Beach. I'm originally from Cuba.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Dice smells a musician and right now he lives in
a house with his fiance and a few other couples.
Speaker 10 (19:02):
I had this big awakening recently of realizing like I
just sort of lived my life like casually, just surfing
through those relationships, and sometimes I feel like I'm not
really paying attention to like all the factors and dynamics
and like how people might be feeling and how they're thinking.
So it's interesting being in community with a lot of
(19:24):
people and opening up to like, oh, I don't know anything.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
You know.
Speaker 10 (19:29):
That's that's the thing that hit me. It's like I
don't know. I can't say I know anything. For a fact,
I don't even know myself. I'm barely figuring this out.
So but you know, I reflected on, well what does
that mean? Like how do I relate? And I don't
know if anyone has more or less like capacity to
(19:52):
feel these feelings like we ought, but it seems sometimes
that people are so much more are able to navigate
these feelings or like be in them. I feel them
in ways that like my body freaks out and like
I shut off, and maybe I've created this like distance
(20:16):
between those feelings to like protect myself. And now I say,
like I don't feel those feelings. But it's funny that
I'm going through this real reconsideration. I've been feeling so
much more than ever before, So it really feels like
part of me was creating like distance to be close
(20:36):
off to my own emotions. So that's a personal thing
I'm going through. But also I think where this fact
is coming from. It's like I just feel as I
walk around the planet and look at other people, I
see sharp lines of this dynamic thing. And I think,
as men too, like you are put in that box
(20:58):
of like, yeah, you think more you want solutions, and
guys don't really feel things and women are more emotional
or hysterical or whatever. However it's been created a society.
It's like you're just beat over the head with that
as well. And it's growing up, it's you just learn
(21:20):
to deny your feelings.
Speaker 9 (21:22):
Like yeah, I've you know, come across that a lot
of like, well, I'm just like not that emotional, you know,
like I you know, I'm sure I feel things, I
love people and that kind of thing, but like I'm
you know, some people would say, like it's like and
I'm not necessarily saying me, I'm a fucking emotional wreck constantly.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I was surprised.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I'm like, looking at Maggie, are you talking about yourself
in conversation with friends?
Speaker 9 (21:47):
And also like ex partners and stuff, and even Ryan,
who I'm who I'm getting married in a month anyway,
he is self aware but not as emotional, I'd say,
as me, you know what I mean. And I think
that's probably a common dynamic between like male female relationships
of like men feeling like they're the less emotional one
(22:07):
than the woman.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
But like it.
Speaker 9 (22:09):
Always, you know, raises the question of like are you
really less emotional or are you just like not allowing
yourself the space to feel the feelings that you have
and instead, like you know, repressing them or pushing them down.
And so anytime anybody says I'm just not that emotional
or I'm not as emotional as you or as ex
or like my mother, that it makes me question, like,
(22:31):
how do you know?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Because I also think that there's possibility.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
I think there must be space because if everybody else
was feeling like I feel all the time, the fucking
world would be on fire, you know what I mean,
Like we would all be dead, and so like there
must be or maybe it's just like ability to compartmentalize,
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I don't look at me. I'm definitely I'm highly sensitive
and for a really long time just walked around this
globe thinking everyone feels just like me and didn't understand
the way everyone was such fucking assholes. Was someone cutting
me off and giving me the finger for no fucking reason,
and I'm like rethinking my whole existence. We could wax
(23:15):
philosophic all day. So let's let Martha Colp take over.
She's a certified sex therapist.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Certified with the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
And she founded the Institute for Relational Intimacy in Madison, Wisconsin,
where she offers trainings in addition to private counseling.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
For one thing, people who don't perceive that they experience
a lot of emotions may actually be turning away from
their emotions, or not sharing a lot about their emotions,
or avoiding conflict. I do think that there's some just
sort of wiring where we're different, But I also think
(23:55):
that avoiding conflict and avoiding emotions is something that we
all do, and some of the ways that we avoid
emotions are to create distractions from them. Even having a
big emotional outburst is a way to avoid a certain
kind of conflict if you think about it. So if
you have something really hard to say to me and
(24:15):
I dissolve in tears, how likely is it that you're
going to keep going. We all have our ways of
moving away from uncomfortable situations. We all have different tolerance
for discomfort, and we all have different ideas about what
kind of discomfort is really uncomfortable. Right, So, an easy
conversation for one person is somebody else's kryptonite.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
But Bobby, it's hard to tell you things. Sometimes you're judgmental,
you don't like Nicky, you think he's boring, or convention
give you every opportunity to slack them off. To me,
I was supposed to Sudy.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
And then we all have varying capacity for managing our
emotions when they have to, and that's a very important
skill to gain in any kind of a relationship. To
be able to identify what it is that you're experiencing,
figure out how it relates to what you want, and
to communicate about it and to tolerate it. Sounds so simple,
(25:16):
doesn't it, But these are really high level skills and
ones that most of us take a lifetime honing.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Listeners, we believe in you. Yeah, you can do it,
you can do it.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
I know.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's had a show.
Speaker 10 (25:47):
I don't know anything in all.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
This show is hosted and produced by me, Maggie Boles
and me no I'm Gadweiser. It's written and edited by me,
with assistant editing by Noam. Our supervising producer is Ryan Tillotson,
with help from Tyler Nielsen, Frank Driscoll, Nick Bailey, and
the entire Straw Hut team. Theme music is by Maggie
Glass and Square Fish, and big thanks to Aria via Shi,
Lauren Thorpe, Exavior Salas, and the Hulu team.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
To make her smile.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Also, Little Child, A Little Child,
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