EPISODE 36
TRANSCRIPT
0:00:11.1 S1: Welcome to Dear romance writer, were three writers who always deliver happily ever after offer questionable advice for all of your relationship work and life problems. I'm Zeo Axelrod.
0:00:21.5 S2: I'm very fun. And I'm ropes, we have a great show for you today, but before we get into our letters, let's just do a little check in. How was everyone's week? I will start by saying that I'm just pretty much against genocide and war onset. I didn't have a very exciting Televisa experience, which is that everyone or yellow jackets, the show came out well, Tommy and I were in New York and we couldn't watch it, and so there was all this excitement, and I looked at the trailer and it looked a lot fabulous. And I could watch it whenever one was all done, how so we started it last night, and I was instantly obsessed with it, and it's interesting 'cause I knew that it was like a survival situation, but I didn't know that it's basically the plot of a live only with teenage girls instead of early 20s boys, and I was a mess with a live in middle school. Both the movie and the book. I read the book a million times, and it would have been right around 1996, which is on the show is set, and so it just hit everything in my middle school to high school, heart of the midnight in all of your boxes.
0:01:42.9 S2: Yeah, midnight. I love survival stuff, I love the way a team or click or a group of people becomes torn apart from the inside, infections, evolve and you never know anyone's true intentions. It's just hitting everything. Plus then there's this perfect mid-90s sound track, which I also so appreciated in that second fear Street movie, so that has been a real highlight for me to speak, Nicolaus, I wanna watch that, but I swear we have every other streaming service besides show time, and I'm just really scared of getting going in other ways, but I really wanna watch it, and there's a bunch of things on there, I'm noticing that I want to watch. I wanted to watch that Bill Cosby documentary. They've got on Showtime. There's another show that's just starting, and I can't think of what it is right now, but I know there's another one, so basically, I'm reaching that point of saying, Oh, screw it, I'm gonna get one more time. What I usually do is I save up until I have five or six things I wanna watch on a channel, then I sign up for one month, I binge them all, and then I cancel it, so...
0:02:55.9 S2: Yeah, and that's an option for me, it's just rewiring to do all that crap, that's why God made calendar reminders all I am. So also for a lot of them, the second you sign up, you can go and cancel it a minute later, and I'll be like, Cool, This thing will last until the end of the month when I will then stop, which is what I like. Oh, that's true, that's a really good point. A good trick to team helpless helpless. Without my calendar reminders.
0:03:22.6 S1: Yeah, I like that there's a... Tithe was to tell you all the subscriptions you have or something, if you're not using them, I'm like, Yeah, but that's another app that has too many of my passwords and said that...
0:03:33.9 S2: Well, to what I ended up doing is trying to get everything to... 'cause we've got Apple. So I know CEO, you're an Android girl, so their Apple TV will link everything for you, which is really nice. So
0:03:52.3 S1: Yeah, we do that. We have appeared together for class, Tessitura that I had about that, and then we watch a couple of other things on there too. Anyway.
0:04:05.0 S2: Well, we just... I just came back from a year, a couple of weeks now, but yeah, we had our girls reading weekend, wherein I read a chapter and a half a week. You do too, because we flip and talked the whole time, and it's really funny because Kim's an early bird and she kicks in her sleep, so Robin and I always sleep together, like every conference, whenever we share a room, Kim's stretched out on her own bed, and Robin kunlun, the other one, 'cause she is a violent sleeper, so... Yeah, and plus, she wakes up early in the morning and rather I can go either way out of that, but we will definitely stay up later, so... Yeah, that's basically what happened. But I have to tell you about the funniest thing that happened while we were there, so we were at this dreary little beach town, I won't name it because it was very... The people were very nice when we were there, but it's not a course Mac, it just happens to be exactly half way in between where Kim and I live and we're Romulus, so we stayed there and we ordered food one night, and the guy is like, it'll be 45 minutes, and we're like, Okay, that's a long time in a little town when there's no beach action going, But...
0:05:25.1 S2: Okay, 45 minutes. So we show up, walk into the restaurant, there are two tables of people, otherwise there's absolutely nothing, so we're standing up at the little front thing just to pick up our stuff, and one of the women who's at the table who is drunk than a skunk in August and whiskey factory, like her breath was by a... She's like, Hey, can I take your order? He is kind of busy and she's like ski slope, and even as we're talking and we're like, We're just here for a pick-up, and she's like, Okay, and then she weaves her way over to the other table that has people and check in on them, and it's like, Do you wanna refill on your drinks, you know, all of this stuff, and then she goes behind the bar, pours herself another glass of wine, and we see... And she did this, and we ended up waiting another 20 or so minutes for our food, this poor guy was running his ass off, he was front back kitchen bus boy, he was all of it, so I'm sure he was just beyond overwhelmed and it was tied too so it was like, You're not microwave-ing it and then sending it to a Thai hope you're not.
0:06:46.2 S2: But yeah, so she went through and I think when we were there, had an additional two to three glasses of wine was offering alcohol to other people, all the stuff, so I don't know how much money he lost and alcohol sales, but it was amusing and... Yeah, at first we thought that he worked there, but she definitely did not... She most definitely did not. So there you go. Anybody is looking for an inspirational starter point for a book.
0:07:18.7 S1: There you go.
0:07:20.2 S2: 'cause I know some... 'cause some people came in after us and she went up to them and they didn't realize, so they gave her their order on her, but yes, but we ended up talking so much, I read a chapter and a half on my reading weekend, and then we came home and there was a lot of wine... Is a toothache, that lady had a great... Just in our house as opposed to at the time restaurant. So yeah.
0:07:52.1 S1: But it was... The food, once we got it was very good, so there you go, neighbour use, which been up. Well, I still have birthday cake left to basotho, did he do... That was amazing. Is he so fun? He's like, I'm gonna do this thing that I've never done before. And it's going to be perfect. I'm like, okay, there. And then it is, and I'm like, Yeah, okay. That's not fair. That's the guy that I Cerebus really good. We actually, we're texting the neighbors like, Please come get some cake, because it was a giant, was like a full size birthday cake and he had a one or two licenses, so... Yeah, but yeah, but my birthday president was me getting back in my office after two years, so we moved his desk and the Citroen back into the office in the back, and so I have my shelves back and my chariton, the walls and my dad, 'cause I'm getting a standing desk, which is supposed to be her son to... So that was my... That was my gift this year to get my pace back, so yeah, I'm all set up and happy to be back in here.
0:09:01.8 S1: I think it was a pretty uneventful week, the world is burning, but yeah, we do what we can to up-lift those we can and keep ourselves from... Raigarh going to jail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're trying to stop ourselves, so hopefully everybody that's listening is safe and in a good place.
0:09:29.5 S2: Yeah. Hugs. Hugs to the world right now.
0:09:35.6 S1: Yeah, but on a bright note or a funny note, we just finished the first season, a peacemaker a... Oh my God.
0:09:43.5 S2: I loved that show. It's so good.
0:09:46.8 S1: It's stupid. How good it is? No.
0:09:48.7 S2: No, it is stupid. But
0:09:51.0 S1: It is good. Right.
0:09:52.5 S2: Those two things are like the perfect... Yeah, really, really?
0:09:57.1 S1: Are you shocked at how good John Cena isn't it?
0:10:00.0 S2: Yes. And did you know that he played the piano in the motley crew, home sweet home thing, all collect... He did really well, and I think if you want to look at it from a writer-ly perspective, I thought it was really good how they were able to take... Because there's always an argument, you can't have your characters be too unlike
0:10:27.7 S1: Able, right. There was nobody likeable in the beginning of this, of the
0:10:35.4 S2: Noted by the end of it, you're like, if one of these motherfuckers dies, I'm murine every day. Right. You're like all of it. And what's your name? Who played video? Danielle?
0:10:50.9 S1: Yeah, I can't think of a... Not yet, she's... She was so good. She was a hangout, so funny, her eyes were so pretty up there every time he's on the screen, just staring at a Heineman, Disney princess is like got Disney princess eyes and she just sees like that, but yeah, we watch the first couple of episodes and were like, Oh, I don't know, because we love the boys, and the boys kind of does a similar thing where it's like they turn the superhero Trope on its head, and this is like... And I won't last... The very last scene with the Oiler parents, whether institute a everything is just so well done on the show, I just... I'm really glad that they got a second season because it surprised me how good that was it... It's on HBO max if anyone hasn't seen it. But a highly remedial randomness and with lost a few months. Yeah, anyway, so shoes, get on to our questionable advice, giving colour letter this week is from matale, but as always, we are always excited to hear from you guys, we would prefer to answer your letters, we wanna help you or give you advice or listen to you and whatever you need, but you can reach us on our site, year Romita R dot com, you can hit us up on DMS on social media, however you wanna get to us, and we keep it anonymous, so send us your letters, but this is from Mid asshole, our favorite and the letter says, Am I the swell for hiding embarrassing notes in my house as a joke, because I know my fiance mom's stoops.
0:12:32.7 S1: Answer No. There you go. Done eating us. Okay, so here's the story. I bought a house seven years ago, and then I met my fiance now four years ago this year, he moved in, we're talking about making it a home for both of us, but as of now, he hasn't moved much stuff in right now. 95% of the stuff and furniture in the house is mine, when his mom comes over, she's kind of a snow, he was used to that, but when she comes to our house, it's so uncomfortable because she's just going through my shit when I'm bothered, she's like, I was just helping with chores, etcetera, he says, I just let her to just let her because she has a lot of nervous energy include... One thing she snowed on was actually embarrassing in my home office, I had a little affirmation Post-it note in my monitors saying, I am smart, I am skilled, I am deserving of great things, which is awesome, you should have... Yeah, it was a silly thing, my therapist recommended to get me in a confident mindset before an interview... Anyway, she made a comment to me, she made a comment about my ego, I think is what they're doing now, but as a joke, I decided to do it again, I had my best friend over and we got wine drunk...
0:13:43.8 S1: This is the theme of this episode. And a bunch of unwinding and wrote a bunch of affirmations to hide, some were on the medicine cabinet, my teeth will regrow I am shark like in powerful...
0:13:59.9 S2: Can we make that the motto of the show mythological.
0:14:05.4 S1: That needs to be on a t-shirt.
0:14:07.3 S2: Which I like that.
0:14:08.7 S1: In the kitchen drawers, I know went to spoon, but I also know when to four, I'm sexy and self-assured on the work desk, I will not just fuck my way to the top of the company, I will fuck my way to the top of the world.
0:14:28.1 S2: I kind of love this woman...
0:14:30.8 S1: That's awesome. In the walking closet, I am beautiful with clothes and without, especially without... My boobs are legendary is sentient myself every day. Sorry, there were a bunch more and my friend and I had a hilarious time writing them the next time my mother-in-law came over, she saw off you and she didn't acknowledge them to me, even though she definitely started acting a little weird about being... I went to run some errands when I was out, she confront it all about the notes, and I was trying to tell him that I've seen unstable egotistical and moving in was a bad idea. She showed him the notes and he didn't really know what to make of it, he asked me, and I said they were just some silly private notes to boost my self-confidence and to make myself laugh, How had she gotten them... Had she been going through my things, he said she was just tidying and saw them, and they were real weird. I was like, Have you met me? You should know how hard I am anyway, if you don't want your mom saying My Weird shit, you've got to stop letting her go through my shit, he asked if I left them on purpose to annoy her...
0:15:27.8 S1: Right, and I admitted that it was kind of the joke, but I also have other weird of private shit. So what I've said about her needing to stop snooping if she didn't wanna find weird craft was still for real. He said I was making stuff hard for him, his mom was really protective and adjusting to him moving in with a girlfriend for the first time, and I was agitating her on purpose and making her think I wouldn't be a good partner when he wanted her to have a go
0:15:51.9 S2: Ahead. Have they said how old a... I was just thinking that.
0:15:55.1 S1: I was just thinking that I was gonna come in on a... No, I don't think so. Holley don't say...
0:16:02.2 S2: They don't say, But he's seven years older. Seven years the... That is the acceptable age that a mom or a one only acceptable age. Right.
0:16:13.9 S1: So we have no confirmation of a core, I'm agitating her own purpose and making her think I wouldn't be a good partner when he wanted her to have the opposite impression of me, am I the asshole for the note Frank to...
0:16:30.6 S2: You are shark like and powerful.
0:16:32.6 S1: You need to write a book of comedic GEMS because these are fabulous... I want all of those affirmations in a book or calibration
0:16:40.9 S2: Too, I think that would be like I am not an Instagram girl, but that would be an Instagram account that I would follow.
0:16:47.2 S1: It would be
0:16:47.8 S2: Right. That would be a word. It is amazing to me, the amount that people... The amount of work that people are willing to ask others to do to make up for them, not setting boundaries. I find it infuriating. It is totally unacceptable to me, and it's one of those things that I think before you learn it and get into a place where it's unacceptable to you, this is a hard question or a complicated question, or seems like, Oh, should I... Should I make things easier for my partner, should I be nice to his mom with the nervous energy, should I... Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, No, this woman, the mom has problems with boundaries, her son, who of course also has problems with boundaries 'cause she raised him and he didn't learn them from her and has not done the work to make them for himself, he lets her walk all over the boundaries, and now that he's in a relationship with another adult woman who is saying, I don't have the same boundaries or lack of boundaries as you, and she's your mom, so either talk to her or I will just do what I want to maintain my own boundaries, he is getting into a slit and is like, Oh, you're making my life harder, that your mom made your life hard by not teaching your boundaries, it is not your partner's responsibility to pick up the slack because you are two Wilby to tell your mom...
0:18:23.0 S2: No. Yeah. Yeah, thousand times what the thousand... At least to begin, I think this is honestly a case, and I think the... Everybody's family is weird. Everybody's family is weird, and a lot of times you don't realize what that weird is until you try and intermix your family or somebody comes over for dinner with your family, and all of a sudden you get that... Holy shit. Right, so it's cuteness ecology in what we... So it is a huge red flag that he doesn't realize that this is weird... Right. And not weird and quirky, I mean weird as an unacceptable Ivano. Let me just say that. So let's start off that way, and I'm gonna piss off some people so... Apologies. Not really, but I say this is a mom who has sons... This is somebody who has 14000 boy mom t-shirts. Alright, so I think somebody... You don't know this. I don't even know, it's perming you into suburban how... Oops, okay. So boy moms are a very specific kind of parent in suburbia, and first off, picture all the Utah Mormon Instagram-ERS, right, if that's your state at a teen Instagram or... In my life, very...
0:20:13.2 S2: Both the sort of Western stuff, but it's not western, it's like city Western, I don't know. It's a lot, but yeah. Okay, so a boy-mom aspect is somebody who is always like, Just let the boys be boys to poles... Yes, but it's a lot of internalized misogyny and also it is couched in the, I am protecting my son from the Y, it is the... You know what, I support people who have been assaulted, I do, but the boys need to have a resonator, it seems like on one level you can like, Well, yeah, that's fair, you should be able to answer an attack, but it's just like the... In general thing, I would ask. Yes, so if you are somebody that's got the Y on t-shirts, I'm sorry, I love you, I'm sure you're a very nice individual person, but as a group, you all or a bunch of freaks, the way they wear t-shirts that say the words Boi... Momentary. Yeah, it is mom boy. And there's hashtags, boy, mom. And it is... Oh my God, go down a rabbit hole. After we get to it, I think I never Olefins while we're recording.
0:21:42.7 S2: And I'm just gonna put it in the chat. Okay, never rest my computer algorithm back from this, and I'm afraid of where it will take me a boasts, whole on... But the other thing that I think that this type of parent has in common is they are very helicopter, there are very much a lack of boundaries, there are very much... Just that whole... I'm trying to think. The kid has never grown, there is very grown and no one is good enough for them, and no one is good enough for them, and it also can tend to play into the... My child, specifically boys, my son finding a partner becomes a rejection of me, right. So you flow into all of those things, which is the VI basically that I get from this, is that this is somebody who beyond just all of the snow factory hell, I love to Snoop. Everybody loves to Snoop. We just know when it's not socially acceptable to snoop, alright, you could be curious to follow through it, but yeah, all of this nervous energy, it's gonna get worse. There are so many red flags here, but I mean kids, this is gonna be the mother-in-law that serves your peanut allergic kid, peanut butter.
0:23:11.3 S2: Because they just need to build up their tolerance.
0:23:18.0 S1: That is what you've got right here.
0:23:19.9 S2: If somebody is willing to go through it and snoop through your staff and is willing to just call on it, and then it's going to use the fact that you push back on that as a reason to try and get her son, to break up with you. Yeah, so many red flags, red flags about she needs to be glad that he hasn't moved all the way in yet...
0:23:43.3 S1: Yeah, when she said 95% of the stuff is hers, or the bad writers say that 95% stuff is there. Right.
0:23:49.4 S2: So the fact that he hasn't done... This is real, I don't understand. I know this is not the point, but fundamentally, if the notes were in the silverware drawer, would he see one every time they ate food, so how did his mom see it and you didn't see it unless she brings him as dinners on a tray or something.
0:24:09.8 S1: I don't know. Yeah, anyway, not the point, but
0:24:14.2 S2: It is
0:24:14.7 S1: Catching drawer, so it could be like the junk drawer or something like that, but yeah, it's disturbing. Yeah, I feel like every... You didn't hit the nail on the head because Al and his mother needs to have a conversation about boundaries and how clearly doesn't wanna have that conversation. He may have had that conversation when he was a teenager and lost the battle and just has learned to live with it, but he can't expect someone that he's going to marry because they're... For you engaged to put it with the same level of invasive behavior, so I have to re... Yes. Shared story about my mother. So when I moved back from the UK, I don't know, my mother always thought that everything that I did had something to do with a guy, if I moved somewhere, I was because of the guy, if I took a job, it was because of the guy... If I changed my hair with a... I don't know a soul. She had that mindset. But when I moved back to UK, I had intended to go back and pursue acting again, all this other stuff, but my mom was convinced that I had left a guy or had been with a guy or whatever.
0:25:30.1 S1: So I had gotten a letter from pick up of the British government about how to apply for an artist fees and all this other stuff, and I was working interning at this like business downtown. So I took the letter which was on stationary, and I photocopy ideate this letter to myself from a fake agency talking about this marriage that I had that wouldn't be recognized for the British government to some guy... I don't remember the guy's name was, but anyway, it was like this whole false thing, and I hid it in my room at her house, losing, and so I didn't say anything. And then for Collies, nothing happened, and then I came home and she was like, You know, when someone has a secret that they wanna tell, you could just tell him bubbling up with it, and I didn't remember... I didn't forget, but I was just like, I don't know what this is about. I knew something was up, and she was saying she was talking about something else in a thesis, he was, Well, your husband was something something, and I was like, Oh, she found her. And it was like between some clients in a drawer or something like that, so I was like, Okay, yeah, and I don't think I ever told her that that wasn't really...
0:26:37.0 S1: But yeah, so I totally sympathize with this person, this letter writer, people should really just... If you're an adult, if you're a kid, there are definitely things where parents have to check with their kids and make sure they're not doing anything harmful, but this is an adult... Old enough to buy a house. I mean, old enough to get engaged, like This is beyond beyond. Yeah.
0:27:03.6 S2: Well, and I feel like this is... Clearly, we were all very easily like, No, you're not the asshole, but I think that this kind of letter, like this particularity, it's really clear, you're not the asshole and the mother-in-law has some problems, but I do think that this is one sort of... It's not even super official, people rifling through your shit, I don't even know how this person managed to not just say to the mom, Hey, please stop going through my things, and if you don't, you won't be abided back here anymore, because... I can't even imagine being able to not be able to hold that in, but she barely has control or something, but I feel like this is the tip of the iceberg of this generational misogyny that happens where parents of boys decide all the boy mom stuff, Avery, that you were talking about, I feel like is a perfect encapsulation of this, but like Collab, mom, it almost sounds cute, 'cause boy is what you call little kids, but the fact that it lasts until their adults is like... This is deep-seated, a deep-seated belief that men are more valuable than women, and so they must be protected from women who aren't going to treat them the way their mom would, and that is a huge...
0:28:29.7 S2: What do you call it? Like grain, running through, I think a huge number of, especially heterosexual, but not entire, not only at our sexual relationships of people who are in their 30s and up now, who grew up with this belief with parents who have this belief. And it's not necessarily that they would identify as having this belief, they wouldn't say, Yes, I'm a excess misogynist who cares more about my son then about women, but he clearly internalized it, clearly believe it and are... That's dangerous, and that's powerful, and that is leaking into the The Next Generation and all these people who have to put up with those folks who that's happened to. And I think that the sort of cute scenes with which this type of letter is sometimes met as if this is like a silly problem, covers up a little bit, or distract a little bit from the true deep vein of misogyny that is doing way worse than this if this mom truly believes that she has the right to Snoop and find stuff on her son's partner to protect him and find these things and goes to him and you do, you know she does other things that are like...
0:29:59.1 S2: My son should be allowed to rate whoever he wants, my son should be allowed to steal whatever he wants... I'm just assuming it. Yeah, I think that's a bit extreme, but I do... I think there is a continuum... I think there is a continuum, right, you can have people who want to baby their sons or have more performative gender roles, right. And that's really kind of, to me, at least, what this type of attitude gets to a site that performative gender role, but I think there's also a big difference between spoiling your child, which to an extreme and saying It's okay for my child to rape somebody, I think that is... There's a goal there. Yeah, I think they're certainly not the same, and I would never suggest that they are, but I think the first is an arrow to the second, and the first is what I intensification. It's just not inevitable that nothing is inevitable, and this is not meant to be a generalization about all people by any names, but what has to exist for there to be women in the world who take the like, but we can't ruin their bright lives by putting them in...
0:31:18.4 S2: By accusing them of rape about boys, the only way that you can actually believe that someone's career like the boys career is more important than a girl being raped, is if you truly believe that your son is exempt is more important, that his success is more important than someone else's trauma or life, and I think that a letter like this... Well, it's certainly not the same thing at all. It is the... Whatever you wanna call it, it's the micro-aggression that indicates the stance that this kind of a mom would take if, for example, her son's partner as a teenager had come to her and said, Your son raped me, and I'm not saying that this is complicated, of course, if you have a child, you have to take their side, it's important to listen to them, etcetera, etcetera, but nothing... Nothing is more easily fed into the world and culture, then we have to protect our kids, and that as an umbrella for protecting my kids like my tiny family over children of the world, and acknowledging that everyone is someone's kid and that protecting kids should actually mean protecting everyone are these slippery slope things where you can see that the parent has this internalized sense that some people's lives are worth more than others, even if they're only showing it in these small ways, and it terrifies me, and of course, I don't think that this woman is that I don't know or I don't know anything about her.
0:32:49.7 S2: I don't think it's inevitable, and you'll think it's causation Al, but I do think that these things are more serious than the symptoms of stopping or writing... Selling letters or whatever. I think this is a really important letter to talk about, not just because it's fun to say you aren't the shall this mom sucks, but also to be like, keep an eye out when people show you that they care more about something that... About your life, or your desires, or your boundaries or whatever... I mean.
0:33:24.7 S1: This mom is clearly... She said When I get upset, she's like, I'm just helping. When I get upset that she's snooping, she just says, I'm just helping. Which to your point, I live. What does a lie... But also, just to cover a story, it's a cover story, but this mother clearly doesn't care about her being upset or bothered at all, and she doesn't care what position it puts her son in at all now, it's all the back, it's about her fulfilling some desire or some role that she has placed it on ourself of, I need to inspect, judge, pass judgment on, approve or disapprove of your life choices as a grown man, and if things don't meet my... Whatever standards I've set, I'm gonna voice those, disapproval and you need to act upon those, and it doesn't matter who else it affects or hurts or harms, it's all about her relationship with her son and really all about her period. Right.
0:34:27.0 S2: Because it's... Her right to know every little thing. I will also say, being the one that sort of took us on this side of the path, I will say just to rewind a little bit, she could also just be one of those people who does it everywhere she goes to dinner at somebody's house, she goes through their medicine cabinet.
0:34:47.1 S1: That's a alerted.
0:34:50.7 S2: This could be that situation, and if it's that type of situation, to me, that becomes almost more of a mental health issue than a control issue to an extent, so not having more information, I would say that could definitely... I mean, I think we've all run into people that are a bit like that, some more extreme than the other, but yeah, the fact that she just fall face, lies and he covers for her and that... She's trying to use this as a way to get him to break up with her. Is just very suspect. A very suspect. It's a lot... And in law, I would want to know me either, and it's really hating to know if you're partnered with someone, there is sometimes the best thing that you can do is not stand up for what you believe because that is the way to support your partner, because you would be making their life harder or you've decided when my parents bring up X thing, it sucks, but please don't say anything because that makes my life harder... Will never change their minds. There's a harm reduction 'cause I totally understand, and there are some people like you just don't engage with those things because it's doing your partner a service, but I think that when it gets to the point where it's about your stuff, you're just a person, and that is your partner's mom, but she's just a person, and for that person to come into your house, that's 95% your stuff and act like that, that I think it is well and necessary to demonstrate maybe to your future partner that it's okay to set a boundary like setting a boundary doesn't hurt someone, and this is...
0:36:31.9 S2: I think this is why I got on talking about if we were to blow this situation up and extrapolate it to the wider cultural and systemic issues that revolve around it, is not because I think these are the same thing at all, but because I think... I'm clarifying this for myself as I say it out loud, so thank you for allowing me to do that. I think when we are taught the lesson, as this man has been taught, that setting a boundary hurt someone, that if you set a boundary, it's mean because you're hurting someone, that is how you cross over from... Oh no, it's okay. I don't wanna hurt her feelings to going along unconstrained behavior that you think is wrong out of fear of the retribution that comes from the person that you've hurt, and if this man has learned the lesson that setting boundaries is bad and dangerous, then how do you think he's gonna respond to your boundaries, letter writer, like if... What he has learned from his own mom is that you have to let people do whatever they want, because otherwise it hurts their feelings, and you have to do that even when they're doing something that you hate and that feels bad.
0:37:41.6 S2: Then what do you think he's gonna do the first time you're like, Oh, you know, that thing you do at parties? Or in bed or on the weekends, I really don't like it, and I want you to stop. That man is gonna react the way he imagines his mom would react 'cause that's the only thing he seems to know, which is like, Well, you setting a boundary about yourself has made me sad, angry with the word confident, embarrassed, ashamed, and that's gonna be a pattern. And so I think that paying attention to the kind of like, What is the end point of these habits is important, not because it's inevitable that it will slide from a two on the scale or three on the scale to a town on the scale, but because internalizing and learning those patterns doesn't just stop at the place where some people are getting on your nerves, it stops different places for different people, and I think any time someone shows me that they think setting boundaries is aggressive instead of protective, I'm done with them. That's a hard boundary for me because I've learned over and over in my life that if someone thinks that you standing up for yourself or asking from what you need is an attack on them, they will never be an ally to you because all they have is...
0:39:00.2 S2: They're weak and cannot hear that you are trying to tell them how to best love you, and if someone doesn't wanna know how to love me, I don't wanna know them, and that's what I hear in this letter. And so I think that's why it's important to talk about not just the small things like being a super, but also the kind of larger lessons that you learn by having those patterns in your life, you say.
0:39:22.2 S1: If they get married and they have children. What's that relationship gonna be like with her as a grandparent, a... Awful.
0:39:28.4 S2: Awesome. Awful, if that's easy, one word. But the other thing to think about too, with this letter, and we just don't get enough information about Al here, is his reaction to being raised by somebody this rather than to not respecting other people's boundaries. To saying I am a human being without boundaries, because I'm not allowed to have boundaries, so it is somebody who basically would... From having one person trample all over any potential boundaries he has to another person potentially trampling all over any boundaries, folks who are raised in the type of environment with a mother-in-law who does not, or mother, a parent who does not respect boundaries. It makes it that much harder to set them up at work or with friends or with anybody else, and for all we know how it could be that sad sack that ends up getting taken advantage of every time he turns around because he has no boundaries... Malthouse, I'm allergic to peanuts, but I'm sitting down here with my open a butter and jelly sandwich because that's what they told me I could have for lunch. And I didn't say anything to anybody. So yeah, it's a I with your own.
0:40:55.8 S2: It seems like a very simple letter, but there are just a lot of different aspects to this that you see where it... Full red flags? Yes. Oh my gosh, I ate the only person I know for sure that I can say just is like not...
0:41:14.8 S1: Well, just this mom, of the opposite amulets, definitely the high school here.
0:41:23.3 S2: Mom is definitely the asshole here, I think we can all... And sun is asshole number two, if, depending on his motivation behind saying, Just let mom do it right, I will give more leeway to people who've been beat down. Yeah, I Thien taught those things. But once you're an adult, you're out of your parents house, you have to do the work and take responsibility, and if you choose not to attempt to re-learn patterns that were negatively taught to you, once you're an adult, to my mind, that's your problem. It's not like it's easy, it's incredibly hard, and most of us who care about it spent our whole lives doing that work and trying to suck less, but to me, if I see an adult as person who is being told, Hey, you learned no boundaries because you're of your mom, and that is making you a hard person to be around, if that person chooses not to try to improve themselves, that's on them to undergo...
0:42:24.2 S1: I was gonna say, I do wonder because letter writer says that he hasn't really moved in yet, do you think he still lives at home as God... 'cause that would be... That would make a lot of sense. If mom is Connie.
0:42:38.5 S2: He said that he's used to... Later writers that he's used to it when she used to come over, which to me, implied he used to live in his own place, and when they would both be at his place and his mom would come over and smoke through his stuff, he didn't mind... That was the impression that I got from that, although I guess I could have been like, she seemed through his stuff at her... The mom's house. But yeah, it's interesting, and I think, again, I think this is important, why having a varied group of human beings that you interact with is super important because like I said, you don't know what is weird, potentially harmful, potentially toxic sometimes about your family and how it functions. And how you broaden your experiences, which also is a great argument for travel and any new foods, and just opening yourself up to the world. Yeah, you'd like to ask a question to all people named out... This is very important, if your name is all and it's written a L with the Ellen lower case, why don't you go by AI because it looks like a capital eye, and that is obviously wakulla to ask my Coverdale us know you mind brain asking...
0:44:09.6 S2: You literally broke it. I heard my brain go click, just started when I got to this name because I was like, I hate... Is the word all written out that's a person's name? I think that it is artificial intelligence until I get the context and then I'm like, This is too confusing, just change all of your names to AI.
0:44:29.1 S1: I think... I guess it's AI and then when I realized it's how I start thinking of that old song from Paul Simon, was it Palestine, you can you call me? Call me now. Yeah, so now
0:44:39.5 S2: That's what I maesteg the word to a cover and change it to, you can call me a... There you... It doesn't fit the one built... Now that we've talked about parents from hell, Snoopy parental, that is our segue into our little chat session, and I wanna know what memorable lesson did you learn from your parents, it's hopefully more positive than the Snoop and everyone's shit. Which is not a positive one. You guys got any bites? Yeah, yeah, so when I was little, or when I was younger, I mean, not just a tiny kid, but through moving out of the house, I was very angry, always mad because there's always something in the world to be mad about plus a vigour... Sion, etcetera. But I would come home from every single day things would happen in school that I found incredibly unjust and they made me so angry just... And I'm talking about someone got more time in the library than someone else, all the way up to sexism, racism, etcetera, so this was from being a very small child up to noticing other real... Or problems in the world. And one of the things that my parents always used to say to me was, pick your battles, I must have heard it from them 100 times, and it was something that they meant to be...
0:46:11.8 S2: You will exhaust yourself if you attempt to take on every single one of these things that you're angry about, and I think for a few years, maybe in elementary school, I was like, Alright, figure battles. Okay, okay. And later, I started taking it a completely different way, and they didn't intend it this way, but it actually became much more useful to me, and so the advice that I have taken from it is you have to pick your battles, as in you have to decide when to fight for something, and if you don't pick them either they will pick you online, and I think that that is something that... And the way I first came to realize that that was my boss on it was I remember once some teacher being hardly unfair in a class or whatever, whatever, and I was ranting about this to my parents, hoping that maybe they would have some advice like, this is an adult here's how to handle adults. And I remember my dad being like, You have to pick your battles. And I was like, I know I'm picking this one I have picked in a real battle. And he was like, That's not what I mean.
0:47:17.5 S2: And I was like, But that's what you said, and this is worth it to me, and I think it's something that I still stay to myself when I find myself getting really angry, it's like, are you picking this battle or is it just happening to you... Is it picking you as in you were scrolling through Twitter and someone else was getting mad, and so that battle picked you and now you're like, Well, I'm fucking hat now about... Whatever, X, Y or Z of the week, and it helps me because I think when I ask myself, Are you picking this battle, and my answer is a clear yes, that I'm like, Well, then do it like... You don't pick a battle and then say like, Well, I'll just wait and see what happens, if you are picking it as in you're like, This is worth getting mad about, this is worth taking the small amount of emotional bandwidth that I have and being angry, then it's also worth doing something about, and that is some of the best advice I have ever been given made up on my own as a result of something that someone else said that I disagreed with, which is my favorite kind of advice.
0:48:18.3 S2: And I think we were talking about the world being on fire and horrible things happening to trans people and the war in Ukraine and all these things, and I'm like... One of the things that I love to see is people picking their battles as in showing the fuck up and being like, Well, all I can do is raise a shit ton of money, well, all I can do is share all the information I have and being like, No, I'm picking this battle and therefore I am going to do everything that I can possibly do to make the world a more equitable place to live in, and I credit my parents with that because even though it was half an unintentional, I still think about it constantly. About you, one, don't know.
0:49:06.6 S1: I guess one thing I did learn, particularly from my dad, which wasn't really like a lesson, I sit down and talk about it, it was just from observation, and a lot of people from marginalized communities do this, but especially in African-American community, but we do something called code-switching, which is when you are a different person almost in one situation than you are in another, and it was just like being around my dad and members of my... In a music situation, which could be different, it could be a studio situation where the language and the chat and the feeling is different, or if you're at a symphonic Hall where the language and the chatter is different, or if you're being interviewed or whatever... My dad has always... When he, when he said stuff like, Oh, you know, I really like this, are really admired that you've done this, or whatever, a lot of times it's about how I handle myself in different situations or how I present myself in different situations, and he's like, You're like a different person, you know how to talk to this group of people and you know how to talk to that couple, and if it's a mix repo people, you know how to make everyone feel included, and so I think that's what I've taken from observation and just from growing up in the situation I grew up in is trying not to exclude anyone in a group, if I'm in a conversation or if I'm leading a panel or from teaching class, trying to be inclusive, you know what acting comes into that too, but I think just that whole comuni personality aspect that I have, I think is what I took from my parents...
0:50:45.2 S1: I wasn't my dad. Yeah. All that's pretty
0:50:50.0 S2: Solid. Yeah, I'm observing more than sitting down and chatting or having a conversation... We don't do feelings. I know you're all shocked, but I would say that like my mom switched jobs a lot when we were growing up, my mom moved a lot, we moved constantly every year, we changed houses, I've lived into many houses... Y'all in San... As I grew up, I realized there were different reasons for that, but as a kid, what I took away from that, a much kind of formed in me was just, I roll a change, learning to roll with change, which I think is a really important lesson. And also to figure out that watching her and watching her react to changing circumstances and all of that is just how to sort of... I guess what I'm trying to say is I learned sort of how to sort of pick myself up and keep moving forward and not to get mired in what was as opposed to what is... And I think that was a really, really valuable thing. I got fired from my first job out of college. I think everybody should get fired at least once, it's a great lesson.
0:52:16.2 S2: Resiliency, but I would definitely do it before you have a mortgage and kids and 80000 people, depending on you, but I... Yeah, I mean that literally is what I sort of thought about was the fact I'm like, Okay, so that happened. So I'm gonna do this, and that's how I'll attack it. And that's how I move forward, and then I'll get another job. And it's not the end of the world. And there we go. Right, so I think by observing her, I was able to pick up a lot of resiliency things, now as an adult, I realize that we probably move so much 'cause my mom couldn't pay... Right, but as a kid, I never picked up any of that, what sunk in to me was just the learning to roll with punches, your observation. Yeah, yeah, that's what I know.
0:53:05.9 S1: That's again, you have a heavy day
0:53:10.8 S2: That I didn't think it would be, and yeah, it was a visit as I'm glad to have it in. Cool, I wanna thank everyone for hanging out with us for another episode of do romance writer. Thank you. Remember, please to send in your questions, romance or Jerome writer dot com, you have a form on there that you can submit it anonymously, you can hit us up on any social media platform you can like... I don't know, secretory can email us advice at Dear romance writer dot com really later that a carrier pigeon titles... Go ahead. Send us those letters. We would love something that is super or controversial, so that we can all disagree. That would be fun. Maybe that's just me. Anyway, I soon... You are to be in a round... It's true. No, I like it though. If we all are from the beginning a borderline. Great. Anyway, send us all of your questions, please, we cannot wait to give you more questionable advice from this trio of happily ever after enthusiasts. Thanks a Bowell. Have me a Sosa next to Eastman, come hang out with us, Ito. So thank you so much for subscribing to Dear romance writer.
0:54:45.5 S2: Remember to keep sending in those letters, I... Dermot com.
0:54:48.8 S1: We can't wait to tell you what to do.
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