EPISODE 46
TRANSCRIPT
0:00:11.0 S1: Welcome everybody to Dear Rome. As a writer, were three writers who always deliver happier after offer very questionable advice for all of your relationship work and life problems, I'm aveling. I'm operas
0:00:26.3 S2: And I'm Xero. We have a great show for you today with DA author, Timothy jobs, welcome
0:00:32.7 S1: To the thing...
0:00:33.6 S2: Thank you to... On your release. Yes, thank you very much. So tell everybody about yourself about the book and all you... Good. All your good news. Yeah, Otago, my copy yesterday, I just came yesterday sites book, you guys, it's such a huge... We were talking about hard Shopper last week. If you love heart stopper, you will love this book. It's so good. Yeah, it's funny, when I was reading the graphic novels of heart stopper, I didn't really see the connection. And then I watched the Netflix series and I was like, Oh, soft boy is falling in love. That's what this book is. In some lovely books to grammars Tagore. And they're re-watches, they were like, I'm gonna go re-read the book. I'm like, Thank you. That really means a lot to me. But yeah, so my name is Timothy genomes-Y. I am a self-proclaimed multidisciplinary storyteller, I write queer rom coms, and my dad Novel never been kissed, it shelves May 3rd. And it's basically to all the boys I've loved before mailman a little bit older, so it's a new adult and takes place at a drive-in movie theater, and then I'm also the author of the upcoming in October urine on Matthew prints, which...
0:01:45.8 S2: Yeah, it's a Christmas mail mail, force proximity, small town romance, and only one banked, which is my favorite part of the book. Oh my God.
0:01:56.3 S1: They hit so many of my little thesis, only one bone bed, that one's new to me, but I think... I would love that.
0:02:06.9 S2: Yeah, that was one of my favorites to write and it's great for if you're a fan of shits creek, it kind of has a shit-squeaky kind of hook to it, so if you enjoyed that series and you're missing it, like I am... I hope the book kind of feel those heart stopper and its Greek, so if you're fans of those things come by my sassy sent me in arched really sweet to semi-arc months ago, and I think I've read it twice already, I've never been kissed. And it's just such a hack of a book, you just fall along with these characters and Ron, it's set driving movie theater. And it's like, save the movie theater. Oh my God, it's so paralysis. Excited to read it. I actually didn't really... It came out yesterday of when we are filming and yeovil friend's birthday, and so I was completely offline, and then when I saw it on this morning, I was like, I Treadway, congratulations that I cannot let... To read it. Thank you so much.
0:03:02.4 S1: I love this one, ear listening rather than watching either jump over to the YouTube so you can see the beautiful, cute, cute covers. Or go look them up on Google is your friend. You know, for the most part, do what you search...
0:03:19.6 S2: Yeah, the cover artist Money Game, who has done a lot of romance book covers recently, just like... I don't know how she does it, but really just captures characters so well in her illustrations and I just... Especially seeing the year, man, when Matthew Prince cover, I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't know how they crawled inside my head and figure that out, but it's... Exactly, and I couldn't be happier if. I love that. That's awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me.
0:03:50.8 S1: Super excited to have you. We are listeners, we are recording a day early this week, and normally do because I am off to go pick up the eldest child from college. Yeah, so I was originally... So we're outside of DC. My daughter's going to college in Wisconsin this year, and I was gonna do the originally, the Midwest thing, where Thursday, I drive the 13 hours to Wisconsin. We packed her up and then we leave Friday morning and drive to 13 hours back. I know. And then like a dumb ass, I remember that I had all these miles that I haven't used because we haven't been traveling, so now I am out and then we're driving back, so... Not quite as painful. I am loving that. I have traveled a couple of times since covid, but not too much. How about you guys? What are your... Travel loves travel hates pre-covid, post-covid. Where are you at? With your travel fund, I love, love, love to travel, and it has been the thing that I've missed the most since covid... I haven't been on a plane since before covid, I don't think I will be in the near future because I just looked at all the mask mandates, which is a huge bummer.
0:05:09.3 S1: But I love our road trip, so I mean, 13 hours there one day at 13 hours back the next sounds like a a... That sounds like a plan that I would make and then whoever was doing it with me would be like, Absolutely not recalibrate your expectations, but I love our road trip, I find that train or car or bus, I love traversing space visibly, I feel like the speed of moving through a last way, that is a phrase that only you would ever... Or I love traversing space is visibly, you can still see it, but it's so fat you're up, but no, but on a trade or a car, it's like when you can actually look out and see it, I feel like it's really a creative space for me 'cause it's like you're kind of in a zone-out space 'cause you know the road, it's repetitive, but also I feel like my brain seeds up to the speed of the vehicle and I just... I don't know, it just does weird things to my brain... I love it.
0:06:10.8 S2: Sounds cool though. That's a good way of putting it. I remember taking a road trip, the first one went to Scotland, we drove from Southwest England of the sun, you can see the landscape changing it, visibly see it, and you think it's the same rock, it's not gonna change that much, but it really does, so... Yeah, no, I'm with you. I haven't been on a plane. Actually, the last flight I took was ever when we went to coastal magic, and I remember coming back home, that was what, February of 2020. So I was like right before everything alone, and I remember coming back from unearth Carolina. Yeah, the before time when we were... I think we were in North Carolina, I was coming back through the airport and everyone was like coughing and sneezing, and I was like, wow, for the season is really bad this year, didn't think anything of it, then we got home and of course everything went not... But yeah, I haven't been on a plane that I just booked my first flight for July for book banana, and that was a traumatic experience, and I'm like, Who's gonna sit next to me? How many masks do I need to wear a T...
0:07:11.8 S2: Avenues iPhone video that goes viral. Because right, like Who's gonna freak out on the plane and have a mask... See someone in asking Frank, but we are driving, we have to get a couple of road trips during the lockdown and the pandemic, and we're doing another one at the end of this month for a wedding, so... So far, that's been it, but I do miss... Especially traveling to other countries, it was like my jam... I missed that a lot. Yeah, I definitely missed that. To me, my partner and I met in college, and he was graduating right at the start of the pandemic, so missed that final chunk of this semester and... No graduation, no nothing, that we were supposed to take a trip to London, Amsterdam, and gosh, one other... And top, and I think one other place. So we had Expedia, we had hotels booked, we had shows we were about to see, and that's all kind of just sitting in vouchers now until we feel comfortable, and thankfully they're good until 2024, so we can get our Harpenden and when we want to, but... So those have been kind of sitting in limbo, but we did get to take a road trip to Province Town last summer, which was really not E...
0:08:25.4 S2: I think you went pretty much right after I was there, 'cause you at the book story that I had been at a Y, we see like five days... I love to
0:08:35.2 S1: Subverting to do, to be like I went and I went to a whole new place and I saw so many cool book stores, like I can't... Even when I know they're gonna be bad, I love the Outer Banks Herring, 'cause I love you and miss you. And there's an indie book store there, and they are just not romance friendly, there's like six books, but I still go in every time we go down there because it's a book store, so of course it...
0:09:00.8 S2: Of that town in particular is nice because their book stores cater obviously to queer readers, and so you can go in there and expect to find, even if it's not romance heavy, you can find the gamut of queer books, and I think... That's very cool. There were two India bookstores there when I was there last, but one of them may have unfortunately closed due to covid, so I'm not sure if that one to the beaten.
0:09:23.2 S1: I don't remember.
0:09:23.9 S2: Did they have weird hours or they were doing some... They were doing something, so should a transition thing, they were looking for a new buyer, I think they wanted someone to a attestations to... Or there was a sign up, I was like, Do you want a book store? And I'm thinking, I'll live my Kathleen Kelly Vance by the other... I was like, Yes.
0:09:40.4 S1: I was actually a reader writer that... That's not a dream.
0:09:46.2 S2: Really? No, right. I was a boy.
0:09:50.2 S1: Were there after me? Yeah, I was there for Halloween and for the week of Halloween, and I have never been to Capo or province on before, and it's like my girlfriend's favorite place, and we went and stayed with a friend. And his parents have a house there, a little vacation home, and we were so lucky that they were gonna be there, so we stayed there, and it was like 20 minutes from Provincetown, and so we actually got tattoos and Provincetown on Halloween, or we had decided that's what we were gonna do, but then there was a noise, the Dave of more or two days before, and the entire island was like an insula had lost power, and we were already in province down 'cause she had a tattoo appointment at a certain time, and the place was the clothes... Obviously, there was power out in all of province down, and there was one place that was like this pizza place that had a generator that was open, and so it was like being in a 1950s neighborhood where everyone came to the pizza place because it had power and they had a transistor radio and they were videoing from the coast guard to be like, Alright, what we just heard from John down at the corner of blank in line, and it was so charming, and I didn't even care that we were so an wet and couldn't get any food or anything? Except pizza.
0:11:11.3 S1: Yeah, I can't decide if I wanna read that as a romance or as a horror, you can sell it in their way with that, maybe we could do Hornet like a romance. It was very sweet and picturesque
0:11:25.6 S2: Was in the same pizza shop, I think they file... Part of the last season of American Horror Story in Ravenswood ore. Oh
0:11:35.2 S1: Yeah, well, 'cause I... Amery and his husband had a house there to the really watered, they fill it in some places there, and we actually went to the restaurant that was the bar restaurant in this season, and it's like he looks exactly... And it was very wild. No idea, I would have checked it out the next time. Well, speaking of all the things that we can't do recently, let's talk about what we can do, which is... Give some advice maybe. I have. So okay, so we're moving on to our letter, this one is from Deer Hubert, which... What is that? Who chose this letter?
0:12:15.9 S2: I did in some random night that I found, but then had some interesting letters there ISOS, one of them.
0:12:21.2 S1: Is it basketball related? That's what I think of a Europe.
0:12:24.5 S2: I think it has to do with the area that this place is from, it seems very localized, like localist could be an Indiana thing or something, I don't know other wherein it's foretaste. I've seen the trailer for the film...
0:12:48.4 S1: It's a good movie, it's a good movie. Isn't gonna wait, sorry, I married a very sports person, so of course, I've seen that maybe for 100 times. It is soon to the advice ever since first dating, our relationship has been followed by a nasty shadow in the shape of my partner's ex-girlfriend, they're on off relationship of 10 years and did very badly since then, she's befriended my partners two sisters and manipulated them against our relationship for months, we endured 20 AM phone calls, texts and his ex showing up at his door, her texts have made it very clear that she thinks one day she and my partner will get back together, we tried to reconcile with his sisters, but all they were interested in was defending their friend to the point where my partner decided the best thing to do was to cut all of these women from his life, the solution obviously makes any family events painfully awkward as the sisters will not speak to either of us while the rest of the family blames my partner for breaking up the family despite his best effort to resolve things, What makes this whole situation more difficult is that my partner is extremely close with his excess family, he's even best man at her brother's wedding.
0:14:01.9 S1: My partner and I have an incredible relationship, and he's always already made it clear that he wants to marry me and start a family, but I'm worried this woman will inevitably ruin that she's been hospitalized several times due to our mental health, so I'm always on tender hooks waiting for her next move. To the point I'm obsessed with what she's doing and constantly bring her up in conversation, the looming prospect of a wedding filled with her and her relatives has brought my feelings to the surface and is proving too much for me, what can we do that will remove her poison from our lives for good sign stopped by my partner's ex-girlfriend, and I want to just move back to the beginning of it alive, I watched him at these pains, and it would be like half the letter to realize who was whom in this letter. So I see.
0:14:49.6 S2: Yeah, I should have gone through and put that in there 'cause they didn't do that, I mean...
0:14:52.9 S1: Yeah, I'm just gonna re-read the first sentence so that we can get it. Okay, so the person writing is their partner is a man, and he has an ex-girlfriend who has befriended his two sisters and manipulated them and calls the partner and his current partner at 20 AM and does all these things. So we got sockets towering, so we've got the letter writer, her partner, their partner... We don't know gender literate their partner, his two sisters, his ex, and her home easily. And his family
0:15:33.3 S2: And his family.
0:15:35.0 S1: Okay, I know this is gonna sound like totally Chee, but move... I mean, this sounds so much like a small town, unless you wanna deal with this head-on, which really is the adult like to deal with it, and your only other option at this time is moving because you guys are so... In a movement, in a robin. Yeah, we're gonna go with inter-woven today. Episode is brought to you by Dr. Suits, so we are inter-woven at this point in time, it's like it's very small town as somebody who is from a very small town, this gives me cbgb flashbacks. Yeah, but seriously though, it sounds like this is story, and not not that you should ever joke about stocker, but it's not like soccer, this is serious story stuff, if they are not documenting with police, not that I would expect the cops to do anything, but they should at least be documenting with the police
0:16:36.7 S2: On the case, the text and the Sisters was what really bothers me that I don't know what relationship this person's partner has with his sisters, but if they are siding with his X over him, that's a whole separate issue. There, this is like obviously, he's in another relationship, he's committed to this relationship, he's already talking marriage and kids, and yet they're still... There's something really toxic going on there, so I think Avery's point of moving away from this, even if it takes you away from your family physically, it feels like that's the right move if you want to this relationship remain healthy and yourself, your mental health a remained healthy. Because this whole situation, this person, what she's brewing over the point is so toxic, it's a...
0:17:28.8 S1: Not everyone can move legit, not everybody would want to move all of those things, but if you're moving is not an option or in your card, you know really at that point in time, you need to document with police. You need to make sure and keep us straight up documentation of incidents and things like that, especially is she... If her mental health issues are to the point of hospitalization, that can be a danger. Right. So again, that would be something that worth making and then with that documentation, I would then go to my family, who I was... I would then go to my family and say, Hey, I know it seems like it's just a blip Carlo there, you know, whatever it may be, but please notice this beautiful pattern written here, showing all of these incidences, what they're putting up with everything else, because beyond the sisters being, doing the weird thing of being manipulated and sticking up for her, it's the fact that his family is now blaming him for causing rift. Right. So to me, I think sometimes families don't always listen to each other, but that way, so they may be saying, Well, you already told me about that time that she sleep your tires.
0:18:53.4 S1: I'm not saying that this happened, but yeah. And they're like, Yeah, but that happened three times, and the family may have not taken it as seriously as they should, or... She calls at 2 AM every Wednesday morning. Well, you told me she called on Wednesday... Yeah, but it's every Wednesday. Right, so being able to kind of break through that a little bit and get the family back into line and then be able to go united front to the Sisters, If preserving these family relationships is really important, that would be there. The other thing that the girlfriend or the partner purine brought up was about the wedding... I love you partner, I say with tenderness, but you were borrowing trouble because there's been no proposal there, I think there's not any of this stuff. El, worry about that tomorrow. Worry about the fact that you've got an ex-girlfriend who is this level of story at this point in time, let tomorrow fix itself. That would be where I would be. How about you?
0:20:03.3 S2: One weird thing that's bugging me is the fact that he was in his exes brother's wedding, if you're trying to distance yourself from someone who was imposing on your life like this, no matter how close you were to the brother, just like, you know, I love you, like a brother. But you know the situation, I can't be involved in this thing. Just, it feels like he's trying to straddle a line here of being close with the ex is family, but not her, it's giving her really mixed signals too, I think... Yeah, 'cause it's like, if you didn't want have anything to do with me, then why are you hanging out with my family and then my brother's wedding kind of thing...
0:20:42.8 S1: That was what I was gonna say is that I don't... It sucks that he couldn't be in the... OR it would suck to say you can't be the best man at your friends... Was his sister... Is your X... That's not fair. But also I agree, I'm really curious to know. Like they were on and off for 10 years. The partner in the X, it makes a lot of sense that she thinks that this is just another off period even though he's dating someone else, and I think that... Well, I would like to know first from the... Did this partner ever sit down the X and say, this is not like the other times we broke up, this isn't gonna be an antiguan office thing, we are officially done. Whether I marry this person I'm with now or not, and I need you to acknowledge that you understand it, 'cause I think sometimes folks, depending on mental health stuff or just fixation, there is a sort of mis-recognition of cues as being part of the story that they are telling themselves, and sometimes to break through that it doesn't always work, but sometimes to break through that you have to say, You're acting like you think this is what's going on, but actually that's not ever gonna happen again.
0:22:01.6 S1: No matter what, and being that firm, from the sound of it, I doubt that this partner has done that because he seems like someone who wants to maintain good relationships through avoidance rather than through direct communication, which I really understand direct conflict, especially with someone who's unsettling, is really scary and destabilizing. But yeah, I think that also with the sisters, I wonder how much of this is sexism, where these sisters thinks that because he's a man, he can't be terrorized or he can't be scared and are like, Oh well, so what she's calling you... What is she gonna do if she showed up, you could throw her across the room, that's just... That kind of sexism is Sotto everyone, but especially to men who have been in abusive, whether emotionally or physically abusive relationships, because it's so hard for other people, especially women, I think, especially women who are close to them, to understand that their feelings of fear should be taken as seriously as if this were one of their other sisters who this was happening too, and I think that... Yeah, these sisters, despite what they have heard, I do worry that maybe he's not being direct about saying these things about his ex-partner and why would he want to do...
0:23:25.9 S1: Because he was with her for 10 years on and off, no one wants to be like, Hey, this person was a huge part of my life, is now terrorizing me and I'm scared of what she's gonna do. Nobody wants to be in a position to say that, but I think that would be a really important thing to communicate to your sisters, to go to them and be like, I need you. I am frightened by the behavior, and I'm concerned that it's gonna escalate and here's what happens, and here's how I'm feeling, and it can be really hard to do that, but I think that he needs to be super direct, both with the X and with her family, and with his own family about the things that she's doing are scary, intrusive and make me concerned for my safety and the health of my relationship, because until you say that people don't know, people sometimes don't expect the worst in your relationship, especially if you were with someone for a long time. So I just think there needs to be some extremely direct communication on all fronts, and it has to come from this dude, he's the only one who his family is gonna believe, if anyone is...
0:24:31.4 S2: And you have to think he's all... You have to think, he's been through this before, if they've been on again and off again for 10 years, this was probably something that this could be why he went back just to stop it. You know what I mean? There's a whole lot there. I wonder a little bit about the way... What the before times were, before the terrain started, what the before times were and what the X presents to the family, because she is presenting, not that we're all performing or the classic thing that we do, but I'm sure she is someone with them versus the person she is alone versus the person, she is with others, and so we can only construct the narrative based on the facts that we gather on that person, and so I would think if I were to offer advice to the letter writer and to the letter writers partner as well, is that I'm a big proponent from always leading from a place of empathy and the person who's actions you control or your own, and so if the X is not in a place where they're ready to seek help or they're ready to confront the truth of the situation, of the reality that you can always have the option to find impartial parties to share the burden of a situation with people who will listen, believe you and offer actionable advice, because your inner piece is the only way that's going to guide you towards a better solution.
0:26:00.6 S2: So I think a very... Like you said, if that is moving, if that is sitting down with the family with a list of receipts and saying, This is what's happening to me, because those communication skills are really kind of the only way you can dig yourself out of a bad situation that... If someone else digs a hole and you accidentally fall into it, you're gonna meet a grappling hook and a rope and whatever, you can't climb out alone. So that's a great way of putting it.
0:26:27.3 S1: Is, was I love the fact that we're all romance writers. And what do we do? We do the big... Oftentimes, we do the big dark moment, right? There's the break up, there's the thing, and then the one partner has to fight for the other partner and they have to prove it, they have to do all of these things, and I think stuff like this kinda goes to show how... There are things that work in fiction, and there are things that work in real life to an extent, but there's a line... There is a definite line, it's like remember when all the public stuff in books was always happening where it was a huge public declaration and all those stuff, and you're just like, Oh my God, right. We look at it now, or, Oh, how cute it is to watch the cell phone video of these two strangers learning at the airport and then... In a romance book, yeah, you'd be watching the shit out of that, but in real life, you're like there are boundaries and boundaries are hard, and so if you already have some mental health issues, sometimes boundaries can even harder. You add in a history, a 10-year history of on again, off-again.
0:27:38.5 S1: And I would also say not to be that person, but I am that person that... I find it interesting that it is the partner that is writing this and not him, and it may just be lack of lack of wanting to ask for advice on something like this in this format, but I always wonder what's going on on the other side is he texting back. Is he putting just enough information, just in a hope in there and at least the X's mind to say, Hey, this is a possibility. Now, you could be doing that out of malicious-ness could be doing that out of trying to be kind, and instead is doing more heart, so I'm really kind of interested to know what's going on on that end of things with this letter.
0:28:33.4 S2: Yeah, well, that was my point about him being the best her brother's wedding, it's like he has a connection to her family, 10 years is a long time, and I have a feeling these people are in their 20s or early 30s, it feels like a high school college thing, and you sort of grown up with these people in your life, and so he's finding it hard to un-tether himself from her family and trying to have that family without having to deal it with her or what he really needs to do and say... You guys are awesome. I'm glad I had you in my life, hopefully we can stay in touch, but that's the boundary there, and he hasn't done that, so... Yeah, she's getting home probably a bit from that, and yeah, I'd be curious to see whether or not he's answering these two AM texts as well, or calls showing up or just one... That she shows up at the door to Wouter to as a lot.
0:29:24.8 S1: And you know what the thing with him being in the wedding is kind of one of the parts that made me feel very small town-y, because when you break up in a really small town, you can't with them or their family, so those bonds and those relationships tend to stay at a Antoinette podcast. Something was wrong. No. Okay, let me tell you all about the recent deep dive that I've done where I just spent 20 hours of my life with people's dysfunctional relationships, a couple days ago, I don't remember the... Howitt was out. I was gonna say metastasis, I was making a very elaborate retake... I listen to this podcast called something was wrong, and I think it's 12 seasons now, and some of the seasons are multiple people's stories, but the ones that I listen to are 10 episodes for each telling the story of someone's relationship that it turned out was horrible. The person was horrible, but they didn't know it until things had escalated hugely, and now they're going back to reconstruct the relationship using their perspective, in hindsight, their friends and families, memories, sometimes the research that they do with other people, and what's been so interesting about listening to this...
0:30:49.8 S1: And I'm not saying that this letter is someone being completely destructive and author rocker, but it was fascinating to listen to these relationships, like the things that people would do to keep the attention of their partner, who they had basically created an entire other persona to be with and lie to them, and done some of these people maintained to access for eight months of a relationship to the amines, such a commitment they made up jobs. It was basically these huge catfish situations where they made up cancer diagnoses, mother's deaths, all these things, and one of them made up that he was in witness protection and had FBI agents like call and text his girlfriend so that she thought she was being followed by the people who are trying to murder her anyway, it's just these outrageous Tambaram season 12, especially as one with witness protection, but... So my point in saying this is that the people who are doing these things like the spot, it's two men in both easier, so the men that we're doing these things, they were putting so much energy into maintaining a lie, to maintain a relationship that they... There was no right or wrong, there was no good or bad, it was just, I have a goal and my goal is to get this person to be my partner, and I don't care about them or how I hurt them or anything, but my goal is...
0:32:32.1 S1: So the only thing I had about
0:32:35.3 S2: That is to buy any means necessary kind of thing.
0:32:37.8 S1: Exactly, and I think that one of the things that this is that the reason that's reminded me is like, you don't know what the deal is with someone... Someone who's texting you at 2 in the morning or showing up at 2 in the morning. It might be just intrusive and there's not gonna be an escalation, but this person I'm just saying could end up lying to her next partner and saying that she's in witness protection and doing all of this weird stuff because she has so fixated on the idea of a person that she only cares about what she wants, and I feel like that is why what I took from these episodes, which I know there are very extreme, but that's why I think sometimes you don't want to dismiss these things that other people might think are small because they will come back and if a person thinks that they can do do one small thing to you, then what is to prevent them from thinking that they can raise the stakes as Talal these things... And I think that if someone has almost always people who are like this, have mental health issues, whether it's anti-social personality disorder in the case of one of these narcissism or it could be anything, but I'm not saying that stocking is a symptom of mental health issues, period.
0:33:55.1 S1: But yeah, anyway, I would be really cautious about dismissing these kind of symptoms, even if they don't feel like they've reached the point yet of involving the police to the people involved, but yeah, keeping records of all these things, I was just horrified and totally blown my mind was blown by V. But the fact that there were people out there who do these things, and I myself have fallen victim to that kind of folks like that, and it's like if you're not a person who would ever do those things to someone, it never occurs you that anyone's doing them to you, I never... That are really good at it, do it step by step, you know, even like to a minor extent, any bad break up you have after a bad relationship, and you kinda look back and you're like, Why didn't I see it think because you've gotta kind of put those pieces together, which in... Makes me think with this letter, another interesting fact, thing on the fact that it is the partner that is writing this end and not the boyfriend, is the fact that they have this on an African relationship for 10 years, right.
0:35:04.5 S1: Maybe it's been like this the whole time, that's what I was on, the partner has been in this... Exactly, so maybe the partner has been in this for so long that they don't see it at all, they don't see... I wonder if the partner has talked to the boyfriend about this because they may be going, Well, that's just the way my ex is, it's normal, and I see that
0:35:30.5 S2: He knows is abnormal enough to say that he's cut these women out of his life, I guess is his sisters and the X. But I think he's treating it as if my axes are so weird instead of, this is a serious problem, or it makes you uncomfortable, so I'm gonna do this thing. There still... This is not another staff here, there's way more stuff. Yeah, well, I hope that they hope that the letter writer can find a way to sit down with a partner and maybe the partner's family and say... And lay it out, like you said, receives, this is what's been happening. I don't think you understand how serious this is, this isn't just jealousy or we're gonna go back to the way things were, we are committed to each other now, and so this is... This what you guys need to know. I don't know, I think like us as authors, I'm curious a little bit about what we're talking about constructing a narrative, and we are all constructing a narrative every day, and we're comparing the story we're telling ourselves to the story that other people are telling, and for some reason this letter keeps making me think of Maria's wedding and the movie and my best friend's wedding also wedding-related, the letter read, you're talking about the wedding.
0:36:45.7 S2: And it was just making me think of that these heroines and heroes that we kinda watched in the 90s and we... Not saying those movies normalize that behavior, because I think we watch it now with the modern sensibility and we can say like, Okay, maybe they're the villain of their own story, and they learn that and they change and then they come to a new conclusion, but I do think one of the themes and never been kissed is that we internalize those narrative structures, and then we... A lot of us who love, who love movies and stuff like that, we'll try to regurgitate those into our lives, and so... I can't say this for certain, but as someone who has struggled with mental on this before, that there are sometimes can be a blurring of where reality and fiction comes, and so that's why I was saying Leading with empathy, because if this person is having trouble differentiating their day-to-day life from the story they told themselves when we're on again, off again, on is right in reach and hating is right beyond that then... That's almost a rewiring that has to happen, I have to reach out my story, that's like us when we're writing a book and we gotta go back and were like, Well, this plot point...
0:38:02.0 S2: No, gotta go. Maybe 10 years is a long time. To tell yourself a story. Yeah, but people do it for their own lives, they do
0:38:12.8 S1: For their whole lives, you know, think of the people that you know that... I don't know, I always think of bad parents, bad parents will swear up and down a lot of times that they were the best possible parents, not saying they weren't doing the best job they could in those circumstances, and then you see it from the kid's perspective and you're like, Oh yeah, after many, many years of therapy, you figure that out, so... Yeah, I think we don't like to think of ourselves as the bad guy, so I think a lot of folks are willing to tell themselves stories for a really long time.
0:38:50.8 S2: I think we're also, as people willing to adapt to others when we're in a romantic or any kind of intimate relationship, I even around one of the things that you were talking about, maybe think of... I was in a relationship, it was my first serious relationship, and my partner at the time was really interested in healing crystals and meditation, and had never once experienced an interest in meditation or healing crystals, and suddenly I was wearing a rose courts necklace, and I was like... Doing this stuff that in hindsight, I'm like, I was adapting behavior just because I wanted to be accepted and I wanted the good feelings to continue, and this isn't a completely different realm than that... What we do, we don't know, especially if it's 10 years, maybe they started dating when they were early teenagers or something, You're so impressionable at that time that you don't know that it's wrong, you don't know that you're hurting people, so...
0:39:45.3 S1: Yeah, that's so true. And that, I wonder if the reason that it was the partner who's the non-stopped one who's writing the letter is because as we've all said, the person thinks that they're gonna get back together, and the girlfriend or the P, the letter writer is able to set from the outside say, No matter what entanglement you had, like the 10 years of probably moving closer to be your X so that her behaviors don't seem as ISR or extreme to you, also, that person has the 10 years of all the good stuff to the intimacy. The shared memories. And I think when you're dealing with a partner or a friend or a romantic partner or someone who's emotionally abusive in some way, it's like the first signs of that always read as outliers to their personality, it's like, These are exceptions. And it takes a lot of times of that person showing you the exceptions before your brain clicks over to being like, Oh, these are not the exception, these are a core part of that person's personality, and maybe the dude just isn't there yet, whereas the person writing the letter can from the outside be like, This is unhealthy, this makes me feel scared and un-confident, etcetera, but he's just kind of like like, we've all said so in it that he can't see it, and it might be a period of mourning for him of having to be like, I am, I'm gonna have to let go of all the positive memories and feelings that I have with this person if I let go of the negative things too, and I just think sometimes that takes a mental shift, like a rewiring, like you were saying, Timothy where you have to...
0:41:36.3 S1: You have to separate, consciously separate the good memories that you wanna say is almost like a scrapbook and put them away and say, the bad stuff can't touch these things, I don't have to give up my memories, but then maybe he's gonna have to mourn for a relationship that was really foundational for him, and just 'cause someone's being shitty to you, it doesn't mean you don't still love them, doesn't mean you don't still care about them, and doesn't mean that you don't still have something invested in them loving you, and I think that can be the hardest part is like the second that that person stops calling or showing up at 2 in the morning, is the partner gonna be like, Oh no, she doesn't care anymore, and is that gonna feel sad and does he want to avoid that feeling? I just think it's so understandable, all the pieces, but just 'cause you still have to get out of it, otherwise your whole life is just gonna be this slash back in for cycle and you have to wonder if the families, especially his family, and maybe even herders are like these kids have been together forever, there we know they're gonna get married, you know what I mean? There could be that familiar sort of like, not pressure, but just expectation that they've been together for so long and mom's already got the grandkids names picked out and they come...
0:42:49.0 S1: You know what I mean?
0:42:49.6 S2: Sometimes parents went to a lot of pressure on their kids when it comes to some... Yeah, there's a lot.
0:42:55.3 S1: A lot of her... That's why I thought it would be good. It's a great letter that... It was not one of the sneak-up letters where you think it's just going to be like... Very simple, the AMA, an hour later, we're like... Yeah, and another thing.
0:43:13.1 S2: Sewell our chat topic, this ease a little bit related, 'cause we were talking about this guy getting away from the situation and moving, and I wonder if you guys, if any of you have ever lived alone, and if you have, do you prefer... Did you prefer it I over you when you first live alone, if you ever did... You're all nodding?
0:43:32.5 S1: Yes, I have not lived alone for a very long time, decades, so for me, I love living by myself, I very much enjoyed it and never had any problems with it, and now I come home, and if I am the only one like home... Not in my house, it's like every line is on, the door lock is checked like five times... I live in the suburbs. Okay, I don't need that. Like when we went to that signing in North Carolina, and I left early and drove home, there were no dogs, there were no kids, there was no husband, there was nothing... I was the only living being as far as I knew in my house, and I probably check the shower, check the locks, lock the bedroom door slip with the lights on, all of that stuff, and it is just honest to God, partly the writer brain that always goes to what would happen next? Could you imagine if that happens all the curse of that, I would love to not have an imagination some days, and then just the fact that it literally has been... Next month, 22 years since I have lived by myself, and that's a really recognise...
0:44:57.7 S1: Wanna go on vacation by myself though. Green, slightly different time. How about you guys? Yeah, I currently live alone, and I have lived alone my whole life, except for I have roommates in college, and I've done month-long days where I sub... Let a room in a house. Things like that, but I have other than that, always lived alone, I love living alone, I love my space, I love being able to set things up the way I like, have things where I want them have total control over my environment. That's a lovely... Yeah, it's the best and I've never let it jealousy for that. Oh yeah. No, it's so great. You could watch whatever you want. It's just like, you eat whatever you want, you don't have to take anyone else's feelings or preferences into consideration, which is like Great, but my girlfriend is moving in with me in July, and I'm so excited when we've started dating. One of the things that I said to her was like, we were talking about what are you... What are you scared about about this relationship? And I was like, I am scared that I am like a selfish...
0:46:13.1 S1: I only wanna do what I want, and I'm not used to having to take someone else's stuff into account, and I was very clear about that from the beginning, but then it's like we are so excited to live together because she actually feels exactly the same way, I do, which you would think would be kind of butting heads, we both wanna have things the way we want them, but it's actually great because we subdivide things, we love doing things together, so we're excited to re-decorate together and do all this stuff together. So I think it'll be a huge adjustment for me, she's lived with people many times before, but I'm kind of like... I feel like that person, I just turned 40, so I'm quite an adult. And I feel like I'm gonna have to be like, So is it normal that blah, blah, blah. Are toothbrushes in the bathroom that how you're supposed to do it? Even though I know there's no supposed to because I just feel so unprepared for... I don't know, I have a... Yeah, you're gonna have to go through the whole like... I notice you put the new toilet role on top of the empty toilet role instead of changing it as...
0:47:26.0 S1: Oh, I got you. Went to me about that, tell me. Tell me your thought process. Has fun. I don't know.
0:47:37.5 S2: That's definitely a big transition. I lived alone in college in an apartment, and I think that was the first and only time so far that I lived alone, and I think I loved it too. I think I loved the independence of that, of having a space that I could come back to, knowing that I didn't have to ever be on... I didn't have to be a social creature. When I came back to that place, I could be a social creature outside the door, but I could be alone, gremlin inside. At any point in time, I do... One of the things that I do love though, about living with other people, and it's the feeling of someone on the other side of the wall, if that makes sense, of having a little private space to go into while I'm working or I'm taking a phone call or whatever, and just knowing that there's a person on the other side of the wall that is not energy permeates in a space, and that energy is... It reminds me of home. That's the feeling that I love about home. I know that home is also inside, but I know that home is also other people, and so having that environment is nice.
0:48:39.6 S2: Yeah, no, I have to... Grade is nice to have people on the other side of the wall. I've lived in apartments. We live in a roeselare home where we share two walls with our neighbors, and over the past couple of months, the houses on either side have sold, and so for a little while they've been empty, so... Which is very weird. So you're used to hearing it, people go down the steps or whatever. It's very weird. So it's nice having neighbors now, but I think the weirdest sort of... I lived alone, but not really a situation was when I moved to London and I was living in a house here and graded, it was like a straight up how share where they rent by the room, not like we all went on the house together, so they put it that out for the room, and I needed a room in the city, and so I answered the ad and I took the room, and I didn't know any of the people that lived there, and they were all different ages, all from different places. I left there with the weirdest accident, you dive here, but I did, 'cause my roommates were from New Zealand, Australia and Nigeria and somewhere else, and I just came home sounding like...
0:49:41.3 S2: I don't even know. But it was weird because I didn't really hang out with them. We didn't social is, but just knowing that they were in the house, so of made me feel a little safer or like... I don't know, it was really... It was a weird sensations, I was by myself, my room was my room, it was my space, but yeah, it was like I had a community sort of there. Yeah, I don't know, I think I like my independence, Mr. X. And it's just the two of us and we sort of do our things together, but now that he's back in the office, a couple of days a week, I get to be in the house alone for a few days a week, and after two years of not having that... And then going back to that, it was like a weird adjustment period for me, but now I'm like, Yeah, I get to do my own...
0:50:28.5 S1: I love that you said that because it is just getting to be the worst time of the year for any parent who works at home, because we had to get out, my kids were in there counting down. And I'm like, It's the worst time in the ER. So I go from working from home by myself all day to having my children who I love, who are old enough that I don't have to... It's not like a care-giving situation at this point in time, but they also love to come and chat a lot, and I love them, and my office has a door, but that means nothing... And then you add in the fact that if I lock the door or I tell them to get out, then I'm being a bad mom, but... So we try not to do that, but what do they bring up? Every day I'm time. Oh my god, mom's working. Get out. Do you have seen me? I think so again, there you go. It's your perspective. Yes, solidarity high five with all the work from home, parents who are getting ready for summer or it all... So Zeo, I wanna know, Did you...
0:51:40.2 S1: My neighbors
0:51:43.5 S2: A... Yeah, we did, and we had... When everything got locked down, we started a neighbor chat and WhatsApp so that we could share toilet paper and stuff, I'm writing a market run who need sugar, that kind of thing, and it just... It kept going. So now it's like anything that happens, we throw into the neighbor chat, so I'm like the... Not the neighborhood was next to or was the one who started it and she moved, so now I'm the captain or whatever are... So the new neighbors, I go meet them and tell them about the chat and see if they wanna join it, and that kind of thing, so I'm the greeting committee now
0:52:14.9 S1: That... I do three is yet think especially, maybe not so much when they're... Is space between houses, but... So see what, I both live in Philadelphia, but when you are in a city and there are empty houses on your street, it feels off vibe, like it's far. It does, yeah, 'cause I think it just feels a little bit of
0:52:35.3 S2: All those little noises that you get used to just background noise, and then I was just silence and you're like, You know... Yeah, it's a
0:52:44.9 S1: Hero. Exactly, see, and this is why I need to make you guys come out and visit me where you actually see the stars in the sky and
0:52:55.5 S2: It's super quiet and... Yeah, you get scared walking from our outbuilding
0:53:03.0 S1: On what's your... I love to... The people that we bought the house from a couple of years ago, the husband restored anti-cars, which was... Oh my God, no. But he felt like this huge... They built this huge garage basically, and it literally can be converted into a home, it's mastitis enough or they had six cars in there, the clean the lift, and a SaaS building seen on the lift and have people lift you up and down... Well, we had a guy come out to give us a quote for doing wall, and it was in the outbuilding and he saw the Lift and he's like, What do you guys do with this? I'm like, Nothing. Do you want it? And he's like, Really? He's like, How much? I'm like, You could take it out. It's all yours. So yeah, so there's some shade tree mechanic in our area who now has a lift and he's very happy, so no, I never touched it otherwise, but now that garage has outbuilding has a batting cage and a Gemini... Oh my God, it's a badge. It's a moose when we moved in, it's a weird Street, it's like a dead end, and there's like House says Big Lots.
0:54:25.8 S1: And we hadn't met all of our neighbors yet, and we built the batting cage... Right, and it was like one of the episodes, amazing race where you know the couple is gonna break up 'cause they're yelling at each other as they're building the thing, so everybody's yelling at each other, or as we're getting the whole thing put together and then moved into the garage, 'cause it's massive. And then a couple of weeks later, I'm talking about my neighbors, and we're like, Yeah, we really enjoyed watching you guys who... They're reengage greatest. There
0:54:56.9 S2: You guys were in their neighbor, chat.
0:55:00.8 S1: AECOM. Sure, we were... Did you see the...
0:55:04.6 S2: Alice had a pool going...
0:55:07.7 S1: Yeah, Timothy.
0:55:09.1 S2: Where do you live? You're in Pennsylvania. So I split time right now, so I had plans to move post-grad, so I don't even know how many years has been post-Brad now, 'cause covid time is... Overtime has been wild. My partner lives in Pennsylvania, and I live in New Jersey, so I spend most of my time in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. And then I spent a little bit of time at home for family functions, stuff like that, so hopefully we will be packing up and going to DC soon, but we're not certain yet.
0:55:38.8 S1: Yeah, you'll be a minor as the woods.
0:55:40.5 S2: Yeah, I'm very excited about it.
0:55:43.0 S1: Yeah, awesome is... Oh, well, now that I know I'll be able to stock Timothy hopefully sometime soon, and it seems like a lovely little... We've brought us all full circle here, so I just wanna say I thank you so much for being with us today, we absolutely adored having you, Please tell everybody where they can find you online and give us another shot and that book never been kissed.
0:56:09.8 S2: Yeah, of course. So thank you again for having me. This was wonderful. I love chatting with you all. Never been kissed. Your men and Matthew prints never been used out now you're mine on... Matthew prints out in October, very close. You can pre-order it. Yes, please preorder. I'm very close to run the holiday Trapani was gonna
0:56:28.9 S1: Asim
0:56:30.4 S2: Sure. We'll be seeing a lot of each other in the holiday times, and you can find me online Timothy genocide com, there's a newsletter sign up there if you wanna keep in touch with me, and then I'm at Timothy Geno Sky on Instagram, Twitter. And you can find me dancing sometimes on tiktok... But don't judge me too harshly.
0:56:49.3 S1: I love that. Okay, and for the listeners who felt like I do BoJack...
0:56:56.2 S2: Of course, it's J-A-N-O-V-S-K-Y.
0:57:03.8 S1: Oh, you guys, thank you so much for hanging out with us and Tennessee today. We absolutely loved having you, and as much as we love giving advice to perfect strangers, we would love to give advice to you specifically, so you should send us an email to advice it to your romance writer dot com, fill out or not Ms. Form, Send us a DM on social media. We would love to give you some questionable advice. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining us. This year, a trio of happily ever after enthusiast. Always has a good time with you. Thanks guys, thank you.
0:57:42.3 S2: See you next time, bye.
0:57:53.3 S1: Thank you so much for subscribing to Dear romance writer. Remember to keep sending in those letters I de romance writer dot com.
0:57:59.9 S2: We can't wait to tell you what to do.
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