Long Distance and Electronic Communication

Is sexting sex? And is sexting cheating if someone is monogamous? How can we be clear in our communication and boundaries? Can we feel ok giving a maybe or accepting a no? 

Morgan Bassichis is back with Dean to talk through frequently asked questions about navigating long distance and electronic communication in relationships.

Do you have a question for Dean? Here are upcoming opportunities to ask:

1. Send us your question for an upcoming AMA episode featuring Dean and Jessica Lanyadoo. You can submit questions on Patreon or email us at loveinaf0ckedupworld (at) gmail.com.
2. Join us September 21 at 2pm ET for a book club event online. Get your tix on Patreon.

Transcript available at https://deanspade.net/podcast

And don’t miss Morgan's new show, Can I Be Frank? at Soho Playhouse through September 13! Tickets are available at https://www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/morgan-bassichis-can-i-be-frank

Transcript

Dean: I'm Dean Spade. Welcome back to my new podcast, Love In a F*cked Up World where we talk about how to build and sustain connections because our resistance movements are made of our relationships and are only as strong as they are.

One of the reasons I started this podcast was to build more community space and conversation to talk about the themes in my book, Love in a F*cked Up World. To that end, this week we're launching a Patreon for this podcast, both to help try to cover some basic expenses and also to create a space where we can go deeper together in these questions about how to build radical liberatory relationships of all kinds: friendships, romantic relationships, collaborations, and organizing and artistic practice, relationships with our roommates, families, et cetera.

To me, sometimes it feels like the corporate social media spaces are like, rather hostile, kind of filled with trolls, and I'm craving a deeper place to be able to put more content that I wouldn't put in those spaces and where people can like, meet each other and you know, kind of really engage these discussions at the next level.

So I hope you'll join us. There's obviously free memberships there, as well as you can donate if you want to help sustain the podcast. So over the last seven months, I have had the opportunity to meet thousands of people at all these book events I've done, live ones and virtual ones, and it's been so cool to hear people's questions about their relationships and like the struggles they're currently in, in trying to apply their principles and deal with like, the kind of cultural scripts and the reactivity that we all see coming up again and again in groups we're in and in partnerships of different kinds and friendships. I really love that Q&A period.

And so this week's episode is actually me and Morgan Bassichis is talking through some common questions I've received about long distance relationships and about electronic communication and what it can do to relationships.

And relatedly, I also wanna announce that Jessica Lanyadoo, the brilliant queer astrologer, and I are soon gonna record an Ask Me Anything episode. So anyone can submit questions to us about relationship dilemmas, and we'll be answering them. And you can submit those through Patreon or, a number of other ways to reach us that you'll find in the show notes.

And one more announcement. On September 21st at 2:00 PM Eastern, we're gonna have a virtual event to raise money for the podcast, which is a book club event. I've talked to so many people who have read this book, Love in a F*cked Up World, in a group with others, and I love reading that way. It's been a huge part of my own political development to read books with others. So we're gonna have a little celebration of book clubs and we invite you to bring the people you read this book with to this event. You can get tickets on Patreon. And it'll be a chance to ask me anything you want about the book and hear about what it's like to read with others, and I can't wait and look forward to it.

So for now, I hope that you enjoy this week's episode. So much gratitude to Morgan Bassichis for being in this conversation with me. If you don't already know, Morgan is a really brilliant performer, writer, anti-Zionist organizer, artist, friend, teacher, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Welcome Morgan. 

Morgan: Thanks, Dean. I'm so happy to be here. And um, it's so nice to have literally one good thing, which is your book. And I have some questions to ask. Let me say, let me start over again. Dean, hi. Hi, Dean. I'm so happy... okay, hold on. Hope, I'm panicking! Dean, chill. You can include this, Hope. Um. Dean, I'm really happy to be here and I'm really excited to ask you about long distance relationships, which I don't know if you've heard are a big thing in the world.

So can you start us off by telling us like what, what do you see as the pros of long distance relationships?

Dean: For me, I'm curious about you Morgan as well, I've found that long distance can have some built in boundaries about how much time you have together. Like it's kind of nice for me when I'm like, oh, I know I'm gonna see this person this time.

Although I also have seen myself and some of my friends kind of push this over the edge. Because you could spend all your time communicating with the person, even when you're long distance or kind of like have your life still only be about that, even though you're at a distance. But it can be a really fun way to get to know somebody, to be like communicating a bit and then having a visit.

And I think for a lot of people I know, like living in a community where there's not a lot of people to date or not people you have some shared values or identities with them. If they're living rurally or somehow just kind of like looking for a bigger dating pool, it makes sense that people would be connecting with people who live further away.

So I definitely think there's like cute, very cute things about a long distance relationship. 

Morgan: Okay. We love a cute thing. And, and we also know there are cons. So tell us about some of the, the harder parts of long distance relationships. 

Dean: One thing I've noticed is that there can be more room for escalation and projection. Like it can be really easy to like, get ahead of ourselves and think we know a lot about the other person, or imagine that they're like this incredible answer to all of our problems. I think because we don't have a lot of in-person time, so it's all happening like verbally or like over texts, over emails, over voice memos.

And also, like when you do see them, it's kinda like you're on vacation maybe, because it's like you're going somewhere else and you don't have your same obligations. And so that can be something that contributes to not having a super clear picture about how this person fits in your life or like, imagining them kind of on a pedestal or in a more like, not the ordinary day-to-day way.

And then when you are on those dates, you might be like, not everybody, but you might be like living with them. And so that's kinda where you're like playing house like, so you like go from like not seeing them at all to like seeing them very intensely for a weekend or a week or whatever it is. And I think, you know, it's possible to choose not to do that, but a lot of people I know end up doing that because it's expensive to rent a place when you go visit someone.

And you know, you wanna spend time together, but all of that can kind of distort it and make it maybe move really fast. Also, like when you don't have in-person time together to have escalation that comes through body language or other sort of subtle things, it can all happen verbally. So soon we're promising each other a lot about the future because it's only happening in words.

Morgan: Yeah, I think, I imagine so many people can relate to this experience you're talking about almost this like parallel fantasy escalation happening. And you said, you talked about like this promising too much. Maybe you can say like, what are some other things that we can like, watch out for in long distance relationships to like notice if they're going in this direction of this kind of rapid fantasy escalation place?

Dean: Yeah, I think the overpromising thing can happen, even like, I know people, and I've had this experience, where you connect with someone, but you haven't met them in person at all. So you haven't even checked the chemistry. So you're like, maybe you start chatting on an app while you're visiting somewhere, or maybe you meet over DMs because you have a shared political interest, and suddenly you're having this really cute engagement. But you don't even know if you're like, really gonna wanna make out. And so I think watching out for overpromising in that way, like if you, or maybe you met in person but you didn't actually sexually connect then and now you're gonna see each other in person. Like how to make sure that it's okay to be like, yeah, we don't know what's gonna happen. It's chill. So that you don't feel forced to be certain ahead of time that you have compatibility that you may not have.

I think also like, another really difficult one is like losing track of your local life, like getting so lost in the excitement and fantasy about the far away person that you stop showing up for your normal day-to-day stuff, which may be less exciting than that fantasy, understandably.

I think there's also a huge question about sleep hygiene. Like I definitely have lost sleep when I've been communicating with someone who's in a different time zone, or if the only time I have to like connect with them is an all night phone call. You know, like it can get really rough. So I really recommend people like, make some boundaries for themself about sleep and maybe ask a friend to help check in, like, am I really taking care of my sleep?

Um, also this kind of relationship is happening all like on your phone and computer. And so if you already have like, phone and screen addiction stuff, like most of us have, it's just really compelling and can be disruptive to other things you care about. Like, it can be super hard when something so fun and hot is coming through that screen and how to possibly have boundaries with that. Like how to make sure I still go on walks where I don't, um, you know, look at the phone, or how do I make sure that I am caring for the nervous system? I had an experience of having a really exciting long distance thing where I would wake up in the night to look at messages from the person because I was just like so excited, you know? And it's like, it was like my nervous system was like jangled. And so I think that can be concerning.

And overall, like just how to not overextend with money or time or exhaustion, like putting too much time into the visits or going more often than you could really afford if it's somewhere that costs money to go to.

I mean, how to figure that out is hard, but just even having friends we talk to about it is really useful. 

Morgan: In other parts of the book you talked about, like how this idea of building a case against someone that you might have dated, and I think we can also do the opposite of building a case for them. And I noticed this particularly with long distance. We're like, no, you don't understand. This is the perfect person. Like, you know, like, no, no, no. And so you were almost like, preempting. We're building, like this has to be the way with our friends. And I noticed that, like that's a flag for me to watch out for. It's like, oh, who am I, before knowing much information, committed to rallying everybody to think they are the perfect person, so that almost it becomes harder for me to notice reality along the way. So yes. 

Dean: Yeah, that's really interesting. I also think as a friend, if I'm a friend of somebody who's got a new relationship, long distance or otherwise, I see different friendship styles. I do see friends who are just like, I'm all out for your new date. Like that feels like they wanna be supportive, but I think it's also okay to be supportive by asking questions like, how's your sleep? And we shouldn't think the only way to support our friend with their new relationship is to be for it, you know? Like we can be just as curious about it as we hope they will be, which includes like, how's the sleep going? And uh, yeah, what do we not know about this person yet? Or what is the right length for a first visit?

You know, those kinds of questions can be like loving, supportive questions. 

Morgan: I hate how many times you've asked me that over the course of our relationship. And also thank God you have! And I'll be honest, it's sometimes it's deflating. You know when you hear those questions and not like, Oh my god, when's the wedding? So...

Dean: It's sobering. I think sobering is a word that...

Morgan: It's sobering, yeah.

Dean: You and I, obviously sober is not a word that appeals to everyone, but for me the word sober is just about like, am I a little bit one foot on the ground at least? Like, okay, this is real.

One other thing I ask myself a lot with, and you know, I think we can all ask ourselves, with long distance relationships is, can I just enjoy this for what's here? Instead of getting ahead, like, I can't wait till this person moves here and lives with me or something, you know? How are we gonna live in the same place? Even though I just started texting with them two weeks ago or whatever. Can I just be like, what's it like right now to enjoy texting with someone far away or having a visit with someone that's just a weekend long? Or like, is it possible for me to enjoy what's actually happening instead of getting ahead of myself and missing my life that's happening now, and that includes the rest of my life? Can I enjoy being with this person on the phone tonight and then tomorrow night being with my friends at this other gathering, or later today, being out for a walk with my dog and being here where I am, where I live in this life? 

Morgan: That feels like a really helpful frame to like, de-pathologize and also de-pedestalize. Like just getting to enjoy the ride and noticing we're on a ride, you know, noticing that we're, we are in fact on a ride.

Okay, so Dean, I have the great honor of getting to deliver some questions from listeners and viewers around the world. Um, that's a Democracy Now quote. 

Dean: Are you being Juan González right now?

Morgan: So I, can I ask you one of these questions? Is that okay? 

Dean: Yes, please. 

Morgan: Okay, so I, this is not me personally, Morgan, but this is another I. I am in a long distance relationship. I live in Oregon and she lives in Italy. We met once. We hung out for two days. We had a wonderful connection and hot sex. We communicated a lot, and she's coming to visit for 10 days.

What should I be thinking about as the visit approaches? Of course, I'm worried about us getting sick of each other and also all worried about being devastated when she leaves. 

Dean: I love this question. I mean, one thing that this question implies is like, this getting sick of each other. That makes so much sense. And also just like, having a little bit of sobriety in this fun, you know, sex-fueled, exciting, I'm sure chemically delightful visit, hopefully, is how to structure in some time apart during the visit. Like how to make sure the person who's visiting can have some level of autonomy. Like can she go places on public transit or borrow a car? Does she have any other friends in the area she can see? How will you, the question asker, stay in touch with your local life while she's visiting? Are there ways that you can stay connected to your world, which I think also might help with the like, potential devastation when she departs.

I also think like, being really thoughtful about pacing in the visit. Like how to not go as far and as fast as humanly possible. I know some people they start their visits and, and like, you know, wait to sleep together or wait to have sex or are really careful about not having future planning conversations with the feelings of fear of the person leaving, but instead just feeling, oh, I'm sad that she's gonna leave, but I'm not gonna turn that towards an intense immediate focus on future planning when we haven't even yet evaluated how this visit was for us.

Especially fantasies about living in the same place, I think can be really escalatory for people in long distance. But also things like rushing to share like the stories about the hardest things that have ever happened in your life and turn each other into the main support system for that, or introducing someone to your friends and family really quickly. That's another thing that can like, kind of rush things forward. So just knowing that we can make really careful decisions about how quickly or slowly to do these things. And sometimes the kind of playing house living together can make it go really fast.

So even just talking before the visit about, Hey, let's like, be thoughtful about that and be careful about our pacing. Wouldn't it be fun to enjoy this unfolding at whatever its speed might be instead of rushing it?

And then the other thing I would say, and this is from my own experience of long distance relationships, is I noticed that when I would visit someone or when they would visit, I would give up a lot of things I usually do to take care of myself. I would give up my meditation practice. I might give up like, dietary restrictions that help me feel better. I might stop doing things that I need to do to sleep well, or stop talking to certain best friends that I usually talk to with certain regularity. So the question is like, when the visit happens, how can I stay with myself and with my self-care practices or community practices that are important to me and not ditch everything?

Because also then I'm creating like a fake world that's not really the world I live in that might be misleading me and this person about the nature of the relationship. I'm curious, Morgan, if there's things you'd add to this or things you've noticed or experienced. 

Morgan: I'm really glad you said the last thing about kind of like, staying connected to our own routines and our own commitments, because there can be this, this, I feel like this desire to feel like I have no limits, I'm fully available, as a kind of shortcut to intimacy. Instead of being like, actually it's through the little negotiations around boundaries and commitments, that's how we deepen intimacy. Like a grounded intimacy of like, oh actually I have to, I actually have to step away. We get to learn so much in those interactions, so almost let's not rob ourselves of how much we get to learn about the person and ourselves and the connection by keeping some semblance of our routines, our commitments, so that we don't also feel super hung over afterwards, which can even make the whiplash even more intense. You know, the person is saying, I'm worried about being devastated afterwards, and it's like, well, one way to feel a little less hungover is to less totally abandoned our own, what keeps us self-regulated while the person's there. 

Dean: Yeah, and I mean, I think it's interesting just like, am I entering this relationship wanting to be so attractive and wonderful that I don't think I'm lovable if I also, you know, am not eating this right now or would like us to go to bed at this time or have a boundary about other people using drugs around me or have a retainer that I wear at night or whatever? You know, like, just like what are the, what would it be like to enter relationships thinking like, I am lovable as I actually am? And how that invites both people to be, to meet their needs, keep their routines, show how they actually survive, instead of creating like a totally extreme fantasy that can't really be sustained usually.

Morgan: I want to sustain extreme fantasy, so I disagree with you on that, but um, I have more questions. Can I ask you more questions?

Okay, Dean, I have a friend who's in prison who I met through a prisoner pen pal program that connects queer and trans people on the outside with queer and trans people on the inside. Recently my pen pal has been telling me that she's in love with me and I feel freaked out and I don't know what to do. What do you think? 

Dean: I really wanted to talk to this, about this one, Morgan, on this call with you because both of us have spent a lot of time in abolitionist movements where we do a lot of writing back and forth with people inside, and this question comes up so much. I was not surprised to receive this question 'cause I've heard it over the years so many times.

And I think the main, the first thing I always say to people is like, don't stop writing them because they're feeling in love with you. People who have been like, isolated a lot and not given a lot of care and attention may feel that, may have a really reasonable like, Oh my God, someone's connecting to me, who's rad and also queer or trans. I feel like I might be in love with them. And just like, this is a great reminder that we don't have to run away when a boundary is needed. We can actually just have a boundary and just really tell people directly like, I'm not available for that, but I, and remind someone what I am available for. I really would love to write you once a month and I'm so excited to get to know you and be friends and support you with your planning about release or help send you books or whatever it is you've agreed and with yourself, you know, you wanna do. And just like, practicing being like, it's okay that we want different things and I'm still here for you.

I'm curious if you've seen this, Morgan, if you have things to add? 

Morgan: Yeah, I mean, um, I feel like the fear of disappointing people for me is such a big one and with the way I can compensate for it can sometimes be through vagueness of not declining the invitation or the request or the desire explicitly by being like, I'm really grateful for our connection. You know, like, and I think that vagueness doesn't help. I mean, vagueness is like a, in the domain of appeasing strategies of like, let me not rock the boat. But I think really good to remind ourselves to notice, Oh, I'm scared of disappointing somebody, and here's what I'm doing with that fear. And exactly like you said, can I speak really clearly?

And I like using words like dating and friends and romance, like being like, I don't feel a romantic connection, I feel a friend connection. You know, like, or I'm not feeling a sexual connection, I'm feeling a this connection. Or I'm not feeling a romantic, I am, you know, like, sometimes it can almost feel scary or embarrassing to use such obvious words somehow. But I think being direct like that can set both of us, just, yeah, deepens the relationship in a million ways and like, we get to build trust with each other. Again, this is connected to our past conversation of like, these are all opportunities to get to have a real friendship where you feel accepted instead of having to portray a fantasy of yourself.

Dean: This makes me think about too, just like, uh, times in my life when I think I was afraid to say no to anyone's sexual or romantic advances 'cause I was afraid of disappointing them or that they wouldn't like me as much. Like, it's like I really was excited about this person and they wanted that and then I almost couldn't tell if I wanted it or not.

Morgan: Yeah. 

Dean: And I think also living in a culture that had told me that it wasn't, not really acceptable to say no ever, but certainly to sexual and romantic advances of people. So I think there was like a, a huge learning about it being okay, yeah, to disappoint people at all. And that, I think a lot of my, I have a lot of like wonderful friends who I know are still struggling with that or who think that if someone wants sex from them in particular, that is something that they are supposed to give due to like, past experiences and cultural norms.

Morgan: Yeah. And I think this fear of disappointing is like, is a big, you know, not just in romance and sex, but also like, in our movements and like, the feeling of overpromising as a result. And overpromising does not get us where we wanna go in our relationships or in our organizations. So, yeah. 

Dean: You know, one other thing that this makes me think about too, um, you and I have both been part of the study of Somatics where we go to these big classes and workshops. And we often do this work that's like, how do you know when you wanna say yes, no, or maybe? Like, what does each thing feel like in our bodies?

And when we did the maybe exercises in class, I was like, Wow, what's maybe? And maybe often is like, I need more time. And that's something that comes up with long distance. Like if I, if you and I met at a conference, or we met through DMs, or we met, um, you know, wherever in passing, and now we're having all this connection and you're asking me if it's like, Hey, is this flirting or do you wanna take it in that direction?

Morgan: Yeah.

Dean: It might be that I don't know yet. And that's okay. And I think that can be a moment of panic, you know, like, Oh, oh my God, someone's calling the question. And I'm kind of thinking maybe, but I'm not sure if I actually can follow through. Like, is the attraction really an attraction or is it just excitement about a new friendship?

And just, what if we were able to tell other people maybe? Like, I'm not sure what's happening for me, I need more time. Um. Just as important as, no, it's a kind of like getting your own like dignity and autonomy back from maybe a cultural message that we're supposed to always be a yes and never disappoint anyone.

Morgan: And then on, on the receiving end of that, we have to remember if we don't get a yes, my friend Sarah Koshar who's a labor organizer said, as organizers, they say anything less than a yes is no. So we, if somebody says, I don't know, or maybe, that's not a yes. Like we have to really like, we will pave over that with fantasy and, Okay, so maybe sometime? You know, so maybe, so maybe next month you'll be available?

And so how do we, when we're receiving people's maybes, also be like, okay, this person is not currently available. That's a no for now. A maybe is a no for now. It's not a yes and let's evaluate. It's a no for now. 

Dean: Yeah. And I think it's, you know, I talk about this in the book, it's very hard to face the fact that most of us are bad at receiving nos from others.

Morgan: Oh my God.

Dean: We pressure other people a lot. Um, Come on, you really wanna go to the movies with me! Like it's very normal in friendships and we've been pressured a lot by family, friends, lovers, and we, nobody wants to admit, it sounds awful that I'm like bad at hearing no from my friends lovers.

A lot of us I think avoid even asking questions that will get a no. We try to feel it out beforehand so that we never ask a question that's got a no. 

Morgan: Yes. Oh my God. How many times have I ended a sentence, no pressure. Like I feel like that's like my email signature: no pressure.

Dean: Me too, me too!

Morgan: Like what's going on here? Yeah. It's scary. It's scary that we feel we're gonna lose connection, but.

So Dean, I'm gonna move us on, which is a kind of no, to one more question I have, um, which is about sexting, okay? I'm not sure if you're familiar?

Dean: Never heard of it.

Morgan: I, I hear you have some experience. So, is sexting sex? And then, and also is it cheating? Is sexting cheating if someone is monogamous? 

Dean: I love this question. Um, it's so juicy. I think that one, one of the main things this question gets us to is that there is not a definition of sex, right? Like people think lots of different things count as sex or don't, and we really shouldn't assume that anyone else shares our beliefs about what is sex and what is not sex.

And this really matters if you're negotiating things like monogamy or nonmonogamy, or if you're negotiating what you want your lovers or friends or whatever to tell you or not tell you. Because if I say like, Morgan, don't tell me about your sex with anybody else. Does that include like, when you flirted? Does that include just like, when you actually went to their house and took off your clothes? Does it include like, do we count, do we count oral sex as sex? Do we count holding hands as sex? Like, do we count kissing as sex? Like what do we count, right? And it's okay that there's no agreement about that. That's not something that needs to be defined. But between two people or more people, if you're saying like, I want to know when you do this, or I don't want to know when you do this, or we've agreed not to do this with others, well, what? You know? Does that include sexting? That, that I met somebody in DMs and now we're having dirty messages, but we've never, we have no plans to encounter each other physically. Are we having sex or not? Like we have to actually discuss that.

And I think one of the main places I see a lot of conflict in relationships is that people accuse each other of having violated the agreements because they define these things differently. Whether that's monogamous people, accusing each other of having cheated, or whether that's people in open relationships accusing each other of having done something different than what we agreed to.

So I think this question brings that up. What do the people who are in the monogamous relationship think about this?

And this comes up for me also because I don't like to know every single thing my lovers are doing. Like I'm not somebody who wants like, the daily report, 'cause I struggle with jealousy and sometimes it's just like distracting. It's like, takes up too much emotional energy. So I'm just like, I don't really wanna hear about it unless there's something you need to tell me 'cause you're looking for support or whatever. But I mostly don't wanna hear every single thing. And so needing to really be clear, well what is it you don't wanna hear, Dean? Because like, do you wanna hear if we're all gonna be in the same space together with somebody that I'm having sex with? Do you wanna know then? When do you wanna know? You know, like that really having to have really clear conversations.

The other thing I'll say is that when I'm trying to sort out whether to disclose something or not, I really look for myself, in myself I look for the feeling of dishonesty. Am I downplaying? Am I pretending this is less escalated than it is?

When I was in my twenties and had a lot of unexamined sort of sketchy sexual behavior, I was very likely to downplay things 'cause I felt like, shame about what I was doing. Or like, you know, I, yeah, there was like some like, lack of discernment around total honesty. So now I just try to like, err on the side of clarity and transparency.

I of course wanna maintain my own privacy and the privacy of anyone I'm connecting with. But if I notice myself just having that edgy feeling, like a shame feeling, I just can like, check it out. What is going on here? Am I downplaying, am I trying to manipulate how someone else feels by not telling them something? Am I trying to like, shape someone else's emotional field by withholding information and not letting them have whatever responses they wanna have? Like I feel like that's where I wanna just be really careful.

I'm curious, Morgan, if you have thoughts on this. 

Morgan: Yeah, I mean, of course, you know, anytime we're talking about questions of cheating, there can be so much moralism that comes up and so, um, we wanna just like kind of notice all the good and bad and right and wrong judgments that can come in. And, you know, I love your saying, just start to pay, let's pay attention to that feeling of when I think I'm kind of minimizing or hiding. Not just because it's not manipulating the other person, but also because it means more of you gets to be loved. We get to notice that feeling not just because it is how we practice, whatever, you know, being the kind of partner we wanna be, but also because it means more of us gets to live out in the open and gets to like, be healed from shame, and gets to feel like, oh, that's okay! It's actually okay that I'm having all these weird sexual conversations with people that are, you know, like, and, and maybe that's even lovable about me. And you know, I'm not saying, like you said, we all, of course, there's no one rule about disclosing what to everybody. But I think sometimes we make the choice that something's not disclosable because we've internalized a sense from the culture that it's so shameful.

And I'm noticing throughout this conversation, like all these things become opportunities for us to heal from shame, us to heal from compartmentalization, us to heal from disowned parts. And be like, yeah, that gets to be here too. So, yeah. 

Dean: I think there's also a flip side too. Like if I have a partner who doesn't wanna hear every detail of all of my dates, but I'm feeling so guilty and uncertain about them all that I feel like I have to vomit it all up all the time, just remembering to talk to another friend. Like remembering that it's like, you know, we could be having compulsive vibes on either side, either hiding everything or oversharing beyond someone's preferences.

In general, my guideline around all things dating - monogamous, open, whatever - is like, nobody's in trouble for doing it wrong. It's okay that we're all figuring it as we go. Of course, I'm not gonna perform this perfectly. But if I keep kind of edging over on the side of hiding a lot more than I think is really balanced, or if I keep edging over saying a bunch of stuff that my date doesn't really want to hear, just like, you know, talking it through with some other friends.

Morgan: Oh, that's so helpful. That's another really good pendulum. Yeah. This kind of hiding versus kind of like the compulsive disclosure. That's really helpful. 

Dean: I think it might be time to wrap up our conversation about long distance and electronic communication, Morgan. Any final words of wisdom? 

Morgan: I think we've solved this age old question, personally, around long distance, um, relationships and, so I feel grateful that we can just kind of put a bow around it and give people the answers.

Perfect. 

Dean: Love it. Finished, done perfectly. Love it. Thank you for being with me for this Morgan. 

Morgan: Thank you.

Dean: Thank you, as always, to Morgan Bassichis for helping me tie a bow around the issues of long distance relationships and electronic communication, and for being such a thoughtful, brilliant friend and teacher.

Thank you for joining me for the latest episode of Love in a F*cked Up World, the podcast. This podcast is based on my new book by the same name, Love in a F*cked Up World, which is out now from Algonquin Press. I hope you'll pick it up from an independent bookstore or from Libro.fm, and please don't buy it from Amazon or Audible.

Love in a F*cked Up World is hosted by me, Dean Spade. It's produced and edited by Hope Dector. Thank you to Ciro, Eugene, Derekh, Kelsey, Lindsay, Jessica, Raindrop, Nicole, and everyone else who has helped me with this podcast. Our theme music is I've Been Wondering by The Ballet.

If you found the show useful or if you have ideas of things you'd like to hear about, we'd love to hear from you. Please check out our new Patreon where you can join the conversation with other listeners. I hope to see you on there and please send us questions for our upcoming Ask Me Anything episode with Jessica Lanyadoo.

We need each other now more than ever, and I hope this podcast offers tools and ideas that help you sustain relationships and feel connected to others. I hope you'll keep listening, subscribe and share this episode with people in your life.