42. The Red Flag Support Group (Welcome, We've All Been Here)

the red flag support group is now in session.

hi my name is dino, i saw the red flag, and i waved back. some of us waved enthusiastically. some of us decorated the flag. some of us asked the red flag to move in and then acted surprised when it was still a red flag inside our apartment.

this week: seven dates with a man who loved his ex more than her. the waiter who knew before she did. the woman who thought she was the exception to "women are too dramatic." a friendship that ended not with a fight but with enough cancelled plans that there was nothing left to cancel. a hiring manager who presented someone else's idea as her own while making eye contact. a man who called therapy a crutch — she did not tell him he was the reason she needed it. and a closer from a woman who didn't ignore her red flags. she decorated them. and lost both the relationship and the story she'd built around it.

also: april in new york and it is FREEZING. jay shetty's wedding officiant era. shots at the white house correspondents' dinner. carly aquilino forever.

full-time feeler. part-time hater. weekly voice note. send your mess to ihearyoubabepod@gmail.com. 🚩

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to I Hear You Babe. My name is Dino Malvone. I'm your host. And we've got a fun episode for you guys today. It's a bunch of emails that you guys sent into IHearYouBabepod at gmail.com. And as always, a bunch of stuff from my little life over here as your full-time feeler and part-time hater. This week I'm almost a fully functioning human being again, but we're getting there. The flu is like gone, but I think I got this thing in my chest. It's going to like live on for a little while longer. Lucky me. And the snows is about like I'm going to go like 40% operational at this point. But we're recording the show. The show must go on. I am going to have a sip of my coffee because it is 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning. But by the time you're getting this, it's going to be Monday morning. And I can just say this: you guys are getting two episodes pretty close together right now. Because episode 41 just dropped a couple days ago. And here we are already, lucky. And I want you to know that I I see how lucky you are and I appreciate, I appreciate you. And also I had the flu, so I need you to appreciate me back. Okay. The also, like while I have you, it's the April, what? What's today? April 20. You're getting this on April 27th. And in New York City, it's basically freezing cold. I got up this morning and back into matching sweatsuits again for until further notice because the real feel was like 38, 38 degrees this morning. And you know, do I need a coat? Where is my coat? Why do I own this coat?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

And why am I wearing it in April?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

And I just need to know who's up there pulling levers. Like who's sitting at the weather console, like pushing buttons all willy-nilly, you know, with absolutely no regard for, you know, because obviously it's a simulation we're living in. Duh. But like someone's up there just like playing games with the buttons. And the joke's not funny. The bit is not landing, okay? We had it like it was like 75 degrees like three days ago. And then someone went up there and was like, actually, no. Boop. Let's take that back and let's just get all that, let's just get all that sun back. So anyway, surviving the flu. I feel like I'm a flu survivor and the cold sweats. Oh my god. I'm still getting them a little bit at night, which is a little strange. Sleeping at night has just been interesting anyway. Cause these cats and like Darius and I are both like we run hot like furnaces, so it's um so anyway, but whoever's running the weather up there, I need them to get it together. I need you to find where the thermostat is and make a decision and just stick with it. Cause that's really all I need is just some consistency. Everyone's like, this is spring. I'm just like moving on. You guys, next thing I want to do this soon as I because I'm leaving for Pittsburgh tomorrow to go see my family for a couple days, but when I get back, the first thing I want to do is go see Devil Wears Prada. And I want to go and see it because I haven't been to the movies in a little while and I still have my Regal membership, which I love. But the girls from Giggly Squad do have like a little cameo. I'm sure there's a million cameos in the movie, but they the Giggly Squad girls have a cameo, and I'm excited for them because you know I love them. My I still have this claim to fame that I when they came to New York City and they sold out Radio City Music Hall, I was like, I waited to the very last minute to get a ticket because I didn't, I didn't know if I could make it or whatever, whatever. And then the day of the show, I got, I'm not kidding you, I got tickets for the box, which was like I was I was basically in the second row, center stage, and I paid like a hundred bucks for it. It was like one of those people who had like a last minute had, you know, had to do whatever or something. So anyway, just excited to see, I want to see them in that movie because I was listening to them this morning on my way into work, and Paige just had a you know a moment where, you know, it was like a childhood full circle moment because when the first movie came out, you know, she and her parents had come down to the city and they were on Canal Street and they bought a bootleg version of Devil Wears Prada, and she watched it like in the car ride home. And now, like, look, you know what's funny when you're like having some you know big moments and you're in New York City. I imagine that, you know, it's so wild to come from a place like you know, Pittsburgh or something like that, where it's you know, the the city is booming, but it's not it's not the same as New York City. The opportunities are definitely different, especially when it comes to that sort of stuff. And I imagine that it's a really wonderful feeling for them to see themselves on the big screen like that. Anyway, let me gush in because you know Carly Aquilino from Secret Keepers Club, my other favorite podcast, is still my number one bestie. She's my number one paranormal, what is it, par parasocial? She's my parasocial best friend forever and ever. And nothing will ever change that. These are not, they're not competing loyalties, but there is room in my heart for all the giggly girls. But Carly has a specific piece of the real estate in my brain, and that is hers and hers alone. Okay. I don't want anybody to say anything about it. Carly Aquilino is my muse. She's my fave. I think she needs a new gay best friend, and I'm available because I got rid of a bunch of my friends last year. Ah, nope, they got rid of me. But anyway, there is. Oh, what you wanna know why? I love Carly because I feel like this is an important part of the story. It's like she's like the standard for me. I can't really listen to other podcasts too much after I listen to hers because I'm just like, I'd rather listen to hers again than listen to some other ones because I just think that her voice just lands for me. And you know, I think she's like the blueprint. She is the reason I think I know how to tell a story that starts somewhere completely unrelated and ends up being about the actual thing. Like in a way that you didn't see coming. Like, that's Carly. That's it. The whole, that's the whole thing. I don't I don't know. I just love her. I will never probably meet her, but and she will she knows that I exist though. Can I just say that? Because I did write in an email that she read in one of the episodes. Why I don't have that. The episode is saved on my phone, so don't worry. Wait, okay, so listen, and then we're talking about like celebrity. How about this? You guys clock what's happening with that dude Jay Shetty? Cause, you know, I got up this morning and Darius has been telling me this story, and he like went a little bit further into it this morning, and I was like, what? Because this stuff is crazy. And I'm actually when I say this stuff out loud, it's like actually it sounds crazy too. So, but this dude Jay Shetty, which I'm sure you know, he's got those like like strangely blue, crystal blue eyes. So for those of you who don't know, he's like a podcaster and like a life coach. I think he's a self-described former monk. And he wrote a book one time, it was called Think Like a Monk. And like, you know, he's one of those people like Deepak Chopra, where you have like in order to believe in him, you have to spend a bunch of money. And so he has this like big empire around wellness and like the mindfulness stuff. And uh what I think he talks like a little bit about like the wisdom of the East, which sidebar is its own conversation about who like is allowed to package spirituality and sell it to celebrities. But anyway, that's a whole other episode, which we should do one of those because that sounds fun. A deep dive into Jay V Shetty and like Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama. No. What I actually want to talk about is this wedding officiating situation. Did you know? Because he's apparently officiated. And I and these are I want to be clear because I looked these up. These are um confirmed public facts. Okay. It's before you come from me. It he officiated JLo and Ben Affleck's wedding. Okay. He officiated Lily Collins' wedding, Vanessa Hudgens' wedding, and apparently he's like the go-to officiant for like celebrity couples. Who knew? I just want to know how that becomes someone's brand. You can do anything in this life. Like, at what point do you think he like goes, well, this life coaching and like thing is whatever, but I'm gonna like I think I'm gonna hit up my friend JLo and see if like she needs me to officiate her wedding. You're like, yep, it's weddings. I think it's weddings that I'm into. Anyway, but so there okay, the then also here's the real piece, because I I I did a little bit of a deep, I did I like to dig a little bit before I like start talking shit. And this dude this dude wrote a piece that was like supposed to be for a magazine, like it wasn't Vanity Fair, but it was like or Esquire or something like that. But I guess they rejected it, and then it became like you know, I don't know, what do you call that? Like an expose or something. So and it I guess it like basically raised a bunch of questions about who this dude actually was, and so like when he said he was like staying at like be where he was, like when he became a monk or whatever, he was actually staying somewhere else, and he has like travel journal or something. Anyway, they went on this big he Jay Shetty went on this big campaign where he's like hired like a crew of lawyers to you know remove all the bad things that were coming out online about him, like uh a team of people who were like crisis people who were hired to do I don't know. So, like, I mean, but and one of the things I think was so funny was like I think there was a quote like somebody wrote like I that they saw him in sweatpants more often than they saw him in robes. Like he he he was just chilling. But like, so I mean it's he basically just had this dude who may or may not have become a monk as extensively as like he's claimed that he is, and then he built a big ass empire on that monkhood, and now he's like officiating weddings of some famous people, and he's being asked. I think next if he's gonna officiate Selena and Benny Blanco, and I'm not saying he's a bad dude, I'm just saying that he's very specific, red flag that a lot of very famous people looked at and said, Yeah, you know what? I think you should just marry us anyway. You know? Okay, and then I just have to say this because I saw this on this morning on Instagram, so I don't know too much about it, but like I saw I saw last night, and there was a couple text messages or DMs that people sent me because they woke up and it was like the first thing that I saw when I was in bed. But it was a White House correspondence dinner. I guess it was like last night. So it was on Saturday night, April 25th. And like, if you haven't seen it yet, I guess so. Trump and JD Vance were rushed off the stage by like the security, the Secret Service people after like some, I guess someone shot where shots were fired outside of the ballroom. And like the suspect is in custody and everyone's safe. But this was like the White House correspondence dinner. It's like the dinner where the um the journalists and the um politicians do a like a bit together. It's like a little comedy. It's supposed to be like the funny dinner, you know what I mean? That's like where all the anyway. So even at the funny dinner, people are gonna get rushed off stage because you know what? That's where we are right now, that's the world. I don't really have a lot more to say about it because this is not this, you know, this is not a political podcast. And I I don't even actually really know what to say, but I think it was funny because they rushed JD Vance off the stage before they rushed Trump off the stage. And I'm just wondering who's gonna get fired today. But I will say today's episode is about red flags, and I think that's pretty fitting if I'm being honest, because I I think we're all looking at a lot of red flags right now, making a lot of different choices about them. And I think that, you know, that's kind of all I'll say about that. But anyway, so check this out. The what do we call this episode? The red flag support group. And the support group is now in session. Where's my gavel? Anyway, basically it's like, hi, my name is Dino, and I saw the red flag, and I completely gave it a little wave back. And I know I'd definitely think we've all been there before. Some of us waved enthusiastically. We're like, hey, we get a little clap. Some of us decorated the flag. Don't get me near a Michael's. And some of us asked the red flag to move in and still act at surprise whenever it was still a red flag, and then you had to kick them out six weeks later. You know what I mean? Twice. So this week's prompt was tell me about the red flag you saw clearly and chose to ignore and what happened. And you delivered, and let's get into these emails. Okay. This first one says, Dear Dino, he told me about his ex on the first date. Not like casually mentioned, like told me her full name, what she did for work, and where she grew up, why they broke up, what he missed about her, and what she was doing now. You basically you're dating her now. Uh you're you should have been like, Can I get her number? Because she sounds more fun than what I'm doing right now with you. Uh. So he and then she says on the she goes on to say, on the first date within the first 20 minutes. I said to myself, this is a red flag, you think? And then I went on seven more dates with him. Um, he talked about her on every single one. And by date four, I knew more about this woman than I knew about my own college roommate. By date six, I had formed opinions about her, and by date seven, I was low-key rooting for her. You're low-key dating her at that point. You know what I mean? We stopped talking shortly after that. He got back together with the ex. I generally think I'm happy for both of them. Uh, the red flag was waving. I just thought I could outrun it. Okay. So the funny part for me is this the is the fact that they ended up getting back together. I don't get it. Cause, you know, because by date six, you're you, you, you're, you're, you have opinions about this girl, and she's full uh internal portrait of this woman built on seven dinners with this dude, a bunch of sol unsolicited information, and then that now you're like on team home girl. Here's the thing. I mean, you clocked it on the first date, though, right? So, like, you know, you said, and you said this is a red flag to yourself in it, you know, in your own head or whatever, and you used those exact words, but then you also went on six more dates with this guy who was actively like, I mean, he was he was presenting a full-on book report on his ex-girlfriend at the dinner table. That is not ignoring the red flag. I think that's like sitting next to the red flag, ordering an appetizer with it, and then and then maybe staying even for a little bit of a flourless chocolate cake after. But also, and I and I mean this, and uh, you ended up rooting for her and they got back together and you kind of feel good about it, which means you actually processed, I think this one pretty well. Sounds like you processed it pretty healthy. And, you know, some part of me wants to say, is there any part of you that maybe just did it for the story? You know, you did it for like the you did it for, I mean, look, this is a great, this is a great email.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

So it wasn't all bad.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

It's nice because you know, even though you sat down to dine with the red flag, uh, it kind of like it resolved itself, and and I think you walked away with good character. I mean, I'm not even mad at it. I'm actually I'm kind of if I'm being really rude, I'm actually more impressed. So, in some ways, I want to be like, welcome to the support group, babe. But uh, you didn't even need it, you're already fine. The uh this next one says hi Dino. We'll get right into it. This one. He was rude to the waiter on our second date. No. Uh-uh. I can't do that kind of stuff. I mean, I was a waiter for 17 years of my life because my mom owns a restaurant. So I started when I was like 14, and then I waited on tables all the way up till I was 31. I took like a little bit of time off because I think there was one year I went and I worked at a Barnes and Noble's instead. Yeah, dumb. But other than that, I was a waiter for the entire time I was in undergrad, the whole time I was in my master's program. So you can't be mean to the wait stuff. Because you know what goes on in the kitchen behind your back. Okay. It could never be me. So, not okay, so she rude of the waiter, second date, not horrible, not screaming, just that particular kind of rude that people think is invisible. It means he thinks he's better then. The slight, the slightly impatient tone, the not saying thank you, the looking at his phone while the waiter was mid-sentence and the yeah, yeah, dismissal when they explained the specials. Hate to see it. I saw it, I clocked it immediately. Every person I had ever known told me the stories about bad partners started somewhere with, but he was kind of rude to service stuff. I knew this, she said all capital letters. I have said this rule out loud to other people. I've even given this advice to others. And then I dated him first eight months. By month three, he was dismissive to me the same way he was dismissive to that later. The patterns emerging.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Also, dude, why?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I I feel like his listen, I'm not don't not not me trying to say he was probably mommied, or like, you know, he watched the way that his dad treated his mom and just mimicked that too. By month three, he was yeah, yeah, this. I don't know why I thought I was going to be exempt from the pattern. I was not exempt. Nobody is ever exempt. The waiter knew before I did. Oop. The the waiter.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Oh man. So, okay, so you wrote at the end, and I want, you know, I guess I just gonna the waiter knew.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

So that was like day two. He did a full-on, what do they call those? A threat assessment of the man approximately four minutes and into their their whole experience together, and he correctly identified the situation, and you were like you had both fingers in your ears, and you were like la la la la la la la la la la la. The waiter rule is not a rule because wait staff are a protected class of people who deserve special treatment. Okay. The the the rule exists because how someone treats a person they they have power over like a stranger who's like working, who can't really push back too much because like obviously they're looking, they have to be professional, so they have to like absorb oh god, I hate it. They like they have to be pleasant regardless of what happens, right? Because like their tip depends on it. So, and if you're the person who does that, who like exerts power over someone like that, who's like has to be pleasant to you, I think that tells you exactly who they are when the performance is off. Because you know, the first couple dates, the dating, it's like it's definitely the first couple dates are like it's a performance, right? But he said date two, no performance required. And I guess that's like who he was, you know, and and then by month three, you were the waiter. And you know, you said you like you said you gave the guy this advice to other people before, so like you knew the rule, you'd said it out loud, right? And you were and you still spent eight months being the waiter. It's not stupidity. That's I think that's hope, if I'm being real with you. You hoped that you were different. But in the end, it's not about you because you weren't different. It's nobody's different. The waiter was actually right.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Let's pour one out for the waiter.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

This next one says he had no female friends. Zero. And when I asked about it, because I noticed, because of course I noticed, he had an explanation ready. He said, I just find it easier to be friends with guys. Women are too dramatic.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Okay. So I want you to know that I heard those words.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

I processed them in real time. I thought this is a red flag. I thought this man has just told me, a woman, that women are too dramatic, which means he thinks maybe I'm too dramatic. Which means this relationship will eventually involve him telling me that I'm too dramatic. And I had this entire thought clearly and consciously while he was still talking to me. And then I thought, but maybe he means other women. Maybe I'm different. Are we seeing a thread? Because I'm seeing a thread. Everyone is ever so far, every email, this is the third email, everybody said maybe I was different. Maybe I'm the one woman he met who isn't too dramatic. And maybe I am the exception. Turns out I'm not the exception. Within six months, he had called me dramatic for crying at a movie, being upset that he forgot my birthday, expressing that I wanted to spend more time together, and asking if we could talk about something that was bothering me. And all these things were apparently too dramatic. It sounds like what he does, what he what he's reluctant to do is actually spend some time on meaningful dialogue. He can sense that there's something up or something, but like he's not willing to put some work into it. So his just the way that he gets out of it is just by saying, You're being dramatic. And so, and then she says, but here's the part that's really embarrassing. When my friends, I mean my female friends, you know, the dramatic ones, started expressing concern about the relationship. I initially defended him. To them, I said things like, You don't know him like I do, and he's not actually like that. And he just had a bad experience with a girl in the past. I alienated the very people whose judgment I should have trusted because I had decided I was the exception. I was not the exception. I was never gonna be the exception. There is no exception. The man who tells you women are too dramatic has decided that feelings, your feelings, all feelings, are the problem. And the only solution is to either not have them or hide them. And I tried to do both for almost a year, and I was so exhausted by the end that I couldn't remember what it felt like to just be a person in a room. It says, I'm out now. My female friends forgave me. Bless them. They were not too dramatic, they were exactly right. You know, the fact that he said women are too dramatic, like on a on an early date, and she and you heard it and thought maybe he means other women. Cause like you thought you were the exception. Again, I need to support group here to hear this one because the exception trap is, I think, the sneakiest move in the in the red flag playbook. Because it's not even something they do to you. It's like something that you I think it's something that you do to yourself. Like he didn't tell you that you were different. You decided that you were different. You took his like women are too dramatic statement, and and and I think you like exempted yourself from it. You know, he's like, well, present company excluded. And then spent a year trying to prove that you were the exception by like you know, trying not to be you're aggressively non-dramatic. But then, oops, you cried at a movie. Drama. You want to talk about something? Drama. Oh, you had a birthday that I forgot? Drama. And then after all that, because he hadn't done enough yet, he started to work on your friends. Except he didn't have to, you did it for him. Because like you defended him to the people who actually were like, girl, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

And I think that's the part of the red flag when it's been there like it's been there long enough.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

It doesn't just like affect the relationship itself, it starts affecting the people around you too. I guess it goes from I see the red flag to what flag? There's no flag, you just don't get it. He's different with me. I mean, and you know, I guess the fact that your friends forgave you, I mean that that's really the most important part, right? Like your female friends, though they were they were right. And they were right from the beginning, but they didn't hold it over your head and they just waited for you to figure your shit out, and then they were and then they forgave you. I think that's the most important thing to hold on to in this story, not him, but them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Okay. This next one says sorry, I need to sit in my coffee.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Dear Dino, this one isn't about a guy, it's about a best friend. Okay. She canceled plans, not occasionally, but like consistently. Every third or fourth plan, something would come up, be a work or a headache, she was tired, something with her family. And each individual reason was completely valid. And each individual cancellation, I would say, oh, totally, no worries. We'll reschedule. And we would reschedule and then it would happen again. The red flag was this. She never once canceled on other people in her life the same way she canceled on me. Okay. Girl, we okay. We don't need all that. We really don't. She said, I watched it, I paid attention. She showed up for her work friends, she showed up for her family stuff, she showed up for the guy she was dating. The cancellations were just specific to me. And I kept making excuses for why that was fine. She's just more comfortable with me. She knows I'll understand. It's actually a compliment that she doesn't feel pressure around me. I had a whole internal document of reasons why being the person she canceled on was actually a good thing. We're you cannot trust your own mind sometimes, you guys. We're not really friends anymore. Okay. It ended quietly the way some friendships do, not with a fight, but just with enough canceled plans that there was like really nothing left to cancel anymore. I still miss her, and that's the part that doesn't make sense. I miss a person who kept choosing not to show up.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

This lot this line about it actually being a compliment that she doesn't feel pressure around me. You created a compliment out of being canceled on all the time. And like you took the pattern, you know, because like that consistent behavior over and over again. That's not random cancellations, like you know, but you made a way, you figured out a way to make it mean something good about the friendship instead of something honest. Because that's not a compliment, that's a red flag with a bow tied on it. You know, being the person someone doesn't feel pressure around is nice. I think that's what makes close friends close. Being the person someone specifically cancels on while showing up for everybody else, I mean, that's just different. She's got like a priority list, and and and you're seeing the list, and you're not you notice that you're like not on that list anymore, you know? And you made it mean the opposite thing because the real meaning is like maybe just too painful to have to hold on to, you know? And you know, and then the quiet ending with no fight, it's just like there's less and less to give because there's like fewer and fewer opportunities to cancel on now. And that kind of friendship loss is hard to agree because it's there's no like big moment that explodes. You know, like it's not like a before and after that big fight or whatever. It's just a slow fade. And then in the distance, you can kind of point it back to it. Cause then it was on that day that you realize, like, maybe we're not actually friends anymore, you know. But and of course you still miss her, or you're not missing who she was at the end, you're missing the person who she was whenever she used to show up. I think you're allowed to, you're allowed to miss that's real. I do, I think that that's real. This next email says, Hi, Dino. This isn't about a relationship, it's about a job. Okay, we love these. You guys are so smart. I was interviewing for a position I really wanted. Dream Company, great title, significant salary bump. And during the interview, the like the actual interview, the hiring manager interrupted me three times, not gently, not accidentally, just talked over me mid-sentence twice, and the third time redirected the conversation before I'd finished answering her question. I thought this is a red flag. And then I took the job. She was my direct manager. She interrupted me every single meeting for 11 months. She talked over me. Oh, God. Redirected me mid-sentence, and once, once, I presented an idea I had emailed to her the day before, and she presented it in a meeting as if it were hers. And I was sitting there. I watched her do it. She made eye contact with me while she did it. I left after 11 months. The salary was great. Title was great. I was miserable in a very specific grinding, being slowly erased kind of way. She says the interview was the audition. I just didn't realize that she was also auditioning the job for me. You know, the idea of somebody presenting your own idea in a meeting while you're sitting there and then making eye contact with you with doing it, that's not like a that's not being, that's not disorganization. It's not even an accident. That's a message. That's a person looking you in the eye and going, and what are you gonna do about it? So here's the thing about the job interview red flag, because I think you spent you spend so much of the interview performing, like being the best version of yourself like you would on a first date or something, you know, making them want you. You're answering everything right. And but then you forget that you're supposed to be watching them too. Like, is there reciprocity? Do we are am I what am I getting myself into? You know, like the interview is information about the job and the manager and the and the and the way things work in that office, because you know there's always office dynamics and there's a culture there that you don't know about, but it's real. And she showed you who she was in the first 30 minutes. Like the way when you wrote, she interrupted you three three times, and you noted it correctly as a red flag, and then made 11 months of decisions based on just the title and the salary instead of the information that she was giving you about like what this was gonna be like, you know. So and you know, okay, so this last sentence that you wrote, the interview was the audition, and I didn't realize she was also auditioning the job for me. And and that is the line I think because that that's the thing I think you take away from this, is that you're always auditioning the job at the same time. Do you know what I mean? You you're you're you're we don't get it whenever we're desperate for a job. You know, you like go in there and you you want it so bad that you want to impress them, but also I'm interviewing you too, girl. You know, I want to know how you're gonna treat me based on like what I get from this interview. But listen, I'll tell you what, at the end, if you left and the it the pay was good and the title was good, but you still left anyway. I think you did a great job. I think that took a lot of courage to do that. So, congratulations, girl.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

This one says, Hi Dino. Please give my love to Rocco and Vito.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Uh this says, he told me on our first date that he doesn't believe in therapy because he thinks people should just toughen up. He said this is while he was eating a taco, looking me dead in the eyes. I'm in therapy. I've been in therapy for four years. Therapy is the reason I function. And I said, Oh, interesting. And then I ordered another drink. I dated him for five months. He thought my therapy was a crutch. Okay. He used the word crutch about therapy to my face. Listen, let's get him, let's get him into therapy right now. One time he asked why I needed to pay someone to listen to me when I could just talk to him. I did not point out that talking to him was, in fact, one of the main things I was talking about in therapy. I know that's right. Red flag waving, me, ordering another drink and saying, Oh, interesting. Oh boy. I just love the fact that you were in therapy for him and he was like, No, you can just talk to me instead. I was like, No, no.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

He said therapy is a crutch.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

I think you should have told him that he was the reason why you needed that crutch. Because you sat with that information privately for a couple months while this dude continued to provide content for her sessions. I don't know. I guess it's either like really remarkable restraint or like or it's just comedy. But I can't honestly decide which it's both a little bit. I don't know. And the oh interesting part, girl, that's not a response, that's survival. I think that's a woman who clocked a red flag so big that this thing had its own area code. It's like this when you're driving through Pennsylvania, when you're by my mom's place, there's this. It used to be an ice cream place, but they tore it down, and now you can buy mobile homes there. And smack dab in the middle of this big parking lot with all these things is legitimately the largest flag, American flag I've ever seen in my entire life. It's gotta be as big as a house. That's the size of the red flag that this guy was giving you. Good news, right? You're in therapy, you're processing, babe. And toughening up would not have gotten you there. I don't, I don't know. I don't I don't know where or who how he learned that, but your crutch is working, so let's keep going. Let's keep going. You know, better health. Support me. Okay, got one more.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

This last one says okay, Dino.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

I didn't just ignore the red flag, I decorated it. Oh, can't wait to hear. You know, listen, I love arts and crafts, okay? So, and then it says, I want to explain what I mean by that. The red flags were there from the beginning. I saw them, and instead of addressing them or leaving, I did this third thing. I made them into stories. Okay. Oh, charming stories. Stories I told at dinner parties, stories that made him sound complicated and interesting instead of what he actually was, which was someone who was just not good for me. The way he would, he could go completely silent for days and then reappear like nothing happened. I called it mysterious. Nope. The way he kept me slightly off balance, never quite sure where I stood, I called it exciting. The way his life was always in some kind of low-grade chaos, and I inevitably got pulled into managing. I called it depth. Oh boy. I had a whole romantic narrative around every single thing that was actually a problem. And I told those stories so many times and so convincingly that I started to believe them myself. The mysterious silences came, became part of who he was in my version of him. The exciting uncertainty became evidence of passion. And I had taken a collection of red flags and turned them into a character study, and I was so proud of the character I'd built that I couldn't see the flags underneath anymore. We were together for three years. Three years of charismatic chaos that I had reframed into something that felt like a great love story. And when it ended, and it ended badly, in the specific way that things end when you've spent years ignoring what they actually are. I lost the version of it that I'd built the mysterious man, the exciting tension, the complicated love. Those weren't real. They were mine. I made them. And when the relationship ended, I had to sit with the fact that I had spent three years writing a story about someone who was not the person I wrote about. And that grief, the grief of losing the story told yourself in a very specific and it was a very specific and lonely grief. Oh gosh. I'm two years out now. I'm okay. I'm better than okay most days, but I still sometimes catch myself romanticizing something that doesn't deserve it. And I have to stop and ask, am I seeing this clearly or am I decorating again? That question, the am I decorating is the most useful thing I took from that relationship. I wanted to share it in case it's useful for someone else. Well, thank you so much. And she ends with saying, Thank you for the space. My babe, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for writing. I mean, you know, the whole thing about decorating the red flag is the kind is very, is very honest. I think it's you know, the most honest thing anyone's written to me about a red flag. And I've gotten a lot of red flags emails this week, you know. It's the decorating. And I want to stay with that because ignoring a red flag is one specific thing. Decorating it is very active. It's like you took the red flag and you were like working on it. She said, I took my knitting needles out and I added, you put some time and creativity into, you know, transforming this thing that was telling you the truth into something that told you what you wanted to hear. And then like you start to believe your own version because, you know, we can't, again, we can't always trust our own thoughts. And then, you know, you defend that version to other people. And that takes effort. It's not denial. It's like you authored a story and like you were like, listen, I'm gonna sell it. And the grief of losing that story, I think that's how I think about how honestly, like rarely we name that kind of sadness. I think you you said it was grief. When we talk about missing somebody, or you know, we talk about feeling lonely whenever that person's around, because obviously it's the person that you can you communicate with most often, is you know, immediately just gone. And but the loss of that version you told yourself, like the one that you built, you know, the one that had like your messy, like painty fingerprints off front. Because remember, we're doing arts and crafts. That's that's its own thing. It's like hard because you can't fully mourn it without also like thinking to yourself, shit, I made all that up. It's a strange thing to grieve. It's like your own story about someone who didn't actually really exist, and that's hard. It can be heartbreaking. But I guess all right, so what I I mean, uh what I want to say to end on is the question. Am I am I decorating? Is that not a small thing? I think that's the whole that's the whole thing. That's the what two years of sitting with it gave you. A question that cuts through the story to like the real shit underneath, like right below the surface, you know? And that's not nothing. That's actually everything. Cause, you know, and then beyond all that, the fact that you sat down to write this email because you wanted to share it, I think that's actually incredibly generous. That's like you represent somebody who went through something difficult and real and came out on the other side wanting to like hand that lesson off to somebody else, which is very kind of you. The support, the red flag support group, thanks you. So I appreciate it. Okay, I think that's it for the red flag support group. We are officially adjourned. Where's my gavel? Again, thank you for everybody writing in. Without your stories, this podcast doesn't exist. So thank you for being honest about the red flags that you saw and that you waved proudly. This is a judgment-free zone, as you all know. And we have all honestly at some point looked at a red flag and then been like, nah, that's pink. That's not stupid. That's like I that's hope. And hope is worth something, even when it leads us down the wrong path, you know? Okay, so for any future episodes, please send your emails to IhearYouBabepod at gmail.com. They're always anonymous. They're always, I don't care. Make them make them messy. I don't, it can be one sentence, it could be a whole book. I don't care. I'll read everything. And I'll be posting the prompt for the upcoming episode in the next day or two. So keep your eyes on our Instagram page at IHear You Babe. And keep those emails coming. Also, if it means something to you, the show, please rate and review wherever you're listening. Tell a friend. That's all. Make just one friend, because that helps more than I think you know. And if you're ever in New York City, please come and visit me at the salt drop and die. Yeah, that's it. My name is Dino Malvone. This was I Hear You Babe. And girls, stop decorating those flags, okay? All right, I'll talk to you guys next week. Bye.