44. Situationship Court Is Now in Session (Welcome to the Docket)

all rise. situationship court is officially in session. dino is the judge, the jury, and occasionally the defense attorney depending on the case.

this week's prompt: bring me your most confusing almost-relationship. define the charges. who's on trial — them or you?

the inbox showed up. a man with a toothbrush at her apartment who "wasn't sure where they were on the meeting friends thing." a two-year secret long-distance situationship with a best friend's brother. the relapse situationship four cycles deep. and a guy who canceled their Portugal trip and then took his ex on the same trip three weeks later (court was NOT prepared).

also: government UFO files just dropped, but is this disclosure or Doty? a deep dive into the Aviary, the Red Book, the Yellow Book, and why Tartaria is probably russian propaganda. the Should I Marry a Murderer Netflix doc that should have been forty minutes. and three of dino's own exhibits — the Real World guy, the SoulCycle guy, and the friend who was never officially anything.

next week's prompt: WHY do men do the things they do? get your theories in by sunday.

ihearyoubabepod@gmail.com ⚖️🍋

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to I Hear You Babe. My name is Dino Malvone, and I'm your host. It's your full-time healer and part-time hater. See how I brought that back? And I am, well, for the first time, I feel like I have like basically 95% of my nose capacity back. And we got a great show for you today. It's a bunch of emails that you all sent into I HearYu Babe Pod at gmail.com. And a bunch of the dumb shit that's going on in my life to make the dumb shit going on in your life feel a little less dumb. How about that? We thank you to everybody who stuck with me while we were a little bit off of our regularly scheduled Monday show. But I feel like we're back. Monday, I think, is our day. Rocco and Vito co-signed it this morning. Whenever I left this morning, they said, Yeah, absolutely, Dad. That was, I don't know where you went left, but I think the flu the flu took me off, and I took I went to Pennsylvania. Anyway, excuses aside, I appreciate everybody's concern. And hello and welcome. What do we got? Okay, wait. So today you're gonna get this on you're gonna get this on Monday. It's gonna be May 11th. And listen, just the other day the government released some UFO files on con. If you okay, so just saying this out loud means that my whatever it is, the algorithm in every social media platform that I utilize is gonna have something to do with UFOs. But like what I'm trying to say is the government tried to declassify these videos, right? And there's like 60-something videos that they declassified, and there's like a bunch of photos of them that were going around, whatever. And they were all about like unidentified like objects that the government said that they could not identify what they're where they were, where they had originated from. Okay. So okay. The the okay, it's the Pentagon that was the that they declassified all this stuff. So it's okay. Then they they they uh published this whole new br website. By the way, today's episode is about situationships, and I'm gonna get there. I swear, but I swear I feel like it doesn't, you don't want me to like wait 20 minutes to get to that place. So I just want to let you know that I know that today's episode is about uh oh, it's situationships. I I hit the chord, but but let me hit let me talk about these UFOs really quick and then and I swear I'm gonna get to your emails so fast. So anyway, they they create this website called Pursue. Wait, it's called Pursue because it's the presidential unsealing and reporting system for a UAP encounters, and and they're calling it a transparency initiative, and they're saying like more is gonna be released on a rolling basis. Lucky us, right? And listen, I'm like so I am like an alien Anista. I was obsessed with Drew Berry more from the moment I watched ET back in 1984, or whatever it was. So, and I I've always wanted them to be real, like ET Phone Home. And I I and if you know me, I think I've a lot, you know, I think you would know that I have a long-standing policy that if like they're out there and they want to take me, the answer is yes, please. I'll go and I'll go first, and I trust you, I can I've learned over the course of the past 46 years, I've learned how to pack lightly. And it hasn't been easy. Yo, I swear to God, this place sometimes, whenever I'm recording, I'm like, nope, it's definitely it's definitely seriously though? It's definitely haunted because I swear to god I just heard a woman's voice. Is somebody here? Listen. Whatever it is. Let me talk about UFOs, and all of a sudden there's crazy shit going on. So hold on. I I've already said this. Like it take me first, you know what I mean? And but no, this is like a big, it's a big butt. But the like the timing of all this feels kind of weird, right? Doesn't like seriously, is somebody here? No, the door behind me is closed. So I'm I'm not saying the files are fake, although there are already videos out there being like, yo, that video is fake, that video is fake, and that video is fake, but I'm not saying they're real either. I'm saying, like, why right now, why all at once, like, why a whole new like acronym for a brand new website with Apollo photos and Cold War saucer reports? Like, and there's like astronaut audio of like flashes of light sailing into space. I'm having some sparkling water today, in case you were wondering what the drink of the day was. But I I I love blue glass and the Saratoga water is I got the carbonated one, but it's it's pretty. But my question is why are they just gonna hand you a big bunch of like breadcrumbs and be like, I don't know, figure it out. I mean, so that's how I feel like that it's out I from what I understand, that's usually how the government kind of handles this kind of like the information about anything they want us, like know nothing about. So, you know, then all of a sudden they're gonna be like, Well, it's gonna volunteer this information out of nowhere, all the stuff we kept away from you for like the last like 100 years, but don't worry about it. It's like we're just gonna be like, we're so transparent, you guys. And listen, that kind of new behavior deserves a beat of suspicion if you're gonna ask me. But anyway, let's pivot. So, wait, also, I went down this like rabbit hole before we pivot, 100%. This is like here's what this dude's been on my mind. This guy, his name is Richard Dotti or whatever. Have you heard of him? I think I need to know if you're listening to this on Spotify. There are Spotify comments. We'd love to hear get those Spotify comments going because that would be fun. But if you've not heard from him, like just buckle in for one second, okay? Because Richard Dotti is this retired special agent who worked for this. Okay, I I wrote this down, AFOSI, which was the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Okay. This podcast is gonna get like taken down or some shit. Anyway, in the late 70s and early 80s, he was at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico and his job, and like he has been interviewed so many times, admitting to having this job, was to like fake UFO information to like UFO researchers and like to create disinformation to like keep them distracted. So he would like plant fake documents, he would like recute uh recruit UFO researchers as informants, like to kind of muddy the water about what was real and what was not, and on purpose as like a government employee. Okay. And then his most famous victim was a name, name a guy named Paul Benowitz, who was like a defense contractor at Albuquerque. And he started noticing strange things in the sky around Kirkland and reported them, and then this dude, Dottie, and his team spent years feeding this man fake stories about alien like creatures that were like gray in color and underground bases and government cover-ups until the man had like a total fucking breakdown. And like, and I'm not like this the the the it drove him to a psychiatric hospital. Can you even imagine? And like, I'm so whatever they were doing, it fucking worked. Because by the time this dude was telling people the real things he had seen, everyone was like, dude, you're crazy. You can't even, you don't even know what the real stuff is from the fake stuff. So anyway, so here's how where it gets weird, right? Dottie, who was this like the guy who worked for that like weird, that retired agent who worked for AFOSI, okay? He was part of a group of intelligence sources nicknamed the Avery. You guys have to do a YouTube search for this shit. I swear, because of course he was in the Avery, and I swear that's the real name. Each member of the team there had like a different code name that was a bird. Dottie was sparrow. Then there was like a falcon. You know, I don't even know. Anyway, so so there was like Chickadee. I'm not kidding, you guys, and then then and and then you know, there was also somebody named Partridge, Hawk, Blue Jay, Haron. I don't know. Listen, so I guess there was like 12 people and 10 of them named after birds, and they were all in the intelligence agency, and they allegedly leaked and like whatever information about UFOs. I'm not kidding. This is a real fucking thing. It's not me being, I'm not even telling you about a movie that I watched. Like, I you can go and do do it. This is like US government actual approach to UFO information. And I don't know. Listen, I just I just was doing like a little bit of a I I got into like a little bit of a deep dive this morning because I was like, I don't know. And then all of a sudden I'm like, man, it's been three hours, and I'm like, what the hell did I even do today? But but the whole point of that whole operation was to make sure we would never get any information, you know. They it's like, you know, they are never to know. So so they so they mix a bunch of real stuff in with the fake stuff, so that like no version of the story could ever be you know believed. And that's what this dude Dottie was talking about. He was like, so anyway, he's been uh he'd been doing like all these podcast interviews. There's a red book and a yellow book, and like I don't know. We're supposed to look at the that that Pentagon website to look at all the UFO photos and whatever. So anyway, wait, last thing, you guys ever heard of Tartaria? Have you guys been down that rabbit hole? Oh lord. Today was a weird day because if you have a don't go down it on a Sunday with no plans because it'll take your entire day. Listen to me. For everyone who doesn't even know Tartaria is a conspiracy theory that says that there used to be a globe-spanning civil and advanced civilization called the Tartarian Empire, and they had like free energy and like a gorgeous architecture, and like they were huge, they were giants. Then it was wiped out by a worldwide flood. Anyway, you know, the thing is when the government tells you on a Friday that like that they're just gonna be like, oh well, there's aliens, we know. I don't know. What else are you gonna do but go down these like weird rabbit holes? You know what I mean? But like, and I say that with love because like I I don't know. I if anybody else did, great. And if you didn't, please don't judge me. There is there is a lot to talk about today because we we're also revisiting one of our like I don't know, these these episodes always end up being like the most the most listened to, which means you guys are and the most responded to, and like you got I get the emails from these on anyway. So we're to today we're also talking about situationships again, and so I don't know. Let me the you know this we're okay. So we're I'm like the funny thing is because I was listening to we're getting ready to do this episode again, and again, like not not like a mild pivot, maybe it's like a violent pivot, but like I watched Should I Marry a Murderer on Netflix this week and I and I like so anyway, and if you haven't seen it, it's a three-part documentary that could have taken like 30 minutes to get through entire the entire of all of it. And basically, this woman meets this guy on Tinder in 2020 and like got engaged to him within like a couple months, and then within a few, you know, that right after they got engaged, he like admitted that he had that he was a murderer, and the whole thing was like it seriously, it even if it were like a movie, right? Like, say it was like 90-minute documentary, fine, it was like a three-part documentary that was 45 minutes long, and my bestie actually said the it best when she said it felt like a puff piece for the woman. I guess they were trying to highlight that the police didn't do anything for her, but by episode two, I was like, is this it? Like episode one ended, and I was like, I think I got it. Like, so anyway, the whole thing, if you guys are watching anything on Netflix, I would say skip to the final episode of that one, and you I think you'll get it. But wait, oh god, this is a really good segue. Speaking of things that should have been shorter, let's talk about situationships because today is our inaugural episode of a brand new reoccurring segment on I Hear You Babe, and it's called Situation Court, and I am judge, jury, and executioner. No, just kidding. But sometimes I'll be the defense attorney. It depends on the case. But I am the presiding judge and court is now open. I just thought it'd be really cute. So listen, I'm gonna read these situationship emails and listen. Court is now in session, but I think it's only fair if I'm gonna get like into some of the stuff that you guys share. You know, I'm gonna give you a real quick snippet, okay? Just a snippet, of some of my own situationships briefly, because it's only fair. And if I'm gonna, you know, if I'm gonna read your business in front of everybody, I should also like share some of mine. Court is now in session. So all right, so wait, exhibit A. Back in the day, I had this crush on someone that was on reality TV. And yeah, I I like briefly dated somebody that was on reality TV, and I'm not gonna say what show it was or what season it was, but and I'm just gonna say that this person is and my goodness, and was deeply famous in their own head, and and famous in a very specific reality TV way that doesn't actually exist in the world anymore. So I get kind of why, but like, so they wanted me to be very impressed with like all of it, and was you know, whatever. And they and they and they weren't entirely wrong to be kind of impressed with themselves for to some degree, but the way they wanted to do it was like you know, a daily quiz on whether or not I was like still impressed, and then just hanging out kind of felt like a job after a while. And the anyway, I was never hired for that job because that was a long that was one long test drive. Then there was this dude that I dated that was at a boutique fitness studio, and uh, you know, but by all external measures, this person was you know into me and told you know, told everyone that we were like hanging out, we were together, we were like, you know, meeting friends together, you know. But you know, in the end, that was another situation where after eight months someone said, I think you like me more than I like you. And I was like, Okay, cool. That's great information. And then, you know, there was this other situation if you've listened to the podcast for a while, it was like an old friend that we sort sort of started dating, and never was claimed in that situation either. But and you know, we were in each other's lives for years and years and years and years, and then this situation ship began, and then like you know, five or six months into that, it that ended too. The I call situationships like for me, they feel like long test drives. Like, I have been the test drive many times, and never the salesperson. I've not been the credit check, I have been on the receiving end of, I don't know. I have but not to bring this up like to make the episode about me, but I just say like I am qualified to be talking to you all about a situation because I feel like that is exactly how a lot of us experience dating maybe later on in life, or maybe at all points in life, but I'm not really sure. You know, I'm you know, I'm in my 40s, so I I know and have been in a relationship for a while, but I but I but to get to that point, man, am I qualified. So anyway, this judge for sure has some personal experience, and the judge is is biased toward the girly pops. He's so way anyway. Let's get to these emails. The week was about you know, bring me most confusing situationship stories. And and let's start with all right, let me pull this up. Beep boop pop. Hi, Dino. Hi, Rocco, hi Vito, hi Darius, hi to the lemons and the pizza and the espresso. I mean, is there any there's no better, I don't even think anybody's ever described me better. It says, I started listening to you because someone in my salt drop class was talking about your podcast in the lobby, and I went home and downloaded the show, and I haven't stopped. Hi. Well, hello, Barry. Back to you. I want to enter the into evidence the following situation. It says, I've been just hanging out with somebody since February. He's met my dog, he's met my roommate. He has been to my work happy hour. We have a recurring Sunday morning where he comes over and we walk to the same bagel place and order the same thing, and he has a toothbrush at my apartment. No. Last week I asked casually if he wanted to come to my friend's birthday, and he said, and I quote, Oh, I wasn't sure where we were on the meeting friends saying didn't want to assume. Sir, the toothbrush, the bagel, and the dog question mark. And that was a C M. Okay, so anyway, I first of all, thank you for so so much. Well, for the shout out, and thank you for coming and taking class. And whoever was talking about me, you know, in the lobby. She is the real real. And I appreciate that. And my and the boys at home all say hello and I love you. The toothbrush at your apartment, though. That's not casual. I'm just gonna say, like, I have a toothbrush at my bestie's house just above the medicine cabinet at Ashley's house, and then I have one at my house. That's it. So I think a toothbrush is an indication that he plans to like wake up at your apartment sometime, or be there enough times that he's gonna be like, I feel like I should brush my teeth after this meal. You know what I mean? It's not like it's a small thing, but I think it's like a commitment device. You know what I'm saying? It's it's a real signal. It's gotta be the it's gotta be the lightest weighing signal. But you know what I mean? It's really just, and I hide mine above her medicine cabinet just because it doesn't need to be like, you know, some boy doesn't need to see it and be like, who the hell's brush is this? But and you know, and also the dog, you know, if he's met your dog and the dog likes him, you know, the dog's got good, they've got a good barometer for who is a good person or not. You know, I think it's like a milestone whenever like the pet acknowledges or accepts, you know, then he's being like cleared. So, and at that point, if he's not sure where you are on meeting friends, then you know, as my as the judge, jury, and executioner here, I just think after like careful review of the toothbrush and the bagel and the dog and the roommate and the happy hour and the Sunday morning recurring sleepover, whatever, that's what a relationship looks like. And in a relationship that's been happening for whatever, however long, and he's been like doing all the things. Let's say, okay, doing all the things sounds so basic, right? Let's say like performing the fucking duties of a boyfriend, while like also on the other hand, reserving the right, maybe only in his head, who knows, to call it like hanging out so that he doesn't have to like have the fucking label. It doesn't make any sense to me. Because everybody else is reading it the way you and I are reading it right now, you know, and when we're reading it the way that he's suggesting other people are seeing it, that's full denial. And the reason he said he didn't want to assume is because it like if he assumed, then that would mean he was your fucking boyfriend. And that would be like he's acknowledging that he's been a participant in a fucking relationship. Well, it's like what do they call that? Wait, let me pull up a thing from uh all of my plausible di wait plausible deniability. See, and he's that's what he's suggesting. He's like, he's like not a part of it, but girl, that is situationship 101, I think. If we pull it back, we're gonna pull the curtains back and I was gonna say, like, you I get it. Everybody's got the uh you know the the the desire to want to claim their identity. It's like, but if you're performing all those pieces, we don't need you to assign like a relationship form. Like that's what it that's what that okay. So I think you were with it fully within your rights to ask it, like, are we together? You know, otherwise we're not sharing a bagel anymore. No, you can't hang out with my dog anymore, and like I don't know. But I think we start with questions. So hey babe, are we together? Or like what is this?

SPEAKER_02 26:00

You know, and I think it's completely fair.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

So anyway, the other email beep be okay. Sorry. I have to I'm I wasn't as organized as I should have been. Okay, this one's a hi Dino. I am a longtime bar three girly here, and I did your online classes a long time ago in my tiny apartment in Denver during the right before the pandemic happened. Well, I had some really fun classes on that on that platform. And yeah, come check us out on the salt drop now. Anyway, she said your voice carried me through a really long stretch, and I oh, and I haven't started I have not stopped showing up for salt drop since. She says, I'm now in a slightly bigger apartment in Denver, and salt drop is in my ears three times a week, minimum. Hi to Rocco and Vito and Darius.

unknown 27:08

Ah!

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Not saying hello to the entire family. They are all pretty perfect. So, anyway, so let's say, okay, so it says I was in a situation ship with my best friend's brother for two years. Best friend's brother. Okay. Oh, no. Stupid button and it disappeared. Hold on.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

What the heck?

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Hold on. Hold on.

unknown 27:39

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

So, okay, two years, she says. I met we met at her wedding in 2022. We exchanged numbers, we started texting. The texting became flirting, the flirting became, and I want to be specific, flying to each other once a month. Oh. Sleeping together, having real conversations about our lives. He lives in San Diego, I live in Denver. The distance gave us cover.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Okay. Okay, I'm I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Let's go. I need to know more. My best friend did not know. Nobody knew. Okay, so you were going behind your best friend's back. I don't know. Nobody knew. He told me that his sister would freak out if she found out that he and I wanted to wait until we knew it was real. So I went along with this for two years, and then it was like basically two years of lying to my best friend by omission. Yeah, that's tough. You're fucking her brother, you know? Two years of inventing reasons why I was in San Diego that weekend, two years of him visiting Denver and not seeing his sister because he was, in fact, at my place. Lord almighty. In late 2023, oh my goodness, this sounds like a lot of work, you guys.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Less work. More fun. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 29:12

So in late 2023, I asked him where things were going, and he said he wasn't ready to tell his family yet. And we had been doing this for over a year by that point. And I waited three more months. I asked again, and he said the same exact thing. She said I broke it off in February of this year. I told my best friend the next week. Boy, ble, she was hurt, not because of him, because of the lying. Well, that's the shit you gotta weigh out whenever you start a lie. It's like, what would be better? Probably if you're gonna mess around with your best friend's brother, you might as well probably just tell her. You know, because it's just she forgave me, she's a saint. She he has not met anybody met anybody else as far as I know, but and he texted me on the holidays. So, all right. Well, I love that you have been like hanging out with me since I was on the bar three screen back in the day. I keep getting emails about that later. Maybe that means that the the audience is growing here, which is great. But so I'm glad that you're still around, and I'm glad that you're in a bigger apartment because I'm not I've been in the same one for 15 years. So, all right, the texting on the holidays. Like, if you're from a small town, I feel like there are times when that happens. And I honestly feel like most of us should see that on a billboard on our way home to our small towns, like on the holidays, you know? Sorry, sparkling water, because that's the perfect end to I think the understanding that it's like a situation ship, right? Because he's like he's sexing you on a holiday, which is the exact amount of effort required to keep you nearby without giving you literally anything.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

What do they call that?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Maintenance. And I'm not good at math, but here's what I will tell you about the math about this one.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

You knew like month six, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

And then two years into it, or whatever, you say it 18 more months or whatever, and that's like I don't know, 12 months of your life that you spent in a story that was actively asking you to lie to your best friend. So that's a lot of work. And the cost of the situationship is like what you did, like just you know, the I think you're you have to pay like an integrity tax, you know, the dignity and integrity. So you know, and like you didn't owe him, I don't know. It's uh very complicated, and and the part nobody talks about with these like long distance situationships is like the distance is like the cover, you know. The like the distance let him keep this thing totally manageable. Love to see it for him. The distance let him like say we like for example, like we don't even know if it's real yet. For two years. I don't know. And I think that's like the whole point for somebody like that, right? Like the uh uncertainty is like what made it possible for him not to fully commit to you, and then yeah, and then and then your best friend forgave you, which by the way, that means she is a saint. So let's get her some flowers and send her a dinner, a group on or something. But and tell her Dino says hi and send her, my love. But anyone who can hear, like, I lied to you for two years about your brother and then respond with grace, I think deserves to be like placed on I don't know what do they call that when you become a saint, canonized.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

And you know, I don't know if here's what I say.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

If a guy can't claim you to his family or in the family group text or whatever, I mean, I feel like you end the email with like it's your it's you know, it's like I by saying the the the sign-off was I traded a friendship for a man who never put my name in his family's group chat. And and then the name, but I I wanted to keep that up, but okay, so but that was the signature, and it's like, you know, if you know the dude can't put you in his family's group chat, and like you ended the email that way, and I feel like you already know what's up. Girl, you already know. We gotta go. The girly pops, we will ride or die with you. We tend toes down, like we agree, it's time to go. The next one says, hi, Dino. I did your IG pandemic workouts when I was 24, and I lived in my Brooklyn studio with a lot of anxiety. Thank you for the classes, they were a lifeline. I really owe you. Hi.

unknown 34:43

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

So I woke up with my partner in 2022. We had been together for three years. Oh no, sorry. I broke up with my partner in 2022. We had been together for three years. The breakup was the right call, and I knew it. They knew it. Six months later, they texted me. We met up for coffee. The coffee turned into dinner, the dinner turned into them sleeping over. We did not call it dating, we did not call it anything. We just we fell back into things casually with no plan. Well, that happens sometimes. We and I think that's like universe. I think a lot of people have done that, right? We did this for about three months. Then they said they weren't ready to be in a relationship again, and I agreed. So we stopped seeing each other, stopped seeing each other for a while. Five months after that, they texted again. We met up, same pattern. This time it lasted four months. Then again, they pulled back. We're smelling a scenario, a pattern. Then again, six months later, then they the text. Then again, the pattern. And this happened four times, Dino. Okay, well, this point we're gonna what did Oprah say one time? If you know better, you do better. Somebody said it before her and like she copied it, but it might have been like my Angelou or something. But it says, sorry, you know, I think that it's the worst, that sniffling sound. But as a day progresses, my my allergies are we've been broken up for three years, and we've spent at least half of those years sliding back into each other, sliding back into each other every six months for a season at a time. That sounded maybe I don't know. And it's the longest situationship of my life, and the person I am in it with is my ex. Okay. So it says I am the friend who got out of the relationship and then accidentally rebuilt it with the title. I am someone who knows what comes next, and I keep going back anyway, because the pattern is comfortable and the loneliness is hard, and they really smell good and familiar. God. Listen, when Darius isn't not in the bed, I sleep on his side. I mean, I get that smell piece. So it's like, okay, the so thank you for first of all for being my pandemic IG homie. I appreciate it, and I remember the energy of those classes was like something else, you know. And so to like be one of those people that were there with me on the screen, that's always very that feeling has stayed with me. And so I feel like, you know, anyway, that means something, so thank you. And the my cat say hi, everybody says hi. But the funny part is like, you know, when you start talking about patterns, is like the pattern is like a thing, you know. And I I feel like, you know, what you said is really specific and like that situation trap that doesn't give you enough airtime. It's like that, it's like you just like you you like go back into it. It's like you just like you bounce, you bounce right back into it. And I'm calling that because like the rhythm of it is exactly like the rhythm, it's almost like a relapse, you know? And it's like you know, you get six months of distance and then like a text message, and it's like familiar comforts back again, then four months of this is different. I'm gonna be fine this time. And then it's like the text happens again, and it's like they pull you back again because there's grief in there, and then the cycle starts again. Yuck. And here's what makes it harder than like a normal situation ship this time is because it's like that with a stranger, you don't know what you're missing, right? Like, you know, but when it's you're at X, you know exactly what you're missing, and you know how they smell, you know, like what they how they want to drink their what what their first drink in the morning is, you know, like how they like to hold hands, you know, you know, you've like a connection, an archive of connection, you know what I mean? That that the and and and but and that the danger in that is like when it's like toxic like that, you know, even though you know because it's not a relationship, it's a situation, you are attracted to the familiarity of the person. That's what makes it possible to continue to do that shit, even whenever they want to claim you. If they would claim you, then it'd be just you know something different. And every six months your nervous system was like, oh fuck no, and then a little bit of time goes by and you're like yeah, but you know what? You gotta continue to remember why you break up in the first place, you know, because you know loneliness afterwards, like when you do it more than one time, like the first breakup is lonely. The second breakup, like the loneliness is like even more because you're losing not just them that time, but it was like the version of yourself that was like convinced that it was gonna work. You know, it's like I don't know, it's like a double and double fucking whammy. So anyway, I think I don't know. Just be patient with yourself. Also, after like three or four times, you gotta be like, you gotta block that number, girl. Block that number, move it to a folder that you can't see, do whatever you have to do. I don't know, change your number. Like the break has to be like the break now, you know. Deal with the loneliness. It's okay. You know what the funny thing about loneliness and like sadness is, they're usually they're usually acute. Not cute, but acute. You know, it's like they finish, they're like finite. So like once you get through that little cycle of like loneliness, it's like, you know, maybe the first time's like six months. I maybe the second time it's like a little bit more intense at first, but like maybe it only lasts three months, you know? And again, always holding your hand when I say this, the girly pops and I and the gays. We're we're standing 10 toes down. The curtain court is adjourned for this specific party. You gotta you gotta be brave though about that one. The next email says, Hi Dino. Well, hello to you too. Hi to Rocco, hi to Vito. You guys, if you saw Vito, he's like 12 pounds now. He's like eight months old. Anyway, she says, I'm 35 in Chicago. And I started listening to you because my friend recommended you when she found that I'd been crying in my car about a man for about over a year, and she said, You need to listen to Dino.

unknown 42:11

Ha!

SPEAKER_00 42:13

I'm UK best friend. I did, so thank you. And I've been listening for two months. Hi. So she said, Oh, gonna talk about this carefully because it's not a fun one. All right. My situationship was a coworker, okay. We have been together working together for six years. Yikes. We became not yikes, but Lem Ryan. We became close in year four, the kind of close where we grab lunch alone, where we text after hours about nothing, where one Friday night we both ended up at the office at 8 p.m. and we just sat in the kitchen and talked for two hours. Nothing happened, and nothing has ever happened because he's married and he's been married the entire time. You know what a good, you know what a good barometer is? Like, would you tell your partner? If you wouldn't tell your partner, that's probably not something you you want to do, right? And she says, I don't want to be clear, there's been no physical anything, there's been no inappropriate texting, there's been no cheating in any pro provable sense. There has been something, which is like a change in attention, like a way of looking at each other, the way we both feel. And I think both of us have never named out loud. And I've been participating in this, not whatever this thing is for two years.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

I think this is maybe one of the worst ones. Oh god, I hate to say it. I hate to see it. Because you know, that's the emotional thing. Sometimes you're like, oh, you went and like you touched somebody, like whatever, fuck it. Like, who were they? You don't know, fine, bye. And even though that would break. Break you. I hate to even think about it. But the the idea of somebody having like an emotional relationship with somebody else, too, like that is yikes. That's hard. So it's the most consuming relationship of my life, and it's technically nothing. There is no way to break up. There's nothing to break up from. I I can't sit down with him and say, where's this going? Because it's not going anywhere. We're like in an office. He's like going home to his wife, and I'm like going home alone. She says, So I basically built an entire emotional life with someone who never said a word out of line, and I'm paying for it with my own real life every day.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

So your friend who sent you to this podcast, you tell her that she's a real one, and give her a high five from Dino. Because that's you know that's the only way. It's so nice to hear that. So I want to start by saying this like you're describing a real this is a situation ship. See where I put the emphasis. And the fact that nothing technically happened does not make it not real, though. You know what I'm saying? Like, because like if the uh what do you call it, like the building blocks and this infrastructure of an emotional relationship in your mind is there, that means you must have made like a little uh investment. And that I feel like is where the loss on the other side comes from. That like that grief would come from. I'm thinking from my own perspective, it'd be like it's like uniquely cruel because nothing happened. It's just like the wit, you're it's like your wishful thinking. So like there's no real like you know, it'd be like breaking up over like what your hopes and dreams over this potential thing that never actually happened. God, that hurts. Eek, babe. I'm trying to be on your side. That's a tough one. I am on your side. Listen, I'm on your side, and I hear you, and I and I we should we're gonna grieve this one quietly. Because you know what you don't really get, I think. I'm sorry, this is just gonna I'm gonna and I'm gonna hold your hand like I did with the last a bunch of times. I the you there's no closure for you because there's nothing to point to that anyone outside of you is gonna even understand because you gotta do this privately, kind of all by yourself. I mean, except for me talking to you right now, but it's like the loss is something that you're not gonna be able to like go and explain to anybody unless you've got their full I don't know, and and I think you already know what I'm gonna say because of the char the charge from situationship court is I think that you've built an emotional life with someone that's like completely unavailable. And I don't know. I'm gonna say this out loud. And if I'm wrong, the Lord can strike the universe can strike me down, and or they can take me right to jail. But I'm pretty sure that he participated. You know, like he sat with you in a kitchen for two hours on a Friday night when you didn't have to be there anymore, and like you're not it's like you're not doing anything that but not doing anything was also a choice that you guys were making too. Like, you know what I mean? You sat there and not doing anything for a couple hours. It's like lunch alone, not lunch alone. If my partner's having lunch alone with somebody else, it better be with well, in my case, it better be somebody of the opposite sex, you know what I mean? So, but you know, texting after hours and that kind of shit's like I don't know, and you know, he has been paying attention to you, like in his way, like the like the way a married man pays attention to a coworker who occupies a real piece of his attention, and then you've been paying him attention with your entire whole life, girl. And your fantasies and your dreams. So I think that's here's the harder part the situationship is not gonna end on its own, like it's gonna continue at this exact temperature until you put the kibosh on it. You gotta say, time out, no more. Because, you know, marriages do not, to my uh to my or my take on it, is they don't generally interrupt themselves. Like, and what you're doing is not building toward anything, you're like building around something that's been there for a while because he was married already. So, anyway, I mean I feel like it's like real life happening over there. But there's a real wife over there, and and there is real life happening over here with you, and you're not in it because you're over there hanging out with this dude in the office at kitchen at 8 p.m. You know what I'm saying? So I don't think you should quit your job, but I do think you need to tell him, or I'm listening I'm not gonna tell you what to do to say to him, but I think you do have to change the the the way you spend your lunches, and I wouldn't I wouldn't text anymore after work. And don't hang out at the office on a Friday night, girl. Get out, go do something else. Because the potential for a Friday night accident at the office, what are you guys doing? You are doing way too much, and he has too much else on the other end. And you know, again, we're here to support you. The next the next email says, Dear Dino, hi from a Saturday saw drop drop-in who has not yet been brave enough to make it to a regular thing. Oh, she said, I came to one of your classes about three months ago, and I have been promising myself I'd come back ever since. The energy was so good, and I was sweaty and crying and laughing at your monologue when he just and I have not stopped thinking about it, but I'll be back, I promise. Listen, come back, girl. What the heck? It's what do you gotta be brave enough for? There's no mirrors here, you know. We we we expose ourselves all the time. So here she says, My here's my situation ship, and I would like to brace you because it has a twist.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Okay, well, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Says I dated a man for seven months. He was a 33-year-old corporate guy, lived in Murray Hill. The whole picture, not Murray Hill, we were exclusive. I don't know. Murray Hill's like I think the 20 somethings. I don't know, east side something. We were exclusive. He was great. By month four, we were planning a vacation together. We picked Portugal. He suggested it. I was thrilled, and I bought a new swimsuit and I was telling everybody about him. This is where we went left. My mom would be like, just keep nobody keep it to yourself. I think it's that whole like you know, uh I think superstitious. Anyway, three weeks before the trip, he called me not texted, he called me, which was already weird, and he said he'd been thinking about uh things, and he didn't think we should make the trip together. Said the trip was a big step, and he wasn't sure we were ready for that yet. And he said he wanted to keep dating, but maybe slow things down a little bit. And I said, Okay. In parentheses, I should have said no, but that's not the twist. Oh, I had to sneeze. Okay, I'm back. So it says we quote unquote slowed things down for the next three months. Slowing down meant we went from seeing each other two, three times a week to seeing each other twice a month. We went from texting around throughout the day, rather, to texting maybe once every other day. Yeah, man. I mean, these are all signals, girl. We went from sleeping over on weekends to no sleepovers, and he was, to be clear, slowly draining the relationship of all relationship-shaped activities while still calling us a couple. Then in month seven, he broke up with me very kindly and said he had realized he had not been over his ex when we started dating. But here's the twist. Oh boy. Not a twist. I think we should do an episode like why do men do this? Why do men do these things? I feel like this would be a good one for that one too. But three weeks after we broke up, I saw on Instagram that he was in Portugal. Uh same destination, same trip we had planned, but he was there with his ex. Okay. He took her on our trip. Yeah. That's what I gathered. That's the trip that you bought your swimsuit for, no? Oh god. So he had not slowed our relationship down because he wasn't ready for big steps. He slowed it down because he was getting back together with his ex and he needed to be clear. He needed to clear the schedule. Ah. Well. I did not ask the obvious questions, and I let him orchestrate the slowest, most politest breakup in modern dating history because I didn't want to be dramatic. Oh god. She says, please tell the girlies that the swimsuit is still in my drawer with the tags on it if anybody wants to buy it. I okay. Girl, first of all, you gotta come back to Salt Drop because I can't believe you came back. Came on a Saturday first and you haven't come back. They're the most fun. I'll save a seat for it. Yeah. There's always an extra. We can always squeeze an extra mat in somehow. Don't worry. So, and also you gotta commit to making it a real thing. Otherwise, like, what the heck? We need, you know, we need a regular practice. So, anyway, come back, let's sweat, we'll cry, we'll laugh. The whole thing, the whole vibe. I think we nailed it your first time around. You just gotta come back again, you know. So, I don't know. I'm reading this email, and I feel like in my mind I made this sound that I haven't made in a long time because it's like the I'm like the idea of like he took her on our trip. And then like I guess to hear that being read back to you on a podcast to me is like a weird experience. I don't know to be the person so like he took her on the trip that he planned with you. And sometimes I wonder where, if I'm being really honest, like where the line lives between like the you know, the worlds of situationship and saga. Cause you know, I feel like this would be a good HBO series. Cause it, you know, what's going on? The planning, like, so he's like disengaging with you like slowly, right? And then like in that execute during that like time where he's like disengaging with you, he's like executing this backup trip with this other girl. Same place. He was like, I'm just we're just gonna book this hotel and like let's just see who ends up coming with me. And that's the part that I like I think I have the hardest time getting past because it's like you pick a different you didn't even pick a different country, bro. You like pick the same, are it's the same hotel, it's just the same trip. He was like, I'm just gonna substitute a woman in here.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

Part of me wants to be like I don't know. I guess that's efficiency.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

So I don't know. So you gotta this is one of those stories that came up earlier today, and just in conversation with Darius, but like about trusting your gut. And I think that's like the thing maybe that you kind of were hinting at in your email a little bit, is like you didn't ask the question because like I think you knew the obvious question the obvious answer is like, or the obvious I think the obvious question would have been like, are you taking someone on the trip, someone else on the same trip? It's like you can't even think about that as a real possibility in your mind at the time. So you can't even like put this question together. So I don't think you're being naive. I think you were being normal. I think he was being like literally insane, and and then so and then like whatever the fucking swimsuit, take it that, take rip those tags off. You take that to the nearest, I don't know, who has a pool. Pool. There's uh gotta be a hotel pool somewhere nearby or a friend who has a pool or whatever. You go, you go to fucking Portugal with yourself or your friend. I don't know. You take that swimsuit and because it it's not the swimsuit's fault. Don't take it on that. That swimsuit was not about him. It was you know, it's like you know, that it had a life to live on your body. So let's get those out and cut that tag off. And we got you to come back and take a class. I'm not playing. I want you to you know make sure that you come back and experience that again with us. All right, this is the last one. I got one more. Okay. Hi, Dino. I want to tell you up front that I came to you through bar three in 1999. Okay. I was 37, married, living in Brooklyn Brownstone. That on paper was a dream. I did your classes in person on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and they were not just exercise, they were the only 60 minutes a week I let myself be a person separate from a wife. We got to get you back in. I don't know if you've been here, it doesn't say if you've been here to solve drop, but anyway. I'm writing this in May from a one-bedroom rental in Carroll Gardens. Okay, the brownstone is being sold, the marriage is being dissolved, and I'm 41 years old. Been there. And I'm writing for the situationship court because what I love that you guys took that Instagram post so seriously. In situationship court, because what I want to enter into the record is that I want to argue that I was in a situationship for the entire seven years of my marriage. And I know that sounds outrageous, and I want you to bear with me. Let's go. I love this perspective, and I'm excited to hear what you have to say. Because, you know, it's a long that's a long one. So it says my husband and I are dating in 2014, and we dated for three years. I noticed early on that he he was a person who would say all the right things but never actually do them. Like he would tell me that he loved me, he would not show up to the airport when I came home from a work trip. He would tell me I was beautiful, but he would forget my birthday two years in a row. And he would tell me I he was committed to us and he would not make plans further than a weekend away. So in year, I don't know. People are weird. So in year two, I asked him directly, you know what I'm saying? Do you actually want to be with me? And he said, Yes, of course. What kind of question is that? In year three, I asked, Do you see this going somewhere? And he said, Yes, of course. Where else would I go? And in year four, he proposed. I said, Yes, we got married in year five. And I noted, girl, are you not? You gotta be, are you driving or are you in the passenger seat? Sounds like you're somewhere in the like it seems like you're riding bitch in the back. I don't know. You gotta like, we got married in year five. I noted internally that I had been asking the same question for four years and getting the same answer. And I felt like the question was the thing that was wrong. After we got married, all I want everyone to listen to hearing this because I think a lot of women have probably lived this, is that nothing changed. The not showing up didn't change, the forgotten birthdays didn't change, the not planning further than the weekend didn't change. We were married, and I was in the same situationship I'd been in since the first day. The wedding didn't solve it. The wedding only made the situationship legally enforceable. I spent seven years in a marriage that had the shape of a marriage, but the function of a never quite a thing. He didn't cheat or raise his voice ever, and he never did anything I could put on paper as a real reason. He just wasn't there. He was a person who lived in the same house as me and who I married and who did not in any real way show up. He was a polite hologram with a wedding ring on. I left in February. Good for you. Applause, applause, applause. You deserve more, but I think everybody would agree. I did not have a single dramatic moment to point to. There was no fight, there was no other woman. Nothing happened. It was just like a Tuesday morning when I went to make coffee, and I realized I've been waiting seven years for that someone to arrive who lived in my house, and that he was never gonna come, and that I was 41 years old, and I had been waiting way too long already. So she says, not all situationships end with a breakup. Sometimes they end with a divorce. Noted. Sometimes they end with a Tuesday morning, sometimes the court has been open for seven years, and you are the one who has to close it because nobody else is coming to save you. And yeah, and I'm writing with my from my one bedroom, my new one bedroom, which I love. It's got no natural light, but I don't care. I live on the floor with my coffee, and I say to myself, I loved you're here now because I've spent so much of my adult life not being inside my own life that I have to remind myself that I'm I'm physically present right now. And the reminder is working. It says I came to one of your classes in March. I've not been brave enough to come back regularly because I cry every time you say something kind during the warm during the cooldown. And I do not know how to cry in public without apologizing for it, and I'm working on it, but I will see you soon. My that's very cute. My verdict, Your Honor. I plead guilty to staying in a situation. That's cute, to staying in a situation ship for 15 years. I plead guilty to mistaking proximity for partnership. Don't confuse longevity for partnership either. I pled guilty. I plead guilty to thinking the legal paperwork would solve a fundamental absence of somebody showing up. And I'm throwing myself on the mercy of this court and I'm asking for a fresh start. Thank you for giving me the chance. I owed you this email, so here it is. So anyway, look, I mean, I'm gonna you look the brownstone situation. I think we should hang out because you live, I mean, obviously, you live in Brooklyn. Let's hang out. We can get a coffee before or after class or something, then that'd be cute. But you know, seven years of marriage, that's one of the most like I think clarifying experiences I've ever heard anybody have, you know, because you know, I've maybe people are gonna relate to this story in a little bit of a different way than some of these other stories, because I think most people think like a situationship and marriage are like in totally different categories. Cause like, you know, if you're married, then you're obviously not in a situation ship, right? Because it's like the the marriage is the answer to the situationship. And I'm and maybe on the alternative side is like the situationship is what what what the the unanswered question and uh to get married is like the Yes. So the way you're describing it is like, you know, actually, no, a marriage can be a situationship, and that and that, like, even if it has paperwork applied to it, and because it's like, man, I used to say this all the time. A marriage can be undone, right? The paperwork is not the same as partnership. And just because you attended the wedding doesn't mean you're showing up in the relationship. Like, you can go to the altar and exchange vowels and then walk back down the altar and still be an asshole. Because the structure of a relationship has nothing to do with what you just said up there. You know what I mean? So if you never showed up before, the wedding's not going to be like a light switch and be like, oh, now he's going to show up. It's like the hologram with the wedding ring. You know, that's a very articulate way. I think a lot of people would resonate with that. I feel like that's probably how my mom feels sometimes about my her ex. But you know, and I guess the Tuesday morning is like so essential to the story too, because I feel like it's so it's going to feel really normal to a lot of people. It's like you're making coffee and you're like, the hell, the hell have I been doing. You know, I think as you get older, what people don't tell you exactly is that you start to accumulate little bits and pieces of data. That's that's your body remembers that even when your brain doesn't, and then together the brain and the body start doing some math.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

And I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

I make so you think about what you want to spend your energy fighting for, right? And you know, I guess you the bra it's kind of brave too because you didn't need him to do something terrible for you to leave. You know, you didn't have to justify your departure. You left because like he wasn't there. That's enough. That's always enough, you know. I think the world and the people around you, especially the older generation, are gonna be like, girl, are you kidding me? Like, we've done we dealt with worse worse with our husbands. Girl, no, goodbye. You don't need a better story. Absence is enough. So here you are, you're like telling yourself now, like you're ready to go. And if you're in that basement apartment that's a one-bedroom, it's all good. You you find it's nice to have control over your life like that after all that. And you haven't been there for a long time. If you don't want to be there for a long time, you don't have to be. But you know, every morning when you wake up and you're kind of you've got that sort of freedom that you were lacking for so long, I think it the body appreciates it. The body is like says thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

But yeah, no, I don't think you stay too long. I don't, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

I would say you gotta go and like let that thing happen. It's so human. And and I think everybody understands. So, wait, before I go, this that was the end of the emails. Thank you so much for sending your emails into iHearYouBabepod at gmail.com. The the prompt for next week, I'm still trying to decide. I'm bouncing back and forth, but if you head over to our Instagram page, which is over at I HearYouBabe, you can follow us over there. I'm gonna be posting every week the different prompts. So again, thank you so much for listening. If you guys had a good time with this episode, give it a rate, give it a review, tell a friend, pass it on, put it on your Instagram story. Anything you can do to help us grow this, this show would be appreciated. And that's it. I hope you have a great day, and I will talk to you next week. Bye.