Dating From Peace | You've Been Running on a Script That Was Never Written for You

Are you dating to broaden your peace — or are you dating to fill your chaos? In the first episode of the Love Unconventionally series, Jay Theo breaks down the five patterns running most relationships on autopilot — and why seeing them clearly changes everything. This is the foundation. Everything else builds from here.

Show Notes: 

Are you dating to broaden your peace or are you dating to fill your chaos?

Welcome to Love Unconventionally a 4-part capsule series on Your Critical Crush exploring modern relationship dynamics, identity, and what it actually means to design love that fits your real life. We're starting at the foundation.

In this episode, Jay Theo breaks down The 5 Facets of Modern Dating five patterns that show up in almost every relationship, usually without us even realizing it:

• Performing — showing up as who you think they want, not who you are
• Adjusting — shrinking or expanding based on what the relationship seems to need
• Transacting — keeping score, even unconsciously
• Supporting — showing up for others in ways you were never taught to show up for yourself
• Aligning — molding your values and vision to match someone else's without examination

We also get into why most people treat love like a noun — something that happens to them — and why that one mental shift costs more than we think. Plus: a personal story about a relationship that fell apart not because of love, but because of a lapse in self-knowledge that neither person saw coming.

This isn't abstract theory. This is the conversation most people aren't having — and need to.

🎯 FREE FOR SUBSCRIBERS — The Love Audit Find out which of the 5 facets is running highest in your relationship right now. It's a $7 assessment — free when you join the email list. → YourCriticalCrush.com

Your Critical Crush is a discussion-driven podcast unpacking modern relationships, identity, and emotional dynamics — specifically through the lens of a 30+ Black gay man navigating life, love, and self-awareness. New episodes drop as part of the Love Unconventionally series.

Transcript

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Are you dating to expand your peace or are you dating to manage your chaos? Because those are two completely different relationships with love, and most people don't know which one they're in. This is your critical crush, where we keep it cute, candid, and connected. I'm Jay Theo, and let's get critical. Okay, guys, so I am officially back. I took a little bit of a hiatus if you listen to me. And if you are new here, welcome. What's up? Um, we are launching a new series today called Love Unconventionally. I want to discuss love in a more dynamic way, a more critical way, a more introspective way. And I really want us to really uncover the structures, the ethics, the identity, the commitment alternatives that we really can expand on when it comes to love. I do want to make it very clear that this capsule and this episode will not be primarily focused on like polyamory, even though it'll be a piece of it. I really want to talk about, especially in this first episode, is the philosophical floor that's underneath all of it. So there will be personal stories, particularly one with my ex-boyfriend. I will be also speaking about books and just like the realizations I've had after like reading and understanding and having a deeper connection on what my emotional anchors are, what really drives my idea of love, and what really makes someone a great partner. Like I'd really be diving deep into all of this. Also, what my therapists have taught me, all the things. So I definitely will be sharing a lot. But what I really want from these conversations in this series is for us all to take a step to really be more self-critical, to be more introspective, and to be more even decisive on how we view love, how we monitor our love, and not just even just romantically. Like all a lot of this can also be factored into our family, can be factored into our friendships, can be factored in a lot of different connections. I think really taking a step to really have an understanding of what you actually want, what you're actually looking for, and not always following the script that was given to you, but making your own. Because before we talk about how we love, we have to talk about what we think love actually is. Okay, so now it's time to talk you through it. So over my dating and romancing over the years, I've had this realization of what I think the five facets of modern dating are. So performing, adjusting, transacting, supporting, and aligning. These five things show up in almost every relationship. And most of us are doing all five on autopilot, reading from a script that was never written for us. Performing, showing up as who you think they want, not who you are, adjusting, shrinking or expanding yourself based on what the relationship seems to need, transacting, keeping score, even unconsciously, supporting, showing up for others in ways you were never taught to show up for yourself, and aligning, molding your values and vision to match someone else's without examination. So, first off, I want to say that none of these are inherently bad. Like they're not, none of these are inherently bad. The problem is when they're running in the background, unexamined, unbalanced, unconscious, and they're kind of just doing their own thing. That's where we run into issues because we all know any extreme is always bad in my eyes. Anything that's extreme, anything that's really off balance can always become toxic or unhealthy. So I really think this is just another way that we can put that mirror up and really kind of like reflect and look at how are we utilizing all these different facets? How are they lining up in our life? How are is our partner utilizing these things? I think these are all things that you can start looking at yourself, looking at your partner, because the more you know about yourself, the better you're able to build connections, the better you're able to love. And this is not just coming from JPO. This is years of therapy. I'm in therapy right now. These are all things that my therapists have mirrored, have taught me. A lot of the books I read as well. Like a lot of this is this true. When you have a better understanding of yourself, you can show up better for other people. You also can love yourself better. You can figure out what you need for yourself better when you have a better understanding of how you operate, how you act, because we're all different. That's why I say there's no problem with these different facets because we all move in different ways, but you do have to find ways that people align with you in the in the correct way. And always making sure that you are monitoring and understanding the evolution that you can go through as well. So I just want to kind of like make sure that that's the understanding here. I'm not trying to sit here and preach to y'all or tell you this is how it needs to be, but these are things that I've found in my own connections and situations. And I really think having this framework of kind of what the five facets are for yourself could just be a way, another way of monitoring yourself in a kind of a very, very simple way. I feel like this is not super complex. These are all things that we know we've done or we've done, we do, and I think it's just a great way to kind of temperature check yourself. So that's my little T there. I definitely find it useful, so I definitely want to share with you guys. So, um, speaking of books, I am a huge Bell Hooks fan, and I'm not gonna get too deep into it right now. I'm gonna talk about a little bit more later in the series, but a lot of my ideologies, my philosophies, and the way I view love has stemmed from the book All About Love from Bell Hooks. I know a lot of people talk about this book, a lot of people read this book, but this book really spoke to me. And the biggest piece that did was the concept that love is a verb and not a noun. Um, because a lot of people treat love as this noun, something that just happens to them. And Belle Hooks, she really spoke to love is this practice, it's this care, is this responsibility, it's this respect, it's this knowledge, it's this thing that you actually do. You know, and I feel like she really speaks on making love very tangible. And even though the love, even because even though the feeling of love, even though because even though the feeling, because even though the feeling of love can have this physical response, it really is how you act on that feeling that where love actually lives. It's what people actually do with their feeling of love. So at the end of the day, no matter how you see it, it always connects back to that verb and it really connects back to a lot of what we say where action speaks louder than words. If they wanted to, they would. All this stuff kind of links back to this because one of my really good friends, my best friend, love you, girl, my girl, we just had a really deep conversation a couple of weeks back about friendship. And she was just telling me, Jay, if that person wanted to do it, they would. If that person wanted to show up, they would. Like we've talked about this so much about actions. And I'm like, girl, I know. So I'm falling back into my old habits or listening to the feeling or the connection you had, where that's all great and dandy. If there's really no true showcase of the love that they speak on, then what really is the feeling of love anyway? This will be a huge component of this series, and it won't be preaching about bell hooks all day, but it just will be kind of these concepts of like really treating your love as something that's physical, tangible, not something that's just like this ambiguous thing. Not that I feel love, that I am loving. Like really kind of having that embodiment. It's like I am loving. Because I know when I have friends, friendship is the biggest thing I can connect it to outside of dating, is that I really want to show them typically that I'm I'm I'm a friend and that I can do things for them and be there for them. I think for me, that's how I love to show up for people. And I can say right now, this past year hasn't been my best as far as like really dedicating the J Theo I would in friendship, just because I've been I've been at work starting my own business, my own consulting business, but I'm really excited about. I also so I have to create my LLC, have to build a website. You know, I have a lot of things that I'm doing right now on top of this podcast. So just continuously building my personal brand. So with that, it takes a lot of time, takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of tears, takes a lot of stress. So I can honor the fact that I know that I haven't been showing up as a plus friend, you know, more in the B, maybe a little B minus sometimes, but I've been very vocal to people that I've been meeting and people that I've been connecting with. And even my closest friends have been very vocal about it. They know what's going on. So I think it's just another example, another, and I'm gonna share this story because it's another example of knowing yourself, knowing your limitations, knowing who you are, being self-critical, being introspective, and honoring that and then sharing that with someone so they they know. And also, I feel like having that level of vulnerability, having that level of honesty with someone, that just builds your connection. I think a lot of us are always so scared of being vulnerable, being honest because, oh, somebody's gonna take that information and they're gonna use it against me or the blah, blah, blah. When a lot of times, when you're not being vulnerable, you're not being honest, you're not really being true to how you actually feel and actually being honest, communicating that with someone, you really are doing yourself a disservice because you're living in your true connection. Because when you can actually be vulnerable, then somebody will be vulnerable with you. Or if you can kind of share space, then somebody will share space with you. So I just want to throw that out there, want to share my experience. This has been a really intense year for me, an exciting year now, a lot of change, a lot of, like I said, a lot of a lot of roller coastering emotionally, but I have have been a hundred percent up front with my friends about it. I've been very vocal to them, and I think it's just been very beneficial to see what support I have through that. So just wanted to share that. So, the other book that I'm really gonna be highlighting um is a book called Polysecure, which it is a book that talks about ethical non-monogamy. And what I want to say about that is my focus of that book will not be primarily on just the ethical non-monogamy piece, it will be talking about the levels of commute communication and dissecting of what you want. That is very valuable for you to know when you are entering a relationship. And the author, Jessica Fern, even herself, says the book for people that also are leaning into monogamy as their relationship of choice, because we all need to make sure we understand what we want, even in a monogamous, in even in monogamy, for us to be the best partner we can be. So just want to throw that out there. I want to make sure that when I get into that episode, that we're not, oh, he's talking about ethical non-monogamy, that's not me. No, I want to use that that concept and kind of her discussions, which are super amazing, to speak about how we really need to dissect what we want and have a better understanding we want, and also just being better at communicating that. Because a lot of us don't really know what we want, and a lot of us have been conditioned to want certain things. And I think it would do us all best to just really dissect and really ask and really consider the things you want and really be open to not exploring everything, but being open to exploring your understanding of things. You don't always have to explore something and do it, but you can explore your understanding of something. And I think that's a that's one thing that I think a lot of us undervalue. I think a lot of us don't even, I think a lot of us are not even open to a lot of things in this world because we're never even open to understanding certain things in this world. And I think when you kind of open your mind a little bit more that way, you kind of can grasp this world in a different way. And also when you have a better understanding of how things work, you you have a better understanding of people. You have a better understanding of why someone may want an ethical non-monogamous relationship. So you, or you may understand why for some people it may be the better route and why for some people it's not the best route. Uh, it also can help you understand, maybe make like, you know, hey, I don't want to be um I'm non-monogamous, but how do I act about how do I showcase jealousy in my relationship? Is it healthy? Is it healthy for me to want to possess my person and not want them to be around anybody else or not to have these type of relationships or friendships or whatever? So just something that I think we all can uh take note of. But that's my little sparking upstairs. I don't want to dive too much into that because I don't want to spill the next episodes, but just kind of want to give you guys an insight of like where I'm pulling this information from. It's from, like I said, books I read, it's my therapists, my own experiences, even just things my friends and my family have dealt with. So I definitely just wanted to share that with you guys. Okay, so moving on to You're Under Spells, which is a newer segment on my show where I really dissect the spells that a lot of us are in based on the topic. So, like I said, today's topic is Danny from Peace. And one of the biggest spells, and I kind of spoke about this earlier with Bell Hooks, is the incorporal misconception that love has been sold to us as a feeling, something that arrives and either stays or leaves. Because when you treat love like weather, something that just happens to you, you give up all your agency in it. And and I know media, rom-coms, music, all of it has trained us to equate intensity with love. This like intense, ambiguous feeling, and oh my god, it's this pull, it's this dynamic, you know, abstract thing. And I just really think at the end of the day, sometimes love is boring. Sometimes love is a Tuesday where you're picking up ground turkey for your partner and your family's meal tonight. That is love, you know? And but ultimately, love is a choice when the feeling isn't there. Love is you taking action when everything isn't magical and gumdrops and glitter and honeymoon. So I really want us to sit with that. And that's just the spell I really want us to really think about because when you kind of separate yourself from like it's a feeling, it's a this, to it's something I do, it's something that's normal, it's something that's a part of how I move and how I operate, more so in my actions and how I show up. I think that you can have a better measure of how you love. You can even have a better measure of how people love you. And you also can have real conversations about what impacts your love and your relationships. Because at the end of the love is just connected to relationships. We can call it whatever you want, but it's your relationships at the end of the day. And if you're in couples therapy, if you're in family therapy, whatever, the conversation you're having, typically when it comes to what your mom didn't do, what your dad didn't do, what your partner's not doing, what you want to do, what you guys want to do, whatever, it's all based on action, right? It's all based on what you do. Even when I'm in individual therapy, and my therapist asks me, like, okay, you have these feelings, you have these thoughts, like what did what how did you act on it? Then I explain myself and he's like, okay, well, those actions were great. Or, like, you know, I would say maybe try this. Like, it's always what we do, you know? And it reminds me, even when I first started taking acting classes and improv classes. And a lot of teachers used to always say, acting is what you do. Improv is what you do. It's like literally what you do. Like the audience can't see what you're thinking, they can't see the ambiguity of the character that you embody. It's more, what are they doing? Are they supposed to be drunk? Are they looking drunk? Are they supposed to be a valley girl? Are they giving valley girl? Are they supposed to be in despair? Are they supposed to be happy? Like, what are they showing us? What are they actually doing to show that I'm happy? When you get surprised, you jump, you scream. That's you, you, you know what I'm saying? Like, I know that's kind of like a maybe a weird tie, but I think it just goes to show like how actions is what we really see. And I'm in just speaking from an acting standpoint, when you're in the audience, you don't talk about what you think the actor thought. You thought you talk about, oh my God, they really killed in that scene. They really acted like they were in despair, the things they were doing. They really, you could really see that they were acting, like you know what I'm saying. You talk about the things they did. Okay, so that's my thoughts there. That's spell number one. So I would challenge you on that. Spell number two is the performance script. But performing isn't always conscience. For most of us, it's autopilot, reading off a script that was never written for you. A lot of this comes from our upbringing, our culture, what relationships are supposed to look like. So many of us are indoctrinated into so much of this that we don't even see it. Like it's like I said, it's very unconscious. It's very much just like your frame of thinking. You can't even think outside of that. But when you really start questioning those things and you really start being more of a skeptic when it comes to your love life and when it comes to what you desire, I feel like that's when you start turning the autopilot off. Because there is 8 billion people on this planet. And there is no reason why there shouldn't be 8 billion ways to show up and show love. There should be so many ways that we as people can express ourselves emotionally. And yes, there's character, there's value, there's ethics to everything that links it all. But I think how we love, how we show up, our relationship dynamics, it should be built on our identity, on who we are. And we are not our parents, we are not our grandparents, we are not our church members, we are not our best friends, we are not, we are ourselves. And I really think a lot more people would find more happiness, and maybe that's not the right word. You know, this episode is called Dating from Peace. I think a lot more of us would find more peace in our dating life and our love life if we actually built our own script. And only can speak about this from a black gay male's perspective, but every identity, especially if you are of color in the society, you have more than one identity. And for us specifically, we live a double performance as black gay men because we're trying to be acceptable what we see is in blackness, and then we're trying to be acceptable what we see is in queerness or what they show us what queerness is or what a relationship as a gay man is. And for some people, they think open relationship, you know, um, um very free, very flexible. Some people think, oh, if I'm gonna show my parents I'm gay, I'm gonna be in a traditional monogamous relationship, and I'm not gonna be doing all that. Like we all can fall into this trap of where we think we fall. But the question is, what me, but the question really should be what feels right to me? What do I want to explore? What do, what does, what do my partner and I align on? I think that's really where you should be looking at this and having those type of conversations. And I'm not saying that there aren't scripts, I guess, or there's not thought process out there that you can't start off following. You know, obviously you have to do research and figure out what's best for you. So there's always gonna be somewhat of a script, I guess. But I definitely think it starts from you really being like, I'm owning who I am before, you know, I dig deep into these different facets, these different ways of operating. So that's the way I think about it. And I challenge everybody to really look at the script that they have, look at the script that you were given, and see if that really aligns with you. And one of the biggest things I think when it comes to scripts is making sure that your script aligns with your partner's script. Because spell three is compatibility confusion. Okay, so I had an ex-boyfriend three years ago. One of the few real, I would say, feelings of like a real relationship that I've had. Now, I've talked to a lot of guys, y'all, had a lot of situationships and a lot of connections with men. So I'm about to see her act like I'm some, you know, virgin to relationships or dating. But this was the one where I feel like we actually I felt like we were, he would, we had like a connection. I'll say that, like a real connection. But one of the things was that we really had a compatibility issue. So I met him, and the first thing, you know, we fell pretty fast. We really liked each other, found each other really attractive, and we kind of jumped into things. And when we first met each other, he told me, like, oh, I just want to let you know I'm poly and I only go into relationships from a poly perspective because I was like married and I went through all this stuff, and I just realized that I like I like need more than one person in my life, blah blah. So at the time, I already kind of been like thinking about like ethical nominogamy. I'm a big Dan Savage Lovecast fan. If you guys follow me, or if you guys know Dan Savage's Lovecast, which I think everybody should listen to it. He's really big on like um uh ethical nominogamy, talking about it. He coined the term monogamy, which I'll speak to a little bit, but he he he really speaks on like the dynamics of ethical nominogamy and his following and the people that call into his show are are really focused on that as well. So I already have been looking into it, thinking about it, and I just know that I'm someone for myself. I learned that I'm not really a jealous person. Also, I'm someone that this is where a lot of ethical nominography came for me, is that I realize I'm not somebody who's gonna want to have sex every day. I'm not somebody who's gonna want to do that at all the time. So I started thinking about being open to it because I'm like, I don't want to feel like I'm being used by my partner because of their needs, that I will allow them to venture off if they need to, if that's something that they need sexually, sexually only. But so that's kind of like where it stemmed for me, which kind of leads into like the next portion of the story is that so my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, he was like, You need to read this book called Polysecure. And I'm like, Okay, I'll read it. And he's like, Okay, we'll both read it. So I read it, he did not prioritize reading it. Y'all have to keep being like, Are you have you read it? Did you finish it? He finally finishes it. And what I love about this book is that the first part, it really talks about attachment styles and everything, but it also goes deep into the different types of not ethical, non-monogamous relationships you can have. So it talks about like open marriages, open relationships, monogamous, which I which I discussed, and all these things. So through my reading of the book, I understood that my type of relationship in a poly non-ethical, which poly really isn't the right term to umbrella it, but in a polystyle relationship or ethical non-monogamous relationship, my type of relationship that I would want to be when, be, be in, is either monogamous, open relationship, or open marriage. And and the concept that all three of these share is that it's it's um hierarchical, meaning me and my partner, we are the hierarchy. The other people are secondary, they're sexual partners, they're casual partners, etc. So monogamous is like you're mainly monogamous, and every once in a while you allow each other to have like a casual fling sexually, very casual, very more like on vacation, maybe very more rare occasions. Open relationship is like it could be more of a factory relationship, maybe more often. You guys have an understanding, but it's still very it's the per people are casual. Your partner may have a fuck buddy or something like that, but it's not your partner has a whole boyfriend. Because basically, all of this means is like you don't have a romantic relationship with somebody else. Because at the end of the day, I'm number one. Me and you are number one, everybody else is secondary. That's how I looked at it. Same thing with open marriage, it's open relationship, but just with the marriage. So just kind of give you an understanding. So my ex was more open to the non-hierarchical versions of this, which they go in detail very heavy in the book. But he wanted to be solo poly, polyfidelity, which is like um a uh thruple or like a quad uh or relationship anarchy, where relationship anarchy is kind of hard to explain, but basically you are in relationships with people, but you only probably Prioritize yourself more so in the relationship. Kind of confused, kind of like solo poly. Solo poly and relationship anarchy. Uh have to remember solo poly, I know, is like you have multiple boyfriends or girlfriends, but those people typically don't have multiple boyfriends or girlfriends. Or you basically you have multiple boyfriends or girlfriends, and you kind of are your you're the main relationship to yourself. Like you're number one to yourself, but you also have these relationships and partners and everything, but you put yourself kind of at the core of the hierarchy. So whatever matters for you, if that makes sense. Probably not doing the best at explaining that, but either way, he basically didn't see a hierarchy. And he even told me like he wanted to have other boyfriends and stuff. And I'm like, that's where I was like, no, I don't want other boyfriends. And honestly, y'all, if I'm being honest, I don't see how people have the time. Because one thing about the book that I think everybody should look into if they read Polysecure is that it really talks about like the actual commitments and things you have to do when you have multiple boyfriends, multiple girlfriends, when you have these other relationships, how you have to think about birthdays and families and like all the dynamics that come within a relationship. And I have no interest of doing that more with one person. Now I've joked about in the past on my social media about like, oh, we're having a poly relationship with a bunch of guys because we could like be each other's love language and stuff. Jokingly. But in reality, y'all, I barely have time for myself. So for me to sit here and think I can have multiple boyfriends is just to know. And honestly, I'm not the jealous type per se, but I'm but I also know that I'm a baddie. And I don't care if you guys think I'm attractive or not. I think that I'm a bad bitch. And I also think I have a lot to offer. So I think that someone would like me to be their number one. And I want to be, I want somebody to, I want to view somebody as my number one. So it would never go for me to be non-hierarchical at all. And I just don't have the patience of the time for that. I also thought it was weird because my, not weird, I also thought it was interesting because my ex-boyfriend wanted kids. And I thought being polyfidelity or like relationship anarchy or even solo poly is just a lot to deal with when you want children. So, and even that to me was annoying me because I'm like, you haven't really thought that through. So I just learned a lot through this experience. And, you know, bless his heart and everything. But through this experience, I really realized all to say the spell that we were under was that we thought we were compatible because nobody was really wrong in this situation, but there was a gap in us with our self-knowledge, because we were using the same words, we were saying poly, but we were living in completely different realities. And like I said, nobody was wrong, but the gap, the lapse in self-knowledge created a really a false reality for both of us. And this is why reason number 7058 for the importance of introspection and self-reflection, if we never took the time to really dive deep into what we really wanted from a non-ethical non-monogamy relationship, we would have never kind of understood the barrier that we really have for us to actually be together. And we could have gone on a lot longer in this situation. So that's another spell that I think a lot of us are under, is that we may think that we want the same thing, but we really don't. And I think a lot of straight couples probably can learn from this because I think a lot of people want to be in a monogamous relationship and they want to have families and kids and stuff. But a lot of times it's like, do you, or do you just want one kid, or do you do you really want to have this big family, or do you you really want to have this like more stable, traditional lifestyle? And I'm not saying either way is wrong, but I think there's just a lot of people that cheat. There's a lot of people that are in unethical non-monogamy, and it makes you wonder why. And I think if a lot of people kind of understood, like, am I really compatible with you? Do we really have the connection that we really say we want? Do we really, do we really do the due diligence of really figuring out what actually are the things we really want? So I think when people actually take those steps, they can better understand where they stand in their relationship and really understand if they're compatible. Because a lot of times, like I said, compatibility isn't a problem. And one thing I've noticed when I talk to guys and realize that I'm not compatible with somebody, they always get upset when you're like, hey, we're not compatible. Because my ex, when I when I told him to say, Hey, it looks like we're not compatible, I think we should break up. He was like, Why do we gotta break up? Like, I feel like this is something we can like figure out. I'm like, no, like why we sit here and figure this out. I know that I want a man that puts me first and that there's nobody else. Like, there's no questioning that. There's only sexual other people. I don't care. I really don't care about that, to be honest, y'all. If it's just sexual. But as far as you have another boyfriend, another lover, all those things like don't work for me. Um, because I just also I just don't want somebody who thinks they have all that time. And I also want somebody who looks at life the same way that I do. I think life is just a lot, and I think we do have a a lot of things do take up our time. So if you think that you have time to have a whole nother boyfriend or three or four, I just don't think we think the same about life. And that's like a bigger issue for me, honestly. I just want somebody who thinks the same and kind of rocks the same, and also somebody who also would think, like, wow, trying to have kids with being like solo poly or in non-hierarchical is really hard or poly fidelity fidelity. And actually, somebody who actually thinks that process through. And I just unfortunately, you know, and I still have love for my ex. He don't speak to me no more. Don't know what I did, but I still have love for my ex. He moved to New York, he's doing his thing. Um, but I, you know, I still care for him and love for him, but I really do think he was not taking the extra steps to really be like, how would this work if I was in a you know ethical nominalized relationship and trying to have children, you know? So that's my tea there, y'all. I kind of just want to dive into that, and like that's another way that I think a lot of us are in a spell. So that's my third and final spell. So now we're gonna move on to Crush Crave Crash, which is always my little palette cleanser where I like to dish my dirt and my thoughts on what's happening and also things I love, all the things. So my crush this week is Jay Theo. It's me. My birthday is this upcoming Sunday, and y'all, just very vulnerable moment. This has been one of the hardest years of my life the past year. I had a lot of things going on with my job, had a big career change, finally decided to go into business with by myself with all my own, become an entrepreneur. Just a lot of stress getting that set up, a lot of stress no longer working a corporate job, a lot of stress of just even having people believe in you, um, and really just not losing focus on yourself. It's really hard when you kind of take a risk on yourself. And it's just been a really rough year. But as I said, I have a lot of things coming down the pipeline that I'm really excited about. Um, I have some business ventures that are starting up this week and next week. I have a lot of things that I'm really looking forward to. And I'm really gonna utilize the skills that I have built in this in my professional career, in my um hobbies, in my social media career to really um drive some real revenue for myself. So I'm just really excited about that. But it's just been really hard. But I want to hug myself right now, pat myself on the back, and say, Jay Theo, you're doing it, you did it. And, you know, the road's not easy, and there's still a uphill battle, really like continue to build my brand. But I'm just excited and I'm gonna keep loving myself and I'm not going back to corporate. I'm saying that right here, right now, I'm not. Um, I do have a professional career. Like I said, I have a consulting business where I'm using my professional skills. So I'm not saying I'm not still in my industry doing what I need to do, but being up under some corporate situation, you know. So just want to say that. Some question on me. Shout out to all the tourists out there, um, April Tauruses, May Tauruses, especially. That's the we the girls. So shout out to all of us. Um, and shout out to like the Geminis too. I'm a Gemini rising, so I know y'all's season is coming up too, but shout out to all the beautiful Tauruses out there. Happy early birthday or happy birthday to all of y'all. So my crave this week has to be my therapist, y'all. Um, we had a really, really great session last week, and he really just really uplifted me in a space where I was feeling really conflicted and a little down. And he's just such a motivator. He is so just, I don't know. I I'm very proud that I found him. He's a black gay man. He's also from my state, Michigan. Um, he's just a gym. And he really motivates me and makes me feel like I can really do anything. And he really just has a great way of explaining things that I just really value. So shout out to him. I really, he really helped me out last week. And I just also want to shout out to getting a therapist that's your demographic. I know it's not always easy finding a therapist in your demographic or in your lane, but or who identifies as you, but I think it is super helpful to have therapists that looks like you, that knows your lives, that can understand your lived experience. So shout out to all the therapists out there that you know are our uh identity of the person that they're offering services to because it really is helpful, and you guys are really a gem out there, especially as a black gay man. Shout out to all the black gay male therapists. You guys are doing the work and we we appreciate you guys. And lastly, my crash, which my crash, y'all. So, first off, my crash is like a crash that connects to the concept of this episode where I think the idea of love should feel like this chaotic thing. I think a lot of us feel like love should be this chaotic thing, this drama thing, this like thing that just like pushes us in all different ways emotionally. And I don't think that I think that love can be, yes, it can be compassionate and it can be strong and it can be dynamic, but I don't think it needs to be chaos. So that's my crash first there. And this leads to my next point and my next group and person that I think are crashes. So crash to the black male community that wants to dig at Megan Nastallion and wants to basically say that she should be cheated on and she should be done dirty. Uh, I think you guys are, I don't know, I think there's something wrong with y'all. I don't understand black men being so antagonistic to a black woman. It really just makes me want to throw up that the media and the propaganda has made y'all act like this towards a beautiful, gorgeous, dynamic woman who is out here doing her thing, does not have the support of her family because she lost them. And y'all have the nerve to sit out here and just disrespect this woman time and time again. I just have no respect for y'all. And I think it's disgusting. And I saw um, I forgot his name, but oh, Preston, I think, um, from Summerhouse. I think he I saw him posting on Threads, and he had mentioned he was like, and I'm not, I don't like to fall into this parallel either that I think, like, oh, there's DO men that they're the ones that hate women. I don't like really speaking on that too much because I think that is it is a kind of a fallacy of our understanding of um sexuality, but I do think there is a group of men that want to fuck Clay that use that as a way of speaking ill of Megan the Stallion. Um, because why are you that invested? And same thing with Tony Lane, Tori Lane. I'll never understand that. I it really is this unfortunate what I feel like black women have to go through to find mates out here. But I'm sending Megan the Stallion all the love, and I just hope one day she finds that man that's just gonna love on her and treat her right and just do right about her. So crash, crash, crash to all of those idiots. And like I said, crush, crush, crush to all the people out here who are helping people mentally, you know, do their damn thing? We appreciate y'all. Okay, so as always, I want to end with a critical question. So the question this week is which of the five performing, adjusting, transacting, supporting, or aligning are you doing the most in your current relationship or dating life? And is it conscious or is it on autopilot? Now, you don't have to answer this right now. And the goal is not perfection, it's always gonna be awareness. So when you see that script, you get to decide whether you want to keep it or if you want to write a new one. So, with that said, for the next episode, we're gonna go deeper into the structures, the labels, the agreements, and the things that work but don't always look normal. But before I let you go, everything we just talked about today: the performing, the adjusting, the transacting, the supporting, the aligning, I don't want that to just live in your headphones and disappear when you close this app. So I made you guys something. It's called the Love Audit. It's a one-page assessment made about the five facets we broke down today. And it's gonna show you exactly which one is running highest in your relationship or your dating life right now. Not in a vague, oh, that resonates kind of way. Like this is the specific pattern that's been driving your decisions and you probably didn't even know it. It's a thing I wish I had before a lot of the situations I don't need to name. Now, it's a paid product, it'll be available on my Etsy. But if you join my email list at yourcritical crush.com, that's your critical crush.com, you get it free. That's it. No kits, you sign up, I'll send it to you. So go to your critical crush.com, the links in the show notes, join the list, get the audit, and do the work. And when you guys get the results, I genuinely want to know what came up for you. So find me, tell me. Y'all know where I'm on YouTube, I'm on TikTok, I'm on Instagram, all the things. But at the end they work community, and that's what this is for is for us to build and have a real conversation. So I will see you guys on the next episode where we go deeper. As always, stay cute, stay curious, and keep it critical.