Cross My Heart with Hannah Beck

“Excommunication Can Be Fun” with Rachel Dispenza | Cross My Heart # 13

• Hannah Beck • Season 1 • Episode 13

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0:00 | 1:02:42

This week I'm joined by comedian Rachel Dispenza (@racheldispenser)! We  went deep on therapy, religion, and whether gay people ever actually break up with their exes (they don't)

New episodes every Monday. Comment, review, and tell your gay friends 🖤

0:00 Intro
0:31 The Sheep Detective Review
5:37 The Door Holder Story
14:13 Confessional: Are You Gay?
15:00 Identity Labels
20:00 Do You Want Kids?
26:22 Do You Believe in God?
27:44 What Did Death Look Like?
33:18 Excommunication 
34:48 Signs You Were Gay 
39:27 First Queer Relationships & Never Blocking Exes
43:38 Going to Our Exes' Weddings
44:47 Cross My Heart: Childhood Embarrassment
47:08 Hula Hoop Injustice
50:00 Forgive Me But: Devil Wears Prada 2
55:00 Forgive Me But: Call Me on the Phone
58:27 Analog Summer & Deleting Spotify
1:02:21 Starting a Show + Where to Find Rachel


Cross My Heart is hosted by Hannah Beck. Known for her viral "Tube top" video and "Dear Daddy God" diary series on TikTok, Hannah Beck dives deep into the messy but beautiful reality of growing up queer in the Midwest. Follow @hannahbeckcomedy on TikTok and Instagram. 




Cross My Heart is hosted by Hannah Beck. Follow @hannahbeckcomedy on TikTok and Instagram. New episodes every Monday. Rate, review, and tell your gay friends 🖤

SPEAKER_02

Did you have any like homoerotic gay?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well I had We were roommates in in school together, became best friends, started a band together, started working job together. Oh God. And then we dated for three months and then broke up but kept living together and being in a band together and working together. That's so gay. You know, when I try, I go all the way.

SPEAKER_02

A first codependent queer relationship is gonna destroy you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Hi, Rachel. Hi Hannah. Welcome to my couch. Thank you. I'm really excited to have you. I'm glad that we both decided to sit fully into the couch. Our knees touching. Yeah. I'm kind of nervous. You know why I brought you here today? To record a podcast. To discuss Academy Award-winning film of the year, The Sheep Detective. Oh my god. What a film. I saw The Sheep Detectives with Rachel. Yes. I talked about the last I recorded a solo pod yesterday. Okay. Most of it was about the sheep detectives.

SPEAKER_01

As it should be. There's a lot to say.

SPEAKER_02

Like to talk about it again.

SPEAKER_01

Please, please. I've been waiting for this.

SPEAKER_02

I think I'd get more credibility if there was another person with me saying how much they love the sheep detectives. And people trust my taste in movies, so I think so too. I trust your taste in movies. Implicitly. Yes. You have cool tattoos.

SPEAKER_01

And that's all you really need to have good movie taste, I think. So you wear a chain. I think that's which I wear because of a movie. Really? Uh yeah. I went to go see all of us strangers. Okay. Andrew Scott and Paul Mascell. And uh Andrew Scott wears this cute little gold chain in the movie. And it I think I researched it and read that it is actually like his personal item. It is not like costuming. Oh, he just wore it. He just has it and it's his. And I loved it. And then I went out and I bought myself a nice gold chain as like a birthday present. That's so cute. This is also fun. My friend Caleb makes them. Like weaves nice chain mail jewelry and often gifts me just very beautiful things.

SPEAKER_02

So I was once invited by a gay person to a steel mill to make jewelry. Is Caleb a gay person? Oh yeah. Okay, I figured out gay people like making jewelry. I just was wondering. So we watched the sheep detectives this week on Tuesday. How would you maybe describe how you felt leaving the theater?

SPEAKER_01

I was so impressed. Like I went in with low expectations. Yeah. And not in like a mean way, but in a like, this will maybe be fun, whatever. It's a kid's movie about a sheep detective. About a herd of sheep detectives. A herd of sheep detectives. And I thought that it was it was really fun. It was really well written. Um and I like I like uh Who Done It. I like Mystery. I love a heist. So those elements really got me going. And I just it hit all the points that it needed to hit. It made me feel very emotional. I cried two little tears at the end. Grace and I fully crying next to you. We were sobbing. And that's the equivalent thing, right? Like me crying two tears at the theater is me sobbing at the theater. Absolutely. I need you to know that I'm just not out here crying in the streets. Absolutely. Or at home or anywhere. So that's fair. Two tears is a full sob. So you don't cry in public, usually. No.

SPEAKER_02

Do you cry like pr privately? No. Really? Not really at all. I'm not a crier. I used to be so proud I wasn't a crier. In my whole upbringing, I was like, I'm not like other girls. I'm not saying you're like this, but for me personally, as like a teenager, I would never cry. I would see my friends would cry after a softball game and I'd be like, why are they crying? It's just a game. Like just a game. Grow up girl. So proud of being like stoic. And then when I got to college, I think like so many what would I describe happen in college? Major depressive disorder. Um and then I got to a point where I was like crying most of the days of the week just as like a release of emotions. Yeah. And I think it's because I didn't cry through my whole childhood.

SPEAKER_01

You just planted this fear in my mind that one day the levee's gonna break and I just go huge crier. I intellectualize my emotions. I don't think I really experience them. I think I'm just makes sense. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Like in lieu of crying, what do you do?

SPEAKER_01

Um I think comedy is part of it. I think I'm writing jokes about the things. Uh journaling. I did go to therapy for like eight years and then stopped when I moved here. Yeah. So that's why I seem so well on the outside. And you always have come across as well to me.

SPEAKER_02

I mean that though. I think of when I think of people that are good in a crisis or people that I would go to for advice in most situations, it is you.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02

I can tell that you have done eight years of therapy. Like you're very like you're in charge of your brain in a way that I aspire to be.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Thank you so much. It is a lot of work. Yeah. Um, it is a lot of work, and I I would agree with those assessments. I think I pride myself on being good in a crisis and being able to give other people very good advice. At the same time, I have this, I have the Alice in Wonderland problem. I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it. I I feel like I don't trust myself. Yeah. Uh I think I know that I'm right on a level, but I think I'm like the deeper level where I need to follow the things that I know to do. I I am like, but what if I'm wrong? That makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_02

I will my therapist makes me do this exercise all the time is like talk to yourself like you're a friend. So if I'm having a problem or a crisis, they'll just be like, explain to someone else how to solve this problem. And I pretty much usually know the answer. Yeah. And it sucks, but it is helpful.

SPEAKER_01

But you are your own friend. I am. And what if you were a friend to yourself? Wow. I think we fixed them.

SPEAKER_02

I think we solved them. I think we solved it. This is incredible. Wow, I'm so happy that you're here. I'm happy to be here. Um, you're my favorite problem solver. Thank you. You're my favorite door holder. Thank you. Rachel is a fantastic stand-up comedian in Chicago. Non-binary icon. Can we talk about the door holder for a second? Yeah. Is that okay?

SPEAKER_01

Can we talk about the the door in the room?

SPEAKER_02

Can we talk about the elephant in the room?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh essentially, I was on my way into a gas station one day in rural Pennsylvania, and I was I had opened the door, and on his way out of the door was like a I want to guess like sixties white-haired, like blue-collar-looking man. And he had his hands full with a soda and a pizza and whatever. And I held the door open for him, and he walked through the door, and then he looked me deep in my eyeballs, and he said, Thank you, door holder. And then went on his merry way, and will probably never think about it again. But I it's been like three years that I think about it all the time. Yeah. Um, maybe four years, maybe longer. I don't know how time passes. Um, and it was in June, it was during Pride Month. Oh, that's huge. Was it like gender euphoria for you? I was truly like, I don't even I could never have anticipated this happening. But I was like, you know, he's not wrong. It is better than the alternatives. Absolutely. And and from somebody I would not have expected to even clock anything. Yeah, so I also had like I was wearing basically this outfit, but my hair was like past my shoulders and down. I wasn't really giving Androgyny. Yeah, at least not in my mind.

SPEAKER_02

But spiritually, you were. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So I don't know what like maybe he has like a a a niece, you know what I mean? Or like a grandchild who is somewhere along a gender spectrum and he's learning and said, This is my shot. He's like that person with a little chain is dressing a little different. Yeah, exactly. He said, I'm gonna be a hero today. I see you. And it's great. Uh and it's been I it's been great material. Most of my material just comes from things that actually happen. I feel like oh wait, this is a good this I want to ask you about this. I feel like so much of my comedy comes directly from the truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I I don't necessarily it is not my impulse to then alter that to make it funnier.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Where do you fall on the this is exactly how it happened? Or I guess the grading of this is exactly how it happened to uh this is the root of it, and I can make up whatever I want just to get to the actual point.

SPEAKER_02

That's so interesting because I have talked to a lot of comedians that have different opinions on this. I think that just like style of comedy-wise, I also tend to storytell pretty openly, and it's not in my best interest to tell not the truth. But what I will do is if I'm talking about an experience with like dating or like a friend that was mean to me, I will combine people. So if I'm telling a story about lesbian dating and I went on two different dates, and one girl didn't pay for dinner, even though she said she was going to, and another girl like was bad at sex, that girl will become one person in a story.

SPEAKER_01

It makes it more seamless.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's like for efficiency, I will lie or twist the truth, but I'm not saying that a totally different thing happened than actually happened. I think there's just different styles of comedy, and I'm more storyteller-leaning, but I'm not like I'm not averse to lying. I'm not like mad at other people for lying in their comedy, if that makes sense. I also think you can probably relate to this too, but there's enough stuff to pull from in my life that I don't forget ridiculous things that have happened to me that are inherently funny that I'm trying to like parse through. But maybe when I get older I'll lie more. Maybe like it's true. Maybe when I run out of material, I'll write my first hour and then I'll be like, well, but the older you get, the more experiences you have to write about.

SPEAKER_01

I know.

SPEAKER_02

So I guess I'll just be um burying my soul on the internet forever.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We're trapped and we can never get out. Uh-huh. Can I ask a question that doesn't have to be on the podcast, but I'm just curious. Yeah. How did you dress as a child? What age? You could go through the eras if you'd like.

SPEAKER_01

What that's making me think of is like I still dressed sort of like feminine and whatever. Yeah. But I think there was a distinct shift like in seventh grade.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Where my mom would like, like I would be like looking at clothes, or my mom would like something, and she would go, Oh, I love that. That's so feminine. And I would go gross. Was she saying it on purpose a little bit? I don't think so. I think that's just like her disposition in the world. I'm like out with my mom, and she's like, Oh, I gotta go to the ladies' room, the ladies' room, the ladies' room. Let's go to the lady. That's just the way that she talks, you know, she hangs out with her girlfriends, but like she doesn't kiss any of them. No, no. But I remember feeling like uh, and this was also like when I was in high school, boys were wearing skinny jeans. They were wearing girls' skinny jeans. Yeah. And like deep V-neck shirts and whatever. Okay. And I remember seeing that and going, Oh, this means I can wear boy clothes.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, like if they can do that, then I can go into Pac Sun and look at the boy chino pants or whatever. Yeah. That don't fit me, right? Because they're not shaped for my body. Yeah. But and be like, oh, I like these things, you know. And and I remember, yeah, the boy the boys section at Pac Sun really had a lot for me. Because it was also just about like it wasn't about buying clothes that were made for boys. It was about buying clothes that didn't have a bunch of like frills and embellishments and stuff that I didn't want. I was looking for plain ass clothes. I was looking for basic crazy phrases with cursive letters on the front. Yeah, just give me a black cardigan, please, that like actually has pockets. Yeah. That would be you know.

SPEAKER_02

You like your clothes to be utilitarian, I bet. Very utilitarian.

SPEAKER_01

That episode of Queer Eye where Anthony looks at a pair of pants and like first season of like the new Queer Eye. Uh-huh. Uh, it probably was tan, but in my mind it was Anthony. Uh-huh. They're like looking at a pair of like cargo pants or something, and they go, you know, it's utilitarian. And I think about that all the time. Every time we go shopping. These are the pants of a stage man in a minute. And yeah, these are the pants they keep my box cutter and my sharpie very nicely in the side pocket, and that's what I need.

SPEAKER_02

I was saying yesterday I did a solo pod recording. Someone asked me this as a question on the pod is what is your favorite stereotype about your sexuality group, which is for me lesbians, and mine is that we are so equipped in emergencies. Like they assume that I could change a tire. Can you? Or yeah. Exactly. Or like that if there's a bug, I'm gonna kill the spider, like I'm gonna change the light bulb. And I think that's so funny because as a kid growing up, the way that we viewed women was very like dainty, and especially in a religious context. Damsel in distress. It was oh, what's it called? Um, it's a type of sexism. Do you know what I'm talking about? Benevolent sexism. Yeah, it's called benevolent sexism, and it's just this idea that like women are perfect little angels and need to be rescued. Totally. But it kind of makes women two-dimensional instead of like of course competent, capable people.

SPEAKER_01

And so it's infant it's infantilizing, also.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. And it's really fun to be an adult lesbian woman and have people be like, she can change my tire, she can change her own oil. I think men at car dealerships are nicer to me because they can tell I'm gay. Like I I enjoy the power that I hold in that sense.

SPEAKER_01

That makes sense to me because I I went to the when I first went to the shop, that's like a couple blocks away from because Hannah and I live two blocks away from each other. Neighbors. Um, and there's an auto body shop right there. And the first time I walked in there, the guy working at the counter was like, Oh, you've been here before. And I said, Nope. I'm sure I like that. He's like, and well, and then he goes, you know what, that's the right attitude though. You gotta walk in places like you belong there. And I'm like, Do I not belong in an auto body shop?

SPEAKER_02

But it was it made me feel good about myself also. Oh, absolutely. Also, it's an insane body autobody shop to walk into. Like there's a lot going on in there. Some American flag situations on the walls. Indeed. There's like a Bible verse, there's like a in this auto body shop, we love our families, we love Jesus, and we love America. And so my first time in there too, I was also very scared.

SPEAKER_01

Just like I don't know what the But's also the auto body shop that I know is gonna do my car right. Absolutely. They were so nice to me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it was so cheap to get my car fixed. Exactly. And I think it's a sort of a beautiful display of allyship in this gay neighborhood that those guys are fixing all of our cars. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, my first question is are you gay?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Do you want me to stand up and show off my Sweden Beyond shirt?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. No, I'm kidding, you're fine. Could you share like how currently you identify if you want to?

SPEAKER_01

I I like just queer as the umbrella term because bisexual is outdated, but pansexual, I just hate the way that it sounds. And it's really like aesthetically not your thing. Yeah, it truly like, and this is my problem with words, is like I don't even like non-binary because non-binary is just saying that well, this is what I am not, which is not saying what you are, but I also don't like NB, I don't like E N B Y, I don't like the way that it looks, yeah, and I just don't like the way that it feels. Um but also uh I'm having like a sort of not fully retracting that feeling, but I am like having an experience lately where um or not just lately, but I'm it's sort of like crystallizing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Where I'm not like a flag gay, you know, I'm not like a pro not that I'm not proud, but I'm not leaving. Not proud. I don't even want to wear a name tag, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

Like I'm not you don't you've always said this, you don't like to be perceived.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And so I have some friends, well-meaning friends, mostly cis friends, who will like send me in things on Instagram or whatever about like top surgery and like being non-binary. And I'm like, this is not my shit at all. It's so cute. I think I am that, but there's so many that's not like what I'm thinking about of myself all the time. Like somebody in the context of myself.

SPEAKER_02

Somebody's mom buying them like rainbow merch as soon as they find out they're gay.

SPEAKER_01

Like it's like my mom buys cards with like she bought me a Christmas card that was like a rainbow Christmas tree. I'm like, ugh. She bought me this Hallmark ornament that was like a heart with the full pride flag on it, and like which is also a little adorable. It's so sweet, she means so well. She needs like a whole section for herself at Hallmark because this woman wants to buy a sweet card, but she doesn't want to write the message herself, and so she is out here using mailing labels and pen to cover the words daughter and write child on them and her truly like and it used to annoy me, but I do think it's so endearing. Yeah. Um for Mother's Day this year, she's like, she sent me a card for Mother's Day. I have no children. Perfect. She said, but she was she's she's having a year of growth, she says. Uh-huh. And I think she means it. And she she just okay, this is like we're going very deep now. She's like, has sciatica right now and has been like laid up for a while. Which is also terrible. So she's been like laid up for a couple months. She's very bored, and my dad is taking care of her. My dad not a caretaker. No. And she is having an experience where um so when she she came to stay with me when I topped surgery, and I was hoping this would have been an experience for us to like actually bond. Yeah. Uh, but I felt like she was there but very hands-off. Yeah. You know, I was I wanted to be like nurtured, but she was like, Can you handle showering by yourself? And I'm like, I guess. All of this to say, and having my dad take care of her, she has seen the other side. And now she's feeling bored, she's feeling not as nurtured, and da da da da. And so she called me and was like, You were right, I am sorry.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, by the way, every gay person's dream call from their parents.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. But a hard one to receive, also. Oh, difficult. Because you don't know what to say. But then she decided she wanted to send me a card for Mother's Day to to say that she loves me, and she did all of this white mailing label child over daughter, all this other stuff. But I was on the phone with her after I got it, and she was like and I decided, you know, I'm gonna send them a card. And it was the first time I remember her saying the right pronoun without like a hedge or a you know, a saying it a second time just to make sure you heard it. Right, or like or like correcting. Yeah, or just like it being without any weirdness, and I was like, but that's the that's the thing. The rainbow card is not the thing at all. The rainbow card's not the thing. That's the thing, and then and then we move on because it's like I don't want to focus on it, you know. And I know we've gotten really off track of the original question. No, but I think this is really valuable.

SPEAKER_02

I assume based on my audience, that there are some other people in on the gender spectrum watching who are like yeah, podcasts. And I think there's like a complexity to your relationship with your mom that a lot of people can relate to. Totally. What's hard for me a lot of times is I love when people learn new things, but like when it takes it affecting them to learn that thing, yeah, it can be a little frustrating.

SPEAKER_01

Like, oh, you experienced it, so now you care is it's frustrating, but it's so understand like I think it's so understandable uh because you can't actually understand something you haven't experienced. You should we should all be better about empathizing with people and just trusting what they're saying to you about your experience. But it is so hard to step outside of one's self and one's own experiences and history and everything else going on that affects your lens of the world.

SPEAKER_02

There's just like a quote that I hear sometimes or like see on Instagram sometimes, which pain is the only feeling we can't share with another person. Like we can't like know that we're feeling the same thing as them at the same time. It's like a really individual experience. Yeah. And so, like, literally specifically within a surgery context, it does make sense that like physical pain, maybe she's experiencing that without someone taking care of her for the first time and being like, Oh, this sucks. Like this isn't very fun totally for her.

SPEAKER_01

She's also so used to like being the caretaker, like she her identity is so rooted in being a mom.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That like that's what she cares about, you know what I mean? So I think for her it's additionally difficult to not be the one in charge of caretaking and to need that.

SPEAKER_02

Like, women are raised with this idea that your goodness is directly tied with your ability to manage a household and take care of a family, like by yourself, like be able to like bleed yourself dry for the people around you. Like if you aren't able to give all of yourself to them all of the time, you are not good morally. Yeah. And that sucks pretty badly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's not it's not great. That's not that ideal.

SPEAKER_02

I think there are a lot of women that are maybe of that generation that do feel this sense of maybe tension or jealousy or frustration with the fact that like me, maybe you, maybe especially queer young people, aren't bogged down by I have to be in charge of a family as my whole identity, or everyone will think I'm bad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Wow, I love being gay.

SPEAKER_01

Is that something you want one day, you think?

SPEAKER_02

Kids, family. I this is something that I have been struggling with lately is this idea that I always grew up wanting to be a mom, like more than anything in the world. I just knew I was gonna be a mom, but right now I'm trying to parse out what things I wanted because I was told that I had to want them, and what things I actually want. And so for as long as I can remember, being a mom was always in my future plans, but also so much of my self-identity, my future was like spoon-fed to me by the church and by like really conservative ideals. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Do you remember because I I was listening to the episode you did with Lauren. Oh my god, you listen to the podcast? I listened to the podcast. Okay. Um, and I remember you talking about like your parents didn't start getting into the church till you were like eleven or something, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, like fourth or fifth grade.

SPEAKER_01

So do you remember really wanting to be a mom before that?

SPEAKER_02

I don't know. I remember This is gonna be a deep cut of childhood lore. Yeah. But I was crazy ADHD as a kid, like climbing on everything, always wanted to play sports, like didn't want to do girl things. My sister loved pink and purple, and I remember knowing that that was associated with femininity, so I was like, I'm gonna reject these. Like, I hate pink and purple. These are my least favorite colors in the world because those are girl colors. Like, I was so um anti this idea of femininity that had been presented to me. When I was born, my parents referred to me as this is gonna sound crazy. Um, but they were like, You're the boy we never had. Because I like behaved unlike my sister, who was a pretty traditional feminine presenting kid.

SPEAKER_01

Older or a younger sister?

SPEAKER_02

Older. So when I was really little, I enjoyed thinking about a life that was not like the traditional feminine future that had been laid out for me. But then when I joined the church, I think I like really win in it. I think a lot of queer people even do this, or like I I guess people experiencing any sort of gender dysphoria before they make a different move, like dive in headfirst to the traditional ideals or standards. Like for me with sexuality, I think I was like, I'm going to have kids and I'm going to marry a man and I'm going to be a really good Christian wife. Of course. Because this is my number one most important thing. There was a sense of security and safety and like certainty in that. And it's much scarier at the time to confront the truth, which is that I maybe didn't want that really bad. So I like, I don't know. I think it's really blurry. I think like a lot of my desires, especially as like a young teenager, teenager, were trauma responses or like things that I did for survival or like safety. And so I don't know. I am like open I've always wanted to take care of other people and other things. I always want to be a person that has an open door policy or someone that has a guest room that's always open. So like if someone needs to stay, even like Matthew and I have talked about, if we're old and single, like we're gonna foster kids. We're gonna have a space available, but I don't know what having a family would look like for me at this point.

SPEAKER_01

What about it? Um, do you think you can sort of pick out certain aspects of that that are what appeal to you?

SPEAKER_02

For the longest time, even after I left the church, I wanted to do over. Like just transparently, I was like, I could be a better mom than I got, which is selfish and not ideal, but I think like I think it's a pretty common sentiment though. Yeah, and like just uh kind of cathartic to think about what it would be like to take care of someone and do it well and inject lots of love and positivity into their lives. But I think um I've always felt really drawn to listening and make making people feel seen. Like as a kid, I really wanted to be a doctor. These like caretaking roles always really appealed to me. So I think that's that's what it is. Or do you are kids?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I don't want the responsibility. Yeah, I don't want to be locked in like that for l life and to put myself on hold so much. I think I do enough caretaking of other people in my day-to-day life that I don't need uh I don't need it to be revolved around that. Absolutely. I've got stuff I want to do. I'm selfish and I yeah, I just I can't imagine having children.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that makes so much sense when you asked what appeals to it for me. This is sort of why I'm struggling with it at the moment, is for so long I was in my friendships, a collector of broken birds. Like I had this desire to take care of everyone and fix everyone. And I think it's because I saw I think a lot of my experiences in the church translate to people that grew up as women everywhere, which is like we were talking about you have to bleed yourself dry to take care of the people around you. Like, if you are needed, you are valuable. So I just surrounded myself with people that like for better or for worse life or death, like emergency scenarios needed me all the time so that I could be useful or be valuable to them. And so I'm trying to undo that era of friendship in my life right now, which is also hard, and just like very hard. Maybe I don't want to be needed 100% of the time, and so that just reminds me of like the feeling of having kids is interesting because they really do need you for all their stuff.

SPEAKER_01

They really do. Um, I I feel very similarly about I feel like I've always had at least one very challenging friend. Yeah. Um, and I'm sure there's like childhood stuff that that stems from. Oh yeah. But I don't want that anymore. Yeah. I want to fix that.

SPEAKER_02

Then we'll go back to a serious question, I guess. Do you believe in God?

SPEAKER_01

I don't think so. I we grew up sort of religious. Like we went to church. What kind? Uh I think Catholic. Um I think Catholic. Wait, okay, so here's why it's confusing. Again, flashes of childhood. Yeah. Um I'm pretty sure it was a Catholic church, but I also remember like doing some sort of after school thing occasionally. Yeah. Um, but I know I got like my first communion and my sister got confirmed, and we did go to Sunday school. But we stopped going to church when I was like in the third grade, and my memory is that the I don't know if it's a priest or a pastor, but whichever it is. For Catholic, I think priest. Priest. The priest insulted Italians. Okay. He like used an Italian slur. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my dad got mad, and I remember us leaving. And he said, We're never going back here. But we didn't find another church, is the thing.

SPEAKER_02

You know what I mean? Like, we didn't just go to another church. Well, he's probably done with all the churches at that point.

SPEAKER_01

And then my mom, I was talking to my mom about this a couple years ago because I wanted to write a joke about it, obviously. Yeah. And she was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but also something, something childborn. So, like, I don't I need to get clarification of it.

SPEAKER_02

It wasn't just the Italians thing.

SPEAKER_01

I think for my dad it was.

SPEAKER_02

But your mom was sort of worried about the other stuff. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so I guess I don't believe like in a traditional god. Yeah, of course. You know what I mean? Uh, but I am not willing to say that there is no sort of energy in the universe that um that is affecting things.

SPEAKER_02

Do you have like a where do we go when we die idea?

SPEAKER_01

No.

SPEAKER_02

Me either. I my best guess is like one time I tripped on some drugs and I feel like I saw death. Yeah. And it was pretty good. And it was sort of just like there's energy, like atoms that make up who we are, and like little particles of energy, and they just sort of dissipate into everything and like sprinkle over a little bit of everything. So like I had a grandparent pass away and then like told me that they would come back as a butterfly, and so I've seen a lot of butterflies, and that's been my explanation for how that works is like our energy goes into the world, and then because there was a little bit of like butterfly intentions in my grandpa, he was like, Yeah, I'll be a butterfly, you know, little sprinkles that are over everything.

SPEAKER_01

I like that. I don't know if that makes any sense. It makes sense to me. I mean, I it was drug-induced. So what? So it's just I mean, what's the difference between that and the chemicals in your brain and like going to sleep and dreaming about someone who's died? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's just different chemical processes, as far as I'm concerned. Uh I don't know that I it feels but it feels so self-centered to be like, but we're not gone when we're gone, you know, because that's that feels like a I can't be gone when I'm gone. Yeah. Which feels really uh narcissistic. But I also, you know, I've lost a lot of people in my life and I don't like the idea that when they're gone their energy is completely, you know, lost to the universe forever.

SPEAKER_02

I have never thought about it as being narcissistic before. Like the I could never handle the idea of being gone. Yeah. But for me, the way that I grew up really religious, the type of church I grew up in, I think this is just a common sentiment among religions, is like if you're this type of Christian, the specific one that we were, you're gonna go to heaven forever or whatever. And I think what's so scary about that is so many decisions were made without any thought about how it would affect people now. They would say, like, we're living for eternity, we're not living for now. But then if someone was in like dire need of help, we wouldn't give them help because we're worried about our souls, not about this person right now. Oh if that makes sense, like what kind of help?

SPEAKER_01

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02

Like I've given this example before, but we did something called I keep wanting to say dismembering, but that's not what it is. Excommunication. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so like casting someone out of the church.

SPEAKER_02

Casting someone out of the church, like shunning them, um, not speaking to them again. Yeah. And it was for the hope that eventually they would feel sorry enough that they would like come back to Christ and apologize. Right. And that concept was based on the idea that like I care so much about your soul that I'm gonna forego my relationship with you now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So then I will have you later, which I think kind of marks the relationship that I have with my parents and the relationship that a lot of like young kids have with their families is parents being completely complacent and okay with like never speaking to their kid again because they'll see them again in heaven. It like makes me feel ill thinking about how confident they are that they'll see them again, and like what if they don't? And we all this is the only time we get.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

This is pretty dark. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no, no, no. It's just it's I you're saying that, and it it feels like that concept divorced from the church, yeah, is so complicated because doing it with the presumption that you're gonna see someone again in heaven and it's gonna be fine. Yeah, it feels a like a bit uh out of this world. Yeah. But I think the idea in general of like having to cut someone off for their own good is sometimes true and sometimes not true in a way that like is also very difficult to know when it is the right thing or the wrong thing to do. It's like my sister had a lot of drug problems and like therefore had a lot of friends with a lot of drug problems. And there was this guy that she was good friends with who like became like a family friend and all that, and he I forget exactly what he did, but my mom being like executive director of the chamber of commerce, knew all the businesses, knew the police, was like in with everybody. Yeah, she got him arrested, I think. Yeah. And that wound up turning his life around for the better. Yeah. But for other people, that would be like continuing down the downward path into and it's just like it feels like such an impossible helping other people feels like such an impossible task sometimes.

SPEAKER_02

I feel like you've been vulnerable. I'll do a vulnerable as a treat. Matthew and I had a s time when I we were like 19 where we didn't speak for like six months. Okay. Big scary. He's my best guy, my best friend in the whole world. But I was really unstable. I was making really poor choices about myself and my body and like the things I was putting into it, and I was not in therapy, and I refused to acknowledge that I maybe would need therapy. And as someone raised in a religious cult, I think pretty much unanimously people in the world would agree that I would require some therapy. Sure. But I was so against it, and he was just like, I love you so much, and I can't watch you kill yourself. Like, I I can't watch you destroy your life, and I will give you whatever resources you need to like get therapy, but I can't be like your number one support guy until you have like this resolve to help yourself, to help yourself, to go to therapy. And then I got back in therapy, and he's been my best friend for seven years. Like, I love him with my whole heart. But I had I not had that break away from that like crutch that I had, like, I was definitely relying on him for life support at the time. But yeah, I think about that a lot. It was probably so hard for him to come to that decision to make that decision. But I personally am so grateful that that was my experience.

SPEAKER_01

And they're like to go back to the original thing, there is a lens of that that is like a little excommunicate-y, yeah, but for the purposes of your life now, yeah. And it is it is like a I am casting you out from my church. But you are welcome back when you do the things.

SPEAKER_02

Matthew cast me out from his metaphorical church. Yeah, I just I don't think we should be doing that for gay reasons. No, no, no, certainly not.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this is not a defense of the church. This is like a it is an interesting concept that is at times useful for specific things, but like anything else, everything is a tool and depends on what you do with the tool.

SPEAKER_02

And you can use tools for evil. Or for good. Excommunication can be good sometimes.

SPEAKER_01

That's what I'm saying. Just a little splash of it. In my cult, we will.

SPEAKER_02

I'm starting on cult for excommunication. Um If I had a gay kid, I'd be cool with it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And that's the moral of the story. In the cult that we're starting. Yeah. You can be gay. You can be gay. When you look back at your childhood, are there any like glaring signs that you were gay that you didn't know at the time, but are pretty obvious now?

SPEAKER_01

I think the close was a big thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I also th remember being like in high school and having like, you know, your top five like male actors list and like a top five women actors list. Uh-huh. And I didn't have a full top five men, but I definitely had a top five women, but I didn't think anything about that. Also, um, my best friend when I was in high school was in my phone as future wife. Yeah. And I would call her that all the time. And she would call me like her future husband. Is she gay now? No. Oh, okay. And like I never had feelings for her in that way. Yeah. Which I think is a the interesting part of it. Is I didn't I wasn't like harboring a secret crush. Okay. There wasn't I never felt like I wanted to kiss her or anything like that. It was just like, no, we're just we're best friends and you're my soulmate and you're my life mate, and I'm gonna I'm gonna marry you. Yeah. But I don't secretly want to jump your bones. I'd and so that I think is very interesting. That is interesting.

SPEAKER_02

I have always considered queer friend friendships to be fascinating to me. Like the way that queer people love other people is so much deeper. Is that bad to say that? Not if it's true. I think gay people are sweeties and lovers in a way that And that's just what it is.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I would go into her house, I wouldn't knock on the door. I was just like another kid who lived there, even though I didn't. And we just spent all of this time together, and like That's beautiful. That's just it was just my best friend. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

So I think that also just like I know a lot of queer kids that have tumultuous relationships with their family. I think a lot of queer people find community in people maybe outside their nuclear family.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and well, and that's another thing is that I in high school I was always I was like drawn to gay people and like gender ambiguous people, but I didn't really know what it meant and didn't really think it meant anything. But you would just I would just see people and be sort of magnetized. Isn't it funny that all my friends are gay? Yeah. And it wasn't even like all my friends, but it would just be like strangers or like I didn't really I I was basically told that I was queer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I didn't know. You know, it was not like a conclusion I drew on my um my friend Caleb, who made the bracelet, of course. My oldest friend, like I remember seeing them because they're from my they're also my like my only childhood friend that I'm still friends with. They had been homeschooled for a while and then did high school in the same school as me. But I remember being at the movie theater in the sixth grade and seeing them wearing like pink board shorts and a puka shell necklace and just like being like, Who is that person? And I just like have that crystal memory, and then we became friends when they started going to high school. Yeah, and they had gone to school at Penn State, I visited them out there, I had been like walking around with them complaining about this guy that I was hooking up with. Uh-huh. Uh, and they were like, Have you ever thought about like trying a girl? Trying one on for size. Yeah. Taking for a six year. And I just like I hadn't, you know. Yeah. It it was like, oh, I mean, I yeah, I could think about that. You know, it wasn't like something that I just hadn't crossed my mind.

SPEAKER_02

Well, if you grow up thinking, I don't know, just you grow up seeing celebrities in your family and the people around you grow up and marry a man to be straight, that feels like the only option. Sometimes you just need to like be presented another option. You're like, oh, I would prefer to pick that. Like I would like to look into that as a choice. I didn't know about it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, but I did know about it. Like I had like Caleb's gay, I had other friends who were gay, but it just like until somebody told me that I could do it, I had never thought one way or the other about it being like bad for me to do or an option for me to do. It was more like, oh yeah, okay, sure. You can be gay.

SPEAKER_02

I can I can be gay. Like you need to be. You can also be gay. You like gave yourself the permission to think about it. Like that's beautiful. Well, how was being gay that time? Uh the first time you were being gay, how was that?

SPEAKER_01

The first time I was being gay.

SPEAKER_02

Did you have any like homoerotic gay?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, I had the very classic fashion. After that, um, I had a roommate who I was going to school with, working. Clicking up with roommate is a really hot. Listen, you're not even we're not even gone through all the factors. We we were we were roommates and in school together, became best friends, started a band together, started working a job together.

SPEAKER_00

Oh god.

SPEAKER_01

Graduated college. I said, I think I'm in love with you, and then we dated for three months, and then we broke up but kept living together and being in a band together and working together. That's so good. So that's so gay. You know, when I try, I go all the way.

SPEAKER_02

A first codependent queer relationship is gonna destroy you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, and we had like made out well when we were drunk, you know, before I was like, I think I'm actually in love with you. Um, of course, just like it's just oh, this is being my friend, and we just love my friend, we're just like kissing and stuff. We just love kissing when we're fucking really drunk. This was like a decade ago, yeah. So we were all also both very mentally unwell and not sure how to be well. Yeah. I started going to therapy after we broke up, actually. That was like the inciting incident. It's like I am not behaving the way that I want to be behaving. I am not handling our situations the way that feels good. And I need something to change in me because I don't like the way that I'm treating this person. Yeah. Um, and so that was good. That's good. And I'm so glad that I've been talking about it. And we're still like, that's still one of my best friends.

SPEAKER_02

Are you still a friend? Yep. Yeah. Something beautiful about queer people is that they never break up. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's a gay person that I've dated and broken up with that I don't still talk to. Sure. And I think that's so funny. I think this is just as a testament to how deeply queer people love each other. But like, yeah, we don't. This also can be really painful and terrible. But like, I'm not blocking exes, like, I'm not doing do not disturb, hiding people's stories for exes. I'm still on her close friend story. But just like all of the women that women that I've ever uh been with, us bar the first one, the first one that is now a fundamentalist Christian. Oh god. Um, oh god, I have been like really close with still, and I don't know if that's for the better or for the worse, but I think it all depends, like, on how that relationship feels.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You know, when you're when you're still holding on to it in some way. I think uh there's an argument to be made that that's because uh queer people are looking for something deeper. And like there is something about the person that you like even if it and are drawn to even if it doesn't work out romantically, sexually, whatever it is. Um, and that's something that you don't want to give up just because the thing didn't work out. Yeah. In one specific context. Um Yeah, I mean my ex I was one of the few people at her wedding. You know what I mean? That's still one of my closest That's the person that I like wanna hang out with, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

So And I I feel like for all of the women that I've been with, I've chosen, like I've done that because I thought they were cool. Like I like I there's no women that that I've slept with or went on dates with that I like didn't wanna be around.

SPEAKER_01

Wanna be around, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So like if we're not hooking up anymore, I still think you're cool. Yeah. But with men that I don't there's many men that I will never speak to again.

SPEAKER_01

Totally. Totally. There's men I forget about.

SPEAKER_02

I went to the fundamentalist wedding for the girl that was better than Matthew. Three years?

unknown

More than two.

SPEAKER_02

More than two. Three years ago. It's more recent than I would have guessed. Yeah, three years ago. Yeah. Um What was that experience like? It was horrifying. It's I think when I read my diaries online, there is an element of almost like the line between how re really conservative Christian kids were acting and satire about those things is so thin. I think that there are so many things about fundamentalist Christianity that are like hilarious and ridiculous. And if an outside person were to see it, they'd be like, That's a character, like that is not.

SPEAKER_01

You can't be for real, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. And there are so many things about this wedding that were like, I felt like I was watching an SNL skit or like someone doing a bit about Do you have an example? Conservative Christianity. Just like even the the vows being like, this is inherently sad, but the vows being like, Do you promise to obey your husband until the day you die? We're just saying that out loud. Like the fact that they would just say stuff like that out loud. Horrific. Oof. I know. And there's also just the classic Christian, everyone's 21. It's a dry wedding, it's like no dancing, no drinking, like what the wedding is supposed to be about fun, right? Like and no one has any money when they're 21, so it's like of course objectively a quite a bad wedding. Yeah. I don't think you need to have a lot of money to have a good party with your friends, but just like you really don't. You just need to want to have a good time. You need to want to have a good time. And I think that they don't, like if if marriage is viewed as sort of like an act of obedience or like a box to check. Voluntary servitude. It's not a very fun party to go to. No. An obedience party. Yikes. Yeah. So that's how it was.

SPEAKER_01

I'm so sorry. Why did you go?

SPEAKER_02

Um, my therapist and all my friends told me not to. And I think I just wasn't Matthew sitting on the couch giggling. I made Matthew come with me. Matthew came with me to the wedding. And we were there we were just some straight um lovers sitting in the front row of the wedding. Straight lovers. Straight lovers. Um maybe curiosity. Hot pocket. Hot pocket. Maybe uh maybe I needed to close the loop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, like sometimes I relate to that.

SPEAKER_02

I needed to just make sure I I love to learn like that.

SPEAKER_01

I love to seek it out. Uh-huh. I think I need to learn by suffering. Yeah, I'm always so curious.

SPEAKER_02

This new segment called Cross My Heart. And it's where you share something sort of like embarrassing, cringy from your youth.

SPEAKER_01

When I was in elementary school, um, one of my good friends who I rode the bus with, we lived near each other, uh, faked a love letter to me from the boy I had a crush on. Yeah. No. And he was like a nice boy too, so it was like even harder to learn that it's not like a real thing. Yeah. And such like a vindictive thing to do to your friend. Like I I didn't really like I've had difficult friends throughout my life, but I don't remember most of them doing things to me. You know what I mean? Yeah. I've usually been the person who's been uh not victim to the the drama, the bullying, the yes, all of that. And so to be like in the second grade and get like a fake love letter from your friend that was someone else.

SPEAKER_02

Such a bubble burst moment of like you realizing that people you love can be evil. Yeah, yeah. Like you're like, I didn't even know this was an option of ways you could draw it. Why would you do this? Also, you're eight. Like, what's going on in your mind that you're like, I'm gonna do something sick.

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna I'm gonna play with my best friends hard. Yeah, it just doesn't even crazy make sense to do. Because I also don't think like I'm not really like a pranky person. Yeah. I'm not even really like that much of a jokey person. Like, I don't it doesn't occur to me to do it, you know? And so to have that like it doesn't occur to you to lie during standup.

SPEAKER_02

You're like, I would never lie to the stuff. You're right.

SPEAKER_01

It doesn't occur to me to lie here, you know what I mean? Like I'm pretty much I'm more of an omission guy than a straight up here is the false uh you know. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02

I think there was a moment in my childhood that I also learned that the world was bad, and it was in elementary school in third grade, we did the talent show. Alvin and the Chipmunks had just come out. Yeah, and you know the baby you spin me round you spin my hair. The Albin and the Chipmunks version of that song, platinum at the time. Huge. Um, me and my little group of friends decided to like sing and hula hoop to the song on stage, like do a choreographed hula hoop performance. Wow. We practiced for weeks on the recess playground, day after day. We were hula hooping. One of them, one of our girls broke her foot, got on crutches. We still had her like she like we had to like um oh accommodations, like we like accommodated her choreography so she could still be on stage. We were like locked in on the progressive of you chipmunks, yeah. And I've always been that way.

SPEAKER_01

ADA compliant chipmunk performance.

SPEAKER_02

ADA exactly. Um, that was always really important to me. Inclusion. Two days before the talent show, the teacher that runs the talent show comes up to us and is like, um, there's a group of boys that also wants to hula hoop. We're just gonna have them join you. No, and so we had been practicing for legitimately a month, like uh in as far as school days go, probably like 24 individual school days have been spent the whole 45 minutes of recess rehearsing our chipmunk dance, and then like we had to incorporate these boys, and then like they like introduced us on stage as like um Hannah and Michaela and Keegan and Stephanie are gonna do their performance of Alvin and the Chipmunks, and like they listed all the boys' names and we're like, and they all have been working together on it so hard. And I'm there's like photos of me hula hooping with like dead face, like just like this sucks. Like, I am not having fun. The boys did not like the feeling of you me wanting to grab the mic and be like, and they didn't help at all. Like learning about the patriarchy, I guess. Yeah. Me learning that women have to let men take credit for something that they didn't do. And all the moms were like, Oh, those boys were so cute trying their hardest up there.

SPEAKER_01

And they're getting all the credit and the attention for something that you tried to do yourself.

SPEAKER_02

That was one of my first like world snap moments of oh, people are bad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, bad things can happen for no reason at all.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I have a forgive me but. Yeah. And if you don't have one, that's okay, but I'm gonna share mine. This segment's called Forgive Me But. It's kind of like a hot take segment. Forgive me but The Devil Wars Prada 2 was bad.

SPEAKER_01

Was it really? I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_02

I won't do spoilers, but I think it suffered the same fate as many sequels, which is trying to live up to the hype of the original.

SPEAKER_01

Which is impossible, especially with the distance of time now.

SPEAKER_02

Trying to tie in everyone's plot in a satisfying way requires a lot of exposition. Like how we got all of these characters together again in a second movie required so much overwriting, I think. Like they had to jump through a lot of hoops to bring all these characters together. Sure. And they spent so much time like establishing what's going on and why, and introducing these new characters that suddenly link these old characters that it was boring. Like it just they just got lost long.

SPEAKER_01

And that's the problem.

SPEAKER_02

The what the one thing I did like about it, there's a critique of journalism right now, and the way that like AI and these huge billionaires are purchasing publications and like trying to manipulate media, which I think is a really valuable critique. Yeah. But there is so much screen time of these billionaire assholes that is I don't think it's doing what they thought it was doing, if that makes sense. I was staring at a lot of old men for way too much of a movie that's supposed to be about the girls and the gays. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. If I mean, if anything, it is just a reflection of the time that we actually live in where we are spending too much of our eyeballs and time looking at these billionaire old men who are ruining society around us. Agree. Uh, but that doesn't but I go to the movies so I don't have to see it. Yes. So I don't have to think about it.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but they did look great. Everyone looked beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, Anne Hathaway is one of the most beautiful women alive.

SPEAKER_02

So stunning.

SPEAKER_01

Just the most gorgeous, gorgeous woman.

SPEAKER_02

Favorite. That's what I was gonna say, is that some sequels are really good. Yeah. For example, The Princess Iris 2. Oh, I haven't seen it. Incredible sequel. And I think if you've seen the first one, the stakes of that movie are like fish out of water, a girl eats her private school and then realizes she has to become a princess and has to do the whole etiquette cotillion training. Second movie. They have to straighten her hair. They have to straighten her hair, which makes her hot. She was ugly before. But once she got that hair straightened, oh boy. Once you take those glasses off, she's a stunner. Make me believe for even a second that Anna Hathaway isn't hot. It's like You can't. You can't do it. That's how I felt. Okay, even watching Devil Wars Prada, it's like she'll be like, She was hot the whole time. They like call her fat. Like you're like the fat, nerdy one. I don't for one second believe this about her. Exactly. What are you talking about? Grow up. Um, but in the second Princess Diary's movie, the stakes are that she has to find a husband or else she's gonna lose the throne. Like, you have to once you're oh wait, I have seen part of it. Yeah, yeah. And that's the whole premise of the second movie. And then she ends up being like, I'm not gonna take a husband, actually. I'm a girl boss, and it's a really fun second premise. And with Devil Wars Prada 2, they just tried to have so many stakes that none of them mattered, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01

Like nothing felt You didn't give me anything really to focus on because you gave me too many things to focus on.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Yeah. But I think some sequels are fantastic. Shrek 2, great movie. Shrek 2, Princess Iris 2, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. Yeah. All great sequels. Too Fast Too Furious? I haven't seen that one. Oh, pretty good. I've seen any of the Fast and Furious movies. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01

That's okay. I mean, there's too many now. I'll say that. So we didn't need 10, but R.I.P. Paul Walker. Wow. Do you have a forgive me but? I do. Forgive me but call me about your problems. I don't want to don't text me. Yeah. I don't want to text you about my problems. I don't want you to text me me about my about your problems. I want to talk to you about your problems. Yeah. What happens is if you're texting me about like an actual emotional problem, uh, we're both distracted because we're not just like interfacing with each other. You're at work or something and picking up the phone and putting it down, and now I'm locked in on your problem, but you're not responding with urgency, and then I feel like I can't walk away and go about my business and do what I'm trying to actually do in my day, and now I'm stuck in this frozen state. Well, I want to be helpful to you, but don't feel as helpful as I could be, because that's not how human beings process our feelings. We need to be like actually in conversation with each other. Like we are not built to be reading about our problems on a screen. We are built to hear each other's tone of voice, you know, uh see the way somebody else is looking at you if possible. You know, body language, pheromones, all of that other shit. And when you're texting, like an I'm a good soldier, I will text you back and try to help you as best I can. I'm a good boy, I will text you back. Because I want to be useful, I want to be helpful, I want to take care of you, but I will have a better experience and you will have a better experience working through our our issues in the world, not even just with each other, but like anything going on in your day that you're struggling with. I want to help you, but fucking call me. Yeah. And answer the phone when I call. And forgive me, but turn off red receipts. Turn them off. Turn them off. I don't care who you are. I don't want to know that you looked at my text message. I don't want to know. I don't want to know that you saw it and then didn't text me back for eight hours. I don't want to know that I want to live in ignorance.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. There was a couple that I knew in college that turned on red receipts. They were like very codependent. Yeah. Turned on red receipts, both of them, like for each other, because they were like, I need to know if you're ignoring me. And it was the most toxic thing in the world. It's terrible. And if anyone has red receipts on, I think it's a red flag.

SPEAKER_01

It just I just don't like it. Because I don't know who that's for.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Who is it for?

SPEAKER_01

Who's it for? It's like it's not uh helping you, and it's not helping me, certainly. It's just making me anxious about something that I don't need to be anxious about.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

So I'm not really that worried if you're ignoring my text unless I know that you've seen my text. Yeah. And even if I'm I'm good at rationalizing that you not answering it is probably not about me, but it's still frustrating to me.

SPEAKER_02

Like, I don't want to be confronted with it visually. Like I don't need to look, I don't need to be able to.

SPEAKER_01

I'm just going to waste the energy to talk myself down about it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

When I wouldn't even think about it. Completely agree. As a thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm implementing something this summer that I like to call the 90s mom summer, which is listening to the radio. That's what I'm doing. Reading magazines, watching old daytime talk shows, like getting my trash media from a little bit more of an analog source than scrolling through my phone. My dream is to get a working landline phone and just to be able to like call my girls and yeah. Because that's what I want. I hate texting. I've like lost opportunity for second date before because I don't care to text. Like I will I've also told girls before, like, I don't text. Like you can call me. Yeah. I'm not going to respond to your text.

SPEAKER_01

I just like to be focused on the conversation. Absolutely. I don't want to be like, ha ha ha, go do something else, and then have to think. I just want to do that.

SPEAKER_02

I want to remember that I care later. That makes me feel gross about my relationship to you too. Like, I don't want to treat you that way.

SPEAKER_01

I want to be locked in with you. Absolutely. And then I want to be doing something else.

SPEAKER_02

I think we both in any conversation deserve to be present and have the other one be present too. Yes. And it feels kind of like cheap to have an emotional conversation over text. Yeah. Also, I think there's something about I appreciate about my closest friends is that we will call each other out on our bullshit or call each other out when we're lying. And over text, you can't really get that.

SPEAKER_01

It feels meaner than it is.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

It feels like you lose so much of the intention and the emotion in a text message, and then you fill in the blanks because that's what your brain your brain is looking for answers. Your brain needs a story. Absolutely. And it will fill in the blanks with like the worst case scenario. And so it's so much easier to decide that somebody's bullying you, somebody's being mean to you, somebody's like mad at you when you don't get the tone of voice. Absolutely. But like then I'm taking longer to send my text because I have to add in all these little qualifiers and modifiers so that you know that I'm saying it's a good idea. I don't mean this in a rude way, and I mean this with all love and light.

SPEAKER_02

And also I just wanted to check. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's really frustrating.

SPEAKER_01

So just forgive me, but call me on the phone.

SPEAKER_02

Call me on the phone. You said you were listening to the radio.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I literally bought an antenna for my like record player receiver so that I could listen to the radio on that. So I can just wake up in the morning, turn it on, go about my business, and then I don't have to think about the like what record do I want to listen to right now? I just like curate something for me, but not in like a Spotify, a pale a playlist way, like just let me turn on Tirp Radio or whatever and just move.

SPEAKER_02

A few months back I deleted Spotify per your recommendation. Thank you. Rachel works with a lot of music artists. I sure do. And Spotify and these like streaming services for music are really predatory and don't pay artists in a way that's really messed up, among other reasons why they're messed up. Indeed. And so I deleted my Spotify, and I've been like going on YouTube and listening till DJs do sets like in the morning, like curating a morning Bossa Nova vibe, or like curating a morning jazz vibe, and I'll just listen to or like 90s punk pop vibes or whatever, and I'll listen to an hour of this curated set by a DJ. And after like a couple months of that, I I had this realization of that I was just like creating the radio. Like oh I was like, oh, this is what the radio is. It's a radio DJ for radio disc drive. A DJ that has a certain style and you listen to them every day. But I have um a one of those like under the cabinet 90s mom radios, CD players coming in the mail, and I'm very excited for you to see it. Yeah. But yeah, I'm trying to have a 90s mom summer. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I just got a boom box that David Feinberg gave me that has like a CD player and a accept player, and it has an antenna, so I assume it also does the radio. Yeah. Um, but I just I like my analog mediums, I like the physicality of things.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. So I'm a big CD girl. Yeah. You've been in my car. I have. Did you know that I only have one CD that I can play in my car for the longest time? I had a broken CD player and I had the Ed Sheeran Collaborations album. Oh whoa. Which is arguably not his best album. Sure. Stuck in my car. And so for like years, I could only listen to this one.

SPEAKER_01

That is extreme.

SPEAKER_02

Objectively, pretty bad album. And I I I don't even want to talk about Ed Sheeran right now, but I just like it's not the best thing to have in the car if you have some fun new friends in your car and you're like, let's listen to music. Right. The ox is broken. The only thing I can play is Ed Sheeran collaborations. But I recently got it to work. Yay! I got the CD out, and now I can play all sorts of CDs that are not collaborations. What is the first one that you're putting in there? Right now I have um Cowboy Carter, Beyonce in my car. Excellent. A classic. Excellent. A great album. Yeah. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sitting on my couch and talking to me today. Thank you for the time. This was fun. It was great. This was vulnerable and weird.

SPEAKER_01

And that's what I expected because that is the energy that I bring to the table. And thank God. Yeah, I'm the person who at the checkout line, the checkout person will just unload traumas on me when I say, Oh, how is that? And then they go, I feel comfortable with you. Let me tell you about this person who died in my life. And I go, you just know.

SPEAKER_02

I typically have that effect too. And I think maybe together it's sort of like a harrowing. Obsessed. Usually my coping mechanism on podcasts is to ask the other person questions. Yeah. But you do that too. Okay, I think I have a cult now.

SPEAKER_01

Can you do it? Yeah, I'll do the cult. Um I'm starting a cult for asking other people questions. I really think that part of the reason people feel lonely and feel like awkward in rooms with each other, especially people they don't know very well, is that they we just like societally are not asking each other enough deeper questions. Like people ask follow-up questions is really what my cult is. I think being curious about other people important. Yeah, I feel like that's why people feel so comfortable telling us stuff all the time is because we just ask curious.

SPEAKER_02

I think a lot of people don't feel seen generally in their day-to-day life. And if you give someone a chance to feel seen, they like either light up and share something really exciting about themselves or will like share something vulnerable. Like I think um maybe it's just a everything comes back to the damn phones. Yeah. Um, maybe it's just like a everyone's looking down at their screens and doesn't care to see like I think it's doesn't care.

SPEAKER_01

I think it's that they just are they're not used to sitting in that moment of discomfort anymore because there is an immediate crutch. Like because I d I don't just do it with other people, like I catch myself doing it when I'm alone. You know, if I'm watching TV with ads and as soon as the ad comes on, the phone comes out because I don't want to just sit there for a moment in the discomfort of my own brain. That's interesting, and I think that's what people are doing in social groups with each other.

SPEAKER_02

If it's awkward for a second, it's easier to look at your phone.

SPEAKER_01

It's yeah, because you're filling in that blank with dopamine, even if it's bad, but it feels like a fix to the problem. Because it is a fix to the problem, it's just a negative fix to the problem. And so if we were more willing to sit in that discomfort and just like put yourself out there and try, more often it is there's a positive reward that you're not getting by opening up Instagram. Opening up Instagram.

SPEAKER_02

What are you working on? Like what goals are you working towards in your life right now?

SPEAKER_01

I am trying to figure out for months I've ha been on this uh do I want job? Do I want job? Um I have job, sort of. I have um, you know, I do merch management for different touring bands. Yeah. But I don't want to be on the road as much. So I'm trying to navigate how much I want to be working and what I'm willing what sac just like what sacrifices I'm willing to make. Yeah. So that I can do more comedy. Uh you know, I'm starting a new show, which I'm excited about. Yes. That you are on the second one of I am.

SPEAKER_02

Do you want to tell them what the show is called?

SPEAKER_01

It's called Could Be Fun. Could be fun. Could be fun. Yeah, no promises, plenty of potential. Yep. Uh and it is the last Sunday of every month at the getaway in Chicago on Lincoln Ave, and it's a free show. That's at 7 30 p.m. And it's gonna be good. Well, it could be good. It could be fun. It could be fun. It's my hope. My hope is that it will be fun. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02

I think you're an amazing producer, so I think it'll be a great show. Where can the people find you?

SPEAKER_01

Uh online, I guess. Don't follow me home, you know what I mean? I'm on Instagram as Rachel Dispenser. I think I'm still on TikTok. I forget. You know what I mean? I don't really remember to do it.

SPEAKER_02

So Rachel Despenser. Well, thank you for being curious with me here today. Thank you. I appreciate you so much.

SPEAKER_01

It was so fun. Have a good day. Bye.

SPEAKER_02

Bye.

SPEAKER_01

We did it.