The Flex and Rooms Daily Podcast brought Welcome to the Party Party.
It is us two little girls running around the forest, carefree and totally cute and nice. On this episode, we're talking about a little situation I had a few days ago at a cafe. Two men sitting beside me speaking in the somewhat unsavory ways about a certain demographic here in Sydney, and I responded in a way that I thought maybe at the time was Karen.
Upon reflection, was it right? Was it wrong?
Is this indicative of a larger problem that I'm not yet ready or willing to face, which is racial what do you call it?
Inequalities?
I guess.
So we're just gonna be reckoning with that. It's a short one. I think we need to go into this in more depth later on. I need to collect my thoughts.
Chap, you are great.
Chapter one of the chapter Lifelong, three part sequel.
We need clown college for this shit. Anyway, let's go Flecks and Frooms.
It's not very often I come across videos on TikTok that render me a little bit speechless, not because I don't have any thoughts, but because I am surprised at the person who is speaking has that thought. So this guy I don't really know his content that well, but
he comes up on my page quite a bit. You can definitely tell he makes the classic what a man thinking content that's marketed to women or just providing a safe space for him and his guy friends to talk about general stuff that's not, you know, doused in traditional masculinity. So listen to this video he's posted and let me know how this makes you feel.
I've never met a girl that I like enough to where it's like, I would love to hang out with you just as a friend all the time, never, I don't think.
So WHOA, So you don't have any girlfriends?
Well, it's like, what do you classify as friend? Like, you're my friend, Yeah, we hang out a lot.
I guess I'm kind of the same. I have girls that I say are my friends, but none that I hang out with all the time. I don't know if that's me like just perceiving that relationship in a weird way or no. It's it's hard to be friends with the opposite sex because sex is going to ruin it.
Yeah, and the odds of you, it's like, and what do you do? Just explically pick girls to be your friends that you find.
Ugly, like you're my friend because I'm not attracted to you like introd friends are girls.
And she looks around, she's like, wait a.
Minute, that's what we said, like to the world say no ridiculous things, and then laughing about it and then just moving on. So let's get to the key points
of what's just been discussed. The first point is that they both agree they've never met a girl that they feel like they can just be friends with and hang out with all the time, platonic vibes like they would with their guy friends, and that they can't imagine being in a scenario where like they would be friend a girl they don't have some kind of attraction too.
In jest, kind of said that, you know, the only reason that would work if she was ugly, But like, why would I be friends and an ugly girl type of thing? Was that surprising to you to hear?
Well?
I can hear from their voices the exact type of men. These are these little American podcast bros, our brothers.
Our kin, our bread rackin and.
I must be ugly because I got a lot of male friends and there's no sexual at.
Tension tension, chemistry.
No, well there's like I have chemistry with me.
You kiss your friends, so yeah, but I don't like for example, Marty Smiley, he does the sleeping on weekends here at Catera with Nat. We are really good friends. He's one of my good friends. Of course, There's never been any sexual attention, never any interest. And would I say that I'm ugly. Maybe we do a poll, Maybe we ask these guys, let's reply on the DM and say, what do you think they don't have any female friends. I'm making an assumption, but this is what I think
because they can't see past women. They don't see women as the same fully formed being as them. Because at the end of the day, I believe there's no difference between men and women. I think they have an issue with how they view women.
Clearly, I know a ton of women who don't have male friends. I know a ton of men who don't have women friends. Not in the way that he's describing, where it's like, if I'm going to go out to Kiki with my girlies, I'll go out to KICKI with the guys. The same same. If I'm you know, sending the girlies a little TikTok meme, I'm sending the guys the same same like replicating the same kind of friendship with everybody despite their gender or non gender. That's what
he's describing that. I think I can imagine that, like I have guy friends that I would do that with. But I don't think it's uncommon that people do not. It's not. It's a very common thing to not have like a broad spectrum of friends. But the bit where he drops off is this idea of, but why would we just be friends if there's a possibility in some real maybe not this universe, but one of them, that
we could potentially sleep together. It's almost like the idea of, like the possibility of there being a sexual connection means that this cannot stay platonic, Like if we were just to be in a room together, we'd have no choice that's gonna happen.
I was powerless in that moment.
Yeah, I get the point they're making, but they kind of out of themselves in the way that like the inability to see women or the women that they're interacting with as anything but like sexual potential. If the opportunity were to arise and in order to not ruin the potential for a future sexual relationship. We cannot be friends.
Yeah, and I don't even think they know that themselves.
They didn't do a follow up, so you know, we won't ever know.
But I think that what one quite bold statement.
No follow up, but I will say the comments really interesting. They were like, wow, all men with Mike her friends are the same exactly because these guys had us for a second. They were like, We're not like them, We're different kinds of guys. This is flex and frooms on. It's not often we talk about Dolly Parton. I don't
think I've ever talked about her. Actually, no. One time it was at this festival in Hobart and there was this drag show and the theme was Dolly Parton, so everybody dressed up as Dolly Parton in different eras and ages. And I'm not really familiar with Dolly like that, so I don't really know, but it was enjoyable. Nonetheless, plenty of celebrities are subject to really absurd rumors about their careers.
Some are true, some are merely you know, observations, some are just conspiracy theories, but none as peculiar as this one that Dolly Parton has been subject to a couple of years ago, people were speculating whether her husband of fifty something years was even real because nobody has quote unquote ever seen him ever, not even a little peep. And so I don't know what she was doing in twenty twenty that she's doing so many media interviews, But that was the go to question, are you still with
your husband? Where is he? And if you've really been together for fifty plus years, why aren't you sharing him more often? She basically said, like, I don't want to show him because like I don't want to show him facts. I said, okay, let's cut the cameras bay, but no, she went on to say, like, he doesn't want to be in the spotlight. It's not who he is. He's a quite reserved person. And also he's not the most interesting thing about me. She's like, it wasn't even a
conscious effort not to share him. He's just not a musician, he's not a celebrity. He's just a random guy that I love that I got married to. He does not need to be integrated at all. And what I think is really interesting is she didn't necessarily get backlash. People were kind of like Okay, people don't believe. Yeah, alright, no, right, why is it so hard to believe? And then I
had another thought that I'm still trying to process. But I was thinking about how we're definitely like women celebrities, how easily their partners become like cornerstones of their popularity. Like I was thinking about how Pete Davidson went from like a full on comedian with his own separate career. Now he's Kim Kardashian's professional handbag, like man stays in the back of her photos with the sonnies on hoodie on what are you there? Like, what do you do now?
Man handbag?
Yeah, it's fascinating. And then I think about the Ariana Grande's of the world, like the Rihanna's of the world. I don't necessarily see it working the other way around. Like I can imagine Rihanna does an interview, somebody wants to know, like tell us about who you're dating, and then how's that going? What's Rihanna's boyfriend's name, asap Rocky? Asap Rocky does an interview, are they asking Hi about
Rihanna in the same way? I don't know. I wouldn't imagine I can imagine I would read a whole Tyler Creator interview and not get any reference to a boyfriend or a partner. But it's just a speculation. I'm still processing that.
I think it's cool, perfect, like it's kind of been a defining career thing of Dolly as well, the fact that she hasn't shown him because it's so unusual, because she's so big and she's been so big for a long time. She's so cool. I'd recommend going and watching the documentary about her. It's so smart. She's like the definition of diplomatic. She made a lot of political statements through her songs, but she never made political statements because so much of her audience is like midwestern.
I get it precisely, but she's quite progressive.
Did she do it that one time? No? And then we kept playing the song again and again and again again. Well did she continue to make statements?
No?
There's this song Joline is a big one. Yeah, it's Joline that's about sisthood. Yeah, so Dolly Parton and Fidelity is a real.
G This is Flex and Frooms on Kita NEWFLEXI.
I know that you're always looking for a way to make money. You're very much money minded, which I appreciate. I like that you're very honest about that as well. Poe found it quite inspiring.
What's that thing? Fifty cents said, get rich or die trying, et cetera, et cetera.
That's it.
Apparently in the nineteen nineties there was a con by a man, which I think is the most genius thing ever, he said, men con.
Doing what he does best.
This guy put an ad in the paper for selling solar powered dryers for forty nine to ninety five, so a way to dry your clothes using solar power. His name was Steve Commisar and he was from California.
I'm thinking like you mean the sun like.
Since solar energy was one of the buzzwords of the time the nineteen nineties, he put an advert in magazines and newspapers selling this amazing new gadget, solar powered clothes dryers. Just forty nine ninety five people across America brought into the idea and sent their money to get this incredible advice that would help them cut bills and have their clothes dry efficiently while saving the planet. They waited anxiously for the mailman, and.
We're trying to save the planet since the fifties nineteen nineties, but I swear like since Nemo it's been on the brain.
But before then it didn't exist.
They waited anxiously for the mailman to deliver their new solar powered clothes dryer, but when they received the parcel, they couldn't believe their eyes. It was just an average one of them more clothes line, yeah, my king, like the type you buy at the iron monger's.
They tried, an ironmonger does this kind? I know you're plagiarizing, like those you can buy. They tried contacting the cellar because the device had been it wasn't what it was expecting. They tried contacting the cellar because it wasn't what they thought they bought. However, Steve replied what they received was exactly what he was advertising. The product was an actual drying device and it worked with solar energy, which is facts, and this is the truth of words. Words mean things.
He eventually went to Shell due to other.
Free my man, he didn't even do nothing.
Where's Steve Comisan?
Now? I stand by him. That is just genius to me. And the thing that gets me is I think the idea laughable. The fact that so many people fell for it, that's the real issue right there. Your media literacy needs a lag.
They need to teach media literacy in schools.
I swear you're listening to Flex and Frooms on Kita Flex.
I was in a cafe yesterday. So I'm sitting next to a man who is literally thirty centimeters away from me. Tight not COVID safe, not at all in this outbreak, be absolutely growing. But sitting there and the guy like comes in and he's like what, I don't know if boisterous is the right word, but like he's a man.
He walks like his presence was noticed, his.
Presence was definite noticed, and like no like smile or anything, kind of just keeping to himself. And he's like, Yep, I'm gonna order a coffee and I'm gonna order a certain type of food for me and my friend. My friend's coming ten minutes later, his friend.
Rocked type of food.
Why are you saying like that, because if I if I dos what the food is, you'll know where I'm talking about.
Oh okay, right right right right?
Friend comes in, sits down, they start having a chat. Clearly they're like investment men. They're in there, ones in like their forties. I was in probably in his fifties, sixties, and they start talking about their cars, like, have you bought me more cars lately?
What's going on with your investments?
They're talking about like a company they invested in now five years later it's worth five billion.
Oh. I thought you meant they invest in cars, like they didn't know cars were investments. I thought they'd appreciated when you drove my fullot.
Some do, some do increase in value. So I'm like kind of listening in. I was actually preparing to come into Cato, so I got my little notepad out. But you know, as I am to do, if someone's thirty centimeters away from me, I'm gonna ease drop. And so I'm sitting there and these guys are talking about insurance on their cars. So one's got a Porsche that he drove there, and he also has.
A Mercedes that he just bought. And the guy's like, oh, tell me about Mercedes. He's like, you know.
What, I got insurance for the Porsche, and then I went to get insurance on the Mercedes and it's you know, ten thousand dollars to insure it for one hundred thousand dollar car.
I don't get it. Why And he was saying.
So I call my insurance was expensive two five because I'm a peek player at twenty eight? What's the big deal?
The stitch up cause the insurance guy and he's like can I I can't work it out. He's like, I call this insurance guy who was really nice, and I said, why is it? And the really nice insurance guy said, oh, it's because insert ethnic the.
Other way around, like, he said, is it because insert ethnicity buy a lot of these cars? And then the insurance guy was like.
Yeah, I think it was that way. I'm a bit iffy on which way it was, but I'm pretty sure.
Yeah.
It was the guy at the cafe who said, is it because ethnic minority drive Mercedes? And the insurance guy was like yes. Upon hearing this, I look up from my old cappuccino at the other guy. So the guy saying it is next to me, and the guy listening is opposite him. So I look up and make eye contact with the guy that's listening, and he's looking.
At me at that moment.
Oh, so he clocked it.
He clocked it.
Yeah, I give a little look, but then I look away, which it says enough if he clocked it. So I look this guy in the eye, he clocks me, and then in that kind of like fraction of a moment, all these thoughts flew into my brain. I'm like, why did I look up? Obviously I thought it was a bit rude. Did I think it was rude? Because I'm offended because I'm not even this ethnic minority and I'm the same.
Ah, you're all white, we're all white. I'm with my people, and my people are community. My community's acting up, and yet I am one of them. And so it's kind of like a split second of like a am I stepping out of bounds by like acknowledging this thing because there's also a conversation to be had around listening into other people's conversations, Like this was not a conversation that I was a part of. It's in a public space.
Yeah, however, almost asking for it.
Let's not use that phrasing, please please, please please bring that out a lot.
And it's really not how my brain.
I don't mean to say that, it's just something that I fall into, but yeah, I thought, is it really my place? To be I guess policing this. I felt like I was policing it. Is it worth me doing that? Because when I stand up for things in public, it often goes badly because I have some sort of online presence, And then you think.
That's why it goes badly. Yeap, not your approach, probably nah, But yeah, was it with me in that moment having a look. I'm going to say, yes, it was the thing that I want to understand because I'm painting a mental picture is like the subtext behind it. We know the context. What was the subtext when you looked up
and saw him looking at you? What was the realization you think had happened in that split second that made you have all these additional thoughts about his interaction, Because I think what we discussed briefly before is that if he didn't look at you, if he was just kind of looking around, being just a passive listener to his friend's insurance discussion, then you might not have had these
additional thoughts. But it was the fact that he had looked at you as if to see if you had noticed what his friend had said made you then second guess your reaction.
Yeah, I get that.
I think it was because he wasn't the one that said it, so therefore I almost felt like I was making him feel awkward because he's not the one that said it and he knows there's a witness there seeing him not do anything about it. And also kind of with I felt judged because they're looking at this little girl, this quirky little.
Angel cafe.
Last week and I'm looking up it's giving a liberal vibe from me, liberal in the like Australian politically liberal sense, And yeah, it just made me question when you're not of the race or the ethnicity that they are making judgments and what's it called stereotypes? Like exacerbating stereotypes? Is it my place to like acknowledge that those phrases as just a random lady in a cafe that has definitely used the same term in a past life, like I would be a reformed them people.
Is it my place or should by just studying my lane?
I think a better question is what scenarios do you think it is your place to quote unquote police strangers.
See, this is the thing because this isn't the first like restaurant conversation that I've overheard and felt angry about. I think it's an issue when it's properly impacting your dining experience. Like, if it's properly racist stuff that's like fully not acceptable, then you've got a right to like give them the look or be like and like do something that makes them feel uncomfortable back, Like I'm all about the approach back, Like I don't like taking things on and not punching back.
I get in bold and a bit more as I get older and I'm around people and I see them being negatively affected by the kind of people that make
these comments. And then what do you think the correlation is between the instances where you have addressed somebody in a discussion that you a part of, Like broadly, what were they talking about that offended you that you were like, I'm gonna say something, Well, if you've had any kind of interaction with an altercation with someone based on something that they said that you were a part of, what was the general theme or subject matter?
I guess yeah, things that I feel emboldened to say something about is probably yeah, like sexist things or like people being really boisterous in public settings where it's like genuinely affecting you. And if they're saying stuff that's like really either offensive to like probably the hills that I die on, and probably like queer style stuff like usually from superhero men growing down, Like I can't deal with bro culture, I guess is where I the hill that I die on?
Are you sure why? I'm just saying, are you sure you can't deal with bro culture?
You know what? I guess.
What I'm trying to say is if I didn't have any kind of profile, I would be a complete fucking banshee out there.
Minute I hear something, I I'm scray. I used to be a band chief likes. You don't understand.
You've had so many discussions here where I'm like, oh, I think you should be more mindful about like how you carry yourself in public, because you know, you get backlash from people who are observing you. And then you're like, oh shit, like they notice me, and you're like, but I don't want to change your behavior, like I'll do whatever I want. And then today you're like, if I wasn't if I wasn't a celebrity, I would say something. I just think you didn't actually care. I feel like
that's some of the concern. A lot of people have when quote unquote trying to do the right thing is your motivation is situational and not ethical because your kind of thing was. I would say something if it interrupted my dining experience. I would say something if it was like, you know, like getting in the way of like me enjoying myself. But I think fundamentally you just don't care facts.
Nah, well, like, yeah, I reckon it didn't really. I guess, yeah, it didn't really affect me. I'm not prepared for the conversation that that would create in that setting, and I don't necessarily have the language to then back it up and be like you said this and offensive because xyz, because I know that he could throw it back in my face, and I guess there's bigger hills to die on, like.
If someone was being super offensive. Yeah, I don't know, man, I think you should unpack that. Yeah, process it, Let's process it. Let's go back to this. Yeah, because I know, I feel like I know what's happening, but I feel like the dots need to connect for you. By you, I think that there are tons of people who will relate to your sentiment, And in my head, I'm like, that's the.
Point is this like the climate change thing, which is like, you know what's happening, but you're not going to do anything about it.
Yeah, and your motivation to care is purely superficial in this instance, not generally in this instance. Yeah, because he clocked you, you were like, oh, we should I have said something? Like should I have policed him? And like he's only clocking you because he's like should I have said something? Should I have done something? When realistically it's like it's not about should have could have? It's like do you actually care? And if not, leave us out of it.
I guess I do believe though you can only care about so many things.
Play And there's been a conversation about whether or not a lot of millennials and Gen Z people will be having children. It's become really popular to advocate for not having children for various reasons. Some are social, some are environmental, and some are just like cause you don't want to.
It's not a big deal. But more recently there was this article that came out that the UK in particular is dealing with huge issues based on having like this starkly aging population and fewer people than ever having kids almost at the implications of this issue are going to show themselves or are going to be a parent far sooner than we anticipated, Like we need to figure out what we're doing the next five years type of thing, Like what is the plan when we have an aging
population that needs care and nobody can do it, a millennial population who doesn't want to have kids, and a whole economy to keep afloat, Like, what is the plan here? How we get money into the economy. Some man on the internet started rattling off a few suggestions to tackle this crisis right His first suggestion was like a bit
more like small scale and frivolous. He should He's like, you know, we should start implementing like more like national days to celebrate parents, because if we have, you know, more days where we can socially incentivize people to be parents by like having days off and cards and like public holidays and stuff, people will be like, oh, I want to be parents because like look at all the pretty flowers they get us. Like you know, he was you can know it was spitballing with that one. You know,
that's an idea. His next one was to you have the queen send parents a telegram on the birth of their third child, So not the first two, but for the third one, you get a personalized telegram from the queen. I don't even know what a telegram is. I was like, do we have those in this century? How do you get it? Almost coming from like the matriarch herself celebrating maternal you know, celebrations that could be fun, right, not bad?
Still spitballing. His next idea, there should be more incentives around first home ownership and having children, that you could have more tax breaks and more financial incentives if you were to have kids. And I was like, okay, now you're talking, we can get a little bit. And then the one that he said was really going to change the game, Like this is the one he's banking them.
We should just start introducing a negative child benefit, which is a tax that childless people are meant to pay to subsidize the fact that their offsprings contribution into society isn't going to happen. So if you won't bring them in, we'll just take from you what they would have offered. Isn't that so dystopian? Imagine end of financial year extra ten on the tax bill because you didn't want to have a baby, And at that point, I feel like you'd pay more just as much in tax not having
the baby as having the baby. Yeah.
I guess that's his whole thing, because I just have the baby, babe.
What about people that can't biologically have babies?
Look, this is where we start getting philosophical. He was just spitballing. He's like, look, I got some ideas, think about it. Let them simmer, because it's going to be a problem, and at the very least we should figure out a few solutions just to table in the meantime. But I don't think that we are prepared for a reality where we start to get like unfairly punished for not wanting to participate. It's one thing to opt out and be like, oh it's not for me, you know,
like I don't want to own a house. Imagine they were like, oh, no, we need to sell houses, so you don't want to buy a house five percent penalty?
Yeah, I mean, would that ever work? I thought, I think overpopulations and issue, just have one each. Just replace yourself like that and get out of here.
I think anything's possible. I mean, we pay for bottled water that's not is free.
That's the real real crime of our lives.
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