Flex and Froods on Cada.
Welcome to the podcast qtsqu TETs.
I want to talk to you about loyalty tests on TikTok. I came across it in this advice thread and read it. But also I made a point when we were discussing the TikTok, I saw where this guy was like, should women be reimbursing men for failed dates?
Kind?
To that point, I was like, just everyone just needs to stop dating at this point, there's so much like politics, not even politics, but friction around it, and people aren't making it a pleasant environment to do it in.
Let's just stop. I think it's post pandemic. People don't know how to hate being a scam manger, fear monger.
I like scare monger that that's good.
Every time I try to add a new world to my vocabulary, it all goes downhill. No, I think I think it's part of like not having dated for a long time, we feel socially anxious. We A don't want to spend money, B don't want to spend time. We don't want to feel uncomfortable. It's like how nobody wants to take a phone call anymore. Extends to dating. With out of practice.
Yeah, but if that's the case, then I wish people would overcorrect and just be people pleasers. You know. I just feel like the conversation around fifty to fifty or the expenses involved around dating are just so dumb because you can enjoy yourself as well, Like, you're not paying the money just for the benefit of the other person. You're facilitating an experience. It's fun for everybody involved. Don't you want to do that totally?
It's like if you pay for someone's if you go up someone and you pay for the whole bill, you gotta remind yourself. I ate too, Yeah, paying for myself as.
Well outside the dating context.
If we're going out to dinner and I pay because I want to or it's easier, it's because I'm excited to have shared an experience with you. I'm excited to have done this. It's fully worthwhile. I understand where that gets a bit difficult when you are a serial data and you are racking up a tab. But if you're actually taking out someone you like, then what is the issue, do you know? I think it all boils down to you don't like the people that you're trying to date.
Totally. I went on the date on a date last year and we went to a lovely restaurant, and he said, you know, I don't go on many dates. It's my first date in a long time, and I'm really glad I'm here with you. And sure there was only two dates in total. He might have felt Jimmed.
Not your problem, though, but it was.
Lovely and I was not sweet. That felt like I was treated and it was enjoyed, and I was in a good mood. Therefore the date was especially good.
Period. Remember when we discussed swiper's remorse, where you.
Swipe someone, match with them and then you're like, ah, I don't think I like the way they look that much. Or at worse, you swipe someone, you match with them, you talk with them and agree to go on a date with them, and when that time comes.
You're like, I don't think I want to do that.
I feel like this all boils down to the same thing. We're not picking people we actually want to date. I feel like this idea of like.
Where do we go?
Like coffee date's too casual, this date's too These things don't matter. When you actually like the person you spend time with, it's hard.
I feel like a lot of it's social anxiety. I think often you can be like, oh no, I really really don't want to go, and you really feel that you don't want to go, and then you go and you enjoy it, So therefore it's just social anxiety.
Yes, But do you feel that way when you're going to back to go hand with your best friends?
Sometimes if feel so socially anxious, Oh that's strange, I'm so sorry. Remember I'm never talking about myself, I'm talking about everyone.
Else other way around. Yeah, I know, but I do. Yes, social anxiety is super valid. But I feel like, let's say you get approached by someone you are super interested in, super attracted to. They're ticking so many boxes at that moment, you're not like, I'm not doing fifty to fifty, Like you'll do what's required to spend time with that person. Granted it's not so far out of your comfort zone.
So even before, when people are hypothetically thinking about what they would or wouldn't do on a date, and they always skew so negative, you don't want to date that adlete. It's just because you're not seeing it as an enjoyable thing to do. You're not excited about the possibility, and even the outcome of potential romance is not enough for you to invest twenty bucks.
Yeah, because I think what as a means to an end where you often just need to enjoy yourself because you'll find somebody, don't.
Lie to them.
But yes, like I was saying, there are these things on TikTok called loyalty tests where conventionally attractive people offer up their likeness and their face and they chat to your significant other to see if your significant other is going to be loyal to you. So what I would do, for example, I would say, hello, handsome person, handsome woman, Yeah, I guess can you dare my boyfriend and flat with him and arrange to meet up or arrange to hook
up and see what he says? And so this person will then screenshot all the evidence and send it to you so you can see what they do or don't do. And most people do quite poorly from what I've seen on TikTok, But I guess if they do well, that video is not gonna go viral, you know.
And I'm sorry, but if you are trying, if you're paying someone to do that, obviously something's wrong in your relationship. The likelihood that they're going to follow through and be like, yes, let's root is far higher than someone who's not going to go to those lengths exactly.
And also there's been discussion of this idea of testing someone in a romantic dynamic. Is it just manipulative? Are you pushing someone towards an outcome that's not desirable anyway, there was this girl that mentioned that she does this thing called the Coraline test on't with people that she's seeing, where she says very early on that her favorite movie is Coraline. And she says, nine times out of ten, these men are like, oh my god, I love that movie.
I love Tim.
Burton, It's amazing, It's so good. It's my favorite too. They like over enthuse how much they also love Coraline. Then when they go out on their first day, when they hang out at each other's house for the first time, she always plays Coraline to see how they respond. Do they recognize the movie? Are they like, do they look enthused? Is everything a surprise to them? Are they like actually engaged in it or not? And she says often they're not. They just said it to give this illusion that we
like the same things when in reality they don't. Now, she got a lot of backlash on the intern because they were like, what were you expecting? Though, I could rewatch a movie I've already seen before and not be interested because I've seen it.
And also watching a movie on a day is silly. It's not to watch the movie.
I'm here to hang out with you, So why are you testing me on how interested I am?
The thinking abot, I'm not here to be interested in.
Yeah. Also, if you're wanting to test someone, you're totally coming from the perspective of wanting to find something, wanting to get them found out.
It's a setup.
Is can you think of any scenarios where it is appropriate and also best case scenario to test someone?
I think it's fun to like do that test if you're engaged to someone. Oh, it's like a good natured test. Yeah, where it's like the Hens Night or whatever, and you have to do it like study. You have to do a test of like how much do.
You know your like paw TikTok when they're like girls Hens Nights are doing how well do you know your partner quiz? And men's wanted to like let's get to it. I feel like it's a little bit late to be doing those tests.
Maybe, Oh, can I think of a test that makes sense that's fair. I can't really think of one. I just don't like the idea of tests generally, because you're just expecting them to fail. Every test is a test of something. Why should you need to be testing anything?
Just test such fun and theory until you find out that you've been tested. Like what if somebody gives you feedback and says, you know, like I thought it was gonna go well, but I was testing you and you didn't pass, I'd be like what.
It's almost like remembering those teen movies, just like I bet you can get that girl to hang out with you because she's ugly, and then you do, and then you fall in love with her.
Awful whoa. But like sweet means to an end is not means to an end.
Foreshore point remains, And I definitely think that we'll get to that part in dating discourse, because you know, there are certain community who were like, I'm just gonna be celibate or whatever. But that's in spite of their natural wants. Right, It's like you're not finding anyone you want to route. Therefore you're saying a celibate. You know you're not doing it for any spiritual reason.
Five steps to in cell or one step in them.
Cell fleck and froms flexy mummy.
Yeah, do you have a blanky that you sleep with?
I absolutely do not this concept even I don't even know if I knew what it was until. I wouldn't say recently. But I've seen a few cooked tiktoks of people and their raggedy, rinky dink, tattered blankie letting go.
It's discussed.
Maybe it's like a cultural thing I'm missing though.
Do you reckon?
Yeah?
Like what culture?
Caucasian?
Oh, Caucasian culture. My people apparently blank He's often referred to as comfort objects, and they're more than just blankets. Here's the definition. A comfort object or transitional object or security blanket is an item used to provide psychological comfort, especially in unusual or unique situations or at bedtime for children.
Among toddlers. Comfort objects may take the form of a blanket, a stuffed animal, or a favorite toy, and it may be referred to as nicknames, but adults also use comfort objects. Many adults consider that comfort and security blankets provide are essential and according to a study in twenty eleven in Britain, thirty five percent of adults slope at the Teddy Bear.
Thirty five What is that sample size? Like three people?
Oh, it's by like a real crap. It's like by a brand.
Yeah, it's not to be trusted.
But there's been another builder. Bear also did a study and forty percent of adults, which I know they have a cut in that they want us.
Yeah, they want Yeah.
I understand it. Not even in theory and practice. I totally get it. But it's just seeing the state of some of these tattered, raggedy They're not being washed, they're not being kept after they were conceptualized. It's like these beautiful white stuffed animals sixteen years it's gone by their olive green with a tinge of brown.
What is happening? I don't get it.
It's called there's this famous fairy tale called the Velveteen Rabbit. It's about this boy at Christmas gets all these gifts and he gets this rabbit, and he plays with the rabbit for like a day and then gets over excessible these shiny toys. Then he ends up loving it. Till it's tattered.
What is the moral of the story.
I couldn't tell you. I get to sleep before the end. FLEXI I have a confession to make.
Struggling to get it out. Now, what is it?
I have a comfort object? Yeah, otherwise known as a blanky. What does it look like?
You don't have any visuals?
I thought about it before I came in, Like, damn, I should have brought it with me.
Like it doesn't do photo ops.
It's a nighty with kind of an eighty style print. It's got parrots and like blues and greens, and it's really silky. And I sleep with it every night I go to sleep, get my Heiti weedy, put it between my legs. Grab mother.
Even when you're doing sleepovers at other people's houses, do you take with No?
Do you sleep poorly without it? No?
No, No, it's not that bad. And like if I have someone coming up, I'm putting it in a drawer. Sometimes I forget it. Sometimes I forget it and then seen under the pillow, it's a bit of a scary kind of look. But my blankie is the nighty that my mum gave birth to me in. Oh disgusting isn't it.
That's sweet though, that's sentimental.
I'm twenty seven.
Why have you kept it?
I can imagine over the course of your life there are tons of things you were given and gifted for various reasons, a little a Barbie Dolla truck, a book that you really loved. What is it about this blankie that you've kept? Why not just give it back to your mum?
Well?
I think it's a few things. I'm very close to my mum and I don't find her gross shout to other. A lot of people in this world gross me out, poor hygiene, smelly, grotty. My mum is none of those things. And you know, you often love the smell of a parent like you love the smell of your mum. Yeah, And so there's that. And then also just the feel of the blanky. It's soft, silk style thing. It feels good against my face. And I've always been a blanky bitch.
When I was a kid, I used to suck my fingers upside down and hold the blanky in the thumb.
So the best way to describe it is holding your fingers like a trigger yep, and then putting the pad of your fingers to the roof of your mouth while holding a blanky with your thumb.
This is obscene, obscene.
And it got so bad when I was a little kid that I went to the dentist and they said, sir and ma'am, if your child does not get the fingers out of her mouth, she's gonna have buck teeth.
Yeah, because you push your your teeth forward.
Yeah, you could really tell on people didn't wean themselves off the dummy. Yeah, it's giving cletus so much so they had to put this spray on my fingers that would make it smell bad so I'd stop doing this. I'm still not understanding the blanky thing, because again, there are heaps no, no, no, there are heaps of things that you would have been given that you'd have an emotional attachment to that you don't.
Sleep with every night.
It's just it's the it's the sense. It hits so many senses, smell, touch, longevity.
Do you do something animals too?
No? If I do a heaty weaty between my legs.
What is a heaty weaty like a heat bag, a hot water bottle? Yeah, but a heaty weedty yeah? Wow, So I think a lot most of my good girlfriends. I've come to the house and I see a little stuffed animal on the bit.
Really huh.
I'm not judging. I'm just observing and wincing.
I think it's got to do with living in another state, because all my girlfriends that have that are from interstate. What stay perfect Victoria? Okay, scattered scattered energies across Australia, So you don't know. Like the thing is there are comfort objects beyond, like blankies or teddy bears, Like, what's something you use every day?
My phone?
Your phone is your comfort object? Yeah, I reckon, don't look it. You can't look it? Yeay. Lip Barm's your thing. Flex you told me your story the other day. She actually left a cinema mid movie. Yeah, to go to some sort of pharmacy. I'm not going to name drop to get lip barm and I'd do it again. That's crazy.
This is flex and frooms.
It's not an episode of flex and frooms. That me referencing TikTok and something I've learned from it.
Listen to this.
Something I read about for my latest book called the Zigonic Effect, which is waiters remember bills that are left open but the second they close the bill, they forget it. When a task is left unfinished, it creates like a mental load and stress. And people now when studying are trying to study a bit, go do something else, come back and then study the rest. They leave that loop opened.
I can imagine for yourself that if you've operated on someone, you've opened a loop, and now you are supposed to go home and sleep and not think about the outcome of that, and oh, just go home and be find me. We're not going to see if seven hours. But all these open loops. The person you removed, you know, colon, the other person who did this suddenly, you know, you go into work the next day. How did that guy do? Is he right? Do you get that kind of feedback.
From yeah, I mean all the time. So literally, yesterday I had an orday operating list where I was operating with one of my bosses and we removed a bowel cancer on the left side of their colon, and I stitched the colon back onto the colon like two pipes, stitched them back together and all went really well. Patient was fine at the end of the operation. I saw
them afterwards. It were fine. But there's something when you do bowl cancer operations and you remove the cancer and the intestine, and then you join the two remaining cut ends of the intensin back together. There's one risk we always warned patients about, and that risk could be anywhere from four percent to ten percent. There's a risk of
something called an anastematic leak. Well, the intestines can just come apart, the stitches come apart, and they leak, and they leak shit into the abdomen, and obviously you can die if you're shit's leaking to jaipim. You don't need to be medical to know that. So that is a risk that could happen for anywhere from day one after the operation to day five, six seven. So until this patient goes home, I'm going to be thinking in the back of my mind I put those stitches in his colon.
So actually, you know, this morning, before I came here, I texted someone who's working right now and is reviewing that patient on a ward round, just saying how is he? You know, and I shouldn't be doing that colon.
I didn't have to play that whole TikTok, but I thought you'd be an enjoyable thing for all of us to experience. So basically, what the zygonic effect is is the idea that once you start a task, a loop has been started, or you've you've essentially started something that needs to be wrapped up for your brain to stop thinking about it. And generally we go about our day starting a bunch of things and not thinking about it and having ongoing cumulative anxiety about it and not recognizing why.
And so when we talk about productivity, there's a lot of discussion around how multitasking is like either good or bad or whatever it might be, But that is secondary to the fact that in order to clear yourself of the anxiety or the thoughts associated with something, you need to close the loop. And so, you know, I don't know how many people can integrate this into their daily lives effectively because we aren't in control of when things
are done. Like I do this thing very frequently when I hate email threads, Like I will get an email, respond to the first thread, and then clear it out of my inbox.
It's done for me, and.
Then I just ignore the following emails what are you amazing?
It just happens because I want off my to do list.
I don't want to think about it, and so I actually use I don't use Gmail. I use this like email software where you can like. It calls your inbox a trio, so you're meant to just clear things out of your inbox and get to zero. So if I've answered an email, I'll clear it and it's done. Out of my head. If I leave things there, then every time I go into my Gmail, I'm looking at things that I'm half dealt with, half not. It's not my problem. If I've answered the email.
You need to do the archive.
I don't know. We'll talk about this. I don't know how to archive.
You send it archive and then when they respond, it comes back into your inbox.
It's fascinating, the zygonic effect. I don't know how that's going to help us, but proves a point. So long as you don't close a loop, you'll be thinking about something. So all this unfinished business that happens in your life, be like, oh, I'll just get over that it.
Nope, Nope.
My strategy is for dealing with that. Some of them I haven't employed yet. I'm just thinking of them. Off the door, off the dome, create space during my day to do certain things.
So for us.
We both do different things. I'm a writer, I make videos. I deal with client things. So then I'm going to start making little blocks in my day where I can dedicate to like writing from twelve to one, and that's a way for me to then wipe it because I know I've done it, and I know there'll be a time tomorrow for me to do it. I get anxious when it's like I started this thing and a I need to wait for people to respond. And also I don't know what I'm going to get around to doing
it again. Like I've started making this concept for like a funny video. I don't know what I'm going to do it next because I have a sty you know. Oh yeah, so I can't do it till the star's gone. But I don't know when the star's going to go away.
It's looking good. I didn't even gube.
Now you're listening to Flex and Frooms on Kada May.
Oh my, it's Flex and Frooms. We're back. Did you miss us?
I missed us, same as always, Thank you, av Nishe. We have a doozy of a show today. We're going to be answering the age old question, and by age old, I mean, it's a question that I came across recently, and that is, when talking about heterosexual couples, do women owe men money.
For failed dates? Controversial?
But right now, Flix, did you know that in Texas it's illegal to have more than six sex toys? What we mean illegal is literally you can get fined for having more than six.
How they going to find out sex toys? Well, who's in my data? My FBI agent's titchers.
They're watching The Little Love. So basically, here is what it says. In nineteen seventy three, the Texas legislature passed Section forty three point twenty one of the Texas Penal Code, quite amply named, which in part prohibited the sale or promotion of obscene devices, being defined as a device, including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs. However, the
legislation was updated in two thousand and three. Nice a person who commits an offense, if, knowing its content and character, wholesale promotes or possesses with intent to wholesale promote any obscene material or device. So essentially, you can't wholesale sexual devices in Texas unless it's for medical or law enforcement purposes. Wow, which is bizarre, especially considering in Texas there's absolutely no limit how many guns you can have.
And there it is there.
It is so much so that there's this group called Cox not Glocks, which last year stage and anti campus carry gun law rally because I thought that's completely ridiculous. Also Alabama has a similar thing. So we can just be thankful that we are across the gulf.
I mean for now. Oh don't's a bit like that, isn't it.
This is flex and frooms.
Listen to this really quickly. So ladies, you guys a question.
Okay, Let's say you go on a date with a man and then after the date you realize you're not really feeling him the way you thought you did before the date. Now, he didn't do anything wrong, he's not a creep, he didn't make you feel unsafe.
You know, he didn't do anything wrong. You just weren't feeling him.
Do you think it would be a fair thing to do to give him back his money that he spent for the date?
Do you think that would be an okay thing to do? Yes or no?
Stitch this and tell me, let's stitch it and tell him.
I made the conscious effort not to put any context around that video, so I wasn't, you know, informing anyone's idea or whether that's appropriate or inappropriate. But that was a TikTok from Cameron Steel Radio, who is asking a very apt question. When it comes to heterosexual courting. There's been a lot of rhetoric in the dating scene about how women historically spend more money than men when it comes to dating.
And that's not physically on the.
Dates, but all the preps that goes in and around it, whether that's wearing clothes.
I gotta say it like that, doing makeup, like.
All the kind of maintenance and grooming that is not explicitly asked for but expected. People getting Brazilian waxes and got a longing for that.
I personally am showing up.
Like just regular and she's styles.
Did I say my legs?
No? Absolutely, it's no, But that's me and I can understand why others don't feel the same. This guy's posed a really interesting question off the dome.
Yes or no?
Do women or should women reimburse men for failed dates?
Absolutely not, because there's no such thing as a failed date. Oh, every date is an opportunity to learn that you're a dickad you know what I mean. You go on a date with somebody, they're boring, they don't continue conversations, they don't ask you questions. Yeah, you can pay for my two hundred dollar year.
It am comes back to fifty to fifty, Like whether you want to, they're saying fifty to fifty reimbursement.
You're not my tax man, get out of here, as.
In, you wouldn't want to pay fifty to fifty.
Well, I think like internet discourse always goes back to the idea of paying fifty to fifty, Like, we are fifty to fifty as people, so what we do together on this date should be done fifty to fifty. I have different thoughts about the whole fifty to fifty thing. I say no, because why are we using the phrase reimbursement when it comes to casually dating. Here's the thing I feel like, fifty to fifty. I don't really care how you want to do that, whether you are for
it or against it. I just think it's up to you to, like, you need to uphold that whatever you believe, whether you are pro or against it's up to you and how you date. I think that what works for me is that if you are the person who asks for the date, you can pay for the date agreed, especially in the early stages, then it's no no water.
Of who's back.
Whatever that's saying is. But I've I feel like this discourse around the investment you make in the early stage of dating is just so boring to me.
Yeah, Like I feel as though.
All of these like small nuances aren't making for a more intentional experience.
It's just putting everybody off.
Like you don't want to pay this one doesn't want to show up without payment being involved, this one, doesn't want to wear this this one, it's like, okay, then let's just not if it's not working, it's not working. This is one of the few things that we just aren't being really smart about. People don't want to date. Stop dating.
Yeah, there's pitfalls, pitfalls to dating. It's kind of like paying for the date the whole amount is like investing in crypto. It could be a terrible investment, but you have to just throw your hat in the ring, throw a little bit of money down. Might not see the person again, They might not pay you back, but you could find the love of your life.
And also, I feel like what people are confused is that the money you spend on the date isn't in exchange for access to a person.
It's just for.
Permission to spend time, right, So people are trying to measure out the investment, like if I've bought you two drinks, I'm entitled to fifty dollars worth your dinner.
It just doesn't work like that.
You're essentially paying the money to create a more pleasant experience for this person who's left the house to hang out with a stranger. So whatever you need to do to make that more enjoyable, just do it totally.
If you have an issue with it, go to McDonald's hungry Jack's not going to discriminate, get a little pack, go down to the beach, cost you know, money.
Yeah, or just get more creative with it, like use the resources you have available to you to make an.
Exciting experience for someone.
I feel as though, because people aren't intentional datas, you have to overcompensate with spending a lot of money. If all you can think about is every day dinner, dinner, bar, bar, then of course you have to keep spending, spending, because people can afford to get their own food and pay for their own drinks.
Give someone an experience, it's memorable.
One of those like paint and drink classes. Cute.
Yeah, set one up yourself.
Get a little acrylics, a little picnic matt, get a little canvas, set it up.
That's cute. I would freak out if someone did that for a first. It's too intention I would also freak out if someone's like, hey, here's a five hundred dollar meal, Like this guy's gonna Patrick Bateman me afterwards.
I don't want to fall in love with him. I'm not doing that.
Get you nice and full, chop you up, literally deliver.
But all in all, everyone should take a break collectively and think about what they're saying with any of their expectations this whole. Like I want to be wined and dined. You're a stranger. I want to be reimbursed, you're a stranger.
Remember that it's not a business.
It's not a business, and it's an investment. But that's exactly what it is, an investment. If you are not a risky investor, then you need to play within your field. Okay, start doing coffee dates.
You've been listening to the Flex and Frooms catch Up podcast. For more, tune in to Kata on DAB or check it out right here on iHeartRadio