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Hello, Hi, welcome back to another Close Friends episode. We have gotten a spicy email.
Well that's not that spicy, but it's prompting for a good conversation it is.
Let's read it out.
As you know, we have our email, which is scrollers at novas dot com. Yes, sorry, it was just a triple checking. I was making sure you knew what was going on. And we get emails all the time, and as always, you can send us an email let us know if you'd rather stay anonymous on the pod or anything like that. But sometimes we decide to answer your questions in a Close Friends episode. That's what we're doing today.
Hey, Britt and Matt long term follower slash scroller here, we're talking twenty fourteen Britain, Matt.
Which is crazy because I started in twenty fifteen. So what was she doing stalking me at the sand?
Close enough? Close enough?
Really, so wait, that might not be right, because I did ten years this year. Yeah, No, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty one, two three four, that's ten years.
Okay. Recently you have both discussed how much your opinions and ways of living have changed over time and as you have gotten wiser. I've definitely seen this happen with the both of your lives and resonate with this myself. For example, years ago, Britt never wanted to own a house. She said she wanted to rent exclusively. I will elaborate on that and express her opinion about marriage and children. Now Britt owns and is renovating, owning a massive company, and more.
She also says, and Matt, being Matt like myself, always saying what they think could be bs, but then maybe a month or so later, realizing it wasn't the worst decision or idea they'd heard of. I'll elaborate on that also, or what his life in Sydney will look like. But then, with the cost of living and rent going up, thinking of moving to somewhere like Newcastle or Paramatta, somewhere I thought that I'd never moved to.
So in saying this, what are your opinions now on all things living, housing, career, education, friends, families, building a family, you name it. Part of me is just curious and nosy, but there is part of me wondering, as I've watched you guys grow up yourself, how much your opinion has changed over time. For me, it was only a few years ago. I was early twenties, doing my teaching degree, thinking of renting away from home with my boyfriend, eventually
getting married and having kids. When I was early thirties, you know how things were meant to go. I've got a lot of opinions on that too. But now, at the end of twenty twenty four, I'm finding myself moving into a brand new home my partner and I built, same guy in Newcastle where I grew up, not married nor engaged, no kids in sight. I know that's how life works. But I guess what I am trying to relate to you by? What steps were made to get
to where you are today? Wow? What a ramble. But I don't often have a chance to actually write down questions I have when listening to you guys.
Well, Firstie, thank you so much for taking the time to email us. Yes, I saw this email, and I was like, that's actually such a good topic to talk about because I know you have a lot of thoughts and opinions, particularly on change and when people say things like you've changed and all the rest of that, and how you know it correlates to growth in life and if you're not changing, you're not growing.
Yes, I think one of the hard things about being online is people will take what you say and like run with that and if you ever, like do like opposite of something that you said so long ago, like they cling onto it. And I think we've seen it through like our youtubing days. I know I did for sure, Like people would comment, you know, three years into my YouTube journey and say you've changed, as if though like you're not allowed to or like it's a negative thing,
but like, hello, like we all changed. I think the older we get, the more we realize like change is normal. If anything, we should embrace it, oh for sure, Like and I'm all for it. Like we've already spoken about this. I at one point thought that getting a boob job was a good idea, and then I undid that because I thought I changed my fucking mind. So I guess
I'll start on my questions. First ages ago a Jane, I had always rented, and I was just on my story talking as I always fucking do every single night about something random. And I've found I don't know about you as much, Matt, but in my career, the two questions, three questions that I got asked the most throughout my whole youtubing careers when are you having kids? When are you buying a house? And when are you getting married?
Which is so funny because I never get any of those three questions.
So they are my most commonly asked questions. And the other day I randomly went live on TikTok and the comments were when are you and aj having kids? I've been asking those questions all the time, and Agent and I were renting forever, lived in a million houses. This is this is I don't know if this is like COVID times and people were asking when are you gonna
buy a house, blah blah blah. So I went on this massive rent on my story and I was just essentially saying, this is before rent was what it fucking is now as well, mind you, this is when rent was not wild like it fucking is. And I went on my story one night, and I was just kind of saying, like, what's so bad if we choose to rent for the rest of our lives. It wasn't me
saying fuck buying a house. Fuck it, I'm not gonna do that, But it was more so like me challenging, Like I think I've always been one to kind of try to challenge like the norms that society sets out for us. And so I jumped on my story and I'm like, so, what like if we spend the rest of our lives renting and we're happy with where we're living, Like, why does everyone keep saying to us like when are you buying? When are you buying? Like when are you
going to get engaged? Like I was like, I don't know. I was in a like angry mood that day, and I was like, so what if we just decide that we want to rent and we're happy renting? And I said that back then because that's what we were happy doing in that moment. That house will probably be a fucking fortune now. But that's what I said back then.
But you also did some like little calculations and things like that. I remember the stories you were like saying and from my understanding the way that I watched it, the insinuation was that renting was better than owning a house though me for you, yeah, back, not for everyone, but for you, yeah at.
That time, like we were like I was happy doing that, And that's what I was saying, Like, so what you know, because I feel like society has made everyone feel like if you and this is what I said on my stories, I'm like, society has made everyone feel like if you don't buy a house, then you haven't fucking ticked the box. But that's what I was trying to say on my story, you.
Haven't lived until you've had kids.
Yes, like this, And I get these questions all the time, Like people still are like when are you and AJ going to get engaged? When are you and AJ gonna have kids? And I would get that question all the time about buying a house too. I'm like, you don't have to buy a house to be successful in life. You can do lots of other things. And like that's what I was getting at back then. I was like, we're happy renting, Like we're happy with the rent that
we're paying. Mind you, this was four years ago. Maybe rent was a lot cheaper back then. Now it's fucking different because you used to rent to then be able to eventually afford a house, but now it's like, if you're renting.
You can't afford house.
Yeah, so a lot has happened since I said that on my story. But even then agent and I actually had this goes really deep, like into my family and stuff with my mum. But I never had any interest in buying a house. The whole idea came about because I was trying to mend a relationship with my mum. Were not men, but I was trying to. I don't want to go too into it because it's like touchy. I know, I make jokes about it, but essentially, my mum was working for me. She isn't anymore. I think
everyone knows that by now. I don't know, but then again people still ask about her. My mum was working for us. I knew how much that we were paying her, and I knew how much rent she was paying, and so me being me and trying to like make our relationship great, like the whole First of all, the whole thing came about because we were going to buy an apartment for my mum to live in. This is how this whole thing started. Age and I were going to continue renting.
Like investment property vies, but it's your mum as the tennis.
Yes, yeah, so I even we went because there's all these new developments like happening in Newcastle, and so I went to like look at the showroom, got the paperwork. I paid a little deposit, and then we were going to buy an investment property and probably live in it ourselves for the first six months or whatever the fuck you have to do, and then Shad's was going to
move into it. I paid a deposit and everything. That's how this whole house thing came about, all because like I was trying to do good by her, which bit me in the ars down the track, but anyway, we won't say to him on the internet. And then that fell through because my solicitor said it was like a red flag because you know when you're buying something off the plan blah blah blah. And so that fell through,
and then that's when plan B came about. All right, well, we're not buying this investment property for her to live in, so let's fucking buy a house. But the whole deal was it needs to have a granny flat in the back. So that's how the whole thing came about of us buying a house. And then now Shadows doesn't live in that house and she's not in.
My life, so you've renovated everything.
Yes, yeah, so that's how it all came to be.
Was a plan to renovate originally anyway when you because it was like.
A really old house, like old fashioned, so we're always going to renovate it. But like, the whole reason that this whole thing of us buying a house came about was because we were going to buy the apartment and then it fell through and we're like, all right, well we're not going to get that apartment. Oh well, let's just buy a house and she can live out the back. So that's my story why.
You decided to buy a house. Yeah. Nice. She's also said, you know, Matt always saying what I think could be bullshit, and then maybe a month or so realizing it.
Was yeah maybe not.
Yeah. I mean I've changed my mind halfway through a segment, like I've been like, he's just so stupid, and then by the end of the conversation, I go, actually, you know what, maybe I retract everything I said, that's always been my thing. I'm always learning. I'm always learning.
I think one of the hardest things about being online is, like I said at.
The start of this episode, yeah, you say something and.
That people take what you say and then like, that's that's your belief and like if you ever change your mind on that, then no, because you said this that time.
Yeah, you know.
I think that's like the tricky thing about being online and like having a podcast or chatting on your story is people will like take it and be like, but you said, and I'm like, yeah, that was five years ago. Yeah, Like people like you said, changed their mind during a conversation.
Yeah, yep. So basically I think it's healthy too.
I think it's healthy to change your mind.
Change your mind, change your life. Yes, change whatever you want. And I'm all about like change. Like when people go you've changed, I'm like, well, what do you want? Can you imagine me staying the same as I was in twenty and thirteen?
Do we wear in vests? Matt Oh, this is the thing is that that can you please wear a T shirt with a vest? One?
They're selling Christmas vests at kmart. You need to literally Christmas tuxedo ves and I said to Sky when we walked past, I said, imagine I still wore vess that one would have been coming home with me, no questions asked. It's absolutely ridiculous. So she said, in saying this, what are your opinions now on all things living? I don't really know what that means, she.
Said, all things living, housing, career, education, friends, families, building family, you name it.
Okay, Well, right now, at this point in my life, building family kneel interests me too. That could change in the future, but right now Sky and I are both like, we are too selfish with our money. It's fucking expensive to raise a child, and for me, adoption, surrogacy, whatever it might be. That shit's expensive. I would rather not spend that money. I'd actually rather take us to fucking Italy. Sorry, do you know what I mean? Like, That's where I'm at at the moment. We're both on the same page
with that. Even a dog we both love. I've always I've had a few dogs in my life, Like, I've always wanted to have a dog of my own, and Sky just loves dogs so much. We want one, But right now our lifestyles do not align and it would be unfair of us to actually get a dog because we don't have the time to commit to raising a puppy. So if we can't do that, fuck bringing a kid into the mix, you know what I mean. That's my
opinion on that opinion on opinion on education. Okay, I never got any sort of education at all, never went to university, never went to university. I struggled with knowing. Okay, here's actually we'll get a bit deep and meaningful as to why I don't I feel I don't have an education.
Is because growing up queer is you are five steps behind everyone else, because everyone else just kind of gets to hit the ground running with knowing exactly who they are, whereas I was obviously very confused for a lot of my developing years. I knew I didn't fit in with anyone else. So while everyone else is learning their times tables,
my brain's going I think, I like boys. I'm distracted, and so I have, like, I really believe that as queer people, we have a what do you call it, like a handicap almost on life because there's so much figuring out that happens in those very early years, and especially when we're at school, and I feel that as queer people here we go this will this will be a statement that I'm sure when I die, like they'll
put this quote in the daily fucking mail. I think as queer people, we spend so much of our time trying to figure out who we are that we don't have enough time to figure out what we want to be. So right up until year twelve, I couldn't give a shit what I did after high school. I was trying to figure out who I was that day, Like, what's going on inside my brain at this current moment. I don't care for tay or university or anything like that.
I can't even think about five years in the future because I'm still like, I don't know if I want to wear a dress or put makeup on or not today. Like it's like that's kind of what was occupying my brain. So by the time I got to year twelve, no idea what I wanted to do. That meant I didn't give a shit about my scores in in the HSC and things. So about four or five weeks before the HC, I went I want to be a speech pathologist, and that's what I wanted to be I wanted to help
little kids speak if they had speech impediments. It's because I had a boyfriend at the time had a speech impediment, and I was like, I'm going to be a speech pathologist. But I genuinely, for the first time in my life, was like, this is what I want to do. And I was like, I am so determined to get a score good enough in the HSC that it will take me to university. And I was like, this is all the things I have to study, These are all the things I have to do. I was like, I've got
five weeks. Let's fucking crush this. I'm going to be a speech pathologist. I had so much passion for it, but unfortunately, the way that the system works here in New South Wales is your assignments throughout the year count
towards your HSC result. And I did the like Atar calculator to calculate the score that I would get, and I was like, even if I got one one hundred percent, which is impossible, but even if I got one hundred percent in all my exams in the HC, my number would still be like twenty less than the number I would need to be a speech pathologist, which is quite high.
So then my dreams were crashed and I was like, well, nothing to live for whatever then, and then I just flunked the whole HC went fuck the Lottiers, and I ended up with I didn't get a dot. You get a dot if your score was like less than thirty or something. But yeah, I think my atar was really really low. And I don't want to be an asshole, but I would argue that my life has turned out fucking better than some of those other people who spent
every waking moment studying and doing all of that. And it's funny that I just feel like everything worked out in the end, and everything kind of happened for a reason, because imagine I did go on to speech pathology, I never would have worked the Santa photography job, never would have met you, We wouldn't be sitting here today.
Everything always has a way of working out, even if
it's not what you had planned. And I think like that I've always felt this way, Like I feel like I always have been mentally conscious of like trying to go against the grain, like I don't care for education at all, Like fair enough if you want to be like a doctor, or a psychologist, like those careers out there where you need that fucking education, then absolutely, But especially like in my world that I'm in, like all my staff that come into my roles, I couldn't care
less what you knew they went to or what degree they did, because we're in creative roles where you learn on the fucking job and if you can bring some creativeness to the table, then you've got the social media job or whatever for sure. So that's I'm the same about education. I don't have an education other than year eleven, and even then I just didn't care about being there.
I will say as well, the landscape has changed so much different.
Now you can get a job by posting a TikTok and the brand notices you and you get yourself an interview.
I mean like in high school. If I was leaving high school today, there would be roles that I would be passionate about.
Exactly we didn't have. We didn't have the as options back then.
Yeah, sorry, we sound like fucking boomers. It was so much harder for us. But genuinely, if there was a fucking social media marketing degree of some sort, which I'm sure something like that exists, I'd probably have jumped at that because that's up my alley. But at the time, there was nothing, like there was not much creative stuff to do unless you were going to go to Nider or something like that and go to the dramatic arts school.
I think the other thing as well is I truly believe that the year twelve my school, it got a bit culty towards the end, and they basically were like drilling into our heads if you don't get an atar, you are going to die. You will die, you will not have a good life, you will fail life.
I don't believe that at all.
I don't believe that at all either. I now know like the people who because I remember being in school and the people who left in like at the end of year ten to become tradees and things like that.
And there was this one guy who I remember dropped out of school, you know, wasn't really the best at education and things like that, and I remember him dropping out to become a trade and I remember all of us who were still in school to get out ata all of us laughing and going, oh, good luck to him, like he's gonna go be a trainee like lo like we're gonna get atys and got a YEARNI and blah
blah blah. Like I'm not saying that me personally. That was the conversation I was having with That was just the That was just the understanding in the school is that anyone who dropped out and went to TAFE or
they're never going to amount to anything. Let me tell you, this motherfucker has a construction business, employees, hundreds and hundreds of employees, and by the looks of it, earns millions of dollars while the rest of us, like, not me personally, I guess because I didn't get the atar, but the rest of us sat around looking for that atar, And now what salary are you on compared to this one
that's gone. So realistically, no matter what education you get, it does not define where you will end up in life and the money you will make or could make, or the businesses you will run, et cetera, et cetera. So for anyone who I know, we don't have that many young listeners in high school, but I feel like for people who have left high school and maybe didn't get as good of an education as they as they wanted.
Take it from two fucking bogans from the Central Coast in Newcastle who also didn't get it, didn't get an education.
Is that you know you can still do it.
You can still do it for sure.
To sum it up, do whatever the fuck you want, say whatever the fuck you want, except that people we changed throughout our lives. I'm sure all the shit that we sit here and say on this podcast now in twenty twenty four, I bet you a million dollars in two years from now, we will completely disagree with the things that we're saying today.
I think about that from episodes from three months ago. People bring things up I say, and I go, I don't really think that anymore.
But that's finally, and that's normal, and that's part of life.
It's part of life. And remember life is short. Any of us could die tomorrow. So today, let's not waste it harping on, you know, ridiculous bullshit like whether someone's changed or not. Let's just enjoy every moment.
And can people stop asking me when I'm fucking getting engaged in having kids please respectfully.
The kids one pisses me off as well, because they don't know whether you could. You know, you don't have had miscarriages. You could be on an IVF journey, blah blah blah. You never know, you may be you may be infertile and never be able to have kids. So I think asking people when you're gonna have kids is really rude. It is, and I still get I never would I would never ask anyone that.
But for the record, I'm just not fucking interested right now. I really like sleeping through the night. It's not interested in changing a nappy or hearing screaming. Like genuinely, I'm not that it does not interest me. Could that interest me in three years? Yes? And if that does interest me in three years, don't say well you said, because shut the fuck up. Everyone says things.
Yeah, all right, Well it's getting heated. It is, it's getting heated, So we better wrap this up. But thank you for listening to another episode of Close Friend Scrollers.
Guess what see your next Tuesday, Your next Tuesday.