Doctor Jen, How is your Friday going thus far?
Good? It's hot here in San Diego.
It is a bit warm.
It is one hundred and four in Sante yesterday and I think one hundred and two right now, I believe in Santy today.
Yeah.
Oh well, I just looked up Pacific Beach and it's seventy nine. But that is very hot.
For the beach town and for writers.
I we have like eighty percent humidity.
So that's that's the thing.
It is us that we're not used to.
That is true. That is true.
Any discomfort at all for you people out near the beach, and I did.
Mean you people.
I played beach volleyball last night for two hours and it was so humid. Ye were cautiful sunset that way. It was seriously was though. I don't remember the sand ever sticking to me that much in my clothes, and I was like, oh my gosh, we're not used to that out here.
Okay, Well that answered that question because I asked if you were naked, but you weren't.
Oh, playing beach volleyball. Yeah, you said you've done that before only at black speech once. Yeah, but that's not my in the volleyball was not very good. I play like good volleyball with people who are good volleyball players.
So, oh, are you pretty serious about it?
Yeah, oh yeah, you don't know. Yeah, I only play two persons, so beach volleyball, so like you got to you can't half ass when you've only got when you're covering half the court.
I didn't realize you did that.
Oh yeah, it's one of my favorite things too.
Yeah.
I actually a lot of this summer I missed the group I play with just because I was traveling and had work conflicts. And then now I played, I realized I was like, oh my god, why is my back
so sore? I played three times in six days. So yeah, I would, you know, just a group and we set up our own nests and play and we're mostly you know, late forties, fifties, and but yeah, we only we solely played two on two, so you've got to be and we've got we only play on men's nest, which means I can't swing or do anything, and so you know, and some of the men, well you know, can pound the ball down. But yeah, it's great, one of my favorite things.
Well that's awesome, Yes it is.
So you are officially an empty nester.
Oh yes, well okay, so yes, technically, but I must tell you that my boys, Dylan and Gavin are both home this weekend as of last night. So Dylan is home for his professional show in Oceanside called Stranger Sings, which is a I think it's the ocean Side Playhouse that it's a parody of Stranger Things. He is Michael or Mike Funny. Yeah, so he's a big part and he's doing so well with that. But he's so he's here.
And then Gavin is at Fullerton, so an hour and a half away with no traffic, and he came in last night his girlfriend Maya, who is home for the summer from Stanford, who just finished an internship from Monterey Bay. It's as she is just a smart person, man, she is smart as a whip. But but she is home for the next three weeks. So he of course will be home on the weekend. But once October twenty first hits and Dylan's show is done, he will go back
to school. Gavin will have already been back to school. We will officially be well, we are official, but we will literally be empty.
Nestary literally will be there except you too.
Yeah, yeah, how are you feeling about that?
Oh strange. I love when they're home. I love when they're home. I don't know when or if I'll ever get used to it.
People tell me I will, but hey, it's the next chapter in their lives, you know, And and it's a good thing. I thank god that there, that they are pursuing their passion so amazing.
Yeah, yeah, but it's it's weird.
You did your job to help them fly.
Yeah, I mean.
My pocket books still doing some job. But ye, yes, well thanks for asking about what they're doing.
Well, you know, it's funny.
Gavin just told me about an exercise that he did in a classroom with his professor and he loves this professor, loves this person. And he said that a few weeks ago he had said, Hey, we're going to have you guys in socks.
It's a team building.
A lesson, and you guys are going to have to have two partners help one blindfolded partner, and you have to guide them physically, in other words, from either side of this little walking his path, and they have to avoid stepping on mouse traps. And I said to him, I go, just so you know, he's just doing that to scare you. There's no way he is legally going to put mouse traps, active mouse traps on the floor
with you having nothing but socks. He goes, Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too, he goes, But I do wonder, he goes. Then I asked him and he said, no, No, they're real. And he said, I think you still just messing with me. So it was real.
They actually did it.
Nobody nobody got zapped, nobody got snapped. But I said to him, I said, my god, how does he get away with that? And I'm not even gonna question it. Gavin loved it. He said it was so much fun, he said. You know, he said, and after doing it, I realized would be so much harder to let somebody, if you're not paying attention, let somebody actually get snapped by the trap than it is to have them avoid it. That's the whole team building exercise. Look out for your teammates and yeah, and.
How to do it, and how to communicate clearly, how to work as a team, how to put someone else's interests above your like all sorts of stuff.
It's great, Yeah, but.
He said, he was so I was racking his nerves watching one other team of the other of the other teams, because he said about three or four times on that path that course, he thought, oh my god, he's going to step on it. They're not going to help them. Well, no, he didn't do it.
But so.
You know what, I'm imagining doing this at a couple's retreats for couples who are just like on the verge of divorce, right, and how they'd be like, yeah, no, no, I think he needs to step on this. I need I think he needs to feel the pain I've been feeling. I could totally see. It's this very like resentful way of being passive aggressive, and you want to hurt your partner.
And I think that would be a great indicator of whether or not you should stay married.
Yes, that's yes, very good. Okay, that's my next venture. I'm gonna go get the U r L now. Anyway, mouse trap marriage something.
Yeah, if you've if you're at the point in your marriage where you've reached the mouse trap, the mousetrap marathon. This is do or die.
My god, that'd be so fun to put something like that together. Yes, it would, but I don't want to deal with couples that are on the verge of divorce, because that is sticky and not fun.
And you don't want to deal with couples who would sue you if they step.
On the mouse trap.
Yeah. Yeah, we got the whole legality thing too. Yeah, I have a good topic for you.
Yeah.
My friend Brian, who listens to the show sometimes and we've done shout outs to him before, he wrote this to me. This is actually almost a month ago he wrote it. He texted to me and he said, Hey, there's this thing going around like wild on Twitter. Not sure it's seen it, but in my be a good topic for your podcast. And so it's somebody that wrote I think I destroyed our relationship trying to compliment my boyfriend.
So this is a woman writing this online. My boyfriend and I are both twenty eight years old and together for two and a half years. Yesterday night we were Last night, we were drinking and one thing led to another, and I tried to compliment him by saying he is not someone who I would hook up with or be a friends with benefits with. But Mary, I thought everything was fine, but he seemed extremely distraught. After that, I realized how he understood it and tried to clarify it,
but it seemed but he is still the same. This morning he told me that he needs space to think for a while and left the house. All my friends tell me I messed it up, and guys tell me it's not a compliment and most men will understand it differently. I think I destroyed our relationship and panicking right now. So what's your take on it?
Well, here's my take.
To be brutally honest, I would understand even if I were upset, and once you explained to me what you meant, I completely get what she's trying to say. It's not that she's not sexually attracted to him.
She is.
It's not that she doesn't think he's hot.
She does.
She just thinks more of him than just a hookup. So there's emotions involved. But even I'm going to say this now, this is going to be brutal, I think, and I hope I'm wrong, but this guy should understand after she explains it, and if he doesn't and now he needs space, there's more going on, yeah than just that.
I totally agree with that, because I was like, what that seems a bit extreme.
It's very extreme.
So I hope for her sake it's not maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're wrong. Yeah, but I don't think that we are. I think that there is more going on, and I think she needs to look at that. I mean, if this dude comes back, say, you know, a day or two later and goes, look, I was an idiot, I'm sorry. I totally get it.
I love you. That's different.
But if it goes on for too long, to me, that is just an excuse to I don't know.
There's more going on.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And so then Brian shared this one response of somebody online said from a dude, the girlfriend here meant well and intended it as a compliment, but I could totally see why the boyfriend felt hurt by it. To him, it feels like she's telling him he's the boring.
Choice she's settling for after having fun with sexier, cooler guys, and that taps into something deep that's interesting to me, Like that boring interpretation never crossed my mind, and I feel like it's.
So missing the mark of how most women, if they would say something like this me, it means you are safe, you are trustworthy, you support me, We have depth of emotional connection. We also then have you know, ideally sexual chemistry and we attracted to each other. But like you have this depth of who you are and who you are for me, that you're somebody I would marry and not somebody that I would like dismiss mentally, emotionally and just want to get some sexual gratification from. But to me,
that has nothing to do with boring. Like you could have somebody who's stable and reliable and trustworthy and still be a totally freaking fun person.
Yep.
So I'm with you on what you just said one hundred percent. There is one caveat, and I don't unless there's more to this. The only way that I would take it the way that that person just said, I would take it as boring and you're not that this and that you're not exciting is if they've already in
this relationship stopped having sex. If they've stopped having sex and you say that, then it's kind of like yeah, as a guy, I would be like, wait, what Other than that, I don't take it that way at all, yes, or if.
You have been told in your past, because I feel like everybody is projecting their own shit into this and like so like even the person that wrote that that, like, oh, is interman, is that he's that she's saying he's boring? Like I think no, armand dorma Luski on x, that's who wrote that post. I think that guy maybe has been told he's boring before or has an insecurity about it, and therefore that's why he read that into it.
Maybe I don't know, but without armand Dormluski whatever, man, it seems to me you've been getting laid quite a bit.
So I don't know if he has that kind of problem.
You're like, just saying your name is enough for me.
Right, what's your name?
Armand armand.
Okay check please.
No, But yeah, I agree with you projecting their own I think we all do it.
I mean I don't. I shouldn't say we all. What most of us do? I I know I have.
Well, what most people don't do is that they don't realize they're doing it, and they are so sure that their interpretation is fact instead of realizing its interpretation.
You know, I absolutely agree with that one hundred percent. I remember back in the day, and now I do stand by this. I will tell you that way back in the day girlfriend of mine. I was enamored with her. I at the time would have married her had she said let's go. Does not mean I regret where I'm out in my life. Now I don't. But at that
time I was really in love. This woman was great, and we were sitting on the front lawn of my house and I remember her and now there had already been indications though here's the caveat that I was putting her on a pedestal and I was doing so much for her, and just I think in your twenties, you're not going to respect the other person if you've got insecurities yourself. Because why would they love me this much?
Why is he who I thought was so hot? Because that's the story I got later, you know, treating me like a queen like this. But what she said to me was she just goes, I'm content, and to me, I went content. I didn't say this, I went out okay. But I took that as a complete like, I'm not super hot for you, I'm not in love with you.
I'm not.
That's exactly how I took all of that, based on our past couple of months, and so it led me to to later.
On I just asked her what the word content meant to her.
I don't remember. This is what's weird. I don't remember what I said after that. I just know that I wasn't a jerk or anything. I was just no, I do remember, that's right, this is coming back to me. We took a drive in my jeep and it upset me a little bit. I'm like, hey, so content, I mean, you know, just just content and she's.
Like, well, yeah, you know.
And then that's when we did get into you know, her like, well, you know, you put me on this pedestal and I don't know, you just treat me like that. And I went and I do remember this now, and I said, I forget what she said. I said, well, look are you saying you want to see other people? Somehow we got to that and she said, I don't have anybody in mind, but but you know, like I don't know maybe, and I go and I just looked at it. I go, I go, you know what f that?
I go, You're mine. And the funny thing is, I'd never been like that before. I was so happy, go lucky, pass it, doing everything for like everything. Yeah, it actually kind of turned her on. She goes, well, where was all of this before?
And I, Oh, she wanted you to be like possessive.
That's what's funny about Listen, I'm telling you, doctor Jen. At that age sometimes yes, but not overboard and so right, well, that's what.
Because I know it's the whole idea that like, oh, somebody's jealous.
That's so romantic, right, unless it's overboard. Nless, it's all the time and they can't get over it, that kind of thing every move you make, right, And I've been through that too before, not from my well, from my into but from an ext that was the stripper.
Oh my god, she was nuts.
At first I was like, oh, she's really into me, and then it was like she's psycho. But either way, this other girl, Yeah, that was that's when I made the decision that she is just not as into me, not even close as I was into her. So I was like, hey, I'm gonna let you go. And it was painful. God, that sucked.
Oh yeah, I mean that's it's glad you had the self respect to do it.
Yeah, I mean I at that time, in that moment, yes, I just was not going to settle for someone that I was so into who was not into me. But again back to this email, I do not think from the female side that that's what that was at all. I'm with you one hundred percent unless there was no intimacy. Otherwise that was just a total compliment. And I think he's got some things he's got to deal with.
Yeah's interesting because it's like, we do you know the version of romantic intimacy and marriage that has been cultivated in the past, probably about one hundred years or so in the United States, really, and it didn't exist before.
Really, is this idea that your romantic partner and then your future spouse should be all the things that we should be, all the things they should be, all the things they should be. They should be the friends with benefits that we'd want to hook up with and have crazy nights butt, and they should be stable and reliable
and trustworthy. And we should have all these hobbies in common, and we should want to watch the same shows, and we should be able to have the depth of emotional and vulnerable conversation that we want, and we should parent in the same way. And and it's just kind of endless and almost impossible.
It is God, I that I know is that and so.
Your feelings fulfilled in that way, Clint, and you think you're that person, but it puts you know, it puts a lot of pressure on relationships and on ourselves and on our partners. So figuring out how to you know, in a healthy way to be like no, you know what, Like you have this person in your life that that is really good for this, or you have this group of guys that's good for this, or goodest group of women.
And yes, of course I want to hear about these things, but I think they're better suited give you the support you need, or these people are better suited to go wine tasting with you because you love wine and you love staying out late. And so I mean, you've got to compromise and make sure you already you always are, you know, doing meaningful quality time things together and cultivating
your life together and working on communication and connection. But like it's okay to have other people, you know, it takes a village and that's okay instead of putting all of the weight on one person to fulfill all of these things in your life.
Yeah, I mean I think I've always go by the eighty twenty rule. We've talked about that before, where eighty percent good, twenty percent not. And I think I think that's a decent balance. I mean, but no one's ever going to be a hindre percent. That's just my opinion.
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, things like that, like thinking eighty twenty. Some of it depends on like how do you how do you measure things? How do you wait things? Because maybe you're like, wow, we only have one thing that's not working for us, and all these other things are amazing, but that one thing actually means a toun to me and weighs heavier than other things. So I guess it would just depend on how people measure that for themselves.
Yeah, and I didn't actually think about it in those terms. But of course, once again you throw the smarts into this conversation, and now I'm gone, huh, she's.
Right, yeah, because it's not like a one like you just have a list and each thing counts for you know, one point, you could easily have something you're like, this does matter to me, however these other things rank higher so and that you know could change with age and priorities, and you know, empty nusters those are different. You know, you're not focusing on running the household and the kids
and all of that in the same way. So it's a time to reassess what your priorities and your needs and your desires are for the next, you know, thirty years together. So do you feel like you guys are doing that in your marriage right now?
I mean, yeah, yeah, we're well again, most of it, not all of it. And you're right now I'm thinking, okay, well, what outweighs what one thing or what part of that outweighs the other?
You know what I mean in importance? I mean for me.
Yeah, no, that's a great question. Yeah, I think we are for the most part.
I mean you're having those conversations.
Yeah, yeah, we're talking about oh yeah, yeah, oh, just thinking about that now.
Good.
Uh. You know, I'm starting work here in about five minutes and we're at about twenty minutes now, even though I love talking longer, So maybe that is our cue to step out. But I value you, doctor Jen, and I can't wait until we talk again. And by the way, I could never have a one night stand with you.
Why I'm relationship materials.
See, you took the compliments and you trashed it.
They no, yeah, that's yeah, no, that's just felt awkward. That's just felt awkward, uncomfortable.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it that way. Geez.
Well, it's ever when I can't see your face too because around the because you're in studio.
That's true.
Yeah, and I will tell our listeners too, because I had another one of our folks that likes to write in and gives us great topics. I was going to cover that topic, but it had you know, it was more sexual themed. Because you're in studio and always afraid that something could end up on air by accident, I shied away from that this time.
All right, then how about next week we'll do it and I'll make sure we're on the zoom and I'll be at home.
Oh yeah, sounds great, Thank you? Cool? All right, I'm I'm happy for you to be back to afternoon, So have a great show this afternoon.
It's a better schedule for me, and thank you.