Douchebag Energy

Things are good. We're in Rhode Island. What else? What is new with us? Nothing? Much? Man? Uh, Rody Livin is doing well. East Coast summers are the best. Things are good. I can't complain. How about you? Oh my gosh, I have so many things to update you on, Jared, there's nothing to update me answer. I have so much to say. How much time do we have? I think

We've only got about ten minutes. You know. Actually I don't know if I've got enough time to even say any of it, So maybe I'll just keep it to myself. We've got a great episode for you guys. Uh, it's it's and help Me understand this episode a little bit better, Jared. So we've got fans calling in to speak with us yesterday. So on our Instagram help I suck at dating, which you guys should totally follow if you don't already followed.

We posted on our inst story saying, hey, d on us if you feel like your best friend BFF as we call it is, is better than any therapist that you've ever talked to when it comes to dating, And then we're gonna have you on the podcast to talk about this. So we have two fans coming on. We have Sheina and then we have Alyssa, who are going to come on and talk about how they're best friends

know them better than anybody in this world. For example, Sheina replied to our instant storian said, my best friend knows me way more than I know myself, and I suck at dating. So Sheina sucks at dating and her best friend knows her better than herself, and Alyssa goes, my best friend knows in two seconds if a guy looks like he will get a on with me, no idea. How she is always right, showed her pick of a tender date and she said he will be a dick and ghost you after the date and guess what, he

was a dick and he ghost to her. How did she do it? Nobody knows what. We're gonna talk to Alyssa about it. So I'm super excited about this episode. We also have Dr Elizabeth Lombardo coming on the podcast in a little while. UM, so I'm excited. It's gonna be a good podcast. Man. Of course, we have emails too, your favorite part, my favorite part, all of our favorite parts, emails.

And as far as I understand that Dr Lombardo is going to help us with the emails, Before we get to that, I would just like to take a second and recognize today as June tenth, it just became a federal holiday passed into law. Jee of course, is the celebration of the emancipation of slavery. So I just didn't want to go an entire episode of that, at least

bringing that I agree, just acknowledging that. Um it's funny. Actually, my my roommate and one of my best friends is person and of Color, and I was like, Jackson, you gotta He's actually been on this podcast before, like two

or three years ago. I was like, you gotta come on the podcast and he's actually like the head of diversity training for like a big marketing company, And I was like, dude, this would be a great platform for you to like come up and like just you know, like the uncomfortable conversations with the black guy Emmanuel Acho.

I think it'd be a great opportunity. And obviously I can just kind of talk to the producers behind the scenes about this, but to bring him on and we could kind of have a conversation with him about that type of stuff. He was telling me there are these women of color in Colorado, which is where we're both from, and white women specifically, would hire them, bring them to dinner with them, and then just ask them all of the questions that they've always been like unsure of to

ask and maybe like a little hesitant to ask. Uh. And it's just like I think, once you start having those conversations, only good things can come from it. So maybe one of these days we can have a conversation like that with him, because he's a very smart man. Yeah, I would love that. I I preach all the time I think on comfortable conversations are a great thing to have in this world, not a just about race, but about sex and a lot of taboo subjects that people

are afraid to have conversations. But like you said, when you're able to air it out, only good things coming from it. Now, I also understand that it's very scary to do those things, especially on a public platform. Like I'm extremely nervous when I say things because I don't know.

Sometimes I'm just oblivious or ignorant. And I remember I told this story during UM right after the George Floyd murder UM last summer and the Black Lives Matter movie was happening, and I wanted to post something, and I posted, UM, I posted black lives matter, uh, something like something all encompassing because I was like, okay, I want to say black lives matter, all lives matter. And I said that and people are like, oh, you can't say all lives matter?

And I was like, where does this come from? And then obviously I looked more into it and learn more about it. But it's like moments like that where you have instances you're able to learn from, which is good. So hopefully that continues. Any who, I would love to

have him on the podcast. I think that's a great. Yeah. Well, I appreciate the I think the moral of your story is you learned from the things that you didn't know of first, right, Like you made a mistake maybe and then you kind of redacted it, which I like, you just learned from your mistakes. Isn't that the whole point of life? Yeah? Exactly, if you do something wrong, learn what you did wrong, and go about go about fixing it. So yeah, maybe we can have that happened one day.

I don't know. Last time he was on the podcast, like two or three years ago. Like I said, we talked about sex thing. He's like, dude, I'd love to come on your podcast, just don't make me talk about sex thing. And I was like, Yeah, that's that's reasonable, that's a reasonable. Texting is a fun conversation, but it's a good segue into our first topic that we're going to briefly touch on before Alyssa comes. Excuse me, Shena is our first guest on She's gonna be on in

a second talking about her best friend. But I did want to mention that there's a new show coming out from our former Bachelor producer, Alan gail And who's a great man who married Ashley and myself a close friend and he is a producer in a brand new reality dating show that is going to be on HBO Max called F Boy Island. And like the series concept was created by Alan, who obviously was a producer on the show. Now Uh he's he credits uh Love is Blind and

HBO Max's holiday theme dating show Twelve Dates of Christmas. Um. And then he goes on to say Alan says this, when I first got the call to be part of a reality dating show called F Boy Island, I said yes immediately. Then I realized they weren't asking me to be one of the girls looking for love. Oh this is I'm sorry, I'm mixing up my quotes all over the place. This is Nicky Glazer. Okay, long story short, F Boy Island is a brand new show that is

produced by a lan which I'm super excited about. It's gonna be on HBO Max. It is hosted by Nicky Glazer. Anything that Alan does, I'm a percent in because that man is a genius and I'm super excited for the show. I don't know exactly when it's gonna air, um, but all I know is that i cannot wait for it. All Right, on a scale of one to ten for f Boy Island, Is it going to be more or less cheesy than? Uh? Definitely more but that okay, I'm just gonna keep doing it. I'm just gonna say more.

I'm gonna keep naming a couple of I don't want to go more less, more or less cheesy than Love is Blind equal. I think it's very very Love is Blind esque. Okay, because I I looked at obviously, we don't really know anything about it at this point. I'm excited to at least give it a try because I love Alan. I think he is, like you said, he's a genius. I'm excited to watch it. I the cover art for the poster, I was like, this is the cheesiest looking poster board I've ever seen in my entire life.

It's like an island with a girl on it, and like a million guys like swimming into it, poorly photoshopped into it, based only off of a Lan Nikki and Bill Dixon, who you know as well, who's awsome, incredibly intelligent guy. I'm definitely gonna watch it, but I I guess I'm keeping the bar. I'm keeping my expectations maintained a little bit. Well, Alan's kind of, from my understanding, the master behind mastermind behind Paradise. Uh, and I Paradise

is my favorite show within the Bachelor franchise. And and I think I just I love a line Alan's creativity. I love that he's willing to take risk, and I think when he was on Bachelor he was held in check a little bit. Obviously, it's an ABC show. ABC is owned by Disney. There's only so much provocative things that you can do, and you can only toy with the edge as far as you can go that ABC will allow, rightfully, So of course ABC has to watch themselves.

But now that Alan is on HBO and producing this reality show that's literally titled f Boy Island and airing on HBO, which you know, hey, no holds bar on that, I'm very excited to see how far he's going to push the envelope. That's what I'm most excited about. I agree with what you're saying. HBO will be a fun platform for him because it's uh, you know, I think HBO was the network that I saw my first booby

on when I was a kid. They don't really tend to hold back when it comes to that kind of stuff, So very pretty exciting in that respect. Do you remember the show was on I think so there was a show back in the day called like cat House something and it was about uh, you know what I'm talking, Yes, but also Eastern just message just and I agree with him. You remember watching Real Sex as a kid? Oh? Yes,

Real Sex Taxi cab confessions. Sometimes you'd see it, and then sometimes they would air I think it was on HBO that they would air Howard Stern episodes and sometimes you would catch a glimpse of a little bit of nipple on there and listen. When you're a twelve year old boy, this is like a kind of maybe like

right when the Internet was kind of catching on. So and and you have a family computer instead of your own personal laptop, so you have to be very careful when you could be on your television at one in the morning flip over to HBO and see like a little something provocative. As a twelve year old boy, you're like,

this is awesome. So yeah, I think if anyone within our like era has a very strong affinity for HBO for that recent alone, in my opinion, um, so I'm excited for Eble Island and now I'm gonna go back and rewatch real sex. Um. So, Also, I just I want to I want to say this before we move on to having Sheena joined us. Calin just told me that her grandmother listens to the this podcast, and after

saying that, I just feel a little uncomfortable. So, dear Joe, if you're listening to this, Um, I'm sorry, Yes, Klin's grandmother. I apologize as well. Uh. I hope we get to meet in person one day and I can formally apologize for everything I've said on this podcast. Uh. So, we do have another topic that I want to get into before Sina or Lisa Alyssa calls in, and that is there was a New York Times article that said seven

ways to reset your relationship now. Experts say couples can emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever by learning from the past and looking towards the future. During this time, couples may have been spending about as much time with each other as would normally be stretched across a two to three year period, said Bryce Tohone, who's a clinical psychologist in Portland's, Oregon. And they've had to occupy multiple roles that would have been previously filled by others like friends,

which is impossible. I will say I this the pandemics kind of like well, I mean, the horrible nous of the pandemic obviously aside, it's kind of like bachelor, right because you're forced to live together, you're forced to you know, be creative, and you're stuck in this one place for an extended period of time. It's kind of like a

speed dating relationship. My sister in law moved back to Virginia right before the pandemic started and had to move in with her boyfriend and they were living together like a month before the pandemic hit, and then boom, they were stuck inside the house. And that was like, Okay, we're gonna find out this relationship is going to make her to break it through the pandemic. Thank god they made it and now they're engaged. Yeah. I agree. It's kind of a similar situation, not quite as extreme as

that though. For Kayla and I we were together I think for probably seven eight months at the time, and then yeah, you just go from you know, doing your own thing to all of a sudden being with each other. Uh. I want to what do you think. Do you think more couples succeeded or failed because of it? I if I had to bet, I'd love to see numbers on this, I would say more couples. I'd honestly, my gut reactions says failed because I bet people looked at it and said, hey, um,

I only have so much time on this earth. I think people are really rethinking their priorities throughout this pandemic, and they're probably wanting to do the things that they've always wanted to do, kind of like you, where you're like, hey, I want to travel and I want to see this, and you're very lucky to have someone like Kalin who supports that and lets you do your own adventures. I

don't feel like everyone's like Kalin. So I'm curious if people are like, hey, I need to do this, and then other people were like hey, I need you here, and that caused friction, and uh, I bet more relationships broke up then stay together through the pandemic. I'll bet

you what though. I bet you if you in thirty years time were to compare divorce statistics, I bet you that there would be are decrease in divorces judging from this eighteen month window that we've been in, because, like you said, it kind of pressure cooks the relationship pre marriage obviously, Like I don't really think any married couples were getting divorced because of COVID. I'm sure obviously one or two whatever, But I think I just wanted to kind of think in the world it gives you, but

I'm saying way less than other relationships. I bet you it get. It gets giving these couples a lot of insight to whether they're gonna want to spend the rest of their life with this person. And because of that, I think it's going to reduce the divorce rates at least for this little eighteen month window, if you know

what I'm saying. No, I that's an interesting theory. So the New York Times article goes on says, now as many couples have to plunge back into the hum of life, it is a perfect opportunity for a relationship reset, to learn from our time hunkering down together and look forward to the future. So Number one, they say, there are seven ways to reset your relationship. Number One, do a

relationship review. First, have a sit down together to assess what worked about your relationship and what didn't during quarantine. I think that's a good idea. Sure, why not. Shouldn't you just do that all the time anyway, not just about quarantine. Shouldn't you kind of sit down and be like, Hey, this is what I'm thinking, this is what you're thinking, be on the same page. No, maybe, yes, I mean I think yeah. I think quarantine kind of gives you an excuse to sit down and say and talk about

it though, which is nice. It's always going to have a reason, you know. Fair point number two, voice your appreciation. Perhaps over the past year you haven't felt like giving compliments to your partner, but positive feedback is important. Do

you compliment Kalin a lot? I bet you do. I compliment her more in the short term, and I think it could probably do a better job of being like, hey, just so let you know, I appreciate your existence more so than just being like, hey, you look really nice today, you know, kind of like more of a broader, more all encompassing compliment, more in depth compliment, yeah, which probably are more meaningful, uh A little know in fact about Dean, Dean,

you are a great compliment tour if that makes you're great at giving compliments well, as are you, thank you very much. I'm also a really good compliment hee. I'm really good at receiving compliments, which I get quite often. If I don't, if I don't, you know, humble brag. No, I'm just kidding, I'm actually bad at it. There was actually a time, like a week ago. I can't remember what it was, but Kylin and I hadn't really hung

out for a long time. Calin was like in Vegas for a month and I was in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks. She got back and I like was kind of like hungover, so I was like pretty stand offish, and then I left to go play golf and I was like driving away and I texted her and I was like, Hey, I just don't want you to know I'm really sorry for being kind of quiet. I really appreciate that you're back in Los Angeles and you know, Los Angeles is a better city with you

here or something like that. Uh. And I was like, as I was like, hopefully she takes that as a, you know, a good thing. I don't know. It was just one of those moments where I was like kind of trying to be more you know, retroactively complimentary instead of just being like, you look nice or whatever. But anyways, I don't know where this story was. I think the fact that you're bad at taking compliments is a good

thing because that means you're humble. Now we're going to get it back to this article because we also have five more to go that we want to talk to you about. But we do have a very special guest who was on the line with us right now. It is the help I Suck, a dating fan that we were talking about who said her best friend knows her best way better than she knows herself, and including the best friend apparently told her, hey, listen, this guy is gonna be a dick and this guy's gonna ghost you.

And she knew all this just by looking at a tender day. It is our friend, Alyssa, Alyssa, thank you so much, Ali, Ali? Or a LISTA do you do? Which one do you go by? I go by Ali? Well, Ali, I'm Jared. It's so nice meeting you. Thank you for

doing this. Yeah, of course, h so, Ali, you told us that your best friend knows you way better than you know yourself, and apparently your best friend knew in two seconds if a guy was going to work out with you or not, including the story that I just told where you showed your best friend a picture of a tender date that you had and she was like, black guy is gonna be a jerk and totally ghost to And guess what, that guy was totally a jerk and ghost to do. How the hell did she know that?

I wish I knew. She has done it more times, honestly than I can count, and I don't know how she knows. I literally I will send her a picture and she's like, nope, red flags. I'm like, well, it's like a picture of him smiling, Like how are you? How are you getting that? I will never understand. I think we might need to have your friend on this podcast to kind of dive into the reason and logic

behind it. I think, so we have all these dating experts on, but truly your best friend is the dating expert because she can just see a picture of a person be like, no, it's not going to work out, or it could be the love of your life. What do you think it is? Do you think that she's able to read the men really well or do you think it's just that she knows you really well. I think she just knows me, and I think she knows when I'm going beneath me, and she's just like, you

can come on. And I think, you know, sometimes your friends just know if you're taking it too easy on yourself, and it's like, just push yourself out there, like stop sticking with the same person that you know it's not gonna work. How long have you guys been best friends for since fifth grade? Oh? Wow, long times? So she

definitely doesn't know you very very well. Oh yeah, what's she doing it back in middle school and everything to like, you would have a crush on a on a boy in middle school or something, and she would kind of talk you out of it. I think the best thing about us is that we have complete opposite taste, so we've never had an issue of like the same guy. It's always been complete opposites. And I think that's why we get along so well and why we can tell

each other everything because there's no conflicting interests ever. But yeah, in middle school, we were you know, we would talk about guys all the time. I mean that recess, you know, every day, It's what girls do in middle school. And I don't know. That's how we bonded. So, Ali, you

also said that you suck at dating. Now, granted, my whole theory is that we all suck at dating no other whether we're married single in a relationship doesn't matter, because I can tell you I'm married, and I promise you my wife would say I suck at dating. So Ali, what do you think you suck at dating at? I don't know. I think going into relationship is just scary,

you know. I think taking that leap and really putting all your trust in somebody is a scary thing to do, and especially if you have those doubts is this the right person to really, you know, give everything to. It's it's hard, and um, I think that's where a lot of the issues stem from. For me especially, It's just you know, putting that trust in someone when you had that trust broken so many times already. Yeah, it's scary.

It's not easy, especially right now during like coming out of this pandemic and then having to like re enter society. It's a crazy time to start dating right now. Yeah, it's crazy. And I'm a single mom, so I actually have a three year old daughter. So we've had our fair share of you know, broken trust and all of that. So I think that's where, especially now it's gotten worse, where my issues are. Where do you live, Alle? I live in Portland, Oregon. Oh nice, nice. Yeah. I wonder

what the dating scene is like up there. I feel like there's a lot of a lot of outdoorsy people up there, right, And I'm not out doorsy, so it's hard to find hard to find the right the right person. Yeah, you gotta have some more interest too. I relate to you there, Ali, I am not Outdersey either. Dean is very outdoorsy. Uh yeah. Sometimes sometimes guy jumps out of planes. He has a he has a van. Okay, live in

a van. Um. But Ali, I just want to ask you now that you brought up that you're a single mom,

So how is that with dating? You know, we talked a lot about this pot on this podcast about you know a lot of people struggled dating um when they have kids, because it's always like that awkward conversation sometimes you have to have and saying hey, you know it's not you're not just dating me, but you know I also have you know, a kid who I love very much, and so you know, there's more that goes into just hey, let's kind of hang out and see what happens. So,

how has your experience been like that? Um with dating? Yeah, I mean I think it's it's a hard boundary to set because obviously you want a relationship, but you don't want to introduce somebody to your kid that in six months it's gonna even they get attached, right, So I think I think it's a thing where I don't hide it.

I mean, I know there's some situations where people like leave it out until last minute, and I think that's just wrong because I don't want a guy to have certain expectations and then realize I had a kid and like, I obviously she's my priority and I'm not going to be able to, you know, drop everything, go on a date. I have to you know, get my mom to watch her, get a babysitter, like whatever. It's it's not as simple

as you know, just being able to go out. And like I've had guys who the day before, like you want to go out some more, I'm like I can't. Nobody can watch her, you know. And I think it's hard where I have set the boundary where if I find somebody it's at least gonna be like a few months before I'm going to introduce them to her, because I think for kids, it's hard for them to understand, especially because her dad's not in the picture. What like a dad is, you know? And I don't want her

to get that attachment and then it just be broken. Well, you sound like a great mom, and truly I'm not being I'm not saying that, just like trying to be nice. That's a very respectful, um thing that you just said. And we wish you the best of luck, and thank you so much for listening to the podcast, and thank you so much for coming on. Are you gonna be no? Thank you? Thanks Ali, see you later. Yeah, by Alie. So starting interrupt really quick. Is Diana your friend? She's

now in the waiting room, Yes she is? Okay, Oh interesting, So Diana is the fortune telling friend? Is that right? Yes? Hi? Hi Diana, Hi Diana. Great to meet you, guys. Oh, the pleasure is all our You're the one who with the with the crystal ball over here telling your your friend Ali over here. Who's good for her? Who's not

good for her? Well, it's like pretty easy to tell most of the guys, Diana, we gotta know what's what's your method to uh deciphering who is and who isn't good enough or like and what they're gonna do with such great, uh an enormous accuracy. Like Ali was saying, you said that some guy was going to take around a date and then ghost through after the day, and that's exactly what happened. So how do you kind of

nail it in so so accurately? You just like likes guys who are kind of douche bags, So like, I feel like it's kind of easy to make that assumption with most of them, but not most of them ghost her. But this one particular, I think it was just like very clear he had douchebag energy. So I like, Diana, I like that you're able to just tell by a picture if a guy has douche bag energy. I really enjoy that it's so easy to tell. Yeah, come on, what's what do you think the number one tell tale

sign is of douchebag energy? Oh, like a gym me or selfie or like if they played a sports college, that's an immediate red flag for me. Hey, did you play a sport in college? I played intermural flag football is that it does it. And I didn't play college sport either, so I think we're good. We just gotta make sure we don't take pictures in front of the gym. I played a college sport. There we go. We're gonna. This is what we do. We just cause friction and

friendships over here and help us I get dating. Maybe it was me all along. I don't think so. Ali and Diana, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We truly appreciate it, and thank you so much for responding to the d M and listening to the podcast. It means the world to us. Well, thank you so much for having us. Glad to be here. Thank you, Thank you guys so much. Podcast. Hey, maybe next time you come on the podcast, you'll suck just a little

bit less. We're going. First of all, you don't know me. We're all about that high school drama. Girl drama girl, all about them high school queens and forever. We'll take you for a ride at our comic girl sharing father Right Drama Queens girl fashion much. You're tough, girl, you can sit with us. Girl Drama Queens Drawn Mcqueens Drama Queen's Drama John mc queen's Drama Queens. Hey, this is Bethany joy Lynn and Sophia Bush and Hilary Burton and

we have a podcast called Drama Queens. I feel like it's a walk down memory lane that also might be a little bit of a stumble down memory lane. I mean we'll have cocktails sometimes, so we might leave stumbling. I'm good with that. There are no fans like One Tree Hill fans. There is no family like our family.

So we got together to do a rewatch podcast to relive the show as so many of you have so many times, because to be honest, we haven't Yeah, we haven't seen it since two thousand and two, two thousand three. We can't wait to take this trip down memory lane with all of you. What would our characters be doing right now? I think Hayley would probably be I mean, she's got to be close to an empty nuster now

right like um Jamie's out of the house. She might she might be finally ready to live out those wild years that she you know what I mean, I think it might be time. I'm going to say a lot of therapy. Peyton Sawyer is in so much therapy right now. Well, not long ago. I found my vote Brook Davis for president pinn. I don't know it's Brook Davis Senator or something like that. There's so much cool stuff to imagine for them, but before we can go forward, we've got

to go back to the beginning. You nailed it. Make sure you all listen to Drama Queens on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, thanks for listening. Don't forget to leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram at Drama Queens O t h or email us at Drama Queens at I heart radio dot com. See you next time. We are all about that high school drama Girl,

Drama Girl, all about them high school queens forever. We'll take you for a ride at our comic girl sharing for the right drama up girl fashion. But you'll talk. You could sit with us girl, John McQueen's John McQueen's John McQueen's Drama John McQueen's John Queens. Hey, welcome back to the podcast, Dean myself, So another thank you to Ali and Diana for joining us on the podcast. That was great. And we have another special guest who's on

the line with this right now. She is the authority on how to crush your inner critic so that you can live a life of purpose fulfillment and true success. It is Dr Elizabeth Lombardo. Doctor. How are you? I am well and grateful to be here. We're very grateful to have you. So you are. This is I'm not joking, this is how they phrased it for me. You are America's most trusted celebrity psychologist with over one hundred national media interviews. You were on the Today Show, Good Morning America,

doctor Oz. I don't know why I said that with like such a Boston actic accent, doctor as Fox, Business News, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, your all over the place. Um, so thank you for coming on the podcast. So you are a celebrity psychologist. Yes, what do you do exactly? What does that mean? You just you only talk to celebrities. Well, you don't only talk to celebrities, but I do work

with a lot of celebrities and professional athletes. Because here's the thing, it's not easy being in the limelight all the time. Right. You can even go to target without people watching you, taking pictures of you, constantly being scrutinized, and a lot of times people think, once you've quote made it, once you have the money, the fame, the fortune, then you should have no problems at all. And yet there are unique problems and issues that celebrities and professional

athletes face. And so that's what I specialize in. Sorry, Dean just logged off. He'll he'll be back in a second. Sometimes his WiFi comes to goo offend him. Probably he was like, excuse me, I'm very famous. I don't know why you don't famous for this? Yeah, apparently. Um no, I I totally agree with you. You know, there's so many different, um problems that a lot of people have in this world, and like you said, with celebrity status and someone who's like had a small, small, small sliver

of it. Um, it is crazy because you are truly under a microscope and everything that you say and do can be used against you. Uh, not just in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion, which is very important. Um. And it's pretty sure people have opinions now right that really it's and it's their own, it's their own stuff that they're just putting out on other people. They're unhappy. So they're putting other people down. They're gonna put down the people who are more successful

because it helps them theoretically feel better about themselves. It doesn't really, but they think it will. Yeah, Um, I agree,

and like to make it a little bit timely. Uh. You know, Chris Harrison from The Bachelor franchises no longer with the show, and you know, I'm not saying my opinion about this, but one thing that I did want to say, we we've talked about it on the podcast extensively last week, was a lot of people are saying, hey, Chris Harrison has a position of power and because of the thing is that he said his position of power

needed to be taken away. But it's hard because that position of power that people want to say is his job. And so I feel like that kind of relates as well. We don't have to get into it because I know it's like a really uh you know, very sensitive topic, but that was something that was just on my head. Um, But you're also you also describe how you're on a mission to help recognize your real self worth, which helps

you live the life that you've always dreamed of. So how can people out there really uh realize their self worth because I mean, so many of my friends and so many people you probably know, they just you know, they're always down on themselves and it's hard to really kind of figure out, Hey, listen, I'm worth it. So how can people do that? Yeah, and it's not just do I have high self worth or low self worth?

It's not just the quantitative, but I would say it's also be qualitative, meaning what kind of self worth are you focused on? So, as a society, people tend to

have what I call conditional self worth. Conditional self worth means I believe in myself if and only if certain external circumstances are met, and those external circumstances vary from person in person, So it maybe if and only if I get a certain number of likes on social media, if people compliment me, if I look a certain way, if I make a certain amount of money, and so they're constantly determining how to view themselves according to how

other people react, what's going on in the outside world. And when we do that, it's almost like being on a treadmill. Right, you take a step forward, but eventually you got to take another step, another step, another step, and you get nowhere. So the goal is to really

have what I call unconditional self worth. Unconditional self worth means you believe in yourself regardless now that in a narcissistic I'm better than your sort of way, but just based on your values, based on your course strengths, who you are, being comfortable in your own skin, so that not only can you be happier within you, but then you share that with other people. Because people who have conditional self worthy, I only feel good about myself if

they're the ones who are putting other people down. Are putting other people down and feel better about themselves. There's the ones who have come from this wind lose mentality. If I win, then you lose, but if you win, then I lose, and so there's this constant competition that they have. When we have unconditional subworth, we can just believe in ourselves for who we are. We can take feedback and it doesn't feel like a personal attack on us. We can we can listen to and decide what we

want to do with it. But it's that notion where I'm good regardless of how other people react towards me.

So I've got a question for you. Then, So on that note, I how do I differentiate between unconditional self worth and being critical to the point where I'm trying to improve myself because I think that I've got self worth pretty down for myself, but I'm so critical of myself, you know, like I do something dumb or make a mistake, and I like, in my head, my internal monologue is like, oh, you idiot, you mess that up so bad, like blah

blah blah. But I say that because I know that I can do better, and it's like kind of an encouragement for me to do better next time. So how do I kind of differentiate between those two things? So is that notion the spirit of continuous improvement, Like, Hey, I'm good and I can keep getting better. And so that that that talk, that internal dialogue that you have, does it motivate you or does it push you down

and make you feel bad about yourself? So really the barometer there would be how does it feel when you have those internal conversations. If it feels encouraging and motivating kind of in a drill sergeant, you know you're gonna do better kind of way, great, If it feels like I feel really down about myself, then you may want to address that inner critic. That makes sense, That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I guess I've to just

kind of close loop on that. I've never really gotten down on myself for it, but I just like, I'll like say things out lot sometimes and my friends will hear me and they're like, who, man, Like, you need to be less harsh on yourself, And I'm like, no, I need to be harder on myself. I don't know, well, you know. And again it's it's drill sergeant versus versus cheerleader mentality. Right, Both a drill sergeant who yells and

put someone down versus a cheerleader who encourages them. The ultimate goal for both is the same, for that person to be better. Right. So some people respond better to a little more harsh because it does motivate them. Some people that kind of inner dialogue put some way down, they feel, you know, down depressed, they can't they can't do anything. So it really is determined by the individual. I'm like, Dean, I'm I'm very much a drill short sergeant in my own head. Um, But my question is,

how do how do you achieve unconditional self worth? Because I completely agree with you, but I'm sure, like myself so many people out there, it just almost feels impossible to achieve because it's no matter how many times I tell myself I can do what I can do. I like I'm worth it, I can do this like, there's always a pretty decent sized voice in the back of my head saying probably not. You probably can't do it. Yeah.

So here's the thing. You did not come out of your mama's womb thinking I'm not good enough, I can't do this. Right, that was learned. Anything learned can be unlearned and relearned. But if you created a habit, which is what these thoughts are, right, they kind of beating yourself up thoughts, they have become habit. Once you create a habit, it takes more than one practice to undo it. So my grandmother, she was a psychiatric nurse, but she

was also a very a very good piano player. And even though she never graduated from university, she taught a course um in college called how to play the Piano despite years of practice. So think about that, how to play the piano despite years of practice. So what she do is she would work with her her students. She would get rid of the habits that they had developed. She would help them get rid of the ones that didn't work. She would teach them the ones that do work,

and then they would practice the habits that work. So, if you get rid of what isn't working for you, some of that inner dialogue that's beating you up, at the same time, learn the skills of how to rewire your brain, of how to approach things differently, and you practice that over and over and over again. Then what you're doing is you're rewiring your brain so that that becomes your new normal. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a process.

But you also didn't learn this inner critic overnight. Do you have an example of, like, what's the first step someone can take in order to start on learning those things, Because I think the the you know, enacting those things is the most difficult part, right just like in life, like whenever hey, I want to get back in shape, the most difficult thing is actually go into the gym. Like you know, once you're there, you're fine, but it's like, okay,

I gotta force myself. So what is something somebody can do to force themselves saying hey, I this is how I can re teach myself. Yeah, great question. And and on top of that, scientist say, we have about sixty thousand thoughts racing through our head every single day bucks. I don't even think I could count from one to sixty and you know the time that I'm awake. So all of these thoughts are racing through our head. We

don't even know we're having them. So the first step is actually to realize what you're saying to yourself, right, realize when that inner critic is getting so loud because it's it's for a lot of people, it's almost like background music, like you don't really notice it until someone says, oh, do you hear that song? You're like, oh, yeah, it's been playing this whole time. So one of the ways to realize when you're having these thoughts that aren't helpful to you, or what I call red flags and red

flag three different red flags. And when you have these, what I want you to do is stop and ask yourself, wait, what am I saying to myself? So the first red flag is when you have emotions you don't want you notice, you're feeling angry or anxious, or worried or overwhelmed, depressed, whatever it is. Those emotions are caused by a thought, so we stop and say what am I saying to myself?

Second red flag are are physiological, right, physical symptoms. Some some people notice maybe butterflies in their and their stomach. I noticed when I walk by the mirror and my ears on my shoulders have become one because there's so much tension in my neck. That's my red flag. So looking at what your body is saying to some people get sweaty palms, or some people kind of get put with blotchy face or racing heart rate. Stop and ask yourself what am I saying to myself right now that

may be causing this? And then the third red flag our behaviors you don't want to do. So when you notice yourself, I don't know, being more irritable with a love one. When you notice yourself if you wanted to go to the gym, and you notice yourself avoiding a procrastinated going to the gym, red flag? What am I saying to myself that may be causing that? Because we have to know what you're saying to yourself in order

to change it. There's been many days where I go to the gym and sit in my car for real good twenty five minutes just scrolling through my phone and be like, Okay, just get in there, just go, just go, just go, just go, just do it. And then it takes about twenty minutes finally get in there. How long do you work out? I know, I'm, I'm it's maybe I'm dramatizing it, but it's probably a good five minutes. And then when you're in your head for five minutes,

it feels like twenty. Um. Well, Dr, thank you so much. Now, we do have some emails, So every week we have emailers that email us in that listen to the podcast and ask questions, and so I love if you could stick around and help us answer some of those questions. Excellent, I love to all Right, cool, we're gonna take a quick break, and then when we're back to Dean's favorite segment of the podcast with Dark Lombardo, all right, Dr

e Well, thank you. But before we get to emails, we just want to tell you guys about Zero because summer just got absolutely crazy with color. Crazy bunch of balloons by Zero are here to help unleash summer fun. Dude, these are awesome. They're super easy. All you do is simply attached the stem to a hose. You can fill and tie one hundred water balloons in sixties seconds. That's insane. Bunch of balloons are now made from certified recycled plastic.

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glove a bubble. Visit zero dot com to find out more more about the hottest toys for summer to keep you cool. All right, welcome back to help I suck at dating myself, Dean, and we have Dr Elizabeth Lombardo, who's going to help us answer your wonderful emails again. Please email us. It is my favorite part of the podcast. It is, more importantly, Dean's favorite part of the podcast, the only reason he shows up. So Dean, where can the people emails. Oh, Jared, that's a great question. Let

me tell them where they can email us. That email is I suck at dating at I heart media dot com. One more time for the listeners, I suck at dating at ihart media dot com. Please email us please, it's it's but I need Dean on this podcast and he said he's only gonna stick around if an email us. So yeah, well we got. We got a couple of emails this week, which is great. Uh. We have one from Christian and one from our good friend Nick by

all a k A. Anonymous mark. If you're out there in the wide world Web, Worldwide Web, would you mind please jumping in and reading this email for us? I can, Yes, indeed, from Christian. My fiancee and I are getting married in September. We're happy and love. We get along really well. We've had maybe three fights in the four years have been together, all of which have been focused around his bad habits, one of which is porn. At first, I was really

disappointed when I learned he watched it. For the most part, it is considered normal, so I learned to accept that part of him and not push the issue further. However, recently I could feel in my gut that something wasn't right, so I did something I should never do. I looked at his phone. Now I know that he would never physically cheat on me, and I didn't find evidence of that, thank god. However, I did see that he's been searching girls names on Instagram and all of them have explicit

content in their profiles. And on Snapchat he was following an explicit females content, which is the same person he sent a follow request to on Instagram. He isn't liking the pictures, but it just doesn't seem like something a loving fiance would do. So my question is, should I be word that he likes to view and follow other girls posting explicit content or should I just let it go? Oh that's uh, that's a loaded question, as they usually are.

I kind of think I kind of think it's it's teetering to the side of being a bad thing, because, yes, while porn has been normalized over the past couple of decades, I think going out of the way to follow them on like social media, that's a little that's a little uh, that's crossing a line in my opinion, And again, I could be swayed either direction. I just my gut tells me that it's is a bit of an issue in my opinion. Um, I well, Dr, why don't you go

first and then I'll give my opinion. Ryan. Now, it's a huge red flag just because he hasn't been caught having a physical relationship with someone else. This is an emotional fair. These are multiple emotional affairs. If he's doing this now when you know he's you, you're usually on your best behavior when you're dating. I don't even want to think about what's gonna happen if you get married.

Huge red flag. I say, But okay, Dr, let's can we say this that can we can we encourage you're taking in front him about it and then kind of see how things unfold from there. Do you think she just get up and pack her bags and go out right away? We certainly have a conversation with him. I mean, and again, this is an emotional bear that he's having.

So how do we know that? Well, if he's being dishonest, Um, he's lying about it, and is this something he says, Hey, why don't you pursue your own interests outside the bedroom between the two of us, also know he's doing this behind her back. Um, he's not being open and honest. Yeah, I would definitely have a conversation with him, But it sounds like, given what she said, um, that you know, this has been a habit. This is not something new, So it's a huge red flag. I would not jump

into this marriage right now. I would definitely take a step back to have a conversation and see what's gonna happen. I'm definitely leading towards the doctor's advice here. Listen, porn is normal, like I every once in a while if you watch it, like I get it right, you know, but this seems like an addiction because you've had fights

about it. You guys did for four years, and the only fight you've had about that you guys had in your relationship is about his you know, watching porn, which seems like it's not like just like a random, hey, once a month thing or whatever. It's it seems like he's doing this on a consistent level. To the point, like you said, he's following girls on Instagram who have

explicit content and on Snapchat. Um, it's just seems like it might be an addiction for him, and it's something that you should confront totally before you decide to get married, because once you get married, it could get a lot messier. So this is something that Christian, if I are you, I would confront. I don't think you should let this go. I think you should let him know that this is a big issue for you, one that could potentially end the relationship if he's not willing to UM change in

some way and dr see if you agree with this. UM. I feel like you know, we're saying porn is normal. I feel like every relationship is different. So just because somebody tells you something is normal, don't ignore it. If it bothers you. If it's something that bothers you, it's time to talk about it. Don't say all my friends that's normal, or society said this normal. If it bothers

you, you you got to talk about it. Everybody is different. Absolutely, Yeah, normal is relative, right what your normal is in person? And we're not just talking about watching porn. We're talking about following different women that that's that's different here. So there are a couple of different layers of what's going on. But absolutely, just because someone says it's normal doesn't mean it means to be your normal. If it's not comfortable

for you. Red flag, listen to your gut, because so often people don't and then they end up getting divorced a couple of years later. You don't need to do that. Yeah, And and like I said at the top of it, I was I was teetering either direction after hearing your guys arguments. I fully am on board what you guys are saying, and i'd like to I'd like to specify to the reason, uh in my opinion at least, and please anyone correct, jump in and correct me if they

think I'm wrong here. The reason it becomes a red flag once he starts following the social media accounts on Instagram and Snapchat is because then it becomes accessible to the point where you're in line of the grocery store, you're at work, or you're driving your car or something like that, and you're just like scrolling through Instagram and then you're looking at that you know, explicit explicit content there.

Then the level of access is too immediate and to you, you're just kind of like integrating that into your everyday life. And that's when it becomes a big issue in my degree. And it's also scary because things escalate you know, it's like, oh, I'm just watching porn. Oh now I'm just following. Oh now I just comment. Oh now I'm just d m NG. And it's like, that's what I'd be nervous about the escalation of Yeah, I agree, I agree. I think that's great.

I think that Uh. I want to go ahead and say, I think if we were given that email two years ago, we would have had much different responses, not because we would have felt differently, but just because our advice is just especially with doctor, with the doctor here, we are just getting insignificantly well, not insurmountably better, significantly better. I want to say, I really think it's all credited to Dr Elizabeth for joining us. Dr Lombarda. I don't disagree,

but I just I want to. I want us to give ourselves some credit here to conditional self worthy. The evolution of Dan and Jared continues. All right, this is anonymous, and it canna be a very similar issue. I've been geting a guy for over a year now. I love him dearly. I know he loves me. We talked about plans to get married and spent our lives together. We've met all of each other's family and now we lived together.

I recently went out of town and my boyfriend messaged multiple girls as soon as he dropped me off at the airport. I found these messages about a week later. He tells me nothing came with the messages, and I believe him from what I read. I also talked to the only girl that applied to him. He said this is something he has done on and off throughout our relationship, but has never physically cheated on me. Just like knowing he could still get attention from girls made and feel good.

He wants to stay together. He says, he still loves me and he wants to move forward from this, but I'm not sure how. Please send your advice. I'll tell you how. You tell him not to d m other girls like I. I mean, I, I don't get this. I listen Anonymous, I send you all the love in the world. But don't believe him when he says, oh, I know nothing was coming from the messages, like I just I like getting the attention from women. That's the

most giant red flag there is. He's not If he loves the attention so much, he probably also wants the attention not just over DM, but in person. Big red flag.

I feel like we had a really unique opportunity between these two emails to to see Christian's life one year in the future, Christian being the first email or who emailed us saying this because this is exactly her situation in one year of we're gonna dropped off at the airport and her boyfriend hopefully her not her husband at the time, d M and girls and seeing if he can just get the attention of them. And I agree, I think that's definitely a red flag. I think that's

just it's just not not good. I want to hear Dr Lombardo's take on it, because I know she's going to have a very solid take on this. Well. First of all, just because nothing happened doesn't mean it just means he was unsuccessful to murder and missing. When you shoot, you're not like, oh, so I'm not guilty, completely guilty here. So just because he's unsuccessful and getting these women to respond or do something doesn't mean that he is innocent here.

This is a great example of conditional self worth. Right, I feel good about myself if and only if or if multiple women are interested in me, having conversations with me, flirting with me, and he needs that external validation, huge, huge red flag. He needs to get some work, he needs to get some therapy to address what is going on, because here's the thing right now, it's this, But this is definitely one of those things where he's gonna need more.

He's gonna need more, he's gonna need more. And if he doesn't address it out, um, he's not even going to realize that he's he's relying on these external validation from these these other women in order to feel good about himself again. This is the beginning of the relationship, your your year in. You're supposed to be in your

best behavior. This is when you're supposed to be most in love, right and if if that's not happening, if he's dropping you all and texting me right now immediately afterwards, he didn't even wait, I gotta I gotta say this too. Anonymous at one point near the end of the email, says he wants to stay together, says he still loves

me and wants to move forward from this. This is actually one of my biggest gripes with dating in today's day and age is people throw the word love around all the time, and they don't have the actions to back it up. They say it because they like how it sounds, they like the implications of it, but they're not willing to act like they're actually in love. Uh. And we see it all the time with kids, especially kids, I want to say, like late teenagers are early twenty

year olds. He's saying he loves you, but he's not acting like he loves you. And that's the biggest issue, because someone that actually loves you wouldn't be doing that. Here. See others being anonymous that I need you to hear. We want you to hear you are worthy of having someone who is devoted to you, and that is not who this guy is. I know. We all want to be in love, right People want to be in relationships. We want to be comfortable. We want to have that

person we can rely on. You cannot rely on him right now. So realize that you are worth much more than this. If you are being devoted to him. You deserve a man who's going to be devoted to you. And that's not what you're getting here. It's taking the thought process there. Hey, she's going to a town. Let's see who can I text? Who can I message? You? Can I DM like he's thinking all of that as you're as you're driving to the airport. It's not good.

I can't believe his excuse was, oh, yeah, this is something I've done on and off through all my relationships, Like what this is his normal? Is very concerned. That's a big red flight that this is his normal and anonymous. I I agree with the doctor, like he's got a lot of things that he needs to work through. And I'm not saying that like you guys can't throw them together, but things need to change, uh significantly in my opinion.

And then used to start with him acknowledging that this is not okay because he has justified it and he is not. He's not saying it's not okay. He's saying it's something that he just does. I totally agree. And if he doesn't acknowledge that this is something that's not okay, then that might be the reason you need to get out of the relationship. Well, Dr, thank you so much for joining us today. You're the best. We really appreciate it. Thank you, I appreciate it, and g thanks you too.

So make sure everybody goes check out Dr Elizabeth Lombardo. You can go to Elizabeth Lombardo dot com for more uh information. Do you have Instagram, Twitter all that good stuff? Hi Instagram, Dr E b Doctor Dr E. Lombardo, And so make sure everybody follow Dr E. Lombardo. Make sure you follow Dean Anglers still Deanie Babies. Yeah, thanks, Thanks Terry. You follow Mark two, but he's private. You have to request him. Uh. And thank you so much for Alyssa,

Ali and Diana for coming on the podcast today. We really appreciate it. That was a lot of fun. Next week we're gonna definitely talk about um, the New York Times article that we talked about the first to reset in your relationship. We have to get to the next five. But we just had such a good podcast we didn't have time, um to be anything else, buddy, that's right. Uh No, I just wanted to thank all the listeners again.

Thanks Dr E for joining us. Marks always our emailers again email us at I suck at Dating at i heeart Media dot com. Please please, please thank you all for joining us. To be sure to next week where maybe we suck just a little bit less. Follow help by Suck at Dating on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to podcast