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- [00:00]
Anna
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks Dutch Bros. Is all about you. Choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our Rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros app for a free medium drink plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards offer valid for new app users only. Free medium drink Reward upon registration. 14 day expiration terms apply. See DutchBros.com hey bitties. Happy day after Christmas to all those who celebrate. Welcome to this week's solo episode of Brutally Anna. I hope this episode finds you doing well, and if it doesn't find you doing well, as always, I hope it finds you trying to be better. And this week I'm going to be discussing all things Luigi Mangione because oh my gosh, my TikTok for you page is is entirely just thirst traps and law analyses of this man's trial. The other half of my TikTok is the Muppet Madonna trend and if you guys are not familiar with what that is, it is the song Like a Prayer by Madonna, but the choir version from the Deadpool soundtrack composed next to carousel photos of Beaker from the Muppets while people tell ridiculous stories stories from their lives. It is so entertaining and it is a right reminder for me as to why I love the Internet and why I will be so sad if TikTok gets banned. Somebody said the other day that their entire for you page, similarly to mine, is all thirst traps of the alleged United Healthcare CEO killer and the like a prayer trend and that this feels like the season finale of TikTok, which if it is, it would be a very epic season finale but nonetheless would be very sad. And look, I don't know if TikTok is going to get banned or not, but if this is the season finale of this app that has absolutely changed my life, I will say it's a pretty epic one. But as I was doom scrolling through my for you page this week, I just had to think about why so many people are in love with Luigi Mangione, a man who allegedly killed another man in cold blood in broad daylight, and I wanted to talk about the ethics and the morality behind it Today and also how that applies to how we think about what's fair in love. So there is no shortage of studies out there from psychologists about why women fall in love with prisoners. This has been a phenomenon that has been around for a long time. When the Ted Bundy film came out with Zac Efron in it, a lot of people were idolizing Ted Bundy. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't get that one quite as much, because this is a man who lured innocent women to their deaths and murdered them for fun, essentially to fulfill some sick fantasy he had. But Luigi Mangioni, as far as we can tell, murdered a CEO of a health insurance company that indirectly caused harm to millions upon millions of people for the sake of corporate profit. So I get it. Okay. Regardless of which side of the Luigi Mangioni case you're on, um, there is a reason why there is a collective support for him as opposed to just outright condemning him as a killer. And it also reminded me of when Russia first invaded Ukraine and everybody got behind President Volodymyr Zelensky. I think in the beginning, when Russia first invaded Ukraine, the US or the UN offered him a ride out of Ukraine to protect him and his family, because there was a very high price and probably still a very high price on his life, essentially. And he said publicly, the fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride. And the whole world, I think all the straight women in the world collectively swooned. And women, I think, in general, speaking as a straight woman myself, we are attracted to men who fight for something right, for the greater good. There is something very attractive about men who fight for the greater good and who are willing to sacrifice their own lives and their freedoms for that. I think we as women have an incredible ability to fantasize about these men and create these stories in our heads about what it would be like to be in a relationship with Luigi Mangione. And I think so many women collectively are telling themselves these stories about how he would fight for their rights and their freedoms. There is so much conjecture and rumor going around about who he was prior to committing this act or allegedly committing this act. So I don't know what's true or not, but one of the videos that popped up on TikTok for me was from a girl who said she was very close with somebody that he went to upenn with who said that he was a good kisser and that he had an odd fascination with girls medical history. Not in a creepy way, but in a I will avenge any wrongs that have been enacted upon you by the medical industry kind of way. Now, I have no idea if that's true or not. And honestly, that sounds very convenient given what we know of him right now. It could be that that's not true. But the point is not whether it is true or not. And actually I making my point even further if it's not true. Because if it's not true, people telling that story, it feeds into the collective narrative about this hero that we're all kind of dying for right now at this point, of a man who will avenge us and lay his own life down on the line for the greater good. So much to the point that we're willing to make up stories that defend him that may or may not have any root in reality. Dave and I recently watched the Casey White Escape documentary. If you guys aren't familiar with that, It's a documentary on when Casey White, an inmate in Alabama, escaped with the help of a guard, Vicki White, who had fallen in love with him. And they had had a two year relationship while he was incarcerated. And she was just trying to free her man. And it was so interesting because Vicki White was very well respected. She had worked at that prison for a very long time, was fairly close to retiring, and as far as anybody knew, had had very few intimate relationships with men outside of prison. And just seemed like she kind of resigned to a life alone. She lived next door to her parents on a property, and she was very good at her job. She was well respected by both the inmates and the other prison guards alike. And it just seemed like she was okay on her own, maybe not necessarily happy, but had accepted her fate. And it's so interesting because she ended up getting caught up and eventually died from trying to help this inmate escape because she was so in love with him. And I think it's so easy to dismiss her as somebody who was mentally unstable and crazy and why would she fall in love with this convicted felon who was really dangerous? But I think if we look at it from a very human aspect, a lot of us have this sort of tendency within us, a lot of women at least, to tell ourselves stories and to create and concoct these fantasies with men that can't really speak back to us. And I think that maybe that's what's happening with Luigi Mangione right now. Because in the case of the Casey White, Vicky White story, I believe that she could have found her match in the free world if she had maybe gotten the help that she needed and figured out a way to feel better about herself, because there were pieces of evidence that suggested that she had very low self esteem. Case in point, she told Casey White over the phone in a recorded call that her dream, that if she had been born prettier, effectively and more physically attractive, she said her dream was to be a stripper. But she said she was never pretty enough for that. So that shows you that this is a woman that never really felt attractive. And if you don't feel attractive, then you don't really feel like you're worthy of the type of relationship or the type of man you want. So what happens when you don't feel worthy of the kind of romantic relationship you want? You probably figure out other ways to compensate for that. And in Vicky White's case, she found love with an inmate that almost had no choice but to fall in love with her because he didn't really have any other options around in prison. And there is something attractive about that because for the first time in her life, she was valued for who she was, even if it was misguided outside of what she could offer her employer. And in the case of Luigi Mangione, where all of these women are sending him letters and making all these thirst trap videos of him on TikTok, I think we as a collective whole have fallen in love with the idea of what he represents. Even though we have no idea who he is as a person. We've uncovered, sure, a lot of information about him. And honestly, all the information that has come out about him from previous friends and roommates has been very complimentary, but we don't know him. And that's almost even better. I think the fact that we don't know who he is and he hasn't at all really spoken out since he's been arrested has further intensified our fascination and our collective fantasy about him. Because if we don't know who he actually is, we can make him into exactly what we need him to be. And how many of us do this with the men in our lives? How many of us fall in love with a guy way too quickly because we don't actually know who he is, but we know enough to know that we like what we see of him? So we sort of fill in the blanks, and then six months, nine months later, after we actually get to know him, we find out he's not that perfect person that we concocted in our minds, and then all of a sudden we're like, he's changed. Anytime anybody tells me what happened, everything was so great for the first Six months, nine months, a year. And now he's changed. I'm like, no, baby girl, he didn't change. He just finally showed you who he was. It's also the reason why, psychologically, people who cheat and who end up leaving their spouses for the person they're cheating on them with end up not really liking the person that they left their spouse for, because they really only liked that person in the context of an affair, because it wasn't the whole person. You only got snippets of them. So it was very easy to create a fantasy that this was actually the perfect person for you, when in actuality, you are in love with a fantasy you were not in love with something real. The forbidden fruit is not always the sweetest. In real life, the forbidden fruit is sweeter only because it's sweeter in your mind. Once you eat the damn apple, you're like, this shit ain't no better and possibly even worse than the fruit that I left. The grass is not always greener on the other side. It's just you can't see the grass from up close. On the other side, when you're standing on your side, you can't see the flaws of the other person's yard if you're standing too far away from it. That's why everything looks better from far away. And that's why all of our skin looks better in those 90s Polaroid photos, because it was so pixelated that you couldn't see all the nitty gritty details, all of our pores, everything, including your situationship, the man who love bombed you. And Luigi Mangione looks better from far away because we don't have the details. And I wonder how many of you are in situations like this right now. Maybe not with Luigi Mangioni, but with a man that you're in a situationship with, where you are filling in the blanks and not actually giving enough credit to who he's showing you to actually be. You're saying to yourself, if I could just save him, I could be the one and only for him. I can make my fantasy then into a reality. I don't know what Vicky White was thinking, but I have to imagine it was some form of that sentiment where she felt like, if I could only save Casey, I can turn my fantasy of living with him and riding off into the sunset with him, sort of Bonnie and Clyde style, into a reality. And what I find really sad is that I think she probably could have lived a much better life if she had invested all that Time that she invested into Casey, into her life, outside of her job, outside of those prison walls, and found a man who wasn't a convicted felon, who probably could have loved her just as much, if not more, as Casey White did. So for those of you who are in a similar position, maybe not necessarily with a convicted felon or an ex con, but if you find yourself in love with the idea of a man more than you are in love with him, I hope you know that your reality can be so much better than the fantasy that you're dreaming about. If you only gave the reality of your life as much time and space and energy as you gave to your fantasy. I spent so many years in my twenties trying to fix broken men, thinking that if I could just fix these broken men, then I would feel worthy, I would feel special, because I was the one person to save them. And in turn, they would maybe save me. That I didn't realize that the best reality and the best dream life waiting for me came from me fixing myself, falling in love with the idea of saving myself, and then finding a man that didn't need to be saved, but who wanted to walk along this brutal journey of life alongside me, who couldn't save me from a lot of my own demons and my own mental health issues and a lot of the things that I've struggled with in my adult life, but who was always willing to bear witness to my suffering and let me know that I wasn't alone. So I hope that for all of you, that for anybody suffering through not being able to achieve the fantasy you're living in your head right now, because your situationship isn't giving you what you want. It's that your reality can be so much better than this. Free yourself from the imprisonment of the fantasy that you're currently trapping yourself in, and free Luigi. There you go. I said it. Okay, I'm sorry if you totally believe that he deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life, I completely understand that this man looks like he gunned down another man in broad daylight. I get it. But the second part of this conversation that I want to have with you guys is the question of what is moral and what is ethical. And I've been thinking about this a lot because I effectively majored in this in college. I went to NYU's Gallatin School, which is the School of Individualized Study. And for those of you who don't know what that is, I like to joke around and say that I majored in nothing because the Gallatin School was really a liberal arts college within NYU that allowed you to study whatever the fuck you wanted to your heart's content. So I took a bunch of classes that really had no correlation with one another just because they were interesting to me. And I'm not gonna lie, I forget most of the classes I took and what they were about. The only classes I do remember taking was that I took a lot of Chinese classes because I was trying to get better at Mandarin Chinese. And the one class that truly did change my life and one that I will profoundly remember forever, was this NYU Gallatin seminar, which is what we called like a discussion based class. They were smaller classes called the History of Kindness, taught by a professor named Andy Romick. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe at those NYU seminars we referred to all the professors by their first names. I don't remember calling him Professor Roe, Meg, though that could be my very faulty memory. It's, it's been a while since college, so I think we called him Andy. So for all intents and purposes, let's call him Andy. Andy taught my favorite class to date. I would actually go back and take that class again as a 34 year old because all of the concepts he brought up in that class were so interesting. The first concept and the first question he posed to us as a class on the first day was the Trolley Dilemma. And if you guys don't know what that is, it's a train is running off the tracks, the brakes are broken, and it's going to go one of two ways. If it goes left, it's going to kill one person. Because there's one person standing on the tracks and it goes right, it would kill five people. And you are the train operator. So you can turn the switch for it to either go left or right, but you can't stop it because the brakes are broken. Do you flip the switch so that it turns left so it only kills one person, or do you flip the switch so that it goes right and it kills five people? Are five lives more valuable than one person? And I think this question can be applied to everything we're discussing around the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Because it's this collective sentiment that we have right now, or at least I have, that says to me that corporate America and capitalism has really shown us that if that one person on the left is a CEO, that that one person's life is actually more valuable than the five other people standing on the train tracks who are maybe not a CEO and the people who make The CEO rich. I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous the way Luigi Mangione was brought to New York city flanked by 15 NYPD cops and the mayor, as if he's the next Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, if you guys didn't hear, a woman was set on fire in the subway by a man intentionally, for no other reason other than the fact that he wanted to set her on fire and kill her. He watched her burn from the outside of the subway car. And this man was brought into court by two cops. So how can you not tell me that we value the collective lives of the average man more than the life of one very wealthy person? It's sad to me, honestly, because that is the crux of everything. I studied in college, and I remember that at the end of that class. The answer was that there's no answer, is that we can't put a price on whether one life is more valuable than five lives. But it feels like right now, with the show of force towards Luigi Mangione, those in power are telling us actually not all lives are made equally. CEOs and rich people's lives are inherently worth more than the poor, than the average man. If that's how we value a human life, it's understandable why a guy like Brian Thompson, who grew up from very humble beginnings in a small town in Iowa, would dedicate his life to making more money. Because it's not just about what the money can do for you. It is now the fact that the money makes you a more valuable person in the eyes of the world. It makes your life worthier of living. And I think our fascination with Luigi is that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was born into a very privileged background, a wealthy family. He was kind of given everything he needed to succeed in a conventional way and to probably try and change the system and the healthcare insurance industry from the inside. And he gave it up to prove a point. And in the public's eye right now, it appears that his life is a lot more valuable than the life of Brian Thompson. If you're looking at public opinion right now, I'm not saying I believe that, but I'm saying that he sort of took that concept of money is everything and money makes your life more valuable than the guy next to you who has less money and turned it on its head and made us all think about, okay, well, is money the end all be all? And it has made us look at the trolley principle as a collective whole to try and determine, well, who would we save the One CEO on the left side of the tracks or the five everyday man on the other side of the tracks? Because which life is worth more? And what is moral in that situation? What is just? Brian Thompson was also a family man. He had sons who are devastated not only at the fact that their father was taken from them so suddenly, but also likely at the fact that there is so much public support, support for his alleged murderer. What is fair? I don't know. Because what's fair to one side is completely unfair to the other. If we're looking at the shooting of Brian Thompson as the beginning of a class war and Luigi representing the lower and middle income classes and Brian Thompson representing the 1%, is all fair. Than in love and war, do the ends justify the means? I mean, we could argue to say that maybe Luigi did indirectly already save countless lives. Because Blue Cross Blue Shield rolled back that anesthesia policy that they were going to enact pretty quickly after they found out that Brian Thompson was shot. They might still enact it later on, but for now, they said they were not put on limits as to how long you could be under anesthesia for, which is absolutely freaking ridiculous. First of all, because, like, if I'm under anesthesia, which, by the way, I just had surgery in July. It was a pretty routine surgery, but I was under for 30 minutes. If they had found something else in there and I was under for an hour and they'd woken me up in the middle of surgery to be like, hey, we've got your arm cut open right now, we know it was just a lipoma that we said we were removing, but we actually found cancer. Your insurance isn't going to cover the rest of the anesthesia. So do you want us to remove the cancer and you can pay for the anesthesia out of pocket, or do you want us to stitch you back up and then you can just go home with cancer? But by the way, we removed your lipoma, like, that's insane, right? So, look, he might have already saved lives. And I don't know what sort of change is going to come of this. Maybe nothing. But if it does, like, does that make Brian Thompson's death justified? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. And I think my answer truly is, if I had to answer it right now, is if I was Brian Thompson's sons, I would say no, it's not justified. But if I was the daughter of a woman whose cancer treatments were denied and she died as a result because of her cancer treatments being denied coverage by our health insurance policy that happened to be UnitedHealthcare, I would say yes, it was justified. And before I jump into this week's voicemails, I'm kind of curious as to how you guys all feel about this. I've heard very opposite and polarizing opinions on this. I will say the majority of the people in my life do find him to be a hero rather than just purely a murderer, although they don't deny that it looks like like he is also a murderer. But it's very complicated and I would love to know your thoughts. So leave me a voicemail if you feel so inclined to do so. And before I get into this week's voicemails, just a quick word from my sponsors. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Holidays on the house at DraftKings Casino with this season's offerings, you'll unwrap everything on your list. 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- [28:44]
Caller
Hi Anna, you definitely give big sister vibes and I need some advice. I moved to LA after I graduated college to be with my long distance boyfriend. I helped him move to LA the year before because he got representation as an actor and I lived there with him for five years. I'm a visual artist and I was just figuring my stuff out. I was working part time at a ramen shop and the other part in a gallery and I was just getting my footing. But because he didn't like the culture of Hollywood, he really wanted to move to New York and so I moved to la. So I'll move to New York. I couldn't cut it in New York and it caused a rift in our relationship and we ended up breaking up and I moved back to my mom with no car because I sold it to move to New York and the savings I had I spent it because New York was so expensive. But I'm here now in Croatia because my I'm helping my grandma fix up this house in order to make some passive income for her and I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. I'm broken hearted. I still am unemployed. I tried working here. I couldn't do it and I don't know. I'm at a real low if any advice would help me out. Okay, thanks.
- [30:08]
Anna
One of my favorite quotes when I was equally a hot mess as you in my 20s and had no idea where my life was going and had been dumped yet again by a guy I thought was the love of my life. Was said by Elizabeth Gilbert from Eat Pray Love and she said that ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation and I've always kept that with me throughout every single time in my life that I felt ruined either by a relationship or by a career decision I've made is that actually in retrospect, I am so glad I was ruined all of those times. Because here's what happens when you ruin something. When you demolish your life down to the rubble, when you have nothing left to lose because everything you had is gone and crumbled. You give yourself the opportunity to build anew you don't know this right now because you're so focused on the fact that there's nothing around you but rubble. But right now is the freest you will ever be. When you have nothing to lose, you actually can do the most, because there is nothing you're currently working with that you have to preserve. There's no relationship that you have to contend with that maybe is going to bring you to another location that you don't want to be in. You know, you didn't really want to be in New York. Didn't sound like you loved LA either. And it doesn't sound like you love Croatia, even though that is very temporary. You don't have to be beholden to a location because of a man, which a lot of us do. You don't have to be beholden to a man that you might not be totally crazy about or might not be the right fit to you. You're not beholden to a job you don't like. So you are the freest you will ever be right now. And I want you to look at this as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. Because once you start looking at the fact that you have nothing as an opportunity to build something on that nothingness is when you're going to start to take the action that you need to take to drive your life towards what you want it to be. And by the way, you may not know what you ultimately want your life to be right now. And that's okay. You don't have to. What I would urge you to do is to say, I have no idea where my life is going. But I do know I can do this one small thing. I can help my grandmother fix up this house, fulfill my duties as a granddaughter to her, fly back home and get a job. I know I can do that. So I'm going to start there. I'm going to get a job, rebuild my savings that I depleted in New York, and see where that job takes me, see where that opportunity takes me. It doesn't have to be the job that you end up loving or end up making your entire career or your personality. It can just be a job for now to get you just a little bit closer to where you want to be in the future. And who knows, maybe you end up loving that job. Maybe you end up getting promoted within that job. Maybe while you're at that job, you get an opportunity to get another job elsewhere that you like more. But you wouldn't have found that second job that you liked more if you'd never Moved back home to take that first job. Life is such a mystery and it is full of surprises. And I urge you to believe in the magic of your life. You know, similarly to what I was talking about earlier this episode. Like, maybe we should all invest more in the fantasy of what our life could be if we just seized the reality of what it is right now. You could make your reality into this crazy, amazing fantasy if you just took action on what you can take action on rather than ruminate and destroy yourself worrying about all the things you can't control. You can't control the fact that your ex left you. You can't control the fact that you're not going to get that money back that you spent in New York. But what you can control is getting another job and saving and being frugal with your money and prudent with who you spend your time with so that you're not going to make the same mistake in the future and so that your future looks a hell of a lot better than than what your past look like. Nobody who got to be where they wanted to be started from a place that they didn't want to be in. The stories you read of people achieving wonderful, amazing things, the stories you read of people who live their dream lives all started from a place of nothingness. I know my life did. I am blessed beyond measure. I live an incredibly privileged life, but I came from extremely underprivileged backgrounds. And it was that desire to create something so much better than what I was given that is the reason I have what I have today, all of life, is just how much you're willing to fight for it. And I hope you know that you may be depressed right now, you may be upset at where your life currently is, but that is part of the journey. Because one day your story, hopefully is going to be the reason that somebody else decides, I am depressed. I don't want to be where I am. But if she could do it, I can do it too. And I hope that's what my story does for you, is that if I can be a child of broke ass immigrants who came to this country with nothing, who then decided to go spend her early 20s and mid-20s, pursuing a career in the arts, making very little money, dating around, dating all the wrong men and really had nothing to show for it by the time she was 30. And now I'm here sitting, living my dream life, like, what can't you do if you just got out of your own way? We don't go to the movies, we don't watch documentaries on inspiring people because they always had it easy. We watch those movies of struggle and triumph because really without struggle there is no triumph. And so one day you will triumph in your life. It's just right now you're building the blocks to get there. And your story doesn't start now. It started a long ass time ago when you decided to go to LA and then to go to New York and to get broken up with by that guy. Those are all stepping stones to the eventual triumph of your life. That you don't know what it's going to be yet. But I hope you have the courage to live, to find out, to wake up and fight for your life. Because this is the only life you get. And it could be so much better, so much better than your wildest imagination if you only have the courage to try and to keep walking Hi, I.
- [37:10]
Caller
Just wanted to ask this really, I don't know if it's personal question, I guess it's kind of personal, but I've recently realized that as a man, I'm not really entirely masculine. I'm more leaning on the masculine side or what's defined as super masculine. But I've started to realize I have some feminine traits that I picked up from my mom. I'm not as close to my mom as I used to compared to my dad, but I used to be close to her. And as I've started to get into dating and looking online, I've seen a lot of people, especially people, prefer more masculine, traditional roles in relationships and I'm unsure of how to deal with it because I'm sure of myself, I'm confident enough and I have my own goals and I know what to look for. But my question is why are, quote unquote stereotypically feminine men are seen as bad or some men are seen with feminine traits as bad? I don't know. The whole dating market's weird or what people define as feminine because it's constantly changing. I just want to know your input or some of your perspectives because you have gone through this for a long time.
- [38:31]
Anna
This is such an interesting and unique question and I can't wait to dive into my thoughts on this after a quick word from my sponsors. Being an adult has its high points, like you can eat ice cream for dinner anytime and no one's telling you to clean up your room. But it's not all fun. You also have to do your taxes and figure out what's for dinner every freaking night and make doctor's appointments. And for that one there is ZocDoc, the healthcare app that makes adulting that much easier. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors. Choose the right one for your needs and click to instantly book an appointment. We're talking about in network appointments with more than 100,000 healthcare providers across every specialty from mental health to dental health, eye care to skincare and much more. Plus, Zocdoc appointments happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. You can even score same day appointments. I use ZocDoc and you should too. Because really, when the aches and pains start, I don't have time to research all the different doctors in my area and call them and see which ones have availability. I go to Zocdoc to see which provider can best help me with that weird skin rash that just appeared or that slight ache in my ankle bone or whatever ailment of the week is plaguing me. And I know that I can get a doctor on zocdoc to see me when I need it, which is usually right now. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.comannakai to find and instantly book a top rated Doctor today. That's z o c-o c.comAnnaKai ZocDoc.comAnnaKai.
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- [40:33]
Anna
I think the fact that women are praised for having masculine traits, you know, tomboys aren't necessarily seen as bad. They're seen as, oh cool, cool. Like one of the guys. Like if a woman is interested in historically male interests like sports and gambling, or I don't know, just being kind of a dude, it's like, oh, she's cool. Whereas if a straight man is interested in historically feminine areas like he likes the arts or he likes cooking or he wants to be more domestic at home rather than be the breadwinner, then that's considered bad. And I think all that is is just misogyny and the patriarchy at its finest. It's saying that men and the male DNA need to rule over women and in order to do that, you need to be the macho man. Because if we're going to control women, we need to be tougher than them. We need to be more violent, more aggressive. We need to show that we are the men of the house, that we're providers. I think it's why so many men have a problem with the fact that women out earn them in many areas. Now it's that, well, if you out earn me, then I can't control you. And maybe that's what you're feeling right now with this rhetoric online is that you are a straight man and you have quote unquote feminine tendencies. I don't know what those are because you didn't tell me. But let's say your feminine tendencies are there. The fact that you like to cook and clean and do more traditional quote unquote housewife duties. And maybe you wouldn't mind being a stay at home dad. That's not bad. That's just society telling you it's bad because you have less of an ability to control the woman you ultimately end up being with. If you take a more feminine role in the relationship, if you take a more matriarchal role in the relationship than a patriarchal one. And it's all bullshit at the end of the day because ultimately if being this macho guy and being the tough guy or the provider or the protector is not going to make you happy, then what's the point? There is a woman out there who probably has more traditionally masculine tendencies, who wants to be a provider, who isn't into cooking and cleaning in more traditionally feminine roles, who is probably looking for a guy like you. She wants to be the provider and to take care. I don't know if she wants to be the protector, but if she does, let it be. That's the beauty of this world we live in. And I think what's great about this generation that really, you know, kind of maybe millennials started the conversation, but Gen Z's really running with it, is that you really can just pick your own adventure right now. There has never been a better time in history to just define how you want your life to look rather than having someone else define it for you. Even so much as 30 to 40 years ago, not very long ago, women were still very much expected to stay in the home and maybe even encouraged to stay in the home as a respectable way to raise a family. And and men were expected to be the providers and we are dismantling that system right now. So I would ask of you to don't uphold the patriarchy by going against what you currently feel by your current feelings of who you are. Who you are is no less of a man than the guy that wants to lift weights, make a ton of money and marry a stay at home wife. He is a man and you are also a man. You have value outside of what the patriarchy tells you your value is. And if those values of yours are more in line with what women have provided in the past, that just means that that's your role in the relationship. And that also means that we're dismantling traditional gender roles. And I think that's great. It's that for me, I always knew that I wanted some aspects of a traditional male female relationship, but there were other aspects that I had no desire to partake in. My husband and I have a very equal relationship. And sure, I do more of the housework, I do more of the administrative stuff in our house. I'm better at that than he is. But he handles a lot of other stuff that I'm not very good at that do. Maybe fall in line with traditional male female roles, but at the end of the day, we are partners in crime. It is about how you and your future partner work together, not the fact that you have to be the man traditionally and she has to be the woman traditionally. It's, are you going to now go find a woman that complements your skill set in a way that is going to make your future relationship functional and healthy? I found a man that complements my skill set. What I don't have, he has. And what he doesn't have, I have. So maybe you should focus on that. Not so much like, are my tendencies feminine? Are my interests feminine? But can I find somebody to complement my interests and who I am? Can I find somebody to pick up the slack where I am a little bit weaker in certain areas and how do my skills enhance or encourage that person to be the best version of who they are so that they don't have to be everything? And I don't really care, quite frankly, if the rest of the world is telling you right now that macho men and big, strong, burly men are desirable and better and can have access to more women. All you need is one. Unless you're polyamorous, all you need is one. So it doesn't matter if the majority of women out there find more patriarchal masculine men more attractive. All you need is one woman who doesn't give a flying fuck about that to find you attractive. And she's out there and she's probably just as equally frustrated looking for you because all she's meaning are these macho, hyper masculine men who maybe want to control her or dominate her in a way that she doesn't want to be controlled. And she's looking for you because she is looking for a guy to complement her skill set. I truly believe that there is somebody out there for everybody and your job is not to make everybody fall in love with you. Your job is to stay true to who you are so that you can find that one someone that is meant for you. Thank you so much for listening this week. Bitties. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider doing me a huge favor by rating reviewing on Apple podcasts and subscribing. Every little bit helps. I am so appreciative to have all of you here and for this community. If you want me to answer a question on next week's solo episode, you can always leave me a voicemail@smith speakpipe.com BrutallyAnnaPodcast that's speakpipe.com BrutallyannaPodcast thanks so much and I'll talk to you all next week.