← Brutally Anna
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- [00:00]
Anna Kai
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Being a marketer is no sweat. You just have to manage dozens of channels, launch hundreds of campaigns, score thousands of leads and okay, fine, it's a lot of sweat. Unless you have HubSpot's AI powered marketing tools to help you do all that and more. Get started@HubSpot.com marketers. Welcome to Brutally Anna, a podcast about finding love, losing love, and all the things we think about but don't talk about. Enough. I'm your host, Anna Kai, here to remind you that life can be beautiful even when it's freaking brutal. Hello. Hello. Welcome to my first solo episode of Brutally Anna. Today I want to talk to you about gift wrapping and dating. And trust me, those two things are way more related than they actually seem because the holidays are upon us. We're at the beginning of November right now, and this is the time of year that I start getting lots of gifts and I give lots of gifts. And as somebody who is not very good at wrapping gifts, I think about this every time I have to wrap gifts for my friends and family. Like, why do we wrap gifts in the first place? And I was thinking about this and how it relates to dating because we're so much more likely to give a guy a second chance if he's hot, if he has a great job, or if he comes from a great family. And I am not saying those things are not important. If those are external qualities that are important to you in a partner, that is valid. You are not shallow for wanting those things. However, do not let those external factors blind you to the very real possibility that this man is not compatible for you, that perhaps he's not the right person even though he checks all the right boxes. Because there is this intangible chemistry and the way somebody makes you feel that cannot be put on a resume. It is something to be felt, not to be described. But I wanted to look into this idea of the psychology behind gift wrapped wrapping because I thought it was a really great analogy for how we date right now and what we see when we open up our dating app profiles. If there was ever a metaphor for gift wrapping a person, it is somebody's hinge profile because they are wrapping themselves in the best possible way to market who they are to potential suitors. So I wanted to look into the psychology of gift wrapping and I found this, I think, very old article from the Guardian that actually talked about the psychology behind gift wrapping and how it actually does make us look at a gift more favorably if it came wrapped well. And this was actually done in a study because I just feel like if you google something and you're curious about the science behind it, there is actually a professor out there, thankfully, who has studied absolutely everything. So literally, in 1992, Dr. Daniel Howard, who is a professor professor of marketing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, studied this. He designed a series of experiments to test his basic hypothesis that a gift wrapped item influences the recipient to have a more favorable attitude towards owning the gift item. So this experiment, 45 university students were asked to evaluate four products in exchange for a free gift. And they thought they were evaluating the four products, but they were actually being tested for evaluating the free gift they received in return for evaluating the four products. And the gift was a sheepskin bicycle seat cover. I'm not entirely sure why they chose that. I feel like there could have been probably better gifts to give them, but maybe the whole point was to give something to these people that was pretty undesirable that nobody really wanted, but perhaps wouldn't be pissed off to receive. To test the hypothesis that the gift wrap would make this sheepskin bicycle seat cover more desirable. And in this experiment, half of the students were given their bicycle cover in the manufacturer's plastic bag, and the other half received their gift wrapped in blue and white paper with a matching ribbon and bow. And then the subjects were asked to rate their gift on three nine point scales ranging from undesirable to desirable, from bad to good, from foolish to wise. And the students who received the gift wrapped bicycle seat cover gave it a higher Overall approval rating of 7.7.14 than those who received it unwrapped. That in and of itself is a perfect example of why we are more likely to give somebody a second chance if they satisfy our desires to be associated with beauty, in all senses of the word. Beauty is such a massive industry. And I'm not just talking about cosmetics. I am talking about the fact that we as human beings are willing to pay more for beautiful things than we are to pay for functional things. You can probably buy a chair that functions for $50 and you can put it together and you can sit your ass in that chair and it's a chair. At the end of the day, it is a place for you to rest. While you work or eat or any number of things you do while you're sitting in a chair. But you can also buy a chair for $5,000 from a luxury furniture store. And of course I'm sure the materials are better, the workmanship is finer, but at the end of the day, I can almost guarantee you that that $5,000 chair is a lot more beautiful than the $50 chair. Because we as human beings are always trying to get closer to beauty and we are willing to pay a premium for beautiful things. And when this comes to dating, I think it's absolutely fine to want to be with a beautiful man and to want a man who checks off all your boxes in terms of his employment and his family and all those external factors. But what happens when you get a gift that's wrapped very beautifully and it's a stunning box and the ribbon is just tied so perfectly and all of a sudden you open the box and you're so excited and it's a gift you don't really like? Maybe not a gift that you hate, but certainly something that you wouldn't have bought for yourself and you don't really want to have around. I mean, it's that time of year where we get gifts from family members, well intentioned and well meaning they may be, but just don't really suit our tastes. And it's a little bit deflating when that happens, especially when the gift was wrapped really well and it was very promising. And look, gifts are pretty low stakes. So if you get a gift from a family member or a friend that you don't like and you thought it was well wrapped, you can leave it at that. Do not look a gift worse in the mouth. I don't believe in giving gifts back or giving people feedback on their gifts. It was a Christmas gift. You smile, you receive it and you move on. But when it comes to a man, the stakes are so much higher. And I wonder how many of you are with a guy right now that you don't really click with. Maybe he's not a terrible guy guy. I mean, he doesn't always have to be abusive and a chad for him not to be the right guy for you. But maybe it's just not really the right fit for a lot of reasons. But he's great on paper because he's physically attractive, he's tall, he comes from a good family and he's got a great job. Everything about him is just perfect right on paper. And you don't know what's missing, but something is missing. It's because you don't really like the gift. The gift doesn't actually serve a real purpose in your life. My God, if somebody gets me another fucking cutting board or cheese board, I don't know why, when you get married or engaged, everybody thinks, all of a sudden you are hosting all these parties where you were serving copious amounts of cheese. But as a result of getting married two years ago, I am now the proud owner of no less than 15 cheese boards. And how many times have I used those 15 cheese boards? Probably twice. You could be the best cheese board in the world. Handcrafted, stunningly beautiful, wrapped so well. And if you enter my life and I have no use for you, I don't really want to spend time with you. You know, it's that Marie Kondo thing. Like, what brings you joy? Well, cheese boards don't bring me joy. And so I end up donating a lot of them or giving them to our cleaning ladies. And I just think, when it comes to men, think about how they actually make you feel. Not how you think they're supposed to make you feel, but how they actually make you feel. Because there is somebody out there that wants 10 cheese boards that maybe collects cheese boards and would love those boards in their life. And if that's not you, you gotta let it go for somebody who would appreciate that man because it's not fair to you or to him. But do not let the gift wrapping of the cheese board make you forget that you don't really like cheese. In fact, I was talking about at least one of these physical or external attributes of dating and what women apparent consider now and factor into who they choose. As a man in New York City and one of my upcoming guests who is a straight man, said that his best piece of advice would be to stop focusing on the family that the man comes from to focus on the man himself. The family that a man comes from is of somewhat importance, and your relationship with his family is important, but it is an ancillary relationship to your relationship with the guy. If you are too focused on the fact that, oh, his sister loves me or his mom loves me and I fit in perfectly with the family, he's never going to leave me. A lot of us have been disappointed in those instances, right? I certainly have been left by men where I really got along with the family. And all of a sudden he was like, nope, this ain't it for me. I know my mom loves you, but I don't love you. And that's what we need to focus on, is that the fact that the family is an external factor of this man, the man himself is the gift and the family is the gift wrapping. And if you like the gift wrapping, that's a bonus, okay? But it is not a prerequisite for liking the actual gift. And look, I grew up in a Chinese immigrant household where we were lucky to get gifts on certain holidays and birthdays. There was no such thing as let me go spend more money on gift wrapping, that's going to get destroyed in five seconds and thrown out. So my parents didn't really wrap gifts. So maybe I'm a little bit biased here because I don't really place a high value on gift wrapping because I often find that sometimes the most well wrapped gifts are actually the shittiest products themselves. I don't really care. I. Some of the gifts I've received from my parents have been amazing and they just give it to me. They don't go through this whole charade. And I sometimes wonder if we wrap shitty gifts really well to try and make people think that they're less shitty. And sometimes there are really shitty men that look great on paper or are really hot or all of the external factors that we're looking for when we're swiping on hinge or bumble, but they actually suck inside. And what matters at the end of the day is what is inside and how he makes you feel. And here's another interesting facet of the study. Why do we care about gift wrapping as a whole? Right? And Dr. Howard wrote that gift wrapping through repeated pairing with joyous events in people's lives has utility in cueing a happy mood, which in turn positively biases attitudes. It's a visual signal that is associated with happy events in a person's life. And I thought this was interesting because it basically means we have been taught to like gift wrapping by society. We have been taught that something wrapped in nice paper and a bow is a good thing, is associated with a happy event. And so gift wrapping is a societal expectation placed upon us. And so if you're with a man that doesn't make you feel quite right, but your family loves him. And you've been taught by every everybody in your life that you should not leave him because they like him. That is you looking at a gift you don't really fucking like looking at the paper that you don't really care about and saying, I'm going to stay with this man because my parents told me that I should like this because it's wrapped well. And in a greater context I think this is just an example of how we place way too much value on what the people around us think and how people perceive our lives to be than what we actually think and how we perceive our lives to be. There was a really interesting article that came out on CNN recently about a conservative Christian couple who went into a closet of their own after their son came out. You guys should read it. It's a pretty long read, but it's really interesting. It's this couple, the McDonald's, who were evangelical Christian pastors, I believe. You can maybe fact check me on that. But in any case, they basically disowned their son, maybe all but disowned them or tried to get him conversion therapy when he came out to them. And he had a very strained relationship with his parents for a long time because they just could not accept that he was gay. And they said that the tipping point and the repair of their relationship came when they realized that their relationship with their son was more important than their relationships with the friends and the family in their evangelical Christian community. That really started to shun them once they began to embrace their gay son. And obviously the story has a happy ending because they repair their relationship with their son. And even though it took a lot of time to get there, they finally realized that, hey, our son is more important than these so called friends in our lives that don't want to be around us because we've acknowledged and accepted that our son is gay. But I wonder how many of you are out there living a life that you don't really want to be living because the people around you expect you to live this life for them. So many people rely on looking to others to tell them how to behave, how to think and how to feel because it's so much easier doing that than having to make decisions on your own and potentially being cast out of a community or failing because of your own decisions. Well, at least if everybody else is doing it, even if it's the wrong decision, then at least I'll feel like I am part of something, even if that something or that group is leading me straight to hell. If everyone is jumping off of a bridge and I don't feel like maybe that's what I really want to do. Hey, I don't want to be the only person and not jump off of the bridge because then I'll be standing there and they'll all be in the water laughing at me, saying, oh my God, what a coward. You didn't jump off of the bridge. And it's like, well, I didn't want to die. All right, for the sake of looking cool. It's cozy season and I'm gifting Cozy Earth this Christmas because a silent night starts with the right sheets. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheet set is the ultimate gift this holiday season, elevating everyday luxury into something everyone will use and absolutely adore. And now that I'm in my 30s, I've traded FOMO for Jomo the joy of missing out because I'd rather not be at the party and instead in the sanctuary of my bed. Which is why I'm so glad I upgraded to Cozy Earth sheets because they are truly the softest sheets I've ever slept in. They're made with an enhanced fabric and Cozy Earth is so committed to the durability and quality of their sheets that they come with a 10 year warranty. I love how breathable the fabric is because it helps me to sleep several degrees cooler throughout the night, which helps me sleep better and wake up fresher. Visit cozy earth.com brutallyanna and use my exclusive 40% off code Anna Kai to give the gift of luxury this holiday season. If you get a post purchase survey, say that you heard about Cozy Earth from this podcast. And just remember that the only thing better than a gift wrapped under the tree is wrapping the ones you love in luxury with Cozy Earth.
- [17:49]
Sponsor
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- [18:17]
Anna Kai
Stop placing so much emphasis on looking cool in your life and dating people so that you will somehow get approval from other people for who you date. And this goes for all relationships in your life, not just who you date, but everything. If you are only hanging out with people because you need them to dictate how you feel about your own life, those are not real relationships. Those are not real friendships. Those are an emotional crutch for you so that you can avoid therapy and working on the very real things that you want that you haven't surfaced yet because you haven't dared to ask yourself what it is you actually want want versus what the community wants. And let me tell you, there is so much shame in going against the grain. Even if people are not shaming you to your face, you feel it inside and there is nobody that knows this shame and embarrassment more so than me. I chose an extremely atypical path in life after I graduated from college. I had a very traditional life on paper before 2013. I went to a great public school, was a good student, a good kid, didn't get into any trouble, went to NYU on a partial scholarship. And I think the path that was expected of me was to go get a normal corporate job that would pay me benefits and a paycheck every day. I knew the thing that would make sense to people around me would be to go into marketing, into pr, into these areas of my life that I was actually very good at. I interned at a fashion label when I was in college and I was like, I could see myself doing this, I could see myself doing fashion pr. I also interned at a bridal salon in college and I saw myself doing bridal sales. These are jobs that would have made sense for me and they make sense for a lot of people, by the way, because I'm not shaming anybody that chooses a traditional path in life. I am just saying it was not for me. And I felt it inside where I just realized when I graduated college, if I did not try and at least try and fail to pursue a creative path in entertainment and acting because I left college and I said I'm going to give myself till 30 to be an actor and if it doesn't work by 30, I will quit and I will go get a normal job. I'm not saying that anybody who doesn't choose that life is somehow lame or weird or, you know, not daring enough. It's just if that life doesn't call to you, actually all the better because I struggled a lot in my 20s because I chose an atypical path. It is not glamorous or romantic not having a stable income in your 20s. It's also really not glamorous or romantic when you're in your late 20s and the rest of your friends have spent the last 6ish years building their careers, climbing the corporate ladder and they have something to show for the last six years. And you, on the other hand, have a series of bit roles in tiny TV shows, and more so than that, dozens and dozens of failed auditions and a series of weird ass jobs you've done to try and support yourself. There's nothing sexy about that. Okay? But it was my calling in a sense, because I just knew if I didn't try to do this, then I would regret not having tried at all. And so what happened was I hit 30, it was the middle of the Pandemic. And I was at a quarter life crisis because I was like, I have nothing to show for the last eight years of my life since I graduated college. And it was so heartbreaking. And so what did I do? No, I didn't get a normal job like I promised myself I would. I started a fucking blog. Yes, Bitties. I started a WordPress because there is nothing more practical than being a failed actress and then failing as a blogger, which I did for two years. I started maybe both my handles across Instagram and TikTok in September of 2020 and nothing happened for two years. And while nothing was happening, I was trying everything. And I was trying everything very publicly. And when I say that, it was a whole other level of cringe and shame. I mean, at least when I auditioned for roles in TV and film projects and I didn't get them, the people in my life didn't see me audition and didn't see the casting directors actively not pick me. Now I'm blogging and I'm taking OOTD pics and amateur home decor photos of my house and they're getting no likes and no engagement and I have no followers. People can see that. Never mind. Also the fact that when I started Instagram and my maybe both handle, that was when IG stories first came out and people started talking to camera. And so I thought, I need to talk to camera. And my God, those first few stories, I look back because Instagram does keep a timeline of everything you've ever done online. I sound like a wannabe trad wife. It's wild. I don't know what my Instagram algorithm was doing at the time, but I was following a lot of Texas mom bloggers who had really perfect lives. And I think I felt like I had to be that perfect influencer blogger that had the perfect life and always had a new outfit for every single day. And it was just exhausting. I didn't enjoy it, but I also didn't know what else I was going to do with my life. And thank God I did all of that. All right. Thank God I was willing to embarrass myself because I could not be here today making a really good living, the best living I've ever made from this job without all of that stuff beforehand. And so if you're listening to this and you're wondering, how do I take that leap? What will the people around me think? It doesn't matter. What helped me the most when I was on my two year cringe fest before I went viral was the Fact that I told myself, you know what, I don't know if people are talking shit about me behind my back, but let's just assume they are because plenty of people weren't talking shit to my face. But you can just tell, you know when you go to a party and somebody asks you what do you do? And you say, or I say, oh, I have a blog. And they just look at you and they're like, oh, how cute. It's that, that feeling I'm talking about that you're probably going to have to deal with more than somebody just saying straight to your face, hey, I think you're a loser for trying to do this. Most people don't do that, okay? Because most people still want you to like them even if they're actively judging you. It's a very weird thing. And I think it comes down to people feeling like they have power over you. It's like, okay, if this person likes me, but I get to judge them, then that somehow makes me more powerful than them. And it's fucked up. But hey, insecure people do fucked up shit. And I've done my fair share of fucked up shit, so who am I to judge? But I think what helped me was saying to myself, okay, I gotta deal with these people kind of judging me at these parties and maybe dealing with the thought that they're talking about me behind my back. But what am I gonna do? Not go after the life I want because I'm afraid of what frickin frack said at a party about me? Like, think about your deathbed one day. Are you going to look back and be like, I am so glad I decided not to pursue a creative life, not to start a business and to not start a blog or try to become an influencer because I was afraid of what the women in my book club would say. No, you're going to look back and be like, God damn, I wish I did that. Because who gives a shit what the women of the book club say anyways? Fuck, I'll find another book club. If these people don't like me or they think I'm stupid for pursuing my dreams, I know so deeply what it feels like to feel a very passive aggressive level of shame from the people around me for trying to pursue this life that I am living now. And so I've made it sort of my mission to tell people whenever they have a crazy idea that they say that they're going after, I'm like, go for it. Okay, you want to be on TikTok, don't let anybody tell you that this industry is too saturated, okay? People go viral every single day because there is something that everybody has to say that is unique. You are the only version of you that exists out there. And if you never try, you'll never know what you're capable of. My God, I did not know I was ever capable of being here talking to 1, 2, 3 million of you. However many followers I have across these platforms now, I was hoping for 10,000 of you. And it's insane to me that this life I live right now and this man that I'm married to is only because I refuse to settle. There were a lot of good men that I dated that I thought we would probably be okay together. I would marry you. You're a good guy. But there's something missing. And it always came back to the fact that I felt like I am settling for this life because it's safe rather than because it's the life that I want. So what are you giving up in the name of this safety right now? Safety is an illusion, by the way. Just because you choose the safe guy or the safe path in life doesn't mean you're not going to get divorced or he's not going to cheat on you or you're not going to get fired. Ok? Okay. So many people get dicked over by the safe choice, and then they're extra pissed off because guess what? You didn't go after the life you wanted because it was too dangerous. And you thought, well, at least if I'm not living the life I want to live, at least I'll feel safe, right? Because safety is comforting. And then, lo and behold, life smacks you upside the face and the safe guy leaves you and the safe job fires you. Because guess what? You don't get rewarded for making the safe choice. You just get diminished. Your life gets diminished when you continuously choose the safe choice over the choice you actually want. Don't settle for the cheese board if you don't want a cheese board. And what you actually want is a squatty potty because it helps you poop better. And honestly, those of us who poop better are just happier people, okay? You got to get that shit out so that you don't put that shit onto other people. And even though the squatty potty is not a sexy gift and it would be very weird for somebody to gift it to you. Although I will say, at this point, for those of you listening, I hope somebody gifts you a squatty potty or you give them a squatty potty and wrap it in the best freaking wrapping paper you can find because that would just honestly make my whole freaking Christmas. I am saying that if it is valuable to you and you want it in your life, do not be ashamed to ask for it, even if everyone else is out there saying, well, you should really like the cheese board because it's a lot more socially acceptable to be around. If you continually allow the community around you to dictate the magnitude of your life and what you want, you will continuously be looking at your life wondering, why is it, am I not getting what I want? Because you've never actually sat down and asked yourself what you want versus what you think other people think you should want. All right, we're going to get into some of your questions that you've written into me. But before we do, wanted you all to know that I just created a voice messaging system where you can now leave me a voicemail and I will answer you on the podcast. You just go to speakpipe.com brutally annapodcast and you can just start recording right off of your phone and leave me a voicemail. Again. That's speakpipe.com brutally annapodcast. You can leave me a voicemail under your real name. You can leave me a voicemail under your fake name. And in fact, I don't even think you need a name at all to leave me a voicemail. You can go totally incognito. So send me your deepest, darkest secret and all the questions you wanted to know the answers to.
- [31:42]
Sponsor
This episode is brought to you by Etsy. Oh, hear that?
- [31:46]
Okay, thank you.
- [31:48]
Etsy knows these aren't the sounds of holiday gifting. Well, not the ones you're hoping for. You want squeals of delight? Happy tears?
- [31:59]
Anna Kai
How did you.
- [32:00]
Sponsor
And spontaneously written songs of joy.
- [32:03]
Anna Kai
I am so happy. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
- [32:07]
Sponsor
Um, okay, the song needs a bit of work, but anyway, to get those reactions, make sure everyone on your list feels heard with handmade, handpicked and designed gifts from small shops on Etsy. Gifts like personalized jewelry, custom artwork, cozy style items, vintage pieces, and home decor to celebrate all of your favorite people and their specific kind of special. For original gifts that say I get you, Etsy has it.
- [32:34]
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- [33:04]
Anna Kai
Now, without further ado, my first question hello Anna, I hope this email finds you well. I don't typically reach out to people I meet online, but after following your TikTok videos and Instagram posts, I felt like you might be the right person to offer me some honest, objective advice. I'm struggling with a situation I can't seem to fully process on my own. I was in a four year relationship when I moved to a new city and met someone who felt like my perfect match. We had an instant connection and I loved every moment with him. However, I was torn between staying loyal to my long term partner or choosing this new relationship that felt almost too good to be true. Eventually, the new guy gave me an ultimatum to choose between him and my long term partner. Even though I knew what I wanted, deep down I hesitated. My partner back in my old city had been nothing but good to me and I felt terrible at the thought of leaving him after all this time. Because of my hesitation, the new guy ended things and I struggled to accept it. In a desperate attempt to stay connected, I created a fake dating profile and matched with him. We started talking again and for almost 10 months I tried to keep him in my life, sometimes even manipulating situations to make it work in my favor. Eventually though, everything came crashing down and he found out. Now he won't talk to me, let alone give me a chance to apologize or make amends. He's blocked me on everything and it's been incredibly painful to live with that reality because I still care about him deeply. Looking back, I regret not making a decision when I had the chance and I'm heartbroken that my actions only hurt him in the end. I feel like I made a mess of something truly special and it's hard to forgive myself. How do I move forward, make peace with the situation and trust that this is just a tough lesson rather than the end of the road? Part of me longs to reach out one last time to tell him how genuinely sorry I am, but I know he wants nothing to do with me. Thank you for listening and any advice you can offer would mean a lot. My dearest Bitty, at some point in your life I can almost guarantee that you were taught that you did not deserve the things you wanted because you met this amazing guy, you had this crazy chemistry and you thought it was too good to be True. Guess what? That's not too good to be true. That's just called a relationship that functions well and you're compatible. It's actually quite simple. But so many of us have been taught that we don't deserve the things we want or that we can't get the things we want. And therefore, when we actually get what we want, we think, this must not be real. The other shoe is going to drop. So because I know the other shoe is going to drop, let me do everything I can to make sure that I am prepared when that shoe drops. And in the process, I drop both shoes. I don't even know what that analogy was, but here's my point is that this has self sabotaging written all over it because you don't think you deserve what you want. And I'm not justifying your behavior because, Bitty, I know you are trying your best, but I gotta say here, you are the bad guy. Okay? And I don't say that in a way where I'm like, you should go feel terrible about yourself because I know you feel so badly about everything you've done. I know that. Okay? But you really have to first accept that you deserve what you want. And in accepting that, you also have to accept the fact that sometimes you are the bad guy in the relationship. And that doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means you and your actions led to what happened here today. And I think when we accept the fact that our actions, however misguided they may be, lead us to where we are today and we take responsibility for those actions, are we actually able to learn from them. And what I want you to know is that you've chosen a life of safety instead of the life you really want. I don't know why, that's probably something for you to unpack with a therapist. But I think you think that you cannot have the exciting, wonderful, intense chemistry that you felt with this new guy and also feel safe in the way that you felt with your old boyfriend, who you might still be with him. I couldn't tell from that email. And if you are girlfriend, you gotta leave him because he doesn't deserve that either. And what I always think is if spoiled for choice, okay? If you are lucky enough to have to choose between two different men and you can't choose, then it's neither. Okay? And I know you think, oh my gosh, I made the wrong decision. I should have chosen the new guy. Everything was so great. Yeah, I'm sure everything was really great. But you don't know if they would have continued to be great. What if you chose him and six months later he dumped your ass? Well, then you would have been like, oh, I knew it. I shouldn't have gone for him. I should have stayed with the old guy. Right. Maybe there was something in the new guy that was sort of a red flag and alerting something deep down within you that you knew maybe this isn't the right choice. Okay. I think it's also interesting that you started talking to him under your fake dating profile for 10 months and he was just okay with that. I mean, you guys just had a texting relationship for 10 months and he never questioned or really pushed to meet you after even a month. I never, when I was dating, got into a 10 month long anonymous texting conversation with a man on a dating app before meeting him. It was always a couple weeks at most. And if it didn't lead to an in person, in real life date, then I didn't want anything to do with it. So I think there may be is something going on with this new guy who's no longer in your life. But that's not your problem at this point. He's no longer in your life. And your responsibility now is to figure out how to make peace with it. Right? And I think what you do is you make peace with the fact that just because you are the bad guy does not mean you don't deserve to live the life you want. And also you saying that, is this the end of the road, bitch? Are you planning on dying tomorrow? I don't think so. All right. Unless your life is literally going to end tomorrow or next week, it is not the end of the road. You have no choice but to continue on. And I think so often we forget that. We say, how do I go on? How do I go on from this? Well, you're going to go on because you're going to wake up and you might not feel good waking up, but you're going to go on. And eventually you're going to start to do things that make you feel good and you're going to start to feel better little by little. And you got to figure out what those things are. But first, what you really have to do is go to therapy. And I mean that in the most loving way possible and figure out why you can't be alone. Because I think like you're looking at this from a very binary point of view. You're thinking, I can either choose the old guy or I can either choose the new guy and now that I can't have the new guy and I don't feel the same way about the old guy, it's it. That's over. Okay? The world is so large. There are so many men out there. So what you it up with this guy that you had amazing chemistry with, okay? Maybe he hates your guts. Who cares? Somebody out there who's not in your life who hates you makes no difference to your life. There's plenty of random ass chads and trolls on the Internet that probably really hate me for reasons that have nothing to do with me. That's okay. I live my life. I got my people. I got a good freaking life for you. Do not reach out to him one more time to tell him how genuinely sorry you are, because I think the part of you that wants to do that is to get some form of closure. And that's not for him. That's for you. I think there's a part of you that wants to reach out to him and tell him you're sorry and have him accept that apology and somehow make it okay that you essentially catfished him. Is that. I don't know. Is that catfishing? Yeah, I think a little bit. Right? I think you're trying to make it what you did, and it's not okay, but it will be okay. I have done some pretty fucking shitty things in my past where I have been the bad guy. In high school, I was dating an absolute fucking gem of a human being. He was absolutely incredible to me. And by the way, we were 17. So this guy had no experience in anything. He did not know how to date, and he was just so good to me. And guess what I left him for the metaphorical bad boy, the complicated guy, the one who was a little emo, came from a broken home, played really mediocre guitar, and wrote songs. I left him for this completely unstable human who ended up cheating on me, and that was on me. I remember looking back at that relationship fairly quickly a couple years after, and I thinking I was the bad guy. And I honestly, I don't know if I deserve to get cheated on, but. But I kind of deserved it. I don't know. I sort of believe in karma, and I feel like that was karma coming back to me being like, look, you thought you wanted this. Guess what? You don't know what you want, all right? You got to work on yourself. The reason I chose the unstable guy over my amazing high school boyfriend was because I was very broken, and I did not know how to be in a healthy relationship without finding it boring. So I thought a relationship had to be volatile in order for it to be the right relationship. Because if it's not my own living version of a Hollywood romance, if it's not my own version of the Notebook and that extremely volatile and toxic relationship between Ally and Noah, then what is it? Right? By the way, no hate on the Notebook. But can we all just take a look at that movie and say that that actually was not the paradigm of what we should be aspiring to? So much of that was really messed up. And we'll get to that later. But anyways, I still love the Notebook, but let's just don't do as they do. Just take it at entertainment value. I think you need to really understand that there are so many people out there that you will find that crazy chemistry that you had with the new guy again. I have fallen in love so many times with so many different men throughout my twenties in New York City. I've had chemistry and great first dates and great second dates and great third dates that led to nothing. And what I realized is that having a connection and a chemistry is great. And you need that in the beginning. But it by no means is the foundation of a good relationship. It's the doorway to the foundation. But in order to actually create a real relationship where two people can really build together, both of you have to do the work of laying the foundation brick by brick. And that starts with you doing the individual work. I think he's got a lot of work to do. This new guy that has now blocked you on everything because he was willing to talk to you for 10 months without meeting you. There's something going on with him. Okay? But that's not for us to triage. There's a lot going on with you, and you need to find it in yourself to realize that the world is truly your oyster. So stop looking at this as the end of the road and rather the beginning of a new road. One where you're probably going to be alone for a while and you got to figure out how to get okay with that. It kind of feels like you're not okay with being alone, that you'd rather have a guy by your side even though you know he's not the right guy, than be alone. And let me just say something. There is no glory in staying with a man simply because you do not have the courage to leave. Put on your big girl bitty panties. Okay. It is only when we are alone is it quiet enough that we can hear the sound of our own voices. And I don't think you've been alone enough for even a second to hear the sound of your own voice because you're so afraid of what it's going to say. That's all for today, bitties. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, rating and commenting. I welcome all of your feedback, even the ones that we like to call constructive criticism. The reason I am making this solo episode is because quite a few of you DM me after I launched the podcast with my guest episodes, saying that you would love to hear some solo episodes from me, like what I used to do in my old YouTube videos. So here is me doing my best to give you guys what you want, but I can't know what you want if you don't ask for it. So I'll see you in my comments on Instagram, on TikTok, and I will talk to you next week on Brutally Anna oh oh oh, O'Reilly.
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Anna Kai
Oh O'Reilly Auto Parts.