Sponsor (19:02)

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary Magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

Anna (19:27)

Back to that definition of the all is lost moment from Story Grid the all is lost moment is when the protagonist shifts their pursuit of what they want to the realization of what they need. And what you currently want might not be what you need, you just don't know it yet. What I wanted was that recurring role on that TV show. What I needed was TikTok and this career and this life that I'm living now. And so if you are at a moment where everything is falling apart, I want you to remember that it's falling apart because you needed to lose it in order to make space in your life for what's about to come Together. And the best way to remember that this is temporary, this moment right now where you're feeling like you have nothing going for you is to think about your life as a movie. And movies, the best ones at least, are not just one long, happy story of the protagonist. They'd be really boring if that was the case. The best movies that we love are the ones where the protagonist, the main character, AKA you, have to overcome something in order to get what they want. We, as human beings, love stories of triumph and redemption. We don't want to watch stories of people where everything just worked out for them in life. You are living your own film right now. You're writing it as I speak, speak into your ears. And so romanticize your life. And that could be as small as taking yourself out to dinner. If you have the means and the disposable income to take yourself out to a nice dinner for one, you should go do that. You should live your own very Carrie Bradshaw sex in the city moment. I don't care if you live in New York City. You could live in Kansas City, okay? Nothing is stopping you from going out to dinner by yourself and romanticizing your life that way. Enjoying a glass of wine or a mocktail and a steak by yourself. Because this is the moment in the film of your life where everything is falling apart. And you just say, no, I am not going to wallow in my misery. I choose to romanticize my life and I am going to take myself out. Because if that's the only thing I can do right now, that's the only thing I will do. And then the music starts and you walk into the restaurant and maybe something changes your life and maybe it doesn't. Maybe all you realize after dinner is not, oh, I went to this restaurant and I met my husband or somebody offered me a job. Maybe what you realize is that you never needed anybody to save you. You just needed you. You just have to be the main character. And the main character goes through some shit, okay? But the main character also finds a reason to sing, literally, metaphorically, in all senses of the word bitty. One day somebody is going to look back at how you overcame this moment in your life. And it is going to be. They continue on from their all is lost moment. And you don't know that now, but you will. And so live your life so that one day you can look back and say, I am so glad I didn't quit when everything was falling apart. Because what I realized through not quitting was that I could put it all back together. That nobody held the needle and the thread to my life but me. So I don't care. People can rip me up. I will sew myself back up together. I always advocate for women to get comfortable going out to dinner by themselves alone. And not to sit at the bar, but to sit at a table for two, but for one. And to take up space. Because so often women are taught to diminish ourselves, to fit into small spaces or to fit into other people's lives or spaces that weren't made for us. And what a small but mighty step we can take just by going to dinner and taking up more room than we need, by not apologizing for taking up more room than we need. The simple act of going out to dinner alone will teach you how to get really comfortable with yourself. And look, it's going to be weird at first. You're going to feel uncomfortable. And I had somebody ask me the other day, like, well, what do I do at dinner? Because I don't want to just be in my phone the whole time and I don't want to be staring at people. What do I do? The thing is, you do a little bit of everything. When I used to go out to dinner by myself, hell, when I still go out to dinner by myself, when I'm away for work and I'm not in town or at home with Dave, I look at my phone sometimes, then I put it down. Then I just stare into the abyss. I mean, how nice is it for those of us who are working or schooling or momming or any of those things? I mean, think about actually what a privilege it is to just have a moment to yourself where you get to eat good food and stare at nothing and think about nothing. That in and of itself is a meditation. I have tried and failed so many times to meditate. I don't care which app it is. I have tried many of them. That's not to say they might not work for me later down the line if I try them again. I haven't written them off. But so far, at 34 years old, I have not been able to successfully meditate. But you get me in a really nice restaurant in a state far away from home on a work trip with an omakase, and that, my friends, turns off my brain like no other. When you truly get comfortable with yourself and you go out to dinner alone, it will be a welcome respite from having to entertain other people. And women are taught to please and serve and entertain other people, and mostly men. And how nice is it to not have to explain yourself to. Not have to figure out how to navigate a conversation in between bites when all you really want to do is shove a bunch of sushi into your face. It's so wonderful. But you can't get to that point if you're constantly worried about what the strangers in this restaurant are going to be thinking about you. Because you're dining alone and everybody else is on a date. Well, you don't know if everyone else is enjoying their date. Just because other people are not alone does not mean that they are happier than you. It just means that they're not alone. And a lot of us could benefit from being alone more because you'd realize that a lot of us are just happier being alone and saying no to having more voices of other people in our heads in an attempt to drown out our own voices. Your voice is pretty cool, and if you listen to it, you might be surprised at what you have to tell yourself. And at the end of the day, you really realize that nobody gives a fuck what you're doing, especially if you live in a big city. Everybody's too worried about how their hair looks on the date or if they have anything in their teeth or whether they forgot to put on deodorant or not. Nobody's thinking about you. Maybe somebody looks over at you and has a moment, is like, huh, that girl's dining alone. If they think, great. More power to her. Good on them. If they think, oh, what a loser, she's dining alone. Honestly, that's because they're insecure. The only people who need to judge you for dining alone and enjoying it are the ones who have not yet figured out that being alone does not make you less worthy of a human being. It actually makes you a human being that realizes that you are worthy without another person validating your existence and your worthiness. All right, we're going to move on to some voicemails from you all. I got to say thank you to those of you who left me this first batch of voicemails. It's actually so nice hearing your voices because I have historically only communicated with my community online via comments and dms, and so it's just so nice to hear inflection and pauses and what you all sound like. So, without further ado, the first question here.

Caller 1 (28:40)

I struggle with intentional dating. I know what my intentions are. I know what I want, but I struggle with how to bring that up in the first few conversations without scaring the guy away. And I know it's. I know it's not all about the guy, but it is about what I want. But, like, I struggle with how to bring it up. Like, is it that I say, you know? Because I feel like even saying, so what it was, what is it that you're looking for? I freak out because I think that also automatically translates to a guy as, well, she's wants to get married tomorrow. So, yeah, I just struggle to. Like, how, like, how do I suss out, like, if the guy's just looking for fun or if he's actually, like, intentionally dating without scaring him off.

Anna (29:46)

I wish we all had some sort of Magic 8 ball into the future so we could tell whether the guy that we're on a first, second, third, fourth, or fifth date with is actually serious about finding a life partner or if they're just looking to fuck around, but we don't. And I think what's happening here is that you are so focused on trying to see if the guy in front of you is just fucking around that you're not actually being present and paying attention to how he makes you feel. I think maybe instead of figuring out how do I present this information in a way to a man that I'm interested in, that won't scare him off. I think, especially in the first few dates, you need to be present in the date. And instead of asking him, what do you want? Listen to what he's saying, see what he's doing, look at his actions, and really look at yourself and see how he makes you feel. Because I really believe that a woman's intuition is one of the most powerful tools we have. And I guarantee if you focus more on how you feel on the date, you will know with a relative degree of certainty whether or not the man sitting across from you is interested in a serious relationship. For the most part, I think men are pretty obvious. I don't think they're trying to deceive you. I think half the time they don't know what they want. And if they don't know what they want, how can they communicate that effectively to you? But that's a separate issue. And look, that's not to say that I haven't had my fair share of men who have appeared, at least at first, to be a lot more interested in something more serious than what eventually they were willing to commit to. I mean, I have been love bomb like a lot of us have been, but I think they are the exception, not the rule. For the most part, once I really listened to myself and paid attention to what the man across the table from me was saying and doing, I could generally figure out whether they were serious or not. And I think what happens is your sense of urgency to bring up this what are you looking for Conversation in the second or third date is you trying to skip to the good part? You know that song is like b can we skip to the good part? You can't skip to the fucking good part, unfortunately. You just have to live it. And I think what you're sensing from the men sitting across the table from you when you ask them what are you looking for? Is that they're sensing that you are not totally secure in what you want. I think if you first really had the courage to be present and really had the courage to be vulnerable and put yourself out there and say, look, I have no idea what this guy fucking wants, but I know what I want and I am willing to take the time because one reason or another, I'm on this date with him, we've gotten this far. I'm willing to take the time to find out who he really is rather than try to suss it out before I've had a chance to even really get to know him. People can say ultimately, at the end of the day, whatever they want to say. I mean, you can ask a guy on the first date like, what are you looking for? And he could tell you, I'm looking for something really serious. And in the end, he's not. But people's actions over time is what validates how they truly feel about you. So you also have to give the guy a chance to get to know you without all of the insecurity and bullshit that society has placed on you.

Sponsor (33:45)

So you want to be a marketer? It's easy. You just have to score a ton of leads and figure out a way to turn them all into customers. Plus manage a dozen channels, write a million blogs, and launch a hundred campaigns all at once. When that's done, simply make your socials go viral and bring in record profits. No sweat. Okay, fine, it's a lot of Sweat. But with HubSpot's AI powered marketing tools, launching benchmark breaking campaigns is easier than ever. Get started@HubSpot.com marketers.

Sponsor (34:16)

This episode is brought to you by SkinnyPop. Popcorn. Perfectly popped. Endlessly delicious. Oh so light and crunchy. Skinny Pop Original Popcorn is the snack you've been searching for. Made with just three simple ingredients. Popcorn kernel, sunflower oil, and salt. Snacking never felt or tasted so good. Perfectly popped, Endlessly delicious. Give yourself permission to snack and pick up Skinny Pop Original Popcorn today Because.

Anna (34:45)

I really think that you can intentionally date without making dating horrible. And this really serious experiment, that every date has to be so intentional. I advocate for living with intention, but I think that is such an overused term these days because it's like, what does that even fucking mean, living with intention? Like, okay, if I go to the grocery store and I buy myself a pack of gummy bears because I had a bad day, is that not living with intention? Because I said I was trying to cut out sugar from my diet and I didn't know. It's just. Look, living with intention, I think, is another euphemism for people to try and be perfect. It's like, I want to be so intentional with my actions that there is no margin for error. There is no margin to explore in my life. And so instead of thinking of it as living with intention and dating with intention, why don't you date to find out? The TLDR of this piece of advice to wrap this up is, girl, sometimes you just gotta fuck around and find out and try to have a little bit of fun while you're doing it.

Caller 2 (36:11)

I have been dating someone for five months. We are exclusive, but I don't believe we have a label. I've expressed interest in meeting his parents because both my parents are deceased. He has not invited me to meet them, and he has met my daughter in a group setting. She's four and a half. But when I asked him if he's interested in meeting her and spending more time with her, he said he's not sure because I know he takes it very seriously. And, you know, he would want to make sure that everything with us is solid before he gets to know my child. But I'm just wondering, like, at five months, should I already know that I'm his girlfriend? And should I push the conversation of, like, hey, it's time for me to meet your parents, or should I just sort of see if he figures it out? Thanks.

Anna (37:17)

I say the following always with love, but I have to ask the question, how do you know he takes this very seriously and that if he doesn't want to spend more time with your daughter, it's because he's taking it seriously. Because all I'm hearing is that he's not really willing to take the next step to really make things serious. You're not his girlfriend, he's not your boyfriend. He doesn't really want you to meet his parents right now, clearly. Because if he did, by the way, you wouldn't even have to ask him. And he's met your daughter in a group setting may or may not be an accidental meeting, but he doesn't want to spend more time with her. So that to me, if we're being honest here, is that he's not sure if he really wants to pursue this relationship with you long term. And that's a tough pill to swallow. I know, but it's, I think when you really digest that and think every action he's giving me right now is uncertainty and that's why I feel uncertain, then you can really think about, okay, what's the correct question to ask him? It's not, should I push to meet his parents? Meeting his parents is not the issue here. The fact is that is one component that is a symptom of the greater issue at hand, that you do not feel secure in this relationship. That at this stage, what I'm hearing is you would be happy to meet his parents, spend a bunch of time with him. You'd be happy for him to get to know your daughter and be maybe the father figure that you would love to have as, you know, your next partner. But he doesn't want to be all those things. Or at least not right now. He doesn't. And so what you have to figure out is not so much should I push to meet his parents, but how much longer am I willing to wait to see if he's going to turn into the man that I want him to be? I don't know. If it's five months, I'll tell you what, that kind of sounds like a long ass time to me to be unsure. And obviously there's different factors at play here. I don't know how frequently you see each other. If you see each other once every three weeks, five months isn't that long. But there in itself is a bit of a problem because if you guys live in the same town and you only see each other once every three weeks, like why are you dating? Even you don't seem that excited to be around each other. But let's say just to make things simple, that you see each other once a week and you've been dating for five months. To me, that's kind of a long time because I think at six months, really. So you know what? Here's, here's the answer. I don't like to give concrete answers, but my personal sort of general rule is that at six months of dating somebody and seeing them at least once a week, every week, you should know whether you want to be boyfriend, girlfriend, and commit to them. And if you don't that means it's a no. You're getting real close to that six month mark. You've had enough time to get to know one another. He's had enough time to get to know you and your daughter. I'm sure he knows that you would rather be a little bit more serious than the two of you are right now. And I think where you are right now is you think, well, if I push to meet his parents and he relents and I meet his parents, that will give me the security I need to know that this is the right relationship and it's trending in the right direction. I did that in my 20s. I was dating a guy and we had been dating for maybe seven months at that point, six months, and spent a lot of time together. I spent multiple nights at his place a week. And we were boyfriend, girlfriend and committed relationship. And his parents were coming to town and he didn't bring up me meeting them and I brought it up with him. I said, are you hiding me? Like, why don't you want me to meet your parents? And I can't remember exactly what he said, but the gist of his response was, it's not you and it's not how I feel about you. It's the fact that my parents are very religious, especially my mom. And I don't want her to start asking me all these intrusive questions and putting pressure on me because I'm a lot older than she was when she got married. And it's not you, it's them. I don't want to feel pressure from them. But he's like, if it's important to you, I'm happy to have you meet them. So I went out to dinner with them once when they were in town, and I felt better for a time, but then he ended up leaving me very shortly after, maybe two months after. And I realized that it didn't matter whether or not I met his parents. He still didn't really want to commit to me, that whether or not there was some. Any truth, quite frankly, to the fact that he didn't want his parents putting pressure on him, maybe that was true, but maybe that was true because he didn't want his parents thinking that he was truly serious about me. Not so much the fact that he didn't want to feel pressure because he knew he was serious. So this whole meeting the parents thing is a signifier, but it by no means solidifies the strength of your relationship. And I think you maybe need to give yourself a limit to how long you're willing to feel uncertain for because I know anecdotally from experience and through seeing some of my girlfriends go through this, there are some men who are willing to just drag you along forever. They will just keep you guessing forever and they will give you just enough to hang on to, but not enough to ever feel secure. And I think the saddest part about relationships like that is how frequently women are willing to just be uncertain and insecure in their relationship forever because they don't think that they can find security. That the alternative is just to be alone and single and a childless cat lady or settle for this man that is only giving you 30% of what you want. So set a time for yourself and get to that point. And then maybe ask him and really listen to what his answer is. Because if the answer is anything short of absolutely, I want to spend more time with your daughter. I want you to meet my family. We are boyfriend girlfriend. Anything short of enthusiasm in that regard to advancing your relationship, it's a no. Cut your losses and move on. And I always say this to my biddies with daughters especially. I think if your daughter came to you with this predicament that you're in right now, you'd probably tell her, look, if he can't give you a straight answer or he can't make you feel secure in the relationship, you need to leave. I think the best example that you can set for your daughter is to not be the type of woman that waits around hoping that life will give her what she wants, and instead be the type of woman that goes after what she wants. Go after the guy who can't wait for his parents to meet you, who can't wait to have a relationship with your daughter and to spend one on one time with her. Not in a group setting. He is out there. But I'll tell you what, you're never going to meet him if you're always fucking around with the guy that's making you wait.

Caller 3 (45:08)

Hey Anna, thanks so much for starting this podcast. It's already amazing and it's given me so much dating advice. My question is if you are getting over a breakup where a Chad told you almost two years into a relationship that he just doesn't have feelings for you anymore and his feelings for you plateaued into friendship, how do you accept that as a explanation for a breakup? How do you move on without more closure? Thanks.

Anna (45:59)

Thanks so much for tuning in to these early episodes. I truly mean it to all of you who are listening. I am so grateful for you because this was really scary for me, honestly, to put out there because it's such a new format for me. And so I really appreciate all of you listening. But to answer your question, I think your desire to get a quote unquote better answer from your ex is just you really trying to feel better from the man who hurt you. You're looking for the man who hurt you to heal you. And the reality is you're likely never going to know the whole story. You may never know why he's really breaking up with you. He could have met somebody else. He could be struggling with his sexuality. He could have just realized, I only dated her because I liked her for who she was on paper. But I don't actually think we're that compatible in real life. Who the hell knows? Any number of those explanations, plus a million more, could be plausible and none of them would hurt you any less than the current explanation he's giving you. Because whatever the explanation is, all you need to know at the end of the day is he did not love you enough to overcome what it was he was feeling about you. And when I say this to people, I don't say, oh, my God, he didn't love you enough. You're a piece of shit. I. When I got dumped in college by the guy that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, I just realized that in the depths of my bear, the only explanation that really ever helped me was telling myself he didn't love me enough. Because I think by telling ourselves, oh, the timing was off. Or in my instance, oh, if I had been born Jewish, maybe he would have stayed with me because that was a huge component of. I think what he was grappling with was that he was Jewish and he really wanted a woman who was born into the Jewish faith, not just converted into the Jewish faith, which I was willing to do at the time. Telling myself all of that wasn't helpful because it made me feel very powerless in a way that it was circumstantial, that didn't work out, that my heartbreak was due to circumstances out of my control. What really, at the end of the day it was, was I just said he did not love me enough. And that's okay because that doesn't mean I'm unlovable. It just means that there's another guy out there who's going to love me better. I am telling you, even if you don't believe it right now, your life in the future is going to be so much better than what you've lived in the past. It may not be immediately better. You may have to go through some shitty weeks, months or years, but eventually it will be better. And what you really need to do is understand that by going back to your ex and asking for an explanation or closure that will lead to healing. That's you looking to the past for comfort when you should be looking forward to the future for comfort. The past is already written. You can't change anything that's happened. He left you for reasons known and unknown. But the future, it really is unwritten. You can make the future whatever you want to make it. I think what happens when we go back to our ex looking for a better explanation as to why they've caused all this heartache in our life is essentially we are going back and asking our ex for permission to move on. And I'm just saying to you, you do not need permission from your ex to move on. You can just move on without knowing the answer. You encounter a thousand different situations every day that are unclear to you that you don't know with 100% certainty whether you're making the right decision or not. And you just make a decision and you move on. So today I'm asking you, please make the decision that you know the answer. The answer is he didn't love you enough. That's the closure you need. And now you're going to go on your merry way and find a man who does love you enough to not leave you. That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. As always, you can leave me a voicemail to answer on the next solo episode@speakpipe.com brutally anna that's speakpipe.com brutally anna and you can just leave me a voicemail straight off of your phone like you're calling me. And lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating, reviewing, leaving me a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you're listening to this podcast. I appreciate all of your love and support so far and I can't wait to talk to you next week.

Ryan Reynolds (50:57)

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what big wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right. We're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.

Sponsor (51:19)

Com, switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees. Extra Speed slower above 40 gigabytes. C details.