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AI had the time of my life. A. I never felt this way before. From building timelines to assigning the right people, and even spotting risks across dozens of projects, Monday Sidekick knows your business, thinks ahead, and takes action. One click on the star and consider it done. And I owe it all to you. Try Monday Sidekick AI you'll love to use on Monday.com. i hate to be the one to break it to you, but just because you call someone your soulmate doesn't mean they're not going to fuck you over. I speak from experience, because after thinking so many men that I dated in my 20s were my soulmate, I came to the realization by the time I met my now husband, who is arguably more or less my soulmate, although I don't call him that, that the word soulmate is kind of bullshit, at least in my humble opinion. And every time I see a celebrity couple, I'm thinking of one in particular where they're just, like, so into each other and it's great. I love that for them. I love that beacon of hope. But there was this one celebrity couple who shall remain unnamed, but they kept calling each other their twin flames. And maybe I'm gonna get roasted for saying this, but you? If I don't like the word soulmate, you bet your ass I fucking hate the word twin flame. What the fuck is that? I'm sorry. I believe in meeting somebody and feeling a connection and seeing what life you can build together. Not because you were fated to meet each other or destined or preordained, but because both of you chose to make a conscious decision to be together. And I think what happens is sometimes whenever I see people call each other their soul mates, at least nowadays, then they end up getting divorced. And then it's like, okay, well, if you were each other's soul mates, were you supposed to get divorced? Right? And oftentimes, the people who are maybe a little bit more practical when they approach dating and marriage and don't lean so heavily on fate or whatever the universe had in store for you end up making it work. Because they realize that the key to a successful marriage and a healthy marriage is just two people putting in the work day in and day out. And I am not one of those people that thinks that marriage is, like, super hard work. Right? Like, I also think that's a myth. Like, I think we've gone to two ends of the extreme in the whole social media narrative about romantic relationships, in that you're either like, somebody's soulmate or your twin flame, or you're meant to be together forever, and nothing can ever tear you apart. And obviously that leads to some pretty unhealthy dynamics sometimes. And people feel like they can't leave because, well, he's my fucking soulmate, so why would I leave? But the other opposite end of that is the fact that marriage is so much work. I hear that all the time. And look, have I been married for 30 years? No. No. So, yeah, maybe I'll have a different opinion if I should be so lucky to be married for 30 years if we're A, not divorced, and B, both still alive at that point. But after seven years of being with my husband and three years of being married, I can say this. I do not find marriage hard. I find life hard. Life is just hard sometimes. And when you're married, you have to face that hard together. And I think that's really where the test of a marriage is, is can you approach your marriage with the same enthusiasm when life gets really hard? And so when we're talking about the difficulties and challenges of a marriage, we're talking about can you both face the separate shit that you're going to have to deal with together and not run away from it? And so, in case you couldn't tell, today's episode is all about debunking the myth of the soulmate. From my very unscientific but anecdotal view, because. Because I don't think I've ever heard a term misused more than the word soulmate from me, my girlfriends, anybody who has ever used that word to stay in an unhealthy relationship, in a toxic relationship. I mean, it doesn't have to be toxic. Right? That's a fun word we also love to throw around these days in the Internet era. But, like, it could just be the wrong relationship. You could just not be seeing eye to eye on some very, very fundamental things. But as soon as you slap the word soulmate onto it, well, doesn't matter that he wants to live the rest of his life in a van and you want to buy a McMansion out in the suburbs and send your kids to private school. It doesn't matter, because you're gonna work through those differences because you're soulmates, when in reality, those are two very different lifestyles, neither of which are wrong, that are completely incompatible with. And so when you're in the process of picking a mate, right, or finding a mate, I think it's really important we don't attach labels too quickly. And I'm not talking about boyfriend, girlfriend, labels. Because those if. For those of you who have been following me for a while, you know, I do believe in the boyfriend girlfriend label. No later than three months of consistent dating. And that is a label that I believe you should slap on. Because anything less than that at this point is. Is a joke. We have become so non committal as a culture that we have taken the trial phase of dating, which is calling each other boyfriend girlfriend, and now we've turned that into the end all be all. Like, people are so afraid to commit to one person or to say, hey, I'm going to give this a fair and honest shot over the next six months of my life that we don't even want to call each other that. And so we end up saying, oh, well, you know, it's the guy I'm dating, but he's not my boyfriend. Okay, but you see him every week, multiple times a week, and you talk to him every day, but he's not your boyfriend, he's the guy you're dating. Like, how much can we minimize a relationship before it doesn't mean anything to us so that maybe if it doesn't work out, it won't hurt as much? I don't know. I digress. That label, I believe in the soulmate label. I haven't met a ton of guys who use that phrase. And again, I'm making like sweeping generalizations here, but mostly because I feel like the word soulmate is something that women use to trap themselves into unhealthy relationships. Like, I've never really met a guy who's been like, well, she's my soulmate and I'm sure they're out there. But again, sweeping generalization is that men don't make excuses for when something's not working out. Because again, this is not a woman's fault. Men have been taught to believe that they can and do deserve things and that they have the power and the agency to pick the life they want. Whereas women have been taught and raised to wait to be picked, that it is an honor to be picked. And that's where the word pick me girl comes from, right? It's like we've now developed an entire Persona that is codified on social media as a woman who bases her entire life on getting picked up. And I want to draw a parallel to this argument of prostitution and pornography and just bear with me here because I think about the pick me girl and how other women don't like the pick me girl, right? And I'm like, but do we actually blame the pick me girl to an extent, yes, because everybody can make choices and you can choose to not be a pick me girl. But to the other extent, there is an ecosystem and a culture and a society that supports that, and we are in a society that sometimes rewards that behavior. Behavior. So maybe we stop rewarding that behavior. Maybe we remove the incentive to be a pick me girl. And that's where we start, instead of just blaming the symptom of the problem. And it's the same thing with pornography and sex work. Like, I don't actually believe it is on the woman who chooses sex work and pornography as her line of work to totally uphold the moral standards of society. Like what? Like that's a massive industry, okay? And until you are a woman in a position where you could go the quote, unquote, you know, traditional, respectable, morally righteous route and go make minimum wage somewhere or go make a teacher's salary that barely pays for anything, you know, until you've been in that position and you have no safety net, and all of a sudden you get on Only Fans and you realize, wait a second, I can work from home, buy me and my children a house, go on vacation and live all this life. Until you've really been forced to be in that position. Like, I don't think you can judge. And look, I have never been in that position. I've never been in a position where I have felt like my only option was to do that. But again, when we are in a society that rewards that behavior not just with our attention, but literally with our dollars and cents, like so many women are making so much money on OnlyFans, I think to say that all of the women and men, frankly, who are on Only Fans or who have turned to actual physical sex work as a means to make a living are morally bankrupt. I think that's a little bit blaming the victim here. I don't know if it's as simple as to say is they're the victims of a system we're in. I mean, look, we are in a society today where our government is not even paying out food assistance, so there are families that literally cannot feed their children. And so I think about being pressed under those circumstances, and I think about, you know what? Like, if there's a mom out there, and maybe there are, like, if there's a mom or a dad who knows who, as a result of losing SNAP benefits this week, now turns to Only Fans because what the hell does she have to lose, right? Like, her kids going hungry, so you might as well try. And then she builds like A million dollar a year following on only fans. Like, am I really going to be like. Well, you shouldn't have done. No Fudge, no. Get your bag, girl. All right? Take care of you and yours and the rest of us. Anybody standing from the sidelines who doesn't know what it feels like to be you, I'd like to quote Theodore Roosevelt, the man in the arena. If you have not heard this quote before, I'm shocked because it is one of the most popular prints you can buy framed on Etsy. But allow me to take a brief snippet of this quote, all right? The credit does not belong to the critic who counts. It's not the man who points out how the strong person stumbles. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again because there's no effort without error and shortcoming. So, look, if you are not considering turning to a life of onlyfans, and you are just out here thinking about whether or not the guy you're currently dating is your soulmate and how could you leave? Because things aren't really working out, but he's your soulmate. Maybe the word soulmate and the feeling that you have right now is based on the fact that you don't feel like you have the power to leave, that maybe he's not your soulmate. Or maybe, just maybe, a soulmate doesn't have to be forever. All right, girl, you can use the term. You can be like, he's my soulmate, but maybe this one soulmate was meant to stay in your life for a year to teach you something about yourself and to teach you something about your soul and to lead you to the next soulmate. And maybe it sounds like I'm minimizing the word, but I am. Okay, because we place too much emphasis on staying with somebody who just has never made us feel this way before. How many of us have said that? Okay, I've never felt this way before. Even though we're completely incompatible, even though he completely cannot act right or text me back within a normal amount of time, or even though my entire family hates him. He is my soulmate and I've never felt this way before. Yeah, well, guess what? There are about a hundred million feelings you have yet to feel if you are going to continue living the life you're living. I don't care how old you are listening to this. First of all, if you're in your 20s and you are staying with a guy because you have said this line or some iteration of it to yourself. He's my soulmate. I've never felt this way before. No one else has made me feel like this before. That's the point. That is the point of your 20s is you are going to meet a lot of people that have never made you feel a particular way before because you don't have enough history to draw upon. Your 20s are the first period in your life where you are an actual functioning adult and presumably productive member of society. Okay? Everything up until 18, you are not a legal adult. You cannot make your own decisions unless you decide to become emancipated legally from your parents. And now you're 22, so you've been like a quote unquote legal adult for about four years. And by the way, the last four years you were likely in college. So that's a very skewed version of what adulthood is like too. And so, all right, now you're 26 now. You've really only had four years of experience. And it's not to Negate the first 22 years of your life before you met this guy that you were with maybe your senior year of college. It's just to say that the point, point of meeting new people and continuing to live is that every new guy does and should make you feel a different way. Because everybody's different. Everybody opens up a different side of you, everybody shows you a different side of what you want. And as you get older, you're able to distill more and more exactly what you want. So if you're saying to yourself, I've never felt this way before, that's normal, okay? And even if you're in your 30s or 40s and you say, I have never felt this way before, first of all, you got to make sure it's not just because you're in the honeymoon phase. Because if you're saying, I've never felt this way before and it's only been, I would say, three months, six months, anywhere up to the nine month mark. Give it time. People reveal themselves over time. And I think it's pretty easy to kind of fake being a different type of person. Maybe not even maliciously, but just like putting on aversion or as I think Chris Rock said this, that like the first three months of a relationship, you're meeting somebody's representative, you're not meeting them. Like, it's really easy to just. To just shove away all the skeletons in your closet for a couple months because when you first go into somebody's home, you don't automatically go and open up all the closets, right? You go to a guy's apartment and, like, you hang out in his living room, you hang out in his kitchen, you go to his bathroom, his bedroom, all those places he can keep clean. I mean, I remember when I first started dating Dave, I was like, wow, this is like the cleanest single man I've ever met. Every time I went to his place, his toilet was clean, all the surfaces were dusted. Everything was just like his bed was made. I was like, damn, this is great. I mean, look, he didn't have great taste in decor, but that's his separate issue. Everything was clean. And now, after seven years, the amount of time I must remind this man that it is your to do list to clean the toilets. That is one of the things that Dave's chores, like, we divide and conquer with the chores around our house. And I will do the things that Dave just simply cannot do or, you know, what he could do, but he does not do to my satisfaction. I do those chores, but there are other chores where it's like cleaning toilets and, like, loading and unloading the dishwasher that I just don't care about, that I know he can handle, even though his domestic abilities are severely lacking, like those I give to him. I have to remind him so many times to clean the toilet before the rings form. And so he didn't trick me. It's just, again, the first couple months of our relationship, I met his representative, his agent, and he shoved away the side of him that actually hates cleaning toilets into a closet. But guess what happens when you've been with a guy for a while and you guys move in together. You open up the closets, you see what's inside, and then you realize, wow, this is kind of a wreck. But you know what? We're going to do some spring cleaning. We're going to try and fix some of the shit in here, and some of it we're not going to fix because everybody's a little bit of a hoarder inside. And they're like, I know I should let X, Y, and Z go. Or they this entirely awful, ugly oil painting that I had when I was a bachelor. There is one oil painting that Dave refuses to get rid of. It. It was not very expensive, but it is like an original piece of art. He bought it off of the street off of some guy in New York. And it's just like, literally red and black, and it's just so Creepy to me. It's a red and black skyline painting of New York City, and I love New York City Manhattan skyline paintings, but this one just gives me the heebie jeebies. He refuses to let it go. So you know what? It still exists in our house. It is in a closet somewhere in the basement, and that's where it will live. All right? So you open up the closets, the metaphorical closets of a human, and you realize that they are human at the end of the day. And that's what I want you to remember, is that the person you are with is a human being. And you can call him or her your soulmate, but if that word is prohibiting you from actually treating the person you're with like a human or prohibiting you from leaving the person who is not treating you like a human, who is worthy of love and respect and care and attention, then that's a problem, because language matters. Words matter. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt. That's bullshit. I mean, I think about all of those kids who, over time, have harmed themselves because of severe verbal bullying. Like, you do not have to get physically beaten up to be over by somebody. And that's why emotional abuse is a thing. Obviously, physical abuse is insane, but what was that case from a few years ago where that girl literally convinced her boyfriend to kill himself? That was insane. That is a perfect example of why the words you speak matters. So remember that the next time you are using the word. He is my soulmate as an excuse for not leaving. Because in the end, baby girl, you are your own soulmate. And every man who comes into your life who you feel like is your soulmate, but then ends up leaving or you leave him, and they were only little shards of soulmates meant to shine a mirror onto the parts of yourselves that were not known to you yet, so that one day you could become a whole and complete person on your own without a man. Not because you don't need a man, but because you exist and you have value on your own. And so the next time you want to stay in a relationship that maybe isn't quite right, but he's never made you feel like this before, just remember these words for me, okay? If your man can't make reservations or he still owns navy blue sheets or he can't even properly fold a damn T shirt, you don't need to be staying with a guy simply because you've labeled him your soulmate. Guess what? Labels, most of the time can be peeled off. You're not inking it on your body. A label that you give to a relationship is sort of like, to me, those TJ Maxx and Home Good stickers, they're really annoying to peel off. Sure. You know, when they put the price tag on there, I don't know why, I feel like it's almost like they. It can't be, like, too good. Like, Home Goods and TJ Maxx are so good, and they. They're such my happy place that the one thing that has always pissed me off about the way they do things is their insane stickers with the bajillion pieces and holes and how sticky they are. And they leave that residue on there. All right. That's like getting out of a bad relationship. It is hard. It is like a Home Goods vase that is great. That has been marked down eight times, and therefore it has eight different stickers on them. And you. You're peeling off the label, and you're like, would it just been easier to leave the label on? Okay, maybe I could just live with this vase with the label on. No, girl, no, you can't. Okay? Nobody needs to know you got that on clearance for $5. Go through the effort of peeling the label off as best you can, and then go get yourself some goo gone, Put some on, put some gloves on and rub off the rest, and eventually it'll be like it never happened. One of my favorite quotes that I've been hanging on to lately, when I feel like nothing's really quite working out or I've gotten almost to where I wanted to be, or I've gotten, like, one opportunity that, like, almost happened and then it didn't. Is this quote from Mad Men that Don Draper said to Peggy, and he says, get out of here. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened. And I think that quote is so beautiful because to me, it's not denial, even though it sounds like it. It's just acknowledging that there is a fine line between processing grief and wallowing in it and how easy it is to slip into the wallowing aspect. And I think one day you're going to look back at this. If you are in a relationship right now where you feel like you can't get out because he's your soulmate, you're gonna one day look back. Like, I look back at so many relationships in my 20s and say, huh, I cannot believe I thought that man was my soulmate. It's like that never happened. Like, 10 years after the fact when I thought my life was over because my college ex dumped me. Wow. It really didn't happen. And so one day, you may look back at your life and think, I am so glad that I went through that and I broke up with my soulmate because I just realized that nothing means anything until I give it meaning. And this version that I'm living right now feels so good that I'm glad I did not stay with who I thought was my soulmate back then.