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My name is Lee Hawkins.
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I ve been a journalist for over 25 years.
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On my new podcast, What Happened in Alabama, I get answers to some of the hardest questions about how things came to be for many black Americans and the truth that must come before any reconciliation can happen.
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I investigate my family history, my upbringing in Minnesota, and my father s painful nightmares about growing up in Alabama.
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What Happened in Alabama is a new series confronting the cycles of trauma for myself, my family, and for many Black Americans.
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Listen now.
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I have no answer.
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I think that it is probably much more... Sarah, you have to have an answer.
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No.
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That s why you re on here.
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We come to you.
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You re all-knowing.
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You have to have... Oh, my God.
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You know how I start most of my talks?
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I start by saying I sound very confident, but I am sure of nothing.
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This is Don t Ask Tig.
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I m Tig Notaro, kindly asking you not to ask.
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My guest today is one of the world s most insightful and original voices on the subject of modern relationships.
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She s a psychotherapist, bestselling author, and host of the podcast
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where should we begin, and how s work?
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Welcome to the show, Esther Perel.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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You were truly the first guest where I told my producers, get me Esther Perel in person.
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I mean, we have to say that we are actually meeting both of us.
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I can t even believe, I don t know how many episodes I ve done, and it s all been over Zoom, except for my wife, who was a guest.
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I had the same experience a week ago.
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I saw my first couple in person and I was in tears.
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It was so moving to actually work in 3D.
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How is that making a difference in what you do, in your practice?
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compared to Zoom and distant connection therapy?
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It s really the subject on the mind of many, many therapists at this moment.
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I think it s in the mind of many people, but it s like, how much can you actually do on Zoom that is so much more than you had imagined online?
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And what do you lose?
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This couple that I saw for the new season of Where Should We Begin?
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At one point they say, and we fight about everything.
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And I just said, no, you don t.
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You actually fight about the same thing over and over again.
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You fight and you re afraid you re going to be left alone and everything s going to be on you again.
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And you fight and you feel like you re going to be told that you re an inadequate, incompetent person and that you can never do it right.
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And that s what you fight about all the time.
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But that said, when you have one of your spats in the middle of the kitchen in front of the kids and all of that, I want you to do one thing, lay down.
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Come on, lay down right now on the floor.
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So they look at me, I said, no, no, lay down.
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So they both lay flat on the floor.
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And then I said, and now continue the fight.
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It s impossible.
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You cannot fight when you re lying flat.
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We are programmed to be upright with our claws pointing, you know, when we are in our aggressive state.
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So when you lie flat, it dissolves the whole thing.
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And then from there,
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You know, they laughed and then it completely switched into the no, no, it s not the fighting I m worried about.
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It s the fact that you would leave me, he says, and it takes on a whole different direction.
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And I m thinking to myself, never would I do such a thing.
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you know on zoom and this is why i want to see you in person so i can work with your whole body being yeah and the creativity and the thoughts of the kinds of interventions that i will come up with at the moment that is it s fascinating and did you come up with that on your own did it strike you or you re like oh lie down try that or did somebody say oh i
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I tried to argue with my spouse when we were lying down.
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No, no, no.
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The way it went is, there is research that is very interesting about how when people actually touch each other, put their hand on the knee or the shoulder of the other person, that it really creates a bigger challenge for the kind of fighting that sometimes we can escalate into.
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Because the hand is caring, the hand is grounding.
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And you touch the bony handles, the knees, the hip, the shoulder.
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But a colleague of mine had mentioned, when I mentioned that research, he said, but you know, there is research on stress that talks about how it s very hard to find when you lay flat.
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And I didn t go further into the research, but when this couple talked about it, and I thought, I need something that really helps with the disruption, to create something discontinuous, to make it so absurd that you end up laughing at the very thing in which you are so gripped.
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And that s when I said, lay down.
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And I always think physical.
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That is a language that is very obvious to me, is that to create with the body a dialogue with the mind,
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but in its opposition and in a way that says, you can t hijack me.
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One says to the other, you can t hijack me.
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I m going to, you know, I m going to derail you.
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And that s how this came about.
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I don t think much about it when I say it.
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There s, I guess it s a meme that Stephanie and I saw once.
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One of us saw it and shared it with the other of somebody driving a car and their dog is in the passenger seat and put its paw on the arm
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of the person driving.
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And the meme is something like, you know, when you re fighting with your spouse and they touch you, like everything is okay, or it breaks the tension.
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And so to this day, when we have an argument, we ll put our dog paw on the other one s arm.
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Because when you put your paw on somebody or your hand on somebody, you are also saying, I care about you.
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I ve got you.
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I m with you.
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I m not your enemy.
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Your hand is communicating various things having to do with care, with love, with attachment, with worry.
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And at the same time, as you may be saying other things, it really does soften it.
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it goes against the underlying fears that people are having about the relationship at one point.
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In one of them, it s, you know, you could leave me and the other one is, you know, you will hurt me.
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And all of these underlying unspoken fears are basically spoken to with the hand without having to say anything.
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It s so crazy how powerful it is.
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Well, we ll have to try lying down.
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Let me know.
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Oh, I will.
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So as a therapist, can you give us an inside scoop on emotional state these days?
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Just the world.
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I there s a few things that I think really are coloring our psychological reality at this moment.
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And when I and this what I m going to describe now, maybe for the United States where I m sitting, and I would speak differently if I was in Europe, and I probably would speak very differently if I was in India or any other places in the world.
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Well, you speak all of those languages too, so.
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Many, but not Hindi or Urdu.
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But it just is important because we re so localized at this moment and we re so influenced by the reality.
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Here, where I am, people are kind of resuming, you know, coming back to their outward life.
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And that is not the case everywhere.
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But we have experienced a tremendous amount of uncertainty, prolonged uncertainty.
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Prolonged uncertainty is that you don t even know when the uncertainty will end.
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And even here, we may pretend it s over, supposedly, but we don t know.
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We actually really have no idea what s coming, you know, when the fall arrives, when the variants arrive, and all of that.
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So this prolonged uncertainty is annoying in the background the whole time.
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The world as you knew it, the kind of stability that you may have imagined, which many people have never had, but many did, is not exactly
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that stable.
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With that comes the notion of a sense of loss.
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And the loss, we have felt a lot of that collective loss and grief during the height of the pandemic, but it s even catching up with us now.
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Why?
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Because pandemics, this is as a relationship therapist, probably the most important thing.
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Pandemics, disasters, big crisis are relationship accelerators.
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Life is short.
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You suddenly realize the fragility of life, mortality is hitting you in the face, and you say, what am I waiting for?
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What am I waiting for can mean, let s move in together, let s get married, let s have the child, let s switch jobs, let s rearrange our priorities, or exactly that.
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I ve waited long enough, and I m out of here.
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This is subpar.
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I m not staying in this mediocrity.
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My life is too short to have to tolerate this.
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and you ve got it in both directions.
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This is probably the most important thing in the relationships at this moment.
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People are reevaluating, people are in touch with what they consider is the essence, their priorities, vis-a-vis work, vis-a-vis their family, vis-a-vis their relationships, vis-a-vis where they live, what they do, who they re friends with, what they ve accepted, what they shouldn t accept anymore, what they haven t dared to ask for, all of that.
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It s all heightened.
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Yeah, I mean, I changed my phone number.
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and I only contacted the last 20 people I texted.
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And I said, here s my new number.
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It didn t even matter who it was.
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I m just at the point where if I am truly connected with somebody, we will find each other.
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We will be able to have a conversation and say, and I will be able to say, listen, during this time was so overwhelming that I just needed to change my number and
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let what was going to shake loose, shake loose.
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That is so interesting.
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You shuffled the cards.
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Well, yeah.
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And I feel like you have my email address.
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We have mutual friends.
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You can contact me on social media and we can go from there.
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But I have family members.
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I didn t even give my number to not because I want to shake them loose.
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I just didn t have the energy.
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I just
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No, but you did an experiment.
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You discontinued the most important thread, the phone number, to your community to then see which are the people that will really be part of the renewed community.
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It s not that I don t want to be in touch with anybody ever again.
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I just needed a break and I need to authentically connect with
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who I connect with again.
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I mean, it s an amazing way to know who matters in one s life and who is kind of on the periphery.
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And they are sustained by all these devices that make them remain in touch with you.
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But in fact, they re not necessarily important people.
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And nobody seems to have taken offense.
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They re like, oh, great, thanks.
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It s like the clothes that you keep in your closet that you probably will never wear again.
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But you are used to seeing them every time you select the same pieces that you wear all the time.
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I know.
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And I m not comparing people to clothes.
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Yes, you are.
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I hear you.
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I knew you were going to do this to me.
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The old rags hanging in there.
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The importance and the adjacent, it s what you are, we are used to have a certain, you know, layers that envelop us.
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And then when you open that up, you are just left with the core.
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Yeah, yes.
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Esther, it s time to answer some listener questions.
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This feels silly to ask someone as qualified as you, but are you ready to do this?
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Yeah.
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All right.
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First up, we have a question involving forbidden desire.
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Very Anonymous writes, Hi Tig, I have a crush on one of my boyfriend s friends.
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Not enough to make me question my relationship status or even act on it, but I m writing now because I just woke up from a dream about this guy telling me he might have a crush on me too, and the butterflies were real.
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Help me stop these feelings, please.
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Well, first of all, Asir, I feel like this person is questioning the status of their relationship.
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But what s your feeling about these butterflies that Very Anonymous is experiencing?
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Or is this just one of those fleeting curiosity distractions?
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First of all, I want to normalize it.
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I mean, when we are with one person,
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That s a life story.
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Life stories are not the same as love stories.
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You may have butterflies for someone.
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That doesn t necessarily make you question your whole life with the person.
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It just means that you re alive and well and ticking and you have, you know, enthusiasm for others.
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You have fantasies.
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You re dreaming about it.
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You wonder what would life be with that person.
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It s like reading a novel, but you have to really understand the power of your imagination and not think that your imagination is by definition a decision.
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It just says you re wandering, you re dreaming, you could be traveling in your mind about going to different places, you could be reading a deep novel, or you can be fantasizing attractions and enthrallments about somebody else.
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What makes it actually dangerous is when people enter this thing, if I have butterflies for this person, then what does it say about my person?
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I have never had these kinds of butterflies.
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or I have no, I don t have them anymore.
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Well, if you don t have them anymore, ask yourself, what have you done lately to kind of bring in some energy into your relationship, to infuse it with some imagination, with some creativity?
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Maybe that tells you, I need to go and make sure that I have some of that in my relationship, and that s for you to do, by the way.
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The fact that you have this person who is awakening you, use that energy, and then say, I need more of that in my life, you know, and go and bring it where you wanna bring it.
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That s, to me, it s very important to understand the imagination is a language that tells us things, but it stays often in the realm of the imagination.
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There are lots of things we think about, we dream about, we fantasize about.
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That doesn t mean we want them in our life.
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You may want, you may have butterflies about something with this guy, but if you think a step further and you think about what would a daily life be with him and waking up in the morning, you may think of my dead body.
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Never, you know, so you just, you stay stuck at the first thought, go further in the story.
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And can you imagine with that person, you know, raising a kid, going to see your family, sitting at Thanksgiving, you know, sitting in an airport when the plane is delayed, just bring in 10 real life situations and then ask yourself if you still have butterflies.
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Right.
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All right.
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Well, very anonymous.
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That advice is straight from the world s leading expert on this issue.
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And it s one thought at this moment.
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That doesn t mean this is the only way to think about it.
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I bet she s having more than one thought.
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All right, Esther, sit tight.
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We ll return with more questions after a short break.
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I m Ben Nadafafri, host of the history show The Last Archive, and I want to tell you about a new series we re running in our feed.
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It s called The Deadline, six essays written and read by Jill Lepore, the New Yorker writer, American historian, and founding host of our show.
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These are incredible essays on everything from the history of cryogenics to the Silicon Valley gospel of disruption.
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And at the end of each essay, I interview Jill about her craft as a writer.
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You can listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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And we are back with more questions.
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Esther, this next one has to do with a post-corona conundrum.
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Re-entry anxiety.
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This is a new term.
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Do you think that in general cities have been reopening too soon?
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As things start to open up, I feel a little nauseous.
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If you ve been vaccinated, you don t have to wear your mask and you can shake hands.
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You didn t give each other a hug.
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Do I really need to wear underwear with my bathrobe just because the FedEx guy is here?
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Betsy writes, I am an American living in Paris, and one of the big post-COVID questions being asked around here is whether or not we will start doing la bise, aka the two cheek kisses French people give to each other to say hello.
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I always hated doing it, especially with men who I don t know well or who I m not comfortable with and have been relieved to not have to do it this past year because of the pandemic.
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Most of the women I know here, expats and French alike, feel the same way.
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However, some traditional French folks, older men mostly, cling to the tradition.
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They lean in, you pull away, it s horribly awkward.
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How do I navigate these potentially uncomfortable greetings without giving off a bad first impression when meeting people?
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What a beautiful question.
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I mean, you know, when you and I met earlier today, I hugged you and I hugged Stephanie.
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And I was about to say, I have never hugged people.
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I always kissed them.
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I gave them la bise.
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Because I thought hugging was more intimate than kissing.
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These
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greeting rituals are highly cultural, and they have really different meanings.
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The handshake versus the elbow.
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Well, now I m offended that you didn t give me la bise, because that s more intimate to you, is to give that.
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And so you re like, oh my gosh, I m going to hug this person.
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But that s a post-corona thing.
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I am not thinking, I think that most people at this moment really are more comfortable with a hug and the face kind of to the other side than actually coming closer and kissing people.
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So it s very interesting for me, I ve been observing how I have hugged so many more people that I would never have wanted to hug.
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What she s feeling with the bees, I used to feel with the hug.
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So cross-cultural in reverse.
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I think that is going to be a lot of changes around like, you know, shaking the hand, that thing that so many of us have done became like the most, you know, dangerous gesture to do.
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So we re going to have... I was ahead of the curve there.
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You never shook hands?
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No, I did, but I hated it.
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I was just like, I mean, unless I knew somebody, I d rather just... But you shake the hands of somebody you don t know, and you kiss someone you do know.
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In France, you often will come, I m from Belgium, but we ve actually kissed three times.
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We don t kiss two in Belgium.
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You shake the hand when you say hello, and you kiss when you say goodbye to a stranger, because you now know them well enough to actually leave and be able to kiss them.
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But
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my reaction was always here the the hug where you do the bear hug where you tap them on the shoulder and I thought that s what you do with the pet.
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Why do people do this to a person?
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So this is to say there is nothing absolute in any of these rituals.
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I think that she has time on her hand where she can for the time being still say I m not yet comfortable you know giving the kiss or
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I m taking advantage of this social change, and I m going to be greeting slightly differently.
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You have license at this moment to say, the old is no longer serving.
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That s like changing my number.
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Yes.
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You know, it s a new time.
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You can really ride this wave for a while.
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Yes.
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That s my suggestion to her.
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You have license and time.
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Milk it.
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Yeah, go ahead.
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Yeah, run with it.
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Betsy, run.
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Alright, so here is another dilemma that your expertise might be helpful for.
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So, non-monogamous in New Orleans writes,
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My long-term partner and I have recently opened up our relationship.
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It s not our first rodeo, but it s been a while, so we do talk a lot about setting boundaries and managing emotions.
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However, after my recent date, in a fit of jealousy, she read my private journal and found some particularly
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salacious entries about my new fling.
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She was crushed by what she read, and I feel the privacy of my inner thoughts have been violated.
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How do we go about establishing trust again?
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This feels very tricky.
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But very common.
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I mean, common in the sense that these are some of the challenges that non-exclusive, non-monogamous couples have to grapple with.
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by the way, all couples grapple with, you know, what is mine?
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What is ours?
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Where can you enter into my territory?
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What happens when I feel invaded in my privacy?
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Are my thoughts a diary?
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My thoughts?
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And they speak to the fact that I think these things, this is just a reflection of me at a particular moment.
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It doesn t mean
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that this is the statement that you need to hear.
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There s a gap between what I think and what I say, what I can allow myself to fantasize about and what you need to know.
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And when does somebody need to know what you re fantasizing about?
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That is a conversation.
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There is no set measurement for that.
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You know, some couples
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are very open about their thoughts, especially thoughts that involve desires and fantasies about others.
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And some couples are much more restricted about that.
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They, A, don t accept that they share them, and B, don t necessarily accept that the other one would have them.
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So you have different degrees here.
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And by the way, a couple evolves like this couple.
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They have tried this before.
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My question here is, are both of you open to this idea of opening up your relationship?
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Is this a joint decision or is there one of you that is actually putting some pressure on the other for the relational boundaries to shift?
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If you are both open to this, do you both have similar needs?
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People who open relationships sometimes share a value, but not necessarily their sensibilities.
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What are your needs?
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What do you need to know?
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And sometimes one person wants to know everything and the other one says, I don t want to know anything.
1
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So do you have conversations about that in advance?
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Is it about, you can have sex, but I don t want you to get attached?
1
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Is it about, it can be somebody, but it can t be someone in our circle?
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Is it about, I don t want you to have with another person more than what you have with me?
1
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Where is the jealousy?
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And jealousy is not something that you have to eradicate.
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Jealousy is something that you need to metabolize.
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It is a part of it.
1
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You know, there s often a saying that if exclusive couples have to grapple with monotony, non-exclusive couples have to grapple with jealousy.
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I mean, they each bring out certain challenges and tensions.
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Now,
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Is your partner, when you talk about being invaded, does your partner understand why you feel that your trust was broken?
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What it does to you?
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Do you understand why your partner was triggered?
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What was so intense for this that she or they needed to understand what it was that you felt with this other person?
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And what is it saying about what s happening between the two of you?
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Is there something missing in your relationship that then appears to be possible with other people?
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And that s the jealousy.
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So you have got to have those conversations.
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And you can be helped by reading some of the very good books that are out there for polycouples and non-monogamous couples so that you actually get an input or
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There s a lot of discussion groups that really grapple with these ongoing challenges in the process of opening up.
1
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Join that conversation.
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So it s not just the two of you talking.
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You will hear somebody else who completely represents your point of view, and your partner will be hearing someone else.
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And you will hear your partner through someone else actually speaking that same voice.
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And you ll be able to probably be more compassionate to each other because other people
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are opening up that conversation.
1
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So that s my, I think sometimes these conversations are held better when they re not just between the two of you all the time.
1
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Mm hmm.
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Yeah, it s really remarkable how the experience of other people
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just can walk you through something.
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This question has been written on many, many chat groups.
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Really, go and ask it.
1
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People will tell you, people who have experience, people who have done this for many, many years will be able to share with you what they found, what they changed, how they learned to give each other the space, but also not be triggered by feeling that the other person was, in a way, having a secret life or betraying you or any of those things.
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joint conversations.
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These are the common challenges that non-monogamous couples often deal with, especially in the beginning.
1
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Okay, well, non-monogamous in New Orleans, we hope that helps you and your partner rebuild trust again.
1
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Esther, our last question comes from Joe.
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Hello, Joe.
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I ve never gotten a question like this, I ll tell you that.
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Oh, wow.
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The casualness of Joe.
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Listen to this.
1
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Tell you how you do it.
1
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My name is Joe.
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I have a big problem.
1
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My girlfriend is gorgeous, but she s gained a ton of weight and doesn t show any signs of wanting to lose it.
1
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That s Joe s question.
1
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Jo, do you still enjoy the touch of her skin?
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Do you enjoy kissing her?
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Do you enjoy stroking her?
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Do you enjoy putting your hand in her hair?
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And does it trouble her?
1
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So that s the next thing.
1
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When you say she has no intention, that s an attribution.
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I have no idea what your girlfriend actually thinks about
1
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about her having gained weight, and what you consider is gaining weight, and what you consider is doing something to want to lose it.
1
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I mean, this is a whole conversation underneath, you know?
1
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And does your girlfriend feel that you are supporting her in this, or does she just feel judged, or she feels your disgust, or she feels your distance?
1
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What s your response to her vulnerability, you know, to her challenge?
1
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And why has she gained weight?
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And do you think it s something she can control?
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Or is this of her own doing or is this a reaction to any medication or all kinds of other reasons why people sometimes gain weight.
1
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So I understand that it s not physically, visually pleasing to you, but that is only a small part of the conversation.
1
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I ve seen many people who are with very beautiful people who they think are perfectly attractive, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
1
SPEAKER_01
But if you don t like their touch, and if you don t like to kiss them, and if you don t like to hold them, and if you don t like their smell, then what difference does it make?
1
SPEAKER_01
So now it s to you.
1
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Are you hooked on the look, and on the weight, and on the gain, and therefore that s all you are now constantly going back to?
1
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Or are you able to create a fantasy world together, a world of pleasure, not a world of measure?
1
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And I think that that will open up possibilities for you.
1
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Otherwise, it s going to become an all or nothing conversation.
1
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Gain weight, gain loss.
1
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And you won t go anywhere with that.
1
SPEAKER_01
I still love you, I still find you attractive, but you ve got all these pounds.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why is that such a focus?
1
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And why does that become the central thing now that you see before you see anything else?
1
SPEAKER_01
What makes us want to make love to a person is their looks, but their looks come from all kinds of places.
1
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I ve seen lots of people who enjoy their looks when they re mad at each other, they don t want to touch each other.
1
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So,
1
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Deal with your rigidity for a moment about that, because that s the one thing you can control.
1
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If you can t control the weight gain or the weight loss, you can control your reaction to it and your obsession with it.
1
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Yeah, it s Joe.
1
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I mean, how are you doing, you know?
1
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Joe, if you were a person who liked voluptuous, who liked round,
1
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you would know that what really is a turn-on is not just the weight of a person, but how the person experiences their own body, how much the person invites the experience of pleasure and connection.
1
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When people look at people who have sex, they may look at body shape, but what they really always look at is someone who is into it.
1
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That s what turns us on.
1
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It s someone who s into it and helps us be into it, not just a set of criteria.
1
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So this is just one thing I want.
1
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Don t get stuck in your criteria because you will end up losing.
1
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All right, Jo, right back and let us know how that goes.
1
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Esther, before I let you go, there s one final thing I need your help with.
1
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It s a segment called Advice of Yesteryear.
1
SPEAKER_00
When Jerry brags about taking Ginny out, he learns that she dates all the boys.
1
SPEAKER_00
So as we see now, menstruation is just one routine step in a normal and natural cycle.
1
SPEAKER_00
How do you choose a date?
1
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Well, one thing you can consider is look.
1
SPEAKER_00
I did everything you said, but my boss still hasn t asked me to lunch.
1
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This is where we take a real question.
1
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from an advice column of yesteryear and try to answer a little better.
1
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This question comes to us from 1976 from America s most famous advice column, Dear Abby.
1
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Dear Abby, I m a woman who has been in the business world for many years.
1
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I have been told that I should think like a man.
1
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Should a woman take that as a compliment?
1
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Signed, thinks like a man.
1
SPEAKER_02
You have a troubled look on your face.
1
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It actually makes me feel like things have changed somewhat.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s nice when those moments and markers happen where you think, oh, we ve made some progress.
1
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Yes, the categories have shifted somewhat.
1
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Yes.
1
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Wow.
1
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I mean, it s like think in the most creative way you can think.
1
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Think and be original.
1
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Think and be counterintuitive.
1
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Think and be charismatic.
1
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you know, think and offer solutions people haven t thought about.
1
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And that s what I was saying in the beginning of this episode, is that s what struck me so much about you.
1
SPEAKER_02
I was telling Stephanie, when we were talking about you on our trip to New York, it feels similar to, in the comedy world, there s such a rhythm to typical comedy.
1
SPEAKER_02
And every now and then, as a comedian, or even when you re not a comedian,
1
SPEAKER_02
and you are enjoying comedy, and you hear somebody or see somebody in this, a comedian, where you think, oh my gosh, this is a rhythm I haven t heard, or where is this influence from?
1
SPEAKER_02
I love the singer, I don t know if you know who Chrissy Hynde is from The Pretenders.
1
SPEAKER_02
Her voice and the way she s one of my favorites, and I m always like, I know she loves Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, but I don t hear
1
SPEAKER_02
and Ray Davies of the Kinks, but I don t hear a hint of any of that in her.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so I m just like, where did this come from?
1
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And so... I mean, I think what you described, like being suddenly surprised because something different has just appeared, it s one of the most exciting things.
1
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I find that I m constantly looking for a new way to think about something that I ve been dabbling with.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that there are tropes out there that just all say the same thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you kind of know, like a piece of music, actually, you know, you re talking music.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you hear the first few notes, you pretty much have a sense of where the rest of the phrase is gonna go, because we are patterns.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I love somebody who breaks patterns.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, should you think more like a man?
1
SPEAKER_01
No, it s like, break patterns.
1
SPEAKER_01
And maybe sometimes it s, and I can t, the categories no longer fit.
1
SPEAKER_01
There are more women in business.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so you don t have to feel like you are the only one, but sometimes you will be the only one.
1
SPEAKER_01
In some boardrooms and at some tables, you will be the only one.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s when you actually want to stand out.
1
SPEAKER_02
Do you want to hear what Dear Abby had to say?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I m very curious.
1
SPEAKER_02
Dear Thanks.
1
SPEAKER_02
only if she thinks a man s thinking is superior to that of a woman s.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes, but then take out the gender piece.
1
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Use any way of thinking that you think is going to elevate your way of thinking, but don t think that it is because it came from a man.
1
SPEAKER_01
It just was an interesting way to think.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s the thing that has changed.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
Well, thankfully, that is the thing that has changed.
1
SPEAKER_02
Any last thought that you d like to share before we head out of this experience and episode?
1
SPEAKER_01
So many times when you ask me questions, I thought, you know, these are situations that I was thinking about when I went into my latest creation, which was my pandemic happy project.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it was the creation of where should we begin the game of stories?
1
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because your questions are questions of stories.
1
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And stories is the way we bond.
1
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Stories is the way we connect and reconnect.
1
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Stories is the way we tell our life.
1
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I m fascinated with stories.
1
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I think of relationships as stories.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I went ahead and in the beginning, I felt lonely.
1
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In the beginning of the pandemic, I felt lonely.
1
SPEAKER_01
I missed my dinner parties.
1
SPEAKER_01
I missed being curious, you know, being able to
1
SPEAKER_01
lean to the outside and collect new things.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I thought, I need to help people be more playful.
1
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I miss playfulness myself.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, the card game has become literally a game that will help us with the social atrophy, and it will accompany us in how we connect and how we reconnect.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s awesome.
1
SPEAKER_01
What is it called?
1
SPEAKER_01
It s called Where Should We Begin?
1
SPEAKER_01
A Game of Stories.
1
SPEAKER_01
Love it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I brought you a few envelopes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m going to let you pick one.
1
SPEAKER_01
And do I just randomly pick one?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you randomly pick one of these envelopes.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s an envelope and on the front of every envelope is a prompt.
1
SPEAKER_01
Share something risky.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_01
And now inside are two cards.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_02
Read me the two cards.
1
SPEAKER_02
My guilty pleasure is... and I ve always been embarrassed about... Right.
1
SPEAKER_02
So your guilty pleasure, that is risky,
1
SPEAKER_02
I do love a plant-based heap of just junk food, you know, sometimes.
1
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I have these moments where I do feel guilty because I struggle between, do I stay the course always trying to eat whole foods and really being healthy?
1
SPEAKER_02
And then I have these moments where I treat myself with really unhealthy
2
SPEAKER_03
healthy food, which I do think is okay, but in the moment I feel guilt and I have a way... You feel guilt right away or you first experience the pleasure of it and then it induces the fear of the consequences and then you feel guilty about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s all of it, I think.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s a good one.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, okay, well, it s true.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re an evangelist with guilt.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, people, when they see me have, and yes, Oreos are vegan, when people see me have things like Oreos, they re like, oh, I didn t know you ate that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, well, yeah, I have human moments, but I don t have a jar of Oreos at my house.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I do, I have these waves of fear of,
2
SPEAKER_03
What I love is the way people rationalize their guilty pleasures.
2
SPEAKER_03
They have a whole story about it.
2
SPEAKER_03
I don t have a jar, I just want occasion.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yes, they are vegan.
2
SPEAKER_03
This is the voice of the guilty pleasure.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s how it speaks.
2
SPEAKER_01
We were just at Disneyland with our two boys and Stephanie, or somebody, bought cotton candy.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was just hanging out eating a big old thing of cotton candy.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it did, it crossed my mind where I thought, oh, what if somebody recognizes me and I m just, I have this huge pink thing of cotton candy going into my face.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they might be like, wait, what is she doing eating that?
2
SPEAKER_03
And you would instantly say, no, I don t eat them often, it s just here, it s because we re in it.
2
SPEAKER_03
In fact, the sugar that they put in is not such a bad sugar and it s okay for the plant-based and it s only on occasion.
2
SPEAKER_03
This is the guilty pleasure talks.
2
SPEAKER_01
So there, is that a good guilty pleasure?
2
SPEAKER_01
That is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, Esther, this is the end of our road.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I truly can t thank you enough for coming on the show.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s beyond a pleasure to meet you.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s even better than I had hoped it would be.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, so nice.
2
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much.
2
SPEAKER_01
And a very special thanks to Magnificent Noise for recording this episode in their studios.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s what you heard.
2
SPEAKER_01
Don t Ask Tig is hosted by me, Tig Notaro.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s produced by Thomas Ouellette, Shana Deloria, and Ryan Lohr.
2
SPEAKER_01
Our editor is Beth Perlman, executive producer Lauren Dee, engineering and sound mixing by Johnny Vince Evans and Eric Romani, digital production by Christina Lopez, talent booking by Marianne Ways, production support from Pizza Shark,
2
SPEAKER_01
Our theme music is Friend in Tig by Edie Burkell and Kyle Krushem, and Listen to Your Heart by Edie Burkell.
2
SPEAKER_01
Special thanks to Hunter Seidman, Lily Kim, and Alex Shaffer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Concept developed by Tracy Mumford.
2
SPEAKER_01
Our executive consultant is Dean Capello and Gobsmack Studios.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can always ask for advice at DontAskTig.org.
2
SPEAKER_01
Just write in with your problem or send us a voicemail.
2
SPEAKER_01
Remember to follow us on social media at Don t Ask Tig.
2
SPEAKER_01
Don t Ask Tig is a production of American Public Media.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as always, thanks, Dana, and I ll tell Becky.
2
SPEAKER_01
Hi, I m stand-up comedian and sex symbol Tig Notaro.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m actor and writer Sheryl Hines.
2
SPEAKER_01
Before Sheryl and I got into the big business of podcasting together, we were just simply friends.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we re still friends.
2
SPEAKER_00
But now we talk about a different documentary every week on our podcast, Tig and Sheryl, True Story.
2
SPEAKER_00
So whether you love documentaries or just want to hear us slowly lose our minds, check out Tig and Sheryl, True Story, wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_01
Alright, cool.