500 Days of Summer: Situationships, Adjustment, and Depression

Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment
purposes and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture in all forms. Please
remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists, we aren't your therapist.
If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find a local mental
health provider. Hello everybody, this is our Valentine's Day episode of twenty twenty
three, and we are going to be talking about finally five hundred Days of
Summer. It's the movie that everyone has been asking us to do for like
four seasons, the dawn of time, since the dawn of time. So
here you are, guys, You're getting it. You voted for it,
and you got it. Yep. I'm ashamed of you all that you did
not pick A Knight's Tale I'm going to tell you now it wasn't even in
the top three. Yeah, it wasn't. More shame. So five hundred
Days of Summer, a brief overview, is about a guy named Tom who
quote unquote falls in love with a girl that he meets at his work named
Summer, and it kind of covers the five hundred days of their relationship,
which we're going to talk about. Is it even a relationship because the topic
of today's episode is situationships, the term that has risen to prominence amongst common
modern day culture. So what is a situationship? You ask? Thank you
for asking. A situationship is basically a relationship, a dating relationship that's not
defined. That's why it's kind of this like ish kind of statement, like
we're in a situation ish ship because you can't define it as an actual girlfriend,
boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, whatever, committed relationship. But you're also
not just friends. It's this horrible purgatory limbo territory that a lot of people
find themselves in nowadays. And it was interesting to watch a movie that is
from twenty two thousand and nine that so perfectly demonstrates what I would consider a
situation ship. Yes, because right around to two thousand and five, thanks
to Facebook and it's lovely, lovely addition of it's complicated, we created a
whole generation of people who had gone from having parents look at them and going,
why are these little kids out here acting like they're married? When we
used to just date people. The number of times my parents had those conversations
with me of like, why don't you guys date more people? You go
on a date with Katie and you go on a date with Sarah and you
go on a date with Jill. Why you don't just pick one person and
start dating them or fifteen? But that was not the way our generation did
things. We had all these little marriages. Everybody we dated was a little
marriage. It was a serious relationship we were dedicated to. And then Facebook
came along and went it's complicated, and we went there's another option. Well,
And also I think it's kind of risen with you know, not to
get two sidetracked, but I think it's kind of a risen from which is
a hallmark that you're going to get sidetracked as probably as we I think progressed
societally and female presenting people like women have become more empowered with their sexuality.
I think it's also developed this murky territory of like friends with benefits sort of
hookup culture. Like, I think there's a lot of elements that have led
to creation of this limbo territory where for some reason or another, we can't
define this relationship. Yes, and I think this movie is a clear version
of one of those kind of situations, which is one person wants it to
be more Tom and one person doesn't Summer. And I think situationships occur because
one or both parties is not willing to define the relationship for whatever reason.
So I think going into this movie specifically, we're introduced to Tom, and
right away we're introduced to someone who is very romantically inclined and maybe also not
the most emotionally intelligent about romance. Like the way they introduced his character is
is that he loves the graduate, watches it repeatedly, and has a total
misunderstanding of it, Like he doesn't understand that the ending is mixed to tragic,
yeah, and not romantic the way that he's interpreting it at a young
age, which is common for people to watch movies like that that have so
much zeitgeist around them, that they get lost in the nostalgia of it and
fail to understand not nostalgia's not the right word. The right word, it'll
be a placeholder to the right where it comes to my brain. But yeah,
they get lost in the mythos of it. Yes, I think it's
it's very much romanticizing romance. I think a lot of what people must undertain
about The Graduate, and I think what they're saying in this movie is that
romance is enough, like the thrill of like the sort of the lust excitement
period is enough to sustain because in The Graduate, which I haven't watched in
forever, kind of the ending of it kind of signifies like these are two
people that have not actually gotten to know each other very well. Nope,
and they don't know what they're doing. They're just in the moment, caught
up in the passion, if you will, and the confusion, and to
people who don't know who they are, who think they'll find each other in
each other. And I think that's Tom to a t Well. Yeah,
and he creates the same problem around that movie, Like the romanticizing of a
romance is that they start thinking about how they'll tell the story, and they
think about how they're going to maintain integrity to the story they're going to be
telling their grandchildren about how they met their grandma, and they fail to understand
that this person that they're assigning these attributes to that they're telling this story,
this is how we met story about that most of their efforts are going into
maintaining the weaving of that story instead of getting to know the person that that
story is about and building the relationship the big Love is about. Instead,
they just want the big love so bad that when they get a story that
could feasibly be woven into the big Love, they cannot possibly understand that they're
not seeing the person in front of them. They're just assigning No, No,
she met me this way and she just walked into my life. So
obviously this is the big love, just like all the romantic stories. Because
I think what we can say from the jump with this movie is that Tom
does not see summer. He does not see summer, and he does not
hear summer. He is a person totally in his imagination. He has no
awareness that he doesn't he has no awareness at all about anything. No,
she got on an elevator, she was beautiful, she was interesting and quirky,
and she liked the Smiths and he never saw that coming. And all
of a sudden, his intrigue is spiked and he's woven a story that now
she has to fit as the main character because she's there. He's reverse engineering
their situation. That's a good word. Yeah, he is phrase. He
desperately wants to be in love and he wants that to change his life because
he is someone who is letting life happen to him. Like they say established
right away that he went to school for architecture, that's his passion, and
yet he fell into a job, which that happens to people in their twenties,
that you fall into the first job you get out of school and then
you just stay there. Well, especially then, this is two thousand and
nine, so it's post recess. Well's right in the recession, it's right
in it, right, Yes, So he got the first job and then
just stayed because there were no other jobs. I mean, they make it
quite clear, like they don't name the time the year in this, But
this didn't occur to me until you just said it. Thinking about it.
We were all there, how many of us right in the age group got
out of college or grad school with this just full of pisson, vin and
gratitude about to take on the world. And then the big short happened.
The economy fell apart, and there was nothing, and those experiences of interview
after interview after interview after interview, and no one taking or taking a job
that you knew was below market value, below your work, and we had
people with master's degrees, We're going to Starbucks. One assume the job,
especially I assume for his a field, because architecture, I'm assuming I don't
know anything about architectures. That for it always seems to be only a job
that people have in movies. Is that that I assume that would be a
career That would be hard to get a job in drawing a recession or like
anyway. So, yeah, it's big finance. It's it's building things that
people don't have money to buy, or the banks don't have the money to
invest into the building from ripping people off with you know, mortgages and other
things that they need to finance said building with pretend money. Yeah. So
I think where we find Tom at the beginning of this movie is someone who
has stopped looking kind of like he seems like someone who's just getting going along
because it's been like four years or three or four years at the screening card
job, and it doesn't sound like he's been trying to get back into architicture.
It sound like he's staying in the loop with getting a job in his
actual field of study during all this, and so he seems like someone well
they do say in the movie, he's always been looking for the one,
right, and so yeah, I think he already had an idea of who
he wants in his brain and then Summer shows up, and you're right.
She's beautiful, she's got charisma, she ish, and she happens to like
something. Well, I think, well, what they say in the in
the movie is that she is kind of standoffish. That's why I was like,
I don't want to, like, you know, attribute her to chrismas
I think in the office she is a little like standoffish. But I think
he projects a lot of stuff onto her, So it doesn't really matter if
she has a quote unquote personality or not, because I think something this movie
does right away is how much all the men project onto her. You know,
she wasn't super friendly in the copy room, So she must be a
bitch. You know, she did said this thing, so maybe she's a
skank. Like all the men in this movie are already without knowing anything about
her or talking to her at all or deciding who she is, yeah,
immediately, And so I think she just becomes an object that Tom puts a
lot onto. And I think it's also that misogynistic idea that if a girl
has a unique interest, then she's like a unicorn because she has like something
you like. I think that's happened, something that happens a lot, like,
Oh, she different than all the other girls. Well, because she
has like my thing, like a quirky thing like you said, have been.
Well, it's the cool girl idea, right, cool cool girl who
likes the stuff that I like. Like how she could like this Smith.
The Smiths are on the most popular bands. Yeah, that exists absolutely,
And so the fact that she likes the Smith and she's hot, this girl's
from older space. Yeah, Like it just doesn't make any sense at all.
No, But you know, given where he's at in his life,
we see him very thoroughly imprint like a little baby bunny. Yes, because
I think what was interesting watching this movie now, especially now that I'm older
in my thirties, is that she tells him repeatedly, repeatedly throughout the movie,
I don't want a boyfriend, she don't want a relationship. Are you
cool with me wanting that not being this relationship? Are you sure you're cool?
Are you sure you're cool? Yeah? She checks in, she asks,
she double checks, and Tom just lies to her face every single time.
Yes, there's no equivocation on that. Yeah. He wants her to
be in a place she is not in. He does not maintain his own
boundaries out of hope. She does not ever lie to him, She does
not misrepresent where she's at what she wants. He imprints upon her his hopes
that she will change her mind. And I don't know about you to other
therapists in the room, but I can think of probably tens of thousands of
therapeutic hours I've spent with people going over exactly those situations. Yeah, Because
I mean, this is why I think people fall into situationships a lot and
stay in them for long periods of time, is that they aren't being honest
about what they want in the relationship, and they're not being honest about what
the other person is actually able to provide them, Like I think she does
an ecklent job of communicating it. Yeah, And and I think that a
lot of times what I tell clients, you know, kind of what you're
saying, is I tell clients like, what are what are they telling you?
What are they showing you? Why aren't you believing them what they say?
And they tell you, And then a lot of times we'll say yeah,
but like kind of what you guys have said, like maybe but they're
doing this, or maybe they changed their mind. It's that hope out there
that people struggle to let go of. And it's also well I was gonna
say, and there's even that scene in the movie where his two friends say,
well, have you asked him hast out? Have you asked her to
be your girlfriend? And he was like no, like we don't believe in
labels. Oh my god. I could go on about that for an hour,
right, and well that's what we're doing. Ye. Well, I
mean people saying that out loud because it's not true. It's never true.
And I think what he's really, what he's really saying, is I don't
want to ask because I'm scared if I actually have the conversation with her,
this is gonna be over that's what happened. Well, yeah, absolutely.
And I also feel like Tom's not interested in what Summer wants or needs.
He's only interested in what he wants and needs, and he filters everything through
that perception. Yes, absolutely, Like even when like everything she says and
does, I mean this movie is also so in his head, Like when
she lets him into her apartment, which is something you would do for a
friend, for a guy you're just having sex with, you know what I
mean, he like reads into that. He's like, she's letting her walls
down, She's letting me in her special place. I bet you that very
rarely people. He's ascribing all of this intense meaning to the fact that she's
letting him in her apartment, which is something people do for you know,
plumbers, you know what I mean. Like he's acting like she's this I
think part of the ironic part about the way he's projecting on her, which
I don't think people are aware enough, is he is mystifying her, like
he's creating this whole narrative like she is this unicorn fairy. Yeah, that
is still mysterious. And it's not that she's not wanting to be with him,
she's just really guarded and she's such a like he just has to wait
and he just has to wait until she's Yeah, she stops being guarded and
then and then she'll really figure out what she wants. And of course that
will be him, of course it will. Yeah, how could it not
be? Why would it not work out that exact way that he just because
he wanted it to be that way, that of course it will go there.
I mean, it's it's such a problematic thing that the egocentrism of youth,
and he seems like he's a little bit too old agree to still be
in that degree of egocentrism. Usually people start to move through that by that
phase of we can assume he's somewhere around twenty seven twenty eight. Yeah,
I would definitely assume that much. Right about then is usually when that about
stops development, because I mean, part of it is because at about twenty
seven is when men finally mature to adults. Finally when between twenty seven and
thirty, well, and you know, never o'clock, he mean, I
get it, you know, depends on I know what you mean, Like
This is definitely like college age behavior right or shortly after, but it's it's
happening too late, after the point in time where most people start getting the
when friends are like, Hey, we're going out to the bar, and
you may still go sometimes, but there's other days and you go like,
ah, nah, man, I'm gonna like go to bed at nine actually,
and you couldn't be me, but I know what you mean. What's
at the age when people start like, there's a decent mount of your friend
group that's getting married or at least getting really serious, and so it becomes
more normal. We'll just more mature to have like forth right conversations about what
you're looking for and what you want and how efforts into your life. Well,
and more so the cognitive ability to abandon that egocentrism. Egocentrism of like
understanding what we're capable of and not embracing the changes that happen in our bodies,
in embracing that, Hey, you're tired now, like, hey,
your back hurts because you sneezed and it's not getting better. You can't wrestle
with Jimmy anymore. And sometimes I talk with clients about this because I see
people across all age spans and go like you have crossed the age. And
it's right about twenty seven, twenty eight when your body starts to change,
and then again at thirty and then at thirty five and then at forty when
all of these things, all of these ideas of youthful exuberance and invincibility that
he start to fade. Tom has not let those go. So let's take
a break and we'll be right back. And I also think, based on
what you're saying, Ben, is that Tom, for his age, also
has really poor emotion regulation. I think it's mostly played for laughs in the
movie, but when you really think about it, Like the way this movie
opens, he is smashing plates, like violently smashing plates in this weird like
robody way because a girl that never committed to being his girlfriend said we are
friends and he is. They needed to call his like ten year old sister
to buy him middle of the night to calm him down. Like that's who
we're dealing with here, someone who is that quickly thrown off his axis by
this situation. I mean, he certainly has poor emotional regulation. There's no
argument out that. I think this is why I don't like time jump movies.
You just you famously deny Yes, I do. I do not.
It's just that's a thing. I don't like time jump movies. I know
the director told the story in the order he wanted to, and that's fine
for a reason. But the colors our perception of him maybe in the way
he wanted this too, But we see him in a point where he's in
active dissociation and despair from just getting dumped when most people are in pretty poor
shape. Yes, but I don't know. The smashing. It's such a
violent, destructive behavior that's so unnecessary. I mean, it's something it's not
great decision making. I'm not arguing it is. It's okay for people to
just break plates. Right. Then he starts bombing at work, to the
point that he gets transferred to a different department. He's very lucky that he
is a boss. That's that's that understanding. He's writing fuck you horror in
greeting cards like that is fiable. Oh yeah, and so yeah, you'll
lose your job for that. There's no yeah, So that's smell adaptive behavior.
And he does that, and then he has a big out burst at
a meeting before he quits, you know, like he's not someone who is
handling disappointment and heartbreak well, like I hear you in that when we get
are heartbroken, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you know, we're not robots,
Like we're gonna be sad. We're gonna maybe look a little worse, act
a little sad, you know what I mean. We're gonna maybe be a
little out of character. But the way he's operating as if the only thing
holding him literally acting like a person in a society right, like acting by
social norms is being appeased romantically, and then as soon as he doesn't have
that, he's acting like in a way that could get him committed, you
know, like in the fact that he is seems unsafe, like in the
way that he's behaving in public, and then also in his home like act
like I don't know. The smash and plates thing to me is so I
think it is just like plate as a joke in the movie. Ye if
that was really happening, like that would be intense to witness, Like if
I was in a home with a friend, yeah, and they started smashing
all the plates we owned against the counter and didn't stop until I called the
Little Sister. I mean, you know, at that point it might be
a um, buddy, do we do we need to go to the hospital.
Yeah, conversation. Yeah yeah. No. That's if people can't regulate
their emotions, considering whether they are too dissociated to be okay is fair.
I think it's really poignant to look at Tom and realize how much projection and
dissociation he's living in. Always yes, and that's probably why he's so disregulated
in this moment, because he's going through active grief and what we'll set up
adjustment disorder, which does come with conduct as a specifier, right, like
when you see a disturbance of emotions or conduct after a big change, this
is what it looks like. This is what can happen. People can do
things that are bizarre, absurd, self destructive, outwardly destructive and well Tom,
check check check yes on that one. And it's I think why I
don't like time jump movies as a mental health professional is when you're assessing someone
for mental health, you're looking at behaviors over a time frame, and in
this one it gets confusing because nicely they do put a number of days on
there, so you at least get to kind of see what point in the
storyline Eache vignette is happening. But when your assessment brain is running, you're
looking at these and going okay, but it sees to the Stiga laid the
whole time, how is it? But now you perceive him as a little
disregulated, and then yeah, it can color your perception in an unfair way.
Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I don't think you're I don't
think that's wrong, especially in this film. I mean, we definitely see
him in different, completely different places based on the time jump that they do,
So I don't think you're wrong about that. But I feel like he
presents as someone who's depressed. I feel like he presents a someone who is
depressed before the stuff with Summer even happened. Definitely, And I think a
part of the way that depression can come out, or being depressed can come
out, is by being emotionally disregulated. Is can be by more irritation,
being frustrated. I just feel like he in some ways he's really showing all
of those different parts of himself as well, because I think he is depressed.
He doesn't like his job, he stays in a job that he doesn't
like, and again this time sure, and also what I can give them
too is like being in your twenties also gonna be a time where people are
having like quote unquote quarter life crisises, where they're trying to figure out,
like, what does my future want to look like? What does that involve?
Does that? What is my career? What do I want it in
life? My goals? All that stuff, And so to be slightly meandering
at his age isn't wildly inappropriate? Yeah or uncommon? Yeah? Yeah,
what I mean, Yeah, it's not wildly uncommon. I think where Tom
like we've kind of how we're framing this whole conversation is I think Tom does
Also the thing that people do where they assume like something outside of them will
be the thing that will make it all line up. We see that a
lot more. This more in the stereotype of midlife crisises. If I just
get a sports car, if I just get a hot young wife, if
I just get a ear piercing or like a two pay, or if I
start doing this or that or the other, I'll fit Texas, yeah,
or California. If I move anywhere, yeah, anywhere away from here,
Yeah, So when we're in this state of being where we're kind of meandering
internally or in our lives, we do it isn't uncommon to look outward for
the answer, right, And so Tom is doing that about romance. He's
not taking any ownership of his career, any ownership of his interests in those
ways, but he is seeking out through this avenue. And it doesn't really
matter who Summer is, you know, like you were saying, Hannah,
it really just matters how much she fits in to what he already likes to
rescue him, to rescue him. And then he starts to depend on that
so much that when she does pull away, he can't handle it. He
freaks out because during their relationship he hasn't established his own center. And I
think that's what we see towards the end of the movie when he finally realizes
she had to get fucking engaged for him to realize this, that she isn't
the answer for him. Then he does finally start figuring out who he is,
you know, getting back into architecture, getting back into drawing, you
know, starting to pursue his interests and figure out who he is and what
he wants taking ownership of himself that he starts to beaking of centered, and
then the movie rewards him with another girl at the end, unfortunately, or
punishes the audience by showing us that he's learned nothing. Yeah. Yeah,
and he's just going to do the exact same fucking thing with this woman.
So, Hannah, tell me why you think he's depressed. I think that
Tom is depressed based on the fact that he doesn't often do things that he
wants to do, doesn't know what he likes, works at a job that
he doesn't like, seemingly is ready to make any kind of negative comment or
decision about someone without knowing anything about them, I think, and again,
that's the misogyny in the film, but it also is an easy out.
That's an easy cop out. I'm not going to find out. I'm just
gonna bitch and moan and complain about everything. Thanks with the worst case scenario,
Yeah, who brings something up? Yeah? Absolutely So. I feel
like those are some of the ways that I see him, which should be
a negative worldview, right, yeah, exactly, so a negative worldview,
and he doesn't seem to. He seems to be pulled out a lot by
his friends, and I don't know how much he's actually I'm not going to
say engaging in their friendship, because I think he's probably engaging in their friendships,
but how much he's actively like trying to go out and do things with
them, spending time with his friends. Like you see his best friends show
up a lot, but you don't see Tom go to his friend's house at
all. You don't see him spending time with him and his partner. You
don't see And again, this could all just be shit that we don't see
in the film, but it really just feels like he is. He is
clinically depressed, and when he finds someone that makes him not hate the world
so much because they light up his life a little bit, it's very easy
for him to project all of his thoughts and feelings onto her, also because
he doesn't have a good sense of himself, because I don't know that he
might be too depressed to be able to do that. I mean, I
think you make a point like when they're going to do the karaoke, he
doesn't want to go. It doesn't want to go, doesn't want to go
until they say Summer is going to be there, So I do hear what
you're saying, and that is two close friends do seem to try to get
him out, yeah, in the world and kind of get him hopeful and
engaged, and they try to encourage him a lot. I mean, they
also are part of the misogyny we see a lot in the movie, but
that's could also be two thousand and nine. Yeah, nonsense, But I
think they are trying to encourage him, and they are trying to get him
to their credit, they are trying to get him to talk to Summer.
Yeah. Well, the other thing I just thought of, too, is
that he's also not drawing, so he's actively doing something that he used to
do their broad and pleasure he's no longer doing. Yeah, it does seem
like he's given up in a lot of ways on things. Yeah, so
I just you know, I think one of the things that are our audience
likes from us, but those that are just learning to get to the levels
when we talk, well, oh yep, look how obvious it is he's
depressed. It it's helpful to hear where your thoughts are coming from, because
you're a smart colndician and you have good thoughts. So yeah, you know,
we should get those out in the light. Well. Also to define
something you said earlier too, is this is a little this is a little
psychoed corner? Is that conduct disorder? When you say conduct to Jessa,
with conduct, how we define conduct is acting out behaviors. So any sort
of like aggressive behaviors you see, or acting out or acting against social norms,
that's more of like conduct disturbance. Yeah, So when we say Jusa
with conduct for a meaning behavioral stuff like your behavior is abnormal, right,
right? If you have a disturbance of conduct, you're operating outside of the
normal construct of societal rules. So I think a couple of things that I
also noticed with this movie, and I'm interested what you guys think too,
is I think this movie also I don't know if it's done this on purpose
or this is just that I'm viewing this from a twenty twenty three lens on
a movie from two thousand and nine. Is how I think A lot of
why he doesn't believe her is that because she's a woman, and she's saying
I don't want to be in a relationship. And in the very beginning of
the movie, when she's telling his friend that works with him that I just
want to be casual, like I don't want to be hooked into relationship.
He goes, you're a dude. This girl's a dude. Do you know
that you're a dude? And I think that is a part of this narrative,
which is that he I think I wonder how much how different the story
would be if the roles were reversed gender wise, because I think there is
a stereotype if we're going to go at head or normative gender roles. I
think it's a stereotype that men want casual and women want relationships. So I
think a part of this story, which is interesting and why I think he
really doesn't believe her, is that she's a woman and he's a man,
and women always want to be in a relationships, they just don't know it
yet. Yep. And so I think he has this idea. Yeah,
And so I think he has this idea that if I just keep performing as
a boyfriend, eventually she'll like me so much and she'll tell me so many
of her secrets and we'll do so many milestone things together that she I'll wear
her down. Basically, I'll smuggle my way into her life, which is
a common, unfortunately normalized approach, yes, from men to women, which
is that if you can wear a girl down, and both ways are always
well, I think it's done a bit differently. I think there's also I
think where we more commonly see it, which by you by bringing up Ben
is that I think also we've sold girls and women a narrative unfortunately that if
you act like a girlfriend enough, a guy will finally fall in love with
you. So I think it's a toxic narrative going both ways. Yeah,
I don't see how that's different. It might be done differently, sure,
accept that argument, but it's it's the same thing. If you're around enough
that the person will wear them down the boundary they clearly set on you and
let you know right up front of exactly where they were at and what they're
looking for, and that's somehow, because you're awesome enough, it'll be different.
I think the only thing that still feels gendered for me is I think
that, like they said when they said that she's the dude thing, I
do think it's hard people still find it hard to believe when women truly say
I want to be casual. Yeah, I want to be you know,
clearly defined, Like there's still like no believing them because even my personal experience
when I'm on dating apps, which I'm not on right now, God bless
knock on wood, is that when I'm straightforward with men and I'm like,
I only want this and if it's casual or not, they have a hard
time believing that too. Yeah, And so I think anecdotally, and I
and when I hear from friends as well, is I think it is hard
to accept when women don't just what the relationship? You don't want a boyfriend?
What? I don't all women want boyfriends and husbands. And so I
think that feels the version of the story we're seeing when it's from this angle.
Oh yeah, No, I don't think. I don't think the gendered
perception is in any way incorrect. I just that I don't see how the
thing is different with the wearing people down. Yeah, I think it's done
in slightly different ways. Yeah, but I hear what you're saying, like,
I don't think. I don't think you're you're incorrect, Like, yeah,
No, there's definitely there's definitely a perception out there of women not being
believed when they're like I am out right telling you I do not want something
serious, yes, or even just like anything right, Like you don't want
kids, and that's a big topic. Yeah, Like indent culture is like
not believing women when they say they don't want to have kids. Yeah,
yeah, and ascribing that to bitterness or you're lying to yourself, or you're
going to be long you just don't get it, or you're just not in
love right now, or change your mind, change your mind eventually, or
you only have so much time, so we'll sure you'll change your mind by
that time. And so I think it's it's hard to believe in this story.
But then how we're generalizing out when women don't fit or female presenting people
don't fit that tidy box of like wife and mother. Yeah, and so
then we don't they aren't believed, And then situation like this occur where it
just continues to make It creates a loophole for Tom to keep falling into,
which is that, yeah, but she'll want a boyfriend. Why would't you
want a boyfriend? Like that's kind of the energy. Or if they love
me enough, they'll become religious. Oh yeah, that's the thing, they'll
go to church with me. I want to talk about things that have happened
to some people in this personal experience realm of yeah, thinking you can date
someone that is of a different worldview on that topic, and I think difficult.
Yeah, not impossible, but difficult. But if you have any ideas
other than acceptance, it will not be possible. If you have an idea,
you'll convert them later. You are paddling up shit creek if you have
an It's okay that I believe one thing and they believe another, and I
am truly okay with it, and I'm okay with our children being of a
household that believes different things. And you really mean it, and you really
aren't having a secret plan that you're going to convert them to your religion or
your your worldview that we should have kids, or we shouldn't, or we
should be serious, we shouldn't whatever it is like. If you are truly
meeting that person where they're at as they are, it can work. If
you are not, you get this movie well. Also, I'm sure you
can speak more to this, Hannah. As like a marriage and family therapist
is there so many hard topics that couples avoid entirely because they don't want to
actually deal with the reality of it, which is that it might not work
out. Oh oh, can we do rapid fire with this? Mean so
many let's go, let's go ready, Let's let's go see if we can
help drive his plant home. I want to move to California someday. Yeah,
house has one. Well, it's like I want to have kids.
I'm just trying to. I feel like there's so many different things that they
don't talk about. So, okay, um, we threw a lot at
you. Yeah, yeah, I have money stuff that I haven't told you
about, debt, I have a fetish m or just even like sexual preferences
or just se or fantasies. Yeah, or talking or let's just you know
what, let's just fucking say sex. I can't get people to say sex
and look me in the eye and a Sasha. Okay, So sex people
don't talk about it. They avoid it at all costs because they're worried about
what it means. They're worried about what it doesn't mean, and they they're
not interested in finding out the answer to that. And yeah, so I
would say that's definitely one of them. Sex is a Sex is a big
one. Children is a big one. Money is an even bigger one.
Money's got all different kinds of shit connected to it, and it's you know,
one of those things that I when I talk to people, when I
do these sessions with couples, that we talk about, what are some of
the things I go along with? What are some of the reasons why people
get divorced? These are the some of the reasons. Let's figure this out.
Because if you can't figure this out, I don't know what to tell
you. Right Like, you can't even talk about sex. We gotta well,
there's a whole other things that's going to happen. We have to be
able to talk about these things in a way that is and even like and
even if we even if we just use tom and Summer talking about literally anything.
He is not listening to her. He is not listening to her about
any fucking thing that she says, let alone? What let alone? Does
he believe her when she says, I don't want anything serious. I don't
I just want something casual. I can't this just be what it is?
Are you sure you're okay with this? I don't know how much more clear?
She has very good, clear communication with him. She's super clear,
She's very clear, and he is an asshole. I think he's just a
stuck in his head because I think why a lot of people tend to fall
into situation ships sure is because neither of them are saying anything like they're just
kind of falling into something, and both both parties are either too scared or
unwilling in some regard to define the relationship, either because they wanted to keep
it casual and they don't want to rock the boat, or they want it
to be more serious they don't want to rock the boat typically rock the boat
territory in different directions. And so what makes Tom even more even worse than
this movie, like you're saying, Hannah, is that this is actually one
of the atypical situations where one party is being very clear from jump about about
what they're looking for. But this happens as well, you know, when
I work with people like like I said, Like if I had Tom and
Summer in my office and she repeated again, I don't want a boyfriend,
and then Tom, I don't know, starts getting into a different topic.
I would assume disc has right over it. I would stop. Yeah,
I would say, what did you just hear Summer say yes, why can't
you hear that, What does it feel for her hear say that? I
want you to say that out loud yourself, Like I would almost make him
repeat it verbatim, because I don't know if he could. I think he'd
be someone where I would say say that out loud and to be like,
I mean, she's just saying that, you know right now? Because and
I would say, no, stop, what exactly I need you to say?
Exactly what she said? One of my favorite communication tricks. Yes,
did you amagotherapy? Thank you? Yeah? Did you hear? Yeah?
Verbatim, not editorializing, not through your perception filter? What literally? What
are the literal words that came out of the person's mouth in front of you.
It's so fascinating when you see when people are stuck their perception filters and
do not listen and editorialize what is being said. How little they hear what
the other person has actually told them. Yeah, because assumptions, assumptions.
I talk about assumptions with couples all the time. You've already come in here,
You've already made up an entire story about how you think shit is going
to go, and that is not helpful to anybody. And I talk to
couples about making assumptions. How many assumptions are you making based on the way
that your wife is looking at you right now? Yeah, well, we're
making a lot of assumptions that you don't have, that you don't actually know
the truth of. No matter how long you know someone, no matter how
long you love someone, you will never actually know what they're thinking. That's
not something that can happen. Mind reading is something. It's not something that
is that's not a thing. We have to be able to listen to each
other. We have to be able to set aside the assumptions based on whatever
feeling we're having. And this is something. And in this situation, Tom
is all assumption and know anything else again, Ben, which well you said
earlier. He creates an entire story, and Summer just happens to be the
girl that's there right he doesn't see her. Which I think those are like
when we mapped us out looking at how we talk about what are the signs
someone's in a situationship? These are the things you'd be looking for. If
I ask that person if you're in a relationship, what would they say?
That's a good question for if you're in a situation HiPE or not. Like
I was talking to a friend and I was like, if I walked up
to him that person and asked, right, what would they say about your
relationship? Right? If you can't say out loud, that's my girlfriend or
that's my boyfriend, and that's my partner or that's whatever. Yeah, right
if you do not have a make it real simple if you use the phrase
ever at any point we don't like labels, free yourself from the chains of
that phrase, right or accept them yeah for exactly what they are, and
then you both are in the same place where that's exactly and only what you
want, because I don't want to, you know, come across as we're
being judge on what types of relationships, there are lots of types of relationships
that can work. Yes. However, we have also all spent great many
hours in therapy with people who do not check in with themselves or their other
person of is this still working? Yeah, because the same page they caught
feelings yeah, and are hoping the other person will too. Because where I
buck at that I know what you're saying, Ben, and that things won't
have to be in like these rigid gender like headonormative labels. What I mean
by that when people say, because what I hear when people say we don't
believe in labels is we are refusing to define our relationship, even if that
means we are casual, we are friends with benefits, we are non exclusive.
It's a dismissive term. It's a dismissive term. Yeah. And because
even if like you don't believe in the terms boyfriend, girlfriend, partner,
whatever, you should still be able to succinctly define to someone else what you
are to each other. Yes, you can't, babe. You're in a
situation ship and you need to assess whether that feels good or not. Because
I think also the question I wish as friends would have asked, but I
understand why they didn't think to ask this is maybe they did in different ways.
But is this making you feel good? Yeah? You know what I
mean? Are you feeling good with the state of the state of this non
relationship? Is this what you want? And they kind of do. They
do check in with him at certain points, being like, what's going on,
dude, and he does, which is rude. He like, he
dismisses their authority as giving him feedback, right, because he doesn't want to
hear it. He says, well, you've never been in a relationship and
you've been in one forever, so neither of you know what you're talking about,
right, which is valid to do on perspective taking, but also maybe
just maybe understand that that is only one truth. The other truth is that
they have eyes and they're observing their friend and how he's doing, and that
he clearly likes this girl a lot, and it is not okay and is
not okay with where it's at, and they know him well enough to know
that this is nothing new. You see, when something happens, I can't
exactly remember what it is. And even his half sister or his little sister
even she says to him, Oh, brother, that's not good when he
I can't remember what he's talking about, though, dang it. It's probably,
I think, is when he can't label it. Well, it's also
is it when they're playing we together? Yeah? Yeah, she your girlfriend?
And and she does make a guess two point where she was like,
she's just a pretty girl who has similar interest to you. That doesn't make
her your soul. May Bro's exactly, she points out very quickly, like
how he's projecting onto her yep, and he's like, no, he's just
dismissing everybody, everybody in his life that is offering contracounter information or poking at
it. He is writing them off because he's in this bubble that he can't
let burst. And where it really does him a disservice, like we've talked
about, is when and when Summer finally finally sits him down at that diner
and it's like this is not working for me. For me, yeah,
and this is not working period. He flips the fuck out and he leaves.
And I think, what's what's so hard for me to even talk about
like Summer's side of it is because we don't really see her perspective almost at
all in this movie. It's totally from Tom's viewpoint, and so I'm making
leaps here by saying this part. But I think for her, you can
see towards the end of their relationship, the distress she's feeling because she has
defined this relationship over and over for him for her, and she does view
him as a close friend because of all the time they spent together and how
sad she gets when she realizes like this is going badly, you know,
when she cries at the graduate when she's pulling away from him, when she
finally has that talk and she's like, but you're my best friend and he's
basically like, fuck you. Is that for her? She's made this deep
release, She's had this deep friendship relationship situationship with him, and it's not
salvageable because he hasn't listened to her the whole time. So I am curious
from her perspective how this has felt for her, this slow evolution into what
they end up being by the end, right, So bringing it into a
point here, if you're feel yourself in a situation you cannot define, You
do not have labels for you feel yourself wondering or having questions or other people
have questions about what the rules of your relationship are, and that makes you
uncomfortable, defensive, argumentative, or in any other way dissociative to the point
that you push away reality that everything will just work out and it's fine,
and she or he or whoever is the big love, but there's no other
evidence that supports it, and you get anxious about trying to create it.
You're probably in a situation ship and it's going to blow up and we see
that in this movie when he finally gets in that fight at that bar and
he says, we're a couple, goddamn it. And I get to say
in this which is not all that works, can't decide you're a couple you
both is that's where this always is going to lead, is some form of
it's just going to have. It's the volving point, and for them that
was it. Unfortunately, I think where she misfires and her kind of part
in the situationship. But she goes over to his house and misleads him,
I think in that moment by visiting him after the fight in the punching when
but I will say, to her credit, he still then again says I
want this and this, and she says I can't give you that, and
I think he is still last I'm on his ass about his lack of agency.
Is that at that point and many points, but at that point he
definitely should have said, well then I can't keep doing this, and he
keeps inviting her in because of that idea that I need her so badly to
fix some part of me that I'll take what I can get and then maybe
it'll just change. One days continues to be this lack of agency on his
part, which you know, leads us to that how did you get into
this or is it perpetuating? And what does it look like? If you
find yourself in any situation where you are acting out because you cannot deal with
the answers you've been getting, you might be in a situation ship. Yes,
if you have reached a point where you are punching random dudes who can
probably wipe the flour with you because you weigh one hundred and thirty eight pounds
as a grown man, you're probably in a situation ship. If you are
built like you could play Robin. Oh, here we go. I should
have been expecting and you decide that you're going to but you haven't done the
training to be Robin, and you enter a fight with a dude who is
bigger than you. You are probably in a situation ship. If you feel
the need to say I am able to tell you exactly what this relationship is
because I get a choice in it, and the other person has clearly told
you that's not what they want. But you think because you're right that you
win. Probably in a situation ship. Yeah, So let's take a break
here and we'll move into our next topic here, all right. So,
I think something that comes up a lot for me in the work that I
do, and this has kind of looped in with like sort of the downsides
of situation ships is that they create a situation where you are more connected to
the potential or the fantasy than what's literally in front of you, so that
when they don't work out, which they inevitably won't, you're not just like
you were saying earlier, Bet, You're not just grieving what actually happened.
You're grieving the potential. You're grieving the fantasy. It takes on this huge,
more meaningful thing for you than the thing that was actually in front of
you. I think what I find a lot in my current modern day dating
when I work on in therapy with people, is that I think with a
apps, what I'm noticing is there's and you know, when I've fall into
this myself as someone who's single, is that there's so much online chatting going
on before you even meet with somebody, and sometimes that can go on for
long periods of time, and so by the time you get to the first
date, there's all this unearned intimacy and people get hooked more into the idea
of somebody and the potential of them then actual person in front of them,
which does multiples of things. One like I just mentioned, it makes you
more, it gives you more meaning to it, and therefore if it doesn't
work out, you're upset about a lot of abstract ideas as much as you're
upset about the literal thing. And then also it enables you, which we
see with Tom, to ignore red flags because you aren't actually assessing the person
in front of you. You're assessing the fantasy, which we've talked about at
length. And so I think where it really does a disservice is I think
it gets in the way of actually assessing if someone's even good for you.
I wonder because we see most we see some are so specifically from his perspective
of the movie, we're not even really getting a objective view of her and
what she's actually like and how she actually behaves. We're all just seeing him
from his lens. And so I think where that happens in real life when
I work with people is that they'll allow themselves to be mistreated in some fashion
by the person in front of them because they are not actually paying attention to
is this person good for me? And I think this goes back to this
idea that I want somebody is it you? Is it you? Is it
you? It just needs to be a body that I project my stuff onto,
and that stops us from actually saying, like, are you a good
fit for me? Because what dating is supposed to be, ideally in my
opinion, as personally and professionally, is you are vetting people and seeing if
you're not vetting, but like you're seeing if you fit in right as much
as you for them as they for you. Yeah, And when we go
and loaded like this, excuse our perception and excuse our ability to realize,
like is this person even good for me? Because I'm not actually seeing them?
And then when people come in my office and talk about it, they're
so upset every time that they're in something and they go on two dates and
they break up, it's like they just got their heart ripped out, you
know, It's like they had a breakup breakup. And so I think that's
where this lack of definition in a lot of ways can be really harmful to
people, is that you it's you're getting your heart wrapped up in something that
hasn't earned your heart yet, and that's why you have to be hopefully grounded
when you get into dating. But not everybody is. Most people probably aren't,
and you have to have more eyes open and be mindful of your vulnerabilities.
You know, I really want to be in a relationship. I really
feel lonely. I do feel sad, and I feel like I'm lacking meaning
because all that's going to come into when you start dating, and it's going
to color your ability to actually be like is this a good guy? Because
I think the question that Summer's asking when they're dating and he's not asking,
is are we a good fit? Because what Summer's I think noting the whole
time and she says that at the end when she says the guy that she's
not married to, I felt that whatever I was missing with you brutal line,
brutal line, but the truth. I applauded that that's the only part
of the movie, you know that I really was like, Okay, but
I think she's doing that where she I think the whole time she was dating
Tom casually is she was in her mind assessing like it's not enough yet,
He's not making enough boxes for me, we're not a good enough fit,
right, So she is I think more realistically assessing her in Tom, he's
clearly not Yeah, and she's largely healthy, with her decisions done really but
largely. And I know the movie kind of opens with her cutting her hair,
and I think that there is kind of this thesis statement about her that's
delivered the very beginning of the movie that Summer is more detached from things in
her life, which they don't really explore more. No, it's like an
interesting opening for her, and then they don't really go into it at all,
but it would be more interesting to see him. More of that plays
in the movie. I think where it does a disservice or how I observe
it is that it's setting up this story that Summer is she's detached and she
just needs somebody to pull her in and make her will even love. Oh.
I didn't get that at all, and totally different when I think the
reality of it is is that she does doesn't get wrapped up. She's not
romantic like he is. I don't know what did you think then? I
thought something completely different, that they were displaying her as completely able to be
grounded and healthy, that as much as I love my long, dark hair,
I have no problem cutting it because I know that if it's not making
me happy in its current state, I can cut it out and it will
regrow. And I don't read it to be anxious about it, because my
hair will regrow, and if it's making me more happy this way, I
have no problem doing that. And that's exactly how she broke up with him.
Now, was that a little detached an unkind to fail to recognize that
even though it wasn't working for you, it was for him. And the
way you're cutting it off might provoke a reaction that he might take it poorly.
That argument, and that side of what you're talking about, where she's
a little more detached and missing it, you know you're inviting some trouble if
you break someone's heart like that, just like no warning, just all of
a sudden, Hey, I'm sorry, let's do this in public, but
this isn't working for me by let's be friends. No no, no,
no. Is she allowed to do that? Of course? Should she do
that for her own sake and health? It's not her, of course,
but that quick not a good plan. But recognizing I think the way that
they were portraying her is like she knows what she wants and she has no
problem pursuing it from her own angle first, which wasn't was presented kind of
NEUTRALI I thought, well, I interpreted, I mean, this is narrative
art, right, We're all going to interpret it differently. I'm not saying
you're right, no, wrong, I discussed something differently. Well, I
think you took the healthy reading of it, and I was being cautious of
the toxic reading of it. Not that I was necessarily thinking that was the
correct way, but I was more like, Ooh, I hope this movie
is not trying to sell this idea that she's like cold and distant and that
she just hads to be thought out by Tom. I think that's his narrative.
Sure, I won't contend that his behavior reinforces that throughout the film.
Yeah, I don't think that's incorrect at all. I think that's yeah,
And this whole thing is through Tom's perspective. So, I mean I just
was looking at it. It struck a different card of me of like,
she's very confident and securely attached, and he is most definitely not like she
has She has a very secure attachment style that she's like more like, I
know what I want for me, and I have faith that I'm going to
be okay and I'm going to be able to pursue my own okayness regardless of
how other people feel about it. Because with women in their hair, maybe
it's me having a lot of female clients, but women in the hair is
a big thing. It is a big thing. I think hair is meaningful,
right right? I mean, if you all change your appearance, cut
your hair, how many people are going to comment on it, yeah,
every one? And if they like it or don't like it, and if
you make a choice for you And how many women cut their hair and cry
or cut their hair and are really excited about it. Men can keep the
same haircut for fifty years and never change at one time. And I also
wondered too a summer Now I'm kind of going a little further with it,
is that from the jump, from the very beginning of this movie, they're
talking about how appealing she is to the general male population, like the cute
CI near, like the cut SI structure of you know, when she was
at the ice cream store, the sales went up. So I also wonder
too, with her being a little more which I think is good for her,
a little bit more independent about things. I wonder how much she has
been a person that has noticed how much men specifically want something from her without
ever really knowing her, that she is just a placeholder or a beautiful thing
in men's eyes. I mean, I think there's a zero percent chance that
she's not aware of that. Yeah, well, especially if you think about
the way that she handles the guy at the bar, right, She's obvious,
She's very calm, she knows she has a thing that she's says,
she says it to that guy, she waits for him to leave, Like
that's somebody who is aware that they're going to be approached even though they don't
want to be approached, And that men have, like historically early and often
objectified her and intruded on her boundaries. You know, which is i'd be
I want to know the more we talk about this more when our most summers,
I think, summer story in summer than I will ever be in tom
Yeah, and how she got well and how she got to a place where
she is so grounded and assertive and communicative and sure of herself and is very
open and honest from often and oft and oft and oft and often so agitating.
And do I think that she gets a little caught up in Tom?
Sure, you know, I think that she definitely likes him a lot.
Sure, And I think she does, like going over his apartment things,
Like I think she does do something sometimes maybe to appease him because he's a
little fraught, as people have to do. Yeah, when people are fraught
or people are intruding on our boundaries, we subconsciously will start making decisions on
what's the thing that's most likely to keep me safe, and that may not
be reflective of how you actually feel. And if you have to dissociate to
create that fawn state, which is the part of our personality enables us to
do that, Like a different degree. Is not saying that Summer was in
danger with Tom really, but I don't think so. But I think it
was more like when she went over his apartment after the fist fight. I
think it's more like she really cares for Tom and it doesn't feel good that
they were in this bad spot, and so going over there. I would
really curious her internal world around that decision, Like did she go over there
because she does like tom or did she go over there because he's a really
good friend now and he's upset with her and that doesn't feel good. Yeah,
you know, yeah, but she's still at some point lowered her boundary.
Yeah too, because she set the boundary on him that like, nope,
there will be like we're not a couple. Well, he's expecting that,
like he did this big chivalrous thing, and he did the movie hero
thing like he thought he was Han Solo. So it was not also on
me that he had the one scene with Harrison Forward winking at Princess like yeah,
I even I barfed at that and went really, yeah, really you're
robbing You're not Han Solo. Well and even in that scene, like yeah,
his whole confidence is wrapped up in her. And so I think a
lot of times is as I mean, I can speak to this as a
woman. You know, we are trained in some ways to protect men's socialize
socialized, that's the way word. And so I think and sometimes she does
make moves I think to protect his ego. Also she's trying to pull away
from him. I think in a way that it is interesting how much he
doesn't read into the ego. I mean, we don't have to get all
into this, because it's clearly like he wants it to still be good,
and that's why he doesn't read into the fact that she's pulling away, that
she's not as happy, that she's trying to go home, she's crying during
the graduate yeah's associating from or even well, and then yeah, exactly well,
and then the parts where the first time he asks what they are and
she says, well, I'm happy, aren't you happy? And he's like,
yeah, I'm happy, and she's like, well, then what does
it matter? Because but then later on, but then later on when they're
at the table and there and she's ending things or trying to clarify in a
more specific way, however we want to look at it, and he says,
well, I'm happy. Are you happy? And she's like no,
and he's confused. He's clearly very confused, and that definitely shows that he
has no awareness of the changes that she's been engaging in during the time that
they've been together, or that he's butt into this idea that even if you're
not actually happy, you act happy. And now she's breaking the social contract
by being honest and not playing along anymore, because when he's saying he's happy,
he's never being totally honest. No, Oh, he's never happy.
You can't already fun him. He's got no enjoyment and things that make him
feel like him. He's got low self esteem, he's got a lower energy.
He has to dissociate away from his current state by getting drunk or being
in this pretend reality in order to start acting like the version of himself he
wants to be. He won't activate until he does that because his own reality
is so miserable that he can't until he escapes it. So I think Hannah's
right that he's depressed, and we see that. But right once that social
contract is broken of like, she's not only like you were saying earlier,
she's not only shattering his present thing. She's taking him out of the place
where he can be happy. And he can't tolerate that because the only thing
that's gotten through that mental filter of his is that she's going to transport me
into the West. Yeah, she is my ticket to Valinark. Yeah.
And then because he's not being honest as we're talking about, not being touched
in, as soon as she does that, he vilifies her Yep, she's
a bitch. I hate everything about her. She is awful to him,
and it's continuing that thing of like I. What he's really saying is I
still cannot look inward at all. So she, as much as she was
the answer to my happiness, she also has to be the reason for my
unhappiness. And it's something to do with me. It's never anything to do
with me. Yeah, it's this bitch now. Yeah. Right. And
when we look at why these situation ships are harmful and why we're I'm just
going to say the thing that we haven't said because we're trying to be kind,
but I'm going to just do it. If you get into a situation
ship and are not routinely checking in with yourself, if the situation ship is
still working for you and the other person and making it safe for the other
person to be able to process their emotions with you, you will end up
in one of our offices. Perhaps, yes, But also ending up in
my office also can mean that you are aware it's hard to have good communication
with a partner, especially if you didn't have any good examples of that growing
up, And so sometimes coming into my office is actually positive because then I
can help you with that. Helping with communication is a very easy thing to
do. It's very easy to be the third party in order to help support
two people who clearly like something about each other and want to be able to
communicate more clearly about life and about how they're feeling with each other. Yeah,
it doesn't have to be a bad thing, but you will be there.
Yeah. So it sounds like we're slipping a treatment territory. So before
we do that, let's take another break. So treatment Tom Tom Tom to
Tomtowntown to Downtowntown. In Trauma and Association Land, I have no evidence that
Tom has sustained to a traumas is sustained a small t trauma. Breakups are
traumatic, period full stop. Breakups are traumatic. They are a loss.
In Brittany, you did a really good job of detailing why. So I'm
not going to repeat all of that. All I will highlight is that if
you rewind this podcast and listen to Brittany describe someone going into all of those
different realities in nerd language, you could look at that as someone going into
the multiverse and understanding that we all have an internal TVA that tries to maintain
the sacred timeline and will punish the timelines that start to deviate and the altars
that develop or whatever I've got. They use the variants, right, variants,
the variants that start to exist in timelines outside of the sacred timeline,
and we'll seek to extinguish them. And if you look at that metaphor combined
with what Britney was saying, Tom is doing that, and that's what his
sister points out to him, but he's not able to see it until the
end of the movie, where it has pointed out to him that you are
remembering the nostalgic parts. You were only remembering the good parts. Your body
pushed away the information that was incongruent with your sacred timeline of this being your
big love, and both you and her made a lot of concessions to reality
and didn't adhere to what information was that well, she did a good job
mostly of being firmly rooted in a reality and secure as we covered, but
Tom did not. Tom did a piss poor job of checking in with himself
and understanding, am I putting more on this person than is feasibly possible?
And I think treatment with Tom for me would be about pretty much doing what
his sister was doing with him, which is when we helping understand. When
we start thinking about nostalgio, we respond to feelings that we choose to remember
or are able to remember, not facts that represent the whole situation. It
is why we have an entire general ration of people that still try to adhere
to the fifties were a good time, back in the day, the good
old days when everything was good in met and war hats and blah blah blah
blah blah and hold on like you mean the times that were in black and
white pictures where people had their own water fountains that were not in any way
separate or they're not equal separate, but equal, my ass. Like,
we're just gonna we had laws that you know, people would get beaten for,
Yeah, sitting at the white side of a counter. Really, women
couldn't have credit cards or their own checking accounts and stuff like that, Right,
But those are the good old days, guys. Everything was fine exactly
for those that are choosing to remember it in a way that represents their sacred
timeline and keeps consistent with the narrative they want to live. Understanding that we
are all equally capable of doing those things, even as we should on it
now we all are capable of doing those things and being wearied that when you
nostalgically remember something, or if you dissociate away from your present reality trying to
forge a pathway for this person to fit all those boxes you want them to,
you are missing. What's beautiful about love and relationships in the first place
is that that path is forged together, much like the relationship Summer has with
her hair, that no matter what changes come, what sickness, what health,
what richer, what poorer, what better, what worse comes, we
will have a stable base from which to face it together, and we will
know that we are always here together doing it, and that we are always
enough. Tom misses all of that by assigning Summer this role in a play
in his head and then just assuming she'll play the role. He's writing a
self insert fan fiction correct Summer Summer X reader if anybody reads fan fiction,
yep. With that means yep, that's what he's doing. Yeah, And
for Tom, the treatment is too part is and this is the part that's
hard, is that hard break out of brothers is what you're doing assessing him
to see where he's at if he's ready for that is important because you can't
just you know, like slap therapy is not a thing. You cannot get
powder on your hand that says reality and slap someone in the face with it.
That's not going to work well. The problem with his sister is that
one she's his sister, sweet sweet, and write her off her feedback,
and also because she's like eleven, and also because she's a woman, And
then too, she's probably a little too irreverent and like cuts to the chase
too much, like too hard for him to accept that because she's like,
it's all going to go bad once you see her, what hooking up with
some guy from the gym with Jesus Christ abs and Broadfit's face or something.
Yeah, she did, But that's important because it's true. Yeah. I
mean her being written that way is a mute us because it's a satire almost.
But yeah, looking at she's the voice of reason in this story,
right, that comes every once in a while and she's like what the fuck,
which is satirical because it's absurd. Yeah, but looking at looking at
him as a therapistem sinere going like we would have to concurrently both build up
a reality that is tolerable, that is meaningful, that helps you build a
pathway to a life that you don't have to escape from. That's a great
point that right there, Like it's like building a life that you don't need
to ask from, which is what he starts doing when he gets back on
track of like, Okay, I'm going to deal with the fact that I'm
going to get a lot of nose, but i want to be an architect,
so I'm going to keep going and I'm going to make myself better.
I'm gonna get back into the skills and I'm gonna learn what skills I don't
have, and I'm going to do these things. And I'm going to find
the thing in my life that has provided me meaning my whole life. And
I'm going to say under my life around that. Not on a relationship.
Yes, And it takes Summer having the conversation with him that she did,
that she handled really well and compassionately of it just happened. You weren't wrong
about all those things about love. You were just wrong about me because I
was inserted into your story. But for me looking at Tom, that would
be my therapy with him is we're going to be doing a lot of existential,
a lot of ego strengthening work, a lot of let's make your reality
tolerable. Because the owner of the private practice that we all started at is
because of my position. Area and I have had a lot of conversations about
things, and one of the ones that he will use the couples all the
time that I still remember being impactful on me that I use it now is
it's not about whether somebody is running. It's do they need to keep running
when they're cheating, when they're escaping, when they're not grasping the reality.
It's not so much about that they're doing it, it's why are they Why
do they need to keep doing it? And how do you stop that?
Tom will not stop that until his base gets secure because he won't stop having
to escape his reality that's terrible and making him depressed for a fantasy reality,
and he'll just find another girl. Autumn maybe Autumn maybe, Yeah, that
you know. I read some reviews of the movie. They're like, oh,
and the sunshine brighter, indicating Tom finally learned. They're like, yeah,
I don't know about that. We'll see it's not always to go Maybe
mister Tom. Maybe maybe he did. And if he was a real life
person, not a movie character, right, maybe maybe he learned, maybe
he understood that by making his reality tolerable, he would no longer need to
escape it, and that by making it meaningful. So it comes back to
the ideas that existentialism and other therapies have adopted. They go back to Victor
Franklin logo therapy. Life must have meaning. Suffering is unavoidable, but if
you have a why, you can endure anyhow. And once he understands how
he is pursuing his why, how don't matter anymore. He's just going to
keep doing what he needs to and he'll stop needing the fantasy girl to make
him happy, the thing to pull him out of this existence. He'll have
it because he'll be providing it to himself and then he'll be able to connect
with somebody on a real level. Or they can be that, Okay,
this is me and this is you, and this is what we're going to
forge together because this works. And then if they're smart, they're going to
Hannah's office and be like, so communication, that's a thing, huh exactly?
And apparently the big love is not enough and you actually have to work
at it. But being in a you can't get to that place if you're
still trying to if you're still threatened by reality coming crushing down on you that
everything's been a lie or everything's going to mistake, or that it won't be
congruent and that it won't be perfect, and then it can't be the thing,
and then there's so much anxiety about things that aren't even real or happening
that keeps a person so disregulated physiologically that they can't focus through any of the
treatment and they won't listen to you, and they will become stuck and will
then come back into therapy every week talking about the same shit, recycling the
same points. But this week we did this week, we did this,
and this happened, And a skilled therapist, as we get older and more
at this will be like, uh huh, I mean, I hear you.
It sounds like you had a hard week. Let's get back to the
work we set out to do. And then whence you've been saying a long
enough, you can finally do the whole. So you know, we've been
working together for a while. Now, do you mind if I make an
observation about a pattern I've been noticing me and then you come in with your
weeks of data now and then you can kind of lay on the plane.
I've noticed that every time you meet a new girl, you start immediately planning
your life with her. Yeah, and then you talk a lot about the
things that she likes that you like. But I don't know if I ever
hear anything about her, it has nothing to do with you. So that
would be my direction. I would say where I would go off of that
is I'm very rarely this bossy with clients or this like yeah, this authoritarian.
But I think with Tom, he might be somebody where I would prescribe
being single for your period of time and our work together, and I would
be very clear that being single isn't necessarily you don't have a girlfriend. Being
single means you're not on apps, you're not going on dates, you're not
flirting at bars, you're not nothing, I know, looking around for any
of that shit. We're not even having sex. Maybe like celibacy, intentional
celibacy. And because for some people it's like having to go get sober pretty
much, they almost have to go cold turkey with dating because it's a distraction,
a defense mechanism, something they keep falling into and they need to look
internally. And so then what I would do too is I would maybe propose
it more as an idea, like, how would it sound if we just
committed for the next month. Maybe I'd start small. The next month,
we're just no dating apps, none of that stuff, and then maybe we'll
just every week when we meet, we'll just keep processing how this feels.
How does it feel to not have a date on the weekends. How does
it feel to not have somebody that you're chatting to on your phone because there's
all dopamine hits to that, you know. I think that's also why dating
apps is successful, is that you're that ping, ping, ping on your
phone and there's always all these options, so you're always getting some relational hit,
even if it's super superficial and has nothing to do with you. Really,
Yep, I got the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney
gets the super Bowl phone is such a good illustration of that. Okay,
or it just keeps ringing because he put up his phone number on there and
like it could be the next hottest girl. I mean, I know he's
a distraction, distraction, distraction, right, pigheaded thing, but also the
dopemine hit. Yeah, and so sometimes I'm rope of people. I will
kind of say, like, do we need to not just cool it on
dating? Because I think also because of dating apps and things like that,
in situation ships that's gotten so gray. So I do sometimes have to really
clarify what do I mean? And sometimes it is like no hooking up nothing
like especially with the character like Tom, where he probably ascribes a lot of
meaning even to like casual hookups. Yeah, and so, and as we
see in the movie, he tries to date right after summer and he's a
complete goddamn mess. And also like I'm saving all the other people out there
that don't have to put up with this person in this state. Not that
I'm thinking about that, but you know, so I think I would push
him to not date and then, like I said, be curious about how
it feels. I think simultaneously, like you were saying, Ben, I
would encourage him to build up his sense of identity. Well, first basics,
are we showering on a regular basis? Are we getting enough sleep?
Are we eating enough food? Like I'd make sure his basic needs are being
cared for and getting on that good habit if it's not. And then,
like you were saying, hooking him into what are the things he used to
like? Sometimes what I asked people? Or what are the things you like
when you were a kid? You know, what did you like to do?
Did you like to draw? Did you like to play outside? Did
you like to skateboard? Can we start introducing maybe some of those things back
in because centimes, by the time someone hits your office, it's been so
many years of being detached from their sense of self that they can't even really
tell you what they do for fun, watch TV, look at their phone,
go to bars with their friends. So I will send him to go
all the way back to childhood and say what did you like to do when
you were a little yeah? Or almost the last time you remember having a
hobby? What was that? Right? And then I always go back to
them yeah, And then I tell them too, even if you think it's
whatever, do it, you know, act as if you give a shit
about that thing, Act as if you're excited. People get hooked up and
hooked into this idea, especially when they're in a place he's at where something
has to happen to me, and then I'll feel motivated to engage in ward
the world. So I'll tell clients, you got to reverse that sometimes,
so you have to act as if you're motivated, and then that feeling will
probably follow if you do it instantly enough. And you just gotta act as
if you enjoy life until you enjoy life again. And so with him,
I think I would try to build up his day to day structure, his
day to day sense of joy. Sometimes I have clients, and I stole
this from TikTok, a TikTok clinician, thank You, where she would have
her clients keep a like a notepad or like a note in their phone where
they every time they notice themselves liking something, whether it's I like when it
reigns, I like Indian food, that they kept like a list of that
on their phone so they can get better hooked into that feeling within them when
they notice that they like something something about themselves also that they know is true
to them, and it can be like I said, those more quote unquote
superficial things, because all those things build up into a big old pile that's
you. And so he would be someone that I would want him to do
all that work while not dating. Yeah, and then once when he starts
dating, I would have a lot of conversations with him about the speed in
which he's dating. You know, does he need to wait a while before
he sleeps with somebody? You know what does? Because I think that's also
where dating apps have made dating kind of messy, is what does it even
mean to go on a date? Doesn't mean go into somebody's house right away
and hooking up, you know, doesn't mean actually going to sit down dinner.
How many dates does that look like? How many? You know?
And so I think we would probably have to talk a lot about boundaries and
structure when he re engages in dating. Yeah, So being hyper mindful,
it's certain things I tell clients. Sometimes we have to swing the pendulum all
the way the other side so we can get to a medium at a certain
point, a more like natural place. Sometimes you have to be prepared for
things to feel inorganic until they feel organic again or ever. And so it
it involves a lot of patients that I ask my clients for a lot of
patients and a lot of trust in me. But I think he's like he
needs to be worked made from the ground up, And then I probably would
loop in what you were talking about been like existential work, if like,
what are your values? What do you care about? What are your hopes
and dreams? Are your day to day behaviors going towards that are farther away
because they're clearly going farther away when we see from most of the movie.
And then he starts doing more of the logotherapy existential work, which is reimmersing
himself, like how am I spending my time going closer to my values by
getting books of architecture from the library or from the bookstore. Drawing every day,
even if it doesn't mean anything other than I drove, I drew today,
you know, finding meaning in these behaviors and acknowledging that they lead to
a higher purpose, which is just it could be enjoyment. It doesn't have
to be something more bigger than that, or just like career wise, you
know what is something he gives a shit about? And so he actually ends
up incidentally doing that work in the movie, right because it ain't greeting cards.
It ain't greeting cards. And so that's kind of where I would go
with Tom hyperstructured for a while together and building him back up right. Agent
Coulson gives a shit about greeting cards. He does give a shit about greeting
cards. So that's where that's where I would go. So I have been
thinking mostly about whether or not I would do therapy with Tom and Summer sometimes,
when you know I've talked about it on the podcast before that when I
do couples, I do individual assessments first before I agree to take on the
couple because a couple work is a lot of work as a therapist and so
and a part of what I've been mostly thinking about as I've been sitting here
listening to Ben and Brittany kind of talk about what they would do with Tom,
I've been thinking about what kind of client Tom would be in my office,
and I think he would be somebody who pushed back a lot on a
lot of the different things that I wanted to treat, a lot of the
different things that I would want to help them with in terms of communication,
and I think it would end up coming down to I think where I would
recommend that Tom sees an individual therapist before we really they do some work in
the couple. And you know why that is because they're in a situationship and
Tom doesn't have the answer to the one thing that makes them secure, and
Summer is very secure with that thing, and there is no work to be
done with that couple. Yeah, exactly, I think so. I mean
like I think I would. I think I would take them and this is
what I do with couples, and I tell them this, I say,
I'm going to meet with you as a couple, and I'm going to meet
with you individually, and then I will let you know whether or not I
will be able to help you in the future. Right, because songs Tom
can't listen to, I don't want a thing and he wants a thing.
Yeah, then there's nothing that again it's about Yeah, we can't fix that
because Tom needs to get to know himself better, which is what both of
you've been talking about. I'm in building up his sense of self because in
order to have a healthy relationship, both people have to have a secure sense
of self so that they're able to come together and work on the relationship together
but still have their parts of themselves that are well established. It's an important
part of having a healthy relationship. So I think that's all. Did I
go off there, No, okay, So so yeah, so I feel
like that's kind of what it would end up looking like in on my side.
Well, just thinking about that as you bring it up, Hannah,
is Tom feels like someone who would be who would get disregulated really quickly in
couples therapy, Like he wouldn't be able to tolerate what Summer was saying or
the questions you would ask. Well, I think, well, I think
he would push back on what I would be suggesting. I don't think we
would even get to the part where I have both of them doing the couple's
dialogue. I think I would get I think I would get pushed back even
bringing it up and suggesting it, because it doesn't solve any problem and it
doesn't give him the black and white answer that he wants, which is she
wants to be in a full on relationship with me. That's the only answer
that he's in the room to get. And so anything that doesn't get him
that answer, I'm going to get full and complete pushed back from him about
that, and it will come to me. It won't go to Summer.
It will come to me because I'm the one who's trying to make the change.
And I'm the one who's trying to right like that you're causing a problem.
I'm causing a problem by bringing these things up and bringing these things to
light. Or he's going to die ad with you that he's going to in
correctly assume that you're on his side and that you're going to get hurt to
give him the answer he wants. And then when you don't and you switch,
you unbalance the relationship back again. Yeah, look at me. Using
couples therapy terms, I can see that. Yes, when you unbalance the
dynamic again, he's what the fuck? Yeah, Yeah, it'll just end
up. It'll end up in a situation where I'm spending the whole session appeasing
Tom or trying to figure out how to get him to shut his fucking mouth
so I could do my job. Um, because when when I talk to
couples, I'm there to work on the relationship. I'm not here to figure
out who's right or wrong. I'm not here to be a referee in your
arguments. I'm here to be helpful and I'm here to support the relationship.
And that's a part of what my job is and I will do that.
But you also have to do your part. Tom could not do his part.
Yeah, because of the place that he is, because of the work
that he still has to do. So this couple, I would not work
with them because they would not be appropriate for a couple's therapy at this time.
Yeah, I would agree with that assessment. There is no universe where
that will get because you know it. We'll go. Honestly, I think
is it will be that same blow up over and over again of don't I
get a say in what this is? And I say we're a couple because
he's expressing his deep seated anxiety that Nope, reality is intolerable without it being
this reality that I've decided, and probably walk out. Yeah, he'll do
exactly that I've seen it, or he'll try to convince me of something which
has also happened in my office. Yes, all right, Well we'll take
one final break and then have fine thoughts. All right, so bad.
I'm gonna have you go first, because I feel like you've all ought to
say. No, people are not going to be happy here. They may
not be. We always front load with the person we think liked the least.
Correct. I as I was life messaging my reactions to Brittany and Hannah
since they asked me about them. Was very frequently watching this movie going what
the fuck? Why the fuck is there a dance scene? Why the fuck
is there a cartoon bluebird? Why is Han solo in this? What the
fuck? What is happening here? And I didn't like much about this movie
until Summer confronted him and his little sister confronted him at the end with his
own bullshit and his own reality, which I thought was valuable. I thought
it was good, but the journey to get there, this style of movie
the more like indie quirky film. It's not really my thing. I don't
particularly enjoy time jump things without a mystery box to them, you famously hate
them, like you know, like West World Season one was really good,
but it had a really good mystery box to it, and then it tried
to do the same thing and it was just really bad from that point forward,
of like why am I watching? Why am I watching it? Which
or season one was actually kind of bad with that too, of like what's
happening? Yeah, I agree with that. I was confused. Yep.
It got way better when they went, oh, we should do this in
a linear structure. Like you think, like we're introducing as massive names.
We can only start. Yeah, you can only start do one thing at
a time. Either you're introducing into a whole new world with new names and
new concepts and magic and shit that are weird, or you're telling me a
story that goes back and forth in time. I can't do both, yeah,
correct, Yeah, you know, like when I have time to watch
movies at this phase of my life, I'll measure my criticism with that that,
like my add meds have now worn off, and it is at night,
probably after I've done all the things they needed to do, or I
have space to watch this and give it time, and then if it's jumping
around on me and I'm going like what, and it's changing narrative, tone,
and style as frequently as this movie did, of like what the fuck
am I watching? Like I understand it's vignettes that tied together to tell the
piece. I get it, but like I did not love it. But
what I did like about it was that in the end of it, maybe
just maybe someone being forced to reckon with their reality make the changes that they
needed to make, and not beyond this constant string of endless bullshit to escape
their reality and learning to actually deal with it might make a positive change in
your life. Well, if I don't believe in that message, I'm in
the wrong field. So I liked that about it, but the style structure
ultimately didn't didn't grab me. It's probably not one I'm going to be like,
Oh, I gotta watch this movie again over and over. Probably not.
It's probably one that y'all made me watch because you voted for it instead
of voting for A Night's Tale, which I understand is a mess of a
movie and is ridiculous, but it's also just one of the ones that just
nailed a date movie perfectly, and we should have done that. But thank
you for voting and engaging with us and making me do something that I was
not going to watch under any circumstances until I had. And also, fuck
you guys and your taste. You can read whatever subtypes. I will watch
whatever movies you guys. You know you guys want to hear it, I'll
do it. But songs, we're prepared, But this is not my style
of movie. Okay, Hannah. So I've only seen this movie two times,
and the second time was because I had too for the podcast. The
first time, I've never liked Tom. I always thought he was a scumbag,
and I find that to be true. The second time. I don't
like Tom. I don't like any of the men in this film. The
only thing that I like about this film I do like the style of it.
I don't mind the jumping around, because that's never been a thing that's
bothered me. But the some of the ways that the movie is shown,
in terms of the architecture pieces, in terms of the street turning into a
drawing, some of those pieces were kind of just like fun to watch.
So I like the movie style wise or otherwise, I don't like it and
I won't ever watch it again. All Right, And now there's me.
So I am of the indie quirky persuasion in that when this movie came out,
you best believe my asses in that seat, babe, and I saw
the movie, I think twice in theaters. I'm surprised I don't own a
DVD copy of it. This movie was made for me. Hi, it's
me. I'm the problem. It's me, and so I love this movie.
I'm surprised I don't own it. To be quite honest, I was
twenty three, twenty two, twenty three when I first came out, So
I was not fully developed, brainless, and I really bought into the love
story of it. I bought into him. I was genuinely bombed and out
up together, like it's astounding to rewatch it with much older eyes and life
experience and a fully developed frontal lobe and immediately be like, oh no,
no, because I don't think I've watched this in like ten years, if
not more. And so one, it's a date. It's a movie that
definitely dates itself. I know that we are like like going forward so fast
societally in terms of terms and stuff like that. But the fact that one
of the first scenes in this movie, what you're gonna get really mad at
me? What you know, how we've been talking about this movie, yes,
the entire time. Yeah, that told you it was not a love
story. Yes, And you just admitted you bought into it at twenty three.
Yeah, oh my god. I know I'm part of the problem.
And so, but I would say I really loved I still love all the
music in it. The soundtrack of this movie is like the soundtrack of my
twenties. I love temper Trap, The Sweet Disposition song that like hits something
in my brain every time I hear it makes it so happy. But I
also love that band and I wanted to be Zodachtionnel, like this was right
up my alley. And but like I was saying, you know, it
immediately dates itself in that like one of the first lines of the movie is
there are two types of people in the world, men and women, And
I was like, oh no. And and just like the way the fact
that one of the opening frames of the movie is calling a woman a bitch,
you know, like this movie is for Jenny something bitch or you're a
bitch or something like. The way this movie talks about women is not cool.
And I know that that might be the point in some regards, but
it just was like it took the wind out of me, Like you want
me to be rooting for this guy who just called a girl a bitch and
a skank, Like you've lost me entirely. Yeah, And so now watching
it, I don't know if I'll ever watch it again because it feels ruined
by time, Like it just feels ruined by time, and I'm not rooting
for the main character, so it's always hard to get into a movie where
you're not rooting for the main character, and yeah, it just I really
but I will say, by the end of it, I could remember why
I liked so much, because I do love all the stylistic choices. If
you do something different in a movie or a TV show, you got me
if you do something creatively different. So I love the scene where it's expectation
and reality next to each other. I really like that as a narrative device.
Yeah, and it really outlined Tom's in her world and how off fucking
kilter he is. Yeah, with his perception. I like the drawing part
you like you're saying, Hannah, and so there's a lot of it,
and I do I hate what they're saying, but I do like how they
did that shift where they're like, Summer was you know whether they do kind
of like almost like a powerful presentation about summer in the beginning. So I
like that this movie made choices that were different than a standard rom com.
I always I always like when directors do things differently. That's why I love
like leagions, when my favorite shows that shows always doing the last thing you
think they're doing. So I really love when something breaks form like that.
So I would say stylistically, I like the movie and it holds a lot
of nostalgic for me because I was that girl at that time, I had
bangs and everything. So it's it gets me because I think something to note
too is you've never seen this movie until you watched it for the podcast Ben
correct. So I have a lot of nostalgia coming in, which I'm aware
of. But even then I was like, oh when I started watching,
and I was like, oh, this is bad. Y'all alert, alert,
this is bad. And so my assumption is as people, I'm curious,
and people let us know, either you know, Instagram comments or messages
and some fashion or emails. How many people wanted us to talk about this
movie because they still hold it in positive acclaim in their minds and genuine is
love it and wanted to hear talk about the movie they still love, or
how many people wanted us through this movie because Tom sucks and Tom's always sucked
and they know that, or that they used to love this movie and now
like had this experience like mine, and then they watched it again now that
they're older and they're like, oh no, so let us know where this
movie hits you and why like you wanted us to do it. If it's
falls in one of those categories or not, it's I'll be really interested to
know that because this movie is beloved, Like people do love this movie.
Yeah, and I'm curious how much that love has held up. Yeah.
I mean I probably was Tom, like I just gotten done being Tom,
like I wasn't at the time this movie came out, but it was probably
way too close to like having you know, not had the developmental love made
some real questionable choices in life, and like tried to fit things into a
narrative like all I see him, I did it. So probably why I
actively avoided at that point was like, no, no, we did this.
We're good. You get it. Yeah, no, No, we
don't need the movie to teach us that we're good. So I think this
is one of the few times when all three of us say unanimously, I'm
not gonna watch it again. Ever, So with that being said, thank
you for joining us for this Valenthain's Day episode. I hope no matter what
your situation is, that you have a good time they take care of yourself
and take care of your loved ones and just you know, get into it
for Valhein's Day, whatever way that means. And get out of your situation
ship if you're in one and it makes you feel bad, and go watch
nights too exactly all right, Well, thank you and we will guys see
you soon.