72. Attachment styles, non-negotiables and dating men ft. Chidera Eggerue

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. I say this every time. I'm so excited for today's episode, but perhaps the most excited I've ever been because today we have a very very special, honored guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, Hello, everybody. I am chidera Egaru. I'm popularly known online as the slum Flower. You may know me as the author of What a Time to Be Alone, or you might even remember me as the creator of the viral movement hashtag saggy boobs Matter. If you are even you are here, you might have discovered me from my podcast, The slum Flower Hour. And I'm super grateful and excited and pumped to be on Jemma's podcast because we have so much to dive into and discuss. And I think this is just a perfect collision of worlds. I could not agree more, couldn't agree more. This is the collab that needed to happen and I would like. Jadera is a legend. I have known about her since I was seventeen, eighteen years old. It's a full circle moment. Honestly, I'm star struck. Like we've obviously spoken before, but I'm star struck that you were willing to come on. I also think a huge shout out to her podcast, which she started at the end of last year. We're going to talk about it a little bit more, I'm sure during the course of this episode. But if you are not listening to it already, I don't know what you're doing, because it's just it's like the Bible. It's like an audiobook of the Bible, but even better. Do we want to describe how we met? I feel like that would be interesting. Oh, Like, first of all, we have to give a very important shout out to ev who, essentially I feel like she brought us together. I feel like she was in both of our ears, being like, yeah, you both need to be on each other's podcast, you both need to speak, you both need to meet, and we had we ended meet and Gemma ended up jumping on a zoom together. It was supposed to be just like a super brief call to just familiarize ourselves of each other and gloss through topics we might want to dive into. And before you know it, we were on. We actually, you know, Zoom's got this thing now where fourteen minutes in it will give you like a countdown. We literally waited for the countdown forteen minutes in and then we started to hold another Zoom again. I think we were on for like two hours or something. Literally, Yeah, it was one am in Sydney when I finished the call, and I was like I could have gone for longer. And we talked about like it wasn't like surface level information. It was like we went straight to about childhood trauma. We talked about astrology, science, we dived into our dynamics and our relationships with men, and then we decided that we were going to be best friends. So yeah, welcome. And that's what were life sees affects. That's the Pisces effects. Gemos are Pisces. So when you're around people who are Pisces, energy like you just feel like you can live it up. And that's what happened. So I'm very happy to be here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. And I know We're going to touch on so many things that will relate to the listeners, who I'm so grateful for. Yeah, you're absolutely right, And the thing that we really want to talk about today. It's kind of a nuanced topic, but something that I think to Dara that you do really well is talk about how we can almost relearn how we have relationships with men, and how we can address the internalized misogyny and the patriarchy that kind of flows through all of us, especially who identify as women, that impacts our relationship with men, that impacts our dating lives. And I think as we're both women in our twenties, and it's so relevant to understand where exactly our dynamics and how we approach relationships come from and to relearn some of those things that we've learned early in childhood. Like I know that you speak quite a bit about all you have spoken to me about about your parental relationships and how attachment styles really do define how we approach dating. Do you want to talk a bit about this more because I feel like you had such an interesting perspective the other day. Yes, So, when me and Gamma spoke on our zoom turned adoption of each other. Oh, we were discussing attachment styles, but I actually took it a step much further back and actually started talking about my relationship with my parents, specifically my relationship with my mom. So I'm pretty much towards the end of my twenties. I'm twenty eight years old, and I haven't been speaking to my mother since twenty eighteen, so over five years. And it's a decision that I came to on my own because I just knew that it was abusive, especially emotionally, and it continues to be that way even though I've cut off all contact. And anybody who has had to unfortunately separate themselves from any kind of abusive relationship or situation, especially when the person presents a lot of narcissistic tendencies, knows that as long as that person is still on this planet, they will still find ways to try and reach you and assert their dominion over you. And so, being a young person making the choice to separate from my mother really actually unknowingly informed the way that I approach men. And you would think, well, how can there be any kind of comparison or connection between dating men and a mother, And you'll find that the way you were nurtured, the way that you were taught to receive love, the way that you were treated when you advocated for yourself does set the tone for not just what you accept in relationships with men, but what you anticipate, Because if you experienced a lack of care and a lack of concern for your emotions from a primary care giver like a mother, then when you go on to date men and you're still moving through the world with that lack, it often means that when you are seeking romantic partners, you usually go for what's familiar, and oftentimes what's familiar doesn't have to feel good for us to feel comfortable. And that was what was happening to me throughout my twenties before I'd realized what's going on, where I would end up with men who would make me feel like I have to earn their validation. I'd find myself in situations with men where I would feel quite coerced into doing things with them, and I would even encounter conversations with men where it felt like I was basically begging them for love and proving why I deserve it. And it wasn't until my mid twenties that I started to make the link when I noticed that since I had removed the contact I had with my primary care giver, I noticed that, Okay, I've done the scariest thing being walking away from my own parent and never speaking to them again. Now it feels way less scary to walk away from men who aren't good for me, because there isn't that fear of Oh but what if I don't experience the connection that I need anymore? Because I've already removed myself from what the world would consider the most important connection in my life, and I didn't die from it. I'm able to tell this story now with ease because I've already lived through the decision. But the decision itself to make it is not easy at all. But I would say that if you are somebody that in any way resonates with the story I've just shared, it's worth really observed the kind of relationship you have with your parents, And if you do have a parent or a caregiver that was abusive towards you at some point in your life, it's really worth your time to look deeper into that and ask yourself, how has this enabled the way that I now allow things to just land in my life and not question any of it. How do I operate when I'm around men who present certain similarities that fire up this instinct in me to prove that I'm worthy of love? And what can I do to start practicing that risky feeling of walking away from men who aren't good for me? Because ironically, once you've separated from the main source of pain in your life, if that main source of pain comes from a parent, everything else becomes easier to walk away from. And that's what I think a lot of people are struggling with because they haven't eliminated the main source of that deep pain, that deep trauma, that deep trigger. They're still getting retriggered by people who don't even hold half the important that the primary care gave about that initially initially created those triggers even holding their life, Oh my gosh. And that's I think you're absolutely right. It completely is explained in many ways by psychology, and I think just to say so much credit to you for making that decision. Because we look to our parents, especially in early childhood and in our early development, for everything. They are our source of life. And that explains why when we decide that we need to make that break from them. If that's something that you need to do, it's going to be so painful. That's the primary pain, right, That's the first round, and then the second round comes from having to unlearn what they've taught you implicitly and subconsciously about what you deserve. And there's a quote I always think of whenever I think about these things, whenever I speak to people like yourself or do research on this, and it's that what we seek our adult relationships is what we didn't have as children. And it goes beyond that in that the relationships we have with our romantic partners, men, women, whoever, will replicate those early parental relationships we have because that is the model. That is the model for how we love ourselves, that is the model for how we let others treat ourselves. And the influence on our adult relationships is just it cannot be forgotten and I don't think it can be downgraded at all. And exactly what you said, right, it's you find that when you are able to detach from that primary caregiver, it becomes a lot easier to stand up for yourself and other relationships because you have already made that decision you have already, it couldn't hurt you anymore. Your primary relationship with your caregiver or whoever it may be, your guardian is one of the most fundamental. Everything else is in some ways secondary. I do have a question, though, because there's probably people listening to this who can really identify with you and be like, I actually need to do that. That's my relationship with my mother or my father or my guardian is really similar. Do you have any tips, like how did you go about that, and what did you find with some of those key lessons that you learned along the way. So I would say for anybody who might be listening and resonating and thinking, wow, this sounds like me, I think I've tolerated abuse from someone who was supposed to protect me and nurture me and love me. Well, when I was in the initial stage of first of all believing myself and believing that yes, this is abuse, I didn't go down the route of confronting the person and being like, I've figured out what you're up to. I know you're trying to break me. Instead, I chose to give myself all the time I needed to mentally detach before I ended up eventually physically moving out. The mental attachment process was the longest and hardest, and I would say that process never entirely really ends. But how I approached that process was I started to really tie. This is what I'm grateful for with YouTube. There are so many people on there who share their own personal accounts about living with a narcissistic parent, living with a controlling parent, living with an abuser. And when I would watch those people's videos, I would notice so many similarities in what I was experiencing, and then I started to believe, Oh, this is real and this is not an isolated experience. Okay, now the next step has to be really getting to the nucleus of this, like why would somebody behave like this? Because now that I know that it's not because of me, I want to understand the background of that person, not to justify or support their behavior, but to understand the scale of what kind of almost monster I'm working with. Because it feels like the person you love has been taken over by a monster that isn't them. That was how I used to see it as a child. I used to just think that a monster has mounted my mom, and that's why she hates me. Oh my gosh. Right, And so when I would research and see that, Okay, this is a cycle of trauma. This is not entirely to do with me. But unfortunately I am a reflection of my caregivers, so they are going to upload their trauma onto me. Well, now I have to start putting myself in self protection mode because I'm an adult and I need to see that there is a four year old child visual of me, and I need to step in and protect that child. So I did everything I could to equip myself with all of the psychological knowledge and support I would need to justify leaving because there were so many times that I almost talked myself out of it. And this is why people say that it takes on average. What's the statistic. I think it takes on average, Like, is it seven or ten attempts to even abuser. Yeah, it's as high as like twenty sometimes, like it can take as many times as it takes. And it took me quite a while to get over the emotion of feeling guilty. I think guilt is what stops most people from leaving, because you feel like now that you've researched and you've got all this information and you've noticed that, oh, wow, this person is doing this not because they are an inherently evil person, but because there's something that's gone wrong somewhere down the line for them and they just never made the choice to address it. You start to feel bad for that person, and then you start to justify and then you start to tell yourself or they haven't really got anyone else but me, But there's a reason why they haven't got anyone else but you, and that's good. They've destroyed all their relationships and you are up next. So I stopped feeling as guilty, and I think something a lot of people are worried about. And this is ironically why most women just tolerate really horrible and it's because you feel like if you really were to believe yourself and explicitly trust your observations, you feel like you're going to stop being the nice person that you are, because the idea of putting yourself first and leaving somebody right in their tracks when they don't expect it feels as evil as the abuser abusing you. And that's a false equivalence that we create almost as a way that as a way to kind of create an excuse for yourself to still stay longer. But also because it's really scary to live life on the other side, where you've never known an existence that doesn't involve your primary care givers abuse. It feels like it's safer to just stay in the abuse and tell yourself that there's ways to work around it. You can just put your headphones in and ignore the shouting, or you can always just keep on living a double life and it's not worth it. I think if people were to be told old like exactly how many days they have left on this earth, Like if we were all walking around with a floating number above our heads that said how many days we have left on this earth, I think most of us would make the decision to cut ties, because it's like living your life on half speed, just like having an abuser in your life who knows that they have access to you because they gave birth to you and because they can. And when it comes to being a woman that dates men and feeling bad about leaving men behind, you have nothing to feel bad about. We as women who date men, feel guilty about even daring to have a particular standard or having any kind of taste. So it's like going back to my initial point of what you learned to tolerate as a child will definitely set the tone for what you believe you're deserving of. And you have to quite literally go out of your way to make the effort to break that cycle of thinking. And it's going to feel unnatural. But just because it feels unnatural doesn't mean that it's wrong. I think that is so difficult, like what you said, where it's like it like we said, it takes so many times to leave an abusive situation. There's so many reasons behind this, right, they hijack our brains. There is a feeling that becomes associated with that person, and it's not just fear. It's not just worry or being scared. There's also the other hand, like the other side of the coin. Right, it's how amazing it feels to be loved by them in the moments where they're not harming you, where they're not controlling you. And something that I think is and often acknowledges how much that is part of the abusive process. You know, you spoke about financial abuse, emotional abuse, social abuse, cognitive abuse. All of those things are things that are in many ways identical to the abuse that you would experience from a partner, but it's coming from a primary care give. But you don't get another parent, you know, you don't get another chance at that rental relationship, which was why I'm sure it would have hurt so much. But on the other side of the coin is I'm sure there are probably moments in which you were like, oh, but maybe this is all right, Maybe I can deal with this. You know, I'm reliant on them for some form of security, some form of comfort. And I think that the other really important point that you raised there, which I think is so pertinent to what we're talking about today, is how it creates our attachment style. Right like the relationship you have with your parents, the relationship you have with your primary caregiver. It is going to directly input into impact how you're going to attach yourselves, not just to romantic interests, but to friends, to locations, to cities, to jobs. Because if you've been taught that love is not freely given, you're never going to expect that and you're never going to welcome that because that feels like fear to you. And like I was saying, you know, someone gives you that attention, someone gives you that love, someone gives you that comfort. In your previous situations with your primary caregiver, you know what's coming next. There's never love without fear, there's never love without hurt. And so when you grow up, when you become an adult, when you start to make your own family or make your own decisions around who's in your life, there will be people who are going to offer you love and who are going to really care about you. And there's always that fear, right that's kind of in the back of your mind, like when's the other shoe going to drop? Because this is what I've learned to expect. Like, did you find that I know that we talked about this a little bit about your attachment style, and I do think like the dialogue around it is sometimes skewed, and you know there's people who are who will be like right, like I haven't avoid an attachment style, and I'm like, ah, really, like I feel like you just had a really bad boyfriend, like a really bad first boyfriend in high school. Like avoid an attachment style comes from abuse, It doesn't know, Yes, it's a pretty strange condition. What what did you say? I remember you said you're pretty clear about your attachment style, and I'd love to hear your explanation of it. So for the most part, I would say that, especially while I was still living in the abusive environment and approaching dating as a very early twenty something, my attachment style back then would have been anxious, preoccupied. And how that shows up is when someone that you are maybe dating or fancy or are attracted to is talking to you, whether it's texting you or maybe you're exchanging voice notes, and then they go quiet. You start to feel like, did I do something wrong? Did I say something wrong? Does this person no longer like me? Am I in trouble? And why I would make that what could be perceived as very dramatic link, would be because as a child I would get ignored for like hours to days on end for making mistakes proportional to what a child is capable of doing, and it got me eventually into the conditioning that I deserve to be ignored and that if somebody is ignoring me, it's because I'm a bad person and I've done a bad thing. So, growing up into an adult that now dates people, well, when that person would go quiet either because they're probably busy, or they don't have anything to say, or maybe because they just want to go quiet. I would take it to a very very far away place and start to feel like I need to seek reassurance from that person, maybe start asking them did I do anything wrong? Do you still like me? Why have you gone quiet? Other Times, I might approach them in a more offensive manner because I feel quite insecure about them going quiet on me, and I want to be able to deal the rejection before they get to make me feel rejected. And as I started to get older, I would say, now, at twenty eight, I think I've shifted on the anxious attachment style sliding scale to more anxious ambivalent. And what I mean by anxious ambivalent is that now when I perceive mixed signals from a guy or hot and cold energy, I essentially feel myself like it's like it's like a higher rock table of the ich where I feel no more attached attraction to that person. I kind of feel like my brain just disensertimed. Oh yeah, that's like the perfect way to put it. Like that, it is literally a higher version of the ICHA, but it's like your brain compartmentalizing and being like I don't want to get hurt for me to do that. It's completely detached. I love how you put that. Yeah, my brain just goes. My brain's like, well, I mean he's probably playing a game with you. So whatever, nice butterflies you were feeling last Tuesday. The butterflies are dead now and we can go find something else to do. Like, I find it so easy to detach from men. And I'm not even saying it to brag and be like yeah, I'm sis hands up in this club. No. I mean like I can just chalk it to the game and be like, well, this person probably doesn't like me anymore. So if I most times end up being wrong in my perception of that person's silence, and they come back and say something like, oh my god, sorry I disappeared for a while. I was handling things with my parents, or sorry I was away, I was busy at work. Then it almost feels like kind of refreshing that their back. It's like, oh you're back again, hey, friend, Like I don't even bother with where were you? I'm not interested in you anymore. You disappeared on me. It's like, Okay, this person is still around. Well, let's see how it goes like I'm in a very let's see how it goes place in life. And you know, there are people who are ambivalent, attached, and sort of towards the more colder described side of the attachment spectrum, where you know, it's mainly guys who are like that, where they just don't even communicate anything to you. They just change their energy without updating you, and you just feel a bit lost, like, oh, what's going on here? I'm pretty sure this guy told me that he wanted to fly me out somewhere, like I'm sure, I'm sure you liked me, Like I'm pretty sure you were flirting with me, and now I've not heard from you in two weeks. Guess what happened here? Yeah? And the switch right, like that switch was very swift, and I'm not sure about that. And for me, when guys do that, because the thing is, no matter how hard you've worked on yourself, no matter how pretty you are, smart, you are funny, you are academically achieved, you are that is not going to stop a guy from acting funny towards you, because you don't even know why a guy's attracted to you, especially if his intentions are to get supply from you, and what I mean by supply is like an ego boost, or they just love the feeling of getting your attention because at some point they perceived you as unattainable, and now that they have your attention, you don't even see the value in your attention because you don't view yourself in that way and you don't view other people in that way. But for a lot of these guys who might approach you and start acting very sort of like dismissive avoidant, where it almost feels as though if you were to raise a concern, they flip it back at you and you feel like a problem for having a concern. For me, I find that triggering because it just reminds me of again being in that dynamic with my primary caregiver and raising a concern and just being dismissed or being told that I'm making a big deal or just go shut up and go play with a toy, or something like just being dismissed. And when men make me feel dismissed, that's an instant disqualification, like I don't even bother with trying to salvage that because it's not salvageable. Yeah, no second chances. Honestly, Like, and I feel like you might be at the stage as well where I'm like, I've learned my lessons from this. I don't need to learn that lesson again. I don't need to be dismissed again. Like you're twenty eight years old, and I feel like you're on this really healthy, almost like journey towards a secure attachment. Like that's what I'm here. I want to believe. So that's the goal. Because the other day I took one of those attachment there's these like attachment style tests you can take on the internet, Dara, don't do those online? Is it? Are they? Like? Are they not good? No? Just talk to me, honestly, don't do the I'm gonna tell oh my god, the online ones are a scam. I'm telling you this right now. But what have you got it here? First? Folks? Yeah, it's endorsed scam, that's yeah. But what did it tell you? What did it say you're a secure? Well? It told me how secure? But I was like, I'm not going to believe that because myself worked to do I don't want to just believe that I'm secure, and they're not do any work on myself. So I'm going to tell myself I'm still anxious, I ambivalent, and I'm okay with that because the ambivalence has saved me way more than the preoccupied version of me has done. I feel like that is that's on your way to secure, right. But then I think it's more of a personal thing about you, where you're like, I cannot stop working on myself because you are so cognizant of what happened in your childhood and because you do kind of carry this added weight, this added emotional weight and added responsibility. Because I feel like the thing that is the reason why you are able to spread so much truth is because you're committed to working on yourself and because you are able to see that link. So I think what you're saying is like, Okay, I can't believe that I'm secure because that means that I have to stop working on myself. And that's not something that I'll ever have to stop doing. That's something that is a continual process, and I know how easy it will be to slide back. I just oh, I just think it's so interesting. I can't I would believe that it tells you that you're secure, but it's interesting that you don't believe it, that you're like, no, yeah. The thing is because it asks me, Like when I think about some of the questions you would ask, it would be like, do you feel okay with not hearing from anyone sometimes? And one time I think I tacked yes because I'd like to be on my own for a while, and I'm and in theory, I'm okay with not being surrounded by attention. Or it will ask you things like because I'm an introvert, yeah, or the prompts would be like do you feel rejected if you don't hear from someone you care about? Like questions like that, and sometimes I might answer yeah. Sometimes my answer no, So because my answers were kind of fifty fifty, it kind of was like, you seem secure. The thing is right, I feel like the reason why I reject the yeah, the reason why I reject the computer telling me that I'm secure is because I still catch myself having human moments where I'm like, this, don't feel secure, Like I do not feel secure with this man, and I know that it's not because I'm insecure, is because this man has not created a secure dynamic with me. He has not nurtured this, he has not watered this plant. So I'm not gonna just because I'm being told that I'm secure, just like ignore my knee. Like just because you're secure doesn't mean you're not going to have needs. And also another thing that I learned is that you can be a person that has a secure attachment style, but there's still like an underlying secondary attachment style that's like waiting, simmering underneath, where if you're triggered, if you're around somebody who is very rejecting of you, who blows hot and cold, that will activate the attachment style that you've healed from. So in my case, if I'm around a guy who is very very hot and cold, I'm bivalant laying it on heavy then just disappearing. That will provoke me to feel somewhere between like anxious, preoccupied, where I'm preoccupied about, you know, trying to figure out what's going on here, but also I ambivalent enough to be like I am liking this guy less and less now. And it could be argued that because you know, I go back and forth with my therapist about this where I'm trying to not be that person who is like so cynical and closed off from love where I don't really give anything or even give myself a chance to feel the butterflies, feel goofy and love. And the thing is, I get it. But at the same time, I'm not in a hurry to just like relax into a love that hasn't been securely built, like everything from the foundations through to the windows, the notches on the doors, everything needs to be in place before I relax into that, because I just don't think men are okay. And if you're someone that dates men, you can't afford to just relax and trust into them loving you without you having seen that this is somebody who does their own work on their own accord, without any external prompt from you. Once I come across a person like that, which I've come across in my friendships with men, I can be so relaxed and feel so loved around men like I have such loving friendships with the men in my life that I do know that it's possible to find men that are working on themselves. But just because it's possible doesn't mean that I'm going to project that possibility onto every man that I'm attracted to because you can be attracted to someone and you can get on really well with them, but for some reason, and once things get to a more serious place and you notice that they're not giving you the energy that you perceived that you fell in love if you have to believe what you're perceiving, because most people go off of the version of the man that they met two years ago. But I'm always I'm always big on who is he right now? That's the man you need to, yeah, like make a decision on who is he right now, not who he was two years ago when he was giving you vibes and giving you hugs and making you feel good. Who is he right now? How do you feel right now? And I totally agree. It's actually so interesting that you talk about almost being like I do want to fall in love right like that is something that I want. I want that lovely feeling once you are able to. It's not really like a vetting system. I wouldn't call it a vetting system, but it's almost like, for a lack of a better word, it's like I think it is a system because exactly because it's like I actually I think there's something quality control quality control are meant quality control. Men need to go through a few rounds of that. They've got to meet the friends. Yes literally literally, I never go to a man's place for the first like two months that I'm seeing. But the thing that I found is that, like I think, at the end of last year, and tell me if you felt this at some point in your life as well, I had my heartbroken by someone who treated me terribly and I went to the absolute opposite end of the deepest steps of cynical where I was like, I am completely determined that I can be alone for the rest of my life and any form of love is going to hurt me. And it was really sad because I am someone who wants to be loved, and I know you're someone who wants to be loved as well. It's a human instinct to want that for ourselves, but I was so like protective of myself and it was almost like a barrier that was established out of fear to be like, I don't want to be hurt. I don't want someone to break down this barrier. I don't want someone to put me through this pain again. And it was something I had to unlearn, which was like how can I. I don't need men, but I want them, and I know that like partnership is a beautiful thing. That's the important sentence. Though, Yeah, you think so I don't want men. I don't need men, but I want them. Yeah, because you know what, even the cynicism you're referring to, I believe personally that anybody who has allowed their self to go through the stages of separating from an abuser will inevitably at some point be met with that stage of cynicism. And I do think that's part of the healing process, because your body and your mind, just your whole being needs to learn and experience what it's like to be independent and to thrive on your own. But I think the next stage after cynicism is kind of like still acknowledging that, you know, men might not be the source of the love that you deserve, but it doesn't mean that you're never going to find love in this world. And in my case, it's kind of like that's where I learned how to lean into my community, and that was where I learned and part of why I feel so empowered to even have standards when it comes to men is because of my cynicism where it's like, well, I'm so chilled out in my cynicism and I'm open to being surprised. This is an invitation for you to surprise me. I'm not saying that men can't ever be great. I'm saying accept the challenge then, like like, I'm open to being surprised. But until that happens, I will remain on my frequency of healthy cynicism where I'm not going to be carried away by the fluttery feelings of a man liking me. I do think that if you're somebody that is very, very empathetic, hypersensitive, easily easily absorb absorbing of other people's like pain and wounds, you do need to have, like ayist, like a cynical kind of sheet of film. It's like an invisible sheet of film that you can just put on temporarily, but remember to take it off, Like you don't have have to live your whole life in a cynical place. But anybody who has been around draining narcissistic people knows that when you come across that grandiose eccentricity and a lot of men, you do have to be a bit cynical and it's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you're this person that's like, you know, you're so negative and you can't find joying anything anymore. It's like, no, I want to see what this person is about. Oh yeah yeah. And I think women deserve to be cynical in a world that like spins against them, in a world where men continue to use us, Like I think cynicism is a much better place to land than all women being vengeful. And I love what you said before about I honestly am like waiting till we're done to go and journal this. But like you're allowed to be surprised. I had not thought about that, Like you're allowed to be surprised. And I've had these conversations with friends of mine. So my friends, my closest friends, are all in relationships with with men that I think are amazing people who I would actually count as friends. But I was having this conversation. We've talked about this before, but I was having this conversation with my friend and they were like, you're in your Missentry hating era and you've got to get through it. And I was like, and I remember being like, Okay, I'm kind of offended, and she said to me, she was like, I cannot wait till the moment where I get to meet the love of your life. And I was like, why why can't you wait? Like obviously, like that would be exciting, but I was like, I would much rather be single until I was thirty five and then find someone who really suited me. And like, this is the thing to Dary, Like, we are pretty impressive, independent, powerful women. We are self starters, Yes we are, and that's facts. It is. Yeah, like we were educated where incredibly Like we have an impact and that's an amazing privilege, right, but it also means that when I look around at people who could potentially add to that, like, there's not much that I couldn't do for myself, and there's not much that I couldn't provide to myself. So I feel like when you were talking about that analogy of making sure that all the hinges on the door right the windows, like the secure foundation of a relationship, I would much rather find that at thirty five and spend the next decade or less of my life being alone, then think that I found that. Now, you know, end up at thirty five and realize that I was completely misguided, and you know, my house is falling down and I've got to rebuild. I just think it's like it's worth the way, it's worth the sacrifice, and it's not even a sacrifice, right, Like our relationship with ourself is the most important. I was going to say, sometimes you can't even you can't even rebuild a collapsed house. You end up having to just relocate and uproot your life all over again. I see this happened to women time and time again, where you know, they got married to the guy that gave them the butterflies, and then they got married and then they realized that they were love bombed essentially, and now they're spending five years in the divorce process, and you know, they're now left with this what was once a house that had you know, the door hinges were talking about in the foundation. You realize all of it is broken and doesn't even work. You can't there is not even any resale value to it. Just got to abandon that thing and just start again and move elsewhere. And what you were saying about the joke your friend made about you being in a missindury era, So for those who are listening and might be wondering what does missindry mean. Misinry is a term that was coined to essentially mean hating men. But what's really interesting is that I get called a misindrist all the time, mainly from men, surprisingly from women too, and usually men from women. Yeah, I get women telling me that I'm a missindrist and that I hate men, because obviously men conflate accountability with hate, but also because the idea that a woman would be consistent in her disgust for men must mean that she hates them, and it must mean she's a bad person, because the missentry label is about your morality, whereas when a man is called misogynistic, it's not because he's a good or bad person, just because he just like has that particular line of thinking. Like so in my case, what I find interesting is that I'm yet to meet someone that can just quickly, very quickly, just show me where and how men are affected by misogyny in a way that is material, societal, and physical. Like, nobody can show me how men are marginalized because of misogyny, the violence that women experience across the world at the hands of men. It's determined by the societies that you live in and how men enable other men to continue. So, yes, if men want better stories told about them, one they should behave better and two you don't really get to push someone and tell them where to fall. They see you having boundaries as violence towards them, They see you not wanting to sleep with them as hate speech. Oh my god, that's literally I was going to say, like, that's exactly what that reminded me of. It's like, okay, so I'm in my man hating error air quotes there as my friend described it, And if she's listening to this, I really I do love you. You just were misguided. But like, I'm in my man hating era, right, what's the worst that's going to happen to someone because of that? You know, I'm not going to have sex with you, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to give you my attention and my love. Do you know what it makes you realize as a man is how much I actually give to you and what happens to you when I take it away. That is the worst consequence that you're going to realize. And I hope that it's a good lesson right to realize that I'm actually a very valuable I'm a valuable person, and you might notice what I'm not there, but most of the time you probably won't. And the opposite, like when you think about the misogyny that's lodged against women, it's a lot more tangible. It's a lot more tangible than you're not getting to have sex with me. And most of the rebuttals I get from people, whoever it's men or women, you know, against my ideologies, trying to imply that me not having the time of day for men is harmful towards them. All these ideologies end in women are just supposed to give men more access to our body so that they can stop feeling bad about themselves. And that I was telling you about that email I got the other day from this person. I am not. I would not say that I'm a highly controversial person, right like yet this person and even if I was, I still didn't deserve this. I think that I am sometimes cautious about sharing a lot about my personal life. Like I think that people who listen to me understand like the basic narrative of the last three years of my life, right, but they don't understand. They don't know me. They don't know who I am. And this person sent me. This guy sent me this email, and it was essentially being like, I hate you. I think that you're the worst person in the world. You are the reason why I, this man I've never met, can't get a date. You're the reason that women are so misguided in society. And I had to It was almost eight hundred of thousand words long, and I had to receive that email. I'm just going to say, I have never sent anyone, like anyone something that hateful that they had to read and they had to remember. And I was like, I made one statement about how I'm setting boundaries for myself and about how I'm going to date the right people in twenty twenty three, and you equated that with me absolutely ruining your life. Well, doesn't that tell you then that like men are the lonely ones, men are the real ones who have got a ticking time bomb over their heads. Anything that they've projected onto us is actually their reality. And those projections include the idea that as a woman, you're going to end up on your own if you don't give in to a man's dominion. As a woman, you're going to be super miserable if you don't marry a man, and oh my goodness, you're single. I bet you're secretly learning when actually the reality is most men can't live without the physical touch and validation of a woman. That's why a man from across the world has told you that you have ruined his life by you just hypothetically expressing that you want to date better people. And in my case, I get actual insuls commenting on my Instagram posts saying bring back Andrew Tate. We need more Andrew Tates in this world, and that to me is insane. Like Andrew Tate has just been arrested on suspicion of sex trafficking women, and even outside of him being arrested on such heavy suspicions, he's been making content for years where he has amassed and assembled a physical community of men who have all been taught to do the love a Boy method, which is what Andrew Tate explains verbat him on his own website, how to essentially worse a woman into sexually working for you, which to me is deplorable. And when men see me making content encouraging women to just like you, know that whole thing men say where they're like, well, since since you're having such a hard time with men, then date better men. Well, I'm here trying to encourage women to date better men. And then men are being like, actually, we need more Andrew Tates. Actually I think you need to die. Oh my god, I hate that they say that to you. But like the common thing of like not all men. And then when you're like, okay, so not all men. Let's find the men that are good. You know, like I said, you don't need, but you might want, and they're like, you're absolutely misguided. You're absolutely wrong. It doesn't work both ways. Like you can't have it both ways. You can't make these generalized sweeps in the positive and the negative that it's not all men. But then when you talk about like wanting to teaching women and teaching folks to date better people, they're like, well, why do you need to do this? Well, isn't it isn't it ironic that men will not all men you to death until they have a daughter. Then they're going to teach their daughter stay away from boys, stay away from men. And I'm going to get a shotgun. But I thought it was not all men, because if it's not all men. Then how come we see that common trope repeated time and time again, where once a man has a daughter, the men around him are like, well, you better get a shotgun. Why I thought it was not all men, So it is all men? So you agree? Yeah, are you a hypocrite? Or what's going on? No one's been able to give me the answer, Like, what's the truth? Like, they literally are not people you can take seriously with your life, with your expenses, with your future until they prove otherwise. None of my messaging has ever been from the place of men are ultimately bad people, You're never going to find happiness. Rather, it's that you have got to make your own effort as a person to have a quality control system in place, and that involves a period of you being on your own for a while. You're not going to find the best guy for you by chance and by fluke. It's like, it involves consciously listen and consciously watching that person's behavior to see if their words and their actions line up. It's a conscious effort. You can't just let it happen by chance. Yeah. Oh, I absolutely agree. And I have another friend who I think is an excellent example of this, and has an amazing partner. And I think you're absolutely right, Like when you talk about we're not making it's your messaging has never been well. We should create a female only commune and learn how to procreate on our own and like eradicate man Like it's not the messaging, it's that happiness, I think in many ways, and happiness and relationships, especially if you're someone who dates men, has to come from a place of agency and has to come from a place of responsibility and an accountability to yourself of like, Okay, this is actually what I want. I can settle right now, and I can be in a relationship in which I am deeply unhappy, my needs are unsatisfied. In some cases it could even be oppressive or abusive. Or you can take the time to recondition yourself and relearn what you need to learn, because I think that's the other thing, right, Like a lot of men are conditioned and men are indoctrinated, but women are equally told to be very passive and told to be nurturing and to overlook and that if they are lonely, or if they are alone, or if they are without a partner, that's something inherently wrong. With them, and I don't think that's the case. I would love to hear your perspective on how you go about that, like how you go about setting those boundaries, how you go about selecting someone or vetting someone who is the right person for you. So for me, I have my non negotiables, and my non negotiables are the type of non negotiables that will warrant me getting the kind of email that Jemma got where a man was sending her eight one thousand words essentially telling her to go die. So my non negotiables are definitely you have to have. You have to have your finances together as a man. Doesn't sound very nice, but that's the whole point, Like you need to have that together because I'm not looking for a man who needs to be taken care of by me financially. I'm in a place where I'm taking care of myself financially, so it will be nice to be partnered with somebody who has that area of their life sorted. That doesn't mean that that person is going to be perfect just because their finances are sorted. I mean we come across people all the time, and stories in the news all the time of people who come from wealth still experiencing depression. So part of why financial comfort matters to me is because having money alleviates a lot of problems, and it allows me the ease to maneuver society and maneuver my life in a way that grants me access to the help I need. The yes, and I think the least a man can do is bring ease to my life or else I'm better off just on my own really and just having friends that I'm generally enjoying my life with. Another non negotiable for me is that he can't be a man that enjoys doing that whole gotcha moment thing men like to do where they try and argue you out of your own ideologies when they call themselves male feminists, I gravitate towards men who live with those values. Most of the men who I know that actually excude feminist values don't call themselves feminists. They don't even engage with the theory or talk much about it. They just treat me and the women around them in a way that shows that they care and that this is a choice that they're making. Another non negotiable for me is I can't be with a guy who is controlling whether a guy has money or not. You still need to be a really fucking awesome person and that has to be an effort that you have put in by yourself. And when you know people hear me having this list of non negotiables, the immediate instinct is how dare you like as a woman, how dare you decide that you are going to have a filtration system? But the real question should be why not As somebody who sits on the anxious ambivalent positioning of the attachment spectrum, I have to fight the hyper independence that I have where I'm very used to being on my own. So actually, how I practice learning healthy interdependence is to accept care and accept help from people who love me. So if I say I want a guy who has money, it is because I'm learning to accept that I deserve help, or learning to accept that I deserve support, or learning to accept that I am worthy of somebody who wants to enable me to have an easy and fun life. And it happens for people all the time, And if it feels good, let it feel good until it doesn't. Like I don't believe in when things are in a nice place of a guy constantly being like, but what if it goes wrong? But what he does this? Rather, I'm going to let it feel good, and if he does something that shows otherwise, I'm also going to believe myself when I perceive that, and I walk away knowing that, well, things are fun until they weren't. And that's a new buddy. You know what's interesting is that when you're talking about, like, I want to date men with who can support himself, like you don't have to provide reasoning for that, you know what I mean? Like I feel like often when I give my non negotiables, maybe you find the same. I'm like, oh, but it's for these reasons. It's for these reasons that I want this. And it's like, why can't I just say that that's what I want? Why can't I just make that statement? And as someone who has I'm going to completely out myself here only ever dated men who are not financially stable, and do not judge me. I'm learning I'm not judging, but I know and you just like so spoke to my soul there where it was like, because I am so hyper independent that there's someone who I can mother and I'm able to make the financial decisions in some way. The men that I have dated have never had jobs. Isn't that ridiculous. I taught one of them how to drive, multiple of them how to drive, And I think it's because I naturally seek this matriarch or maternal role with these men. And I've to one lean that you know, I'm actually not your mother, I'm actually your partner. I'm your romantic interest. I remember one time going on a trip with someone and I paid for the entire thing, and he paid for one thing. One thing, and it was something that we actually didn't end up using, and he started complaining about how you know, we didn't use that. We didn't like end up using that thing that I think it was like a fruit. I think it was like a freeze drive meal. We were like camping or something like that, and he was like, we didn't use that, Like my contribution went to waste, and now I look at it, I was like, oh my god, I completely changed you. Meanwhile, you paid for the bulk of it. I paid for everything, and I was like, okay, but you actually never said thank you. And also I now realize I would rather not do that, and I don't need to give you a reason. I don't need to give anyone a reason. This is just the standard that I'm setting for my life, the same way that men are able to stand it, you know, to create standards for their life, and no one ever questions it. So I just think it's one of the things no one's ever made a man explain. Okay, so when you say you don't like fat women, what does that mean? Like? Or when you say you're the head of the household, what does that mean? And how can you validate? Everyone just accepts it. And you see women literally losing weight for men. You see women literally who are career women making themselves smaller for men. You see women who are like us, super accomplished, like you explaining your story, dating men who are far below your level, and it almost feels like you have to make up for how far behind they are by cutting yourself into smaller pieces. And that's still not enough. It's still not enough for them. That's why I'm like, you're better off on your own, living that healthy cynicism of knowing that most men are not built to even live up to your greatness. But the men who are built to live up to your greatness are out there you have to keep open to that. But also you need to expose yourself to environments where you're likely to meet those kinds of men for you to even meet the kind of man that you envision yourself being with. Do you have the confidence to hold your own Do you have the confidence to believe that you're worthy of the camera man that you deep down deserve? Because if you've only been tolerating men you have to look after and you finally come across the guy who actually has the means to bring this experience to your life that you've been longing for. Anyway, so you've got enough. If men feel bold enough to ask you for pussy, you don't be scared to ask them for shit either. We're scared to ask men for staff. Meanwhile, they are extracting emotional labor for us from us every day, and we're teaching them to drive for free. Meanwhile we're scared of embarrassing. No, but it's real. There are seven. I've been there. I've been most of my dating history until I realized who I was was me picking man that I had to look after because it's about control as well. It's about feeling like, well, this guy can't leave me because look at what I've done for him. Well, jokes on you, because you can do everything for a man and he will still leave you. Oh yeah, and you'll be beside yourself, like how I know, Oh my gosh, I just feel like we've peered into my brain. And I don't think it was oh my god, that's so painful. I don't think it was a control thing, right, Like, I don't think I was sitting out there being like this. I think I think it's the thing where it's like exactly what you were saying, Like, people just there are people who are going to meet in your life romantic interests or whoever, who are going to want to give you what you give to others. And I think sometimes I find it so unnatural to be like, Okay, well this is actually what I love doing for people. I love giving them everything, like being really generous with my finances, with my time, with my energy. How Come I can't accept that they might want to give that back? And how come it's hard for me to realize that. And you know, you can call it personality, you can call it your upbringing, whatever it is. I just think it's something that you have to unlearn and when you do get to the point of being able to be realistic about you know, what you expect from others and what you're willing to accept from others, everything becomes a lot easier and you are able to establish those relationships that are two sided. Right. And even what you were saying about being someone that it's in your nature to be generous and giving, I'm the same. And to anybody who's listening who might be thinking, so should I just like, stop being a generous person and stop sharing. No, just be more conscious of who you share that side of yourself around. That's it. That's how you have a quality control process. Like you don't have to stop being who you are. You just have to learn that some men only deserve the thirty day free trial version of you. And once that thirty day free trial has ended, they'll be blocked out of nowhere like you got your trial or you didn't do much with it, sorry, dude, Like gotta keep moving now your free trial has actually expired. These guys don't deserve These guys don't deserve that Godess, Mother Nature energy, like save that, please save that for the dude that has worked too for nell for it, because that energy you have can change a man's life. Dude from across the street wearing a checkered firm Will shirt and Vans does not deserve that. He will be fine. He will be fine. If you was to God forbid, fall down and die right now, he will find somebody else to provide him with the supply that he's looking for. I feel like this is a really good place to wrap up, because if you're not tired of us already, I know, but I'm going to promise this to my listeners right now, we will be doing a part two because this was such an engaging conversation. Oh hell yeah, prepared to be sick of actual Honestly, I only just looked at the time then and I was like, oh my god, we have been speaking for an hour and a half about everything and anything, and I think that's just an amazing thing. And I hope that you have enjoyed, whoever's listening to this, being a fly on the wall for this conversation. And if you found it controversial, well I'm so sorry. Come back for part two and we can enlighten you a little bit more. I was just going to say on my end that I really hope that anybody who's listening who resonated with this and is maybe in a stage of realizing that they deserve better, do not try and take extreme steps to completely transform your life overnight. This is a process. Baby steps are still steps. Take your time, because detaching from any kind of abuser is literally like removing chewing gum from a denim jacket. You have to be really careful. It's a very intricate process, and be kind to yourself because there will be relapses, but just know that with each relapse, you're still progressing. So just focus on moving forward every day and remembering that one day it's not going to be like this anymore, and that's the day you just got to keep living for. Yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it. I think that's exactly spot on. You know, there's nothing in life that's promised other than change, and there will be a day that you feel a right. So I want to thank Jadera for her amazing insights, and I'm going to just say her podcast is one of the best I've ever listened to. It is incredible. Thank you so much, and it's honestly true. I listened. I've been listening to it on my way to work at work, and I just think that if you enjoyed this conversation, even if there were times where you didn't agree with what we were saying, just go and listen to it, because I just feel like it is essential listening for anyone, especially women who are in their twenties who are dealing with the same questions that we grappled today. To to Dara, thank you so much for coming on, Thank you for having me, Gemma, And to anybody who's curious about my podcast, The slum Flower Hour, it's essentially for any woman who dates men that is a little disobedient. Like if you're a disobedient woman who deep down you just you need that enabling to step into your power, then The slum Flower Hour is the podcast for you. But until then, I give you my love. Thank you for listening to this credible conversation with myself and Gamma, and I hope that this has sparked enlightening you to remember that you deserve to choose the life that you live rather than settle for it. Yeah, thank you so much, And just a reminder if you did, if you did enjoy this episode, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now and if you want to be involved with the community, if you want to follow along, see when merchandise is released, new episodes are released. Please follow at that Psychology podcast and I hope you have a lovely day. Thank you for listening.