Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Well, all right, I've got
Speaker 1: a question for you. Have you ever heard of according stick? No?
Speaker 1: I don't think I have. I'm a little surprised by
Speaker 1: this because this was popular in New England in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, and I think that was your one of
Speaker 1: your miners, right, eighth century New England sticks sticks. Actually
Speaker 1: that's what I meant. All right. So here's how it works.
Speaker 1: This is something that happens when young couples want to
Speaker 1: be together, and it actually originated because they weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to go on dates or hold hands. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of funny to imagine. I always think that's a funny,
Speaker 1: like like you don't want to be seen doing anything
Speaker 1: as lude as holding hands and touff. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: actually approved about this too, like I I don't want
Speaker 1: to hold hands and all right, Well, so what happened
Speaker 1: is these eager teens were looking for solutions because of this,
Speaker 1: and so the next best thing to sneaking out together
Speaker 1: was having a boy come over to a girl's house
Speaker 1: and this is where they would use according stick. And
Speaker 1: so it was basically the six ft long tube and
Speaker 1: this kept the young lovers six ft apart from one another,
Speaker 1: and then sitting right there under Dad's watchful eye, you
Speaker 1: could use it to have a conversation. So basically you
Speaker 1: take turns putting your mouth or ear up to it
Speaker 1: and then whispers some things, you know, something to the
Speaker 1: other person that sounds ridiculous. It does. But the weirdest
Speaker 1: thing is that you were often surrounded by your entire
Speaker 1: family while you were doing this. I would just make
Speaker 1: me so nervous. And so you're flirting in front of
Speaker 1: like your grandmother and your kid brother, and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes neighbors. Just like everyone was around, and so every
Speaker 1: picture I've ever seen of it looks super awkward. But
Speaker 1: that's just the first of nine unusual courting techniques we're
Speaker 1: discussing on today's episode. So let's dive in. Y Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh.
Speaker 1: I ticket and sitting behind the soundproof glass lighting some candles.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of candles, and there's a nice sent
Speaker 1: of coming from the mango playing a little bit of
Speaker 1: Barry White. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, So, well,
Speaker 1: I'm super excited. We're doing this thing on a courtship techniques.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be fun and weird. But I'm even more
Speaker 1: excited for a guest. Yeah, just so everybody out there knows.
Speaker 1: When we first came to how Stuff works and we
Speaker 1: were told, hey, you have the ability to go out
Speaker 1: and recruit some great new podcasters. The first person we
Speaker 1: thought about, the first person we reached out to, was
Speaker 1: our guest today, and that's Joe Piazza. She's the author
Speaker 1: of a book called How to Be Married, and Joe
Speaker 1: traveled the world around to what like twenty different countries,
Speaker 1: getting just these amazing ideas and hearing from some interesting
Speaker 1: people on what it's like to be married in different places.
Speaker 1: And this gave us all this idea for a podcast
Speaker 1: that we decided to call Committed. And Joe is with
Speaker 1: us today. So Joe, how's it going? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: that was so flattering. I feel like you guys are
Speaker 1: courting me or something like my own candles over here.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that. We'll get to that, but first
Speaker 1: we need to talk about Committed because it has launched
Speaker 1: and we will hope all of our listeners will check
Speaker 1: it out. It's just called Committed. You can find it
Speaker 1: on Apple podcast or anywhere else that you listen to
Speaker 1: your podcast. But Joe, we obviously know a whole lot
Speaker 1: about the show, but can you tell our listeners tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about Committed. Yeah. So, when I
Speaker 1: first got married, I had no idea how to be
Speaker 1: a wife, no idea how to be a partner, no
Speaker 1: idea how to be married. And like you said, I
Speaker 1: traveled around the world trying to figure it out. And
Speaker 1: what I learned was there wasn't great advice per se.
Speaker 1: But the thing that stuck with me were the stories
Speaker 1: from different people. I loved hearing the stories about real love,
Speaker 1: real commitment, real marriage, because marriage doesn't end after I do,
Speaker 1: and that's the only thing that we ever see in
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy. The stories I'm Committed are hilarious and heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they're both within the same five minutes. Our
Speaker 1: guests have persevered. Our first episodes were launching with a
Speaker 1: couple who law their legs in the Boston marathon bombing,
Speaker 1: and now they're trying to rebuild their marriage. We have
Speaker 1: another couple where the wife suffered a stroke and no
Speaker 1: longer had short term memory. Her husband needs to be
Speaker 1: both his and her memory for the entire couple. And
Speaker 1: these stories are incredible. And I also get to live
Speaker 1: vicariously through the couples, So I get to find out
Speaker 1: what it's like to be married to a rock star,
Speaker 1: something I've always wanted to know, or a porn star,
Speaker 1: something I didn't know that I wanted to know, but
Speaker 1: I definitely did, and so does everyone else. I get
Speaker 1: to find out what it's like to be in a
Speaker 1: polyamorous relationship. I got to find out what a polyamorous
Speaker 1: relationship really was. So I'm I'm obsessed with this show.
Speaker 1: The podcast is so much better than I ever thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be, and the stories are something
Speaker 1: really special. Yeah, I mean they're so beautiful and uplifting
Speaker 1: and also just so funny, like what it's like to
Speaker 1: be married to a psychic and how you are you
Speaker 1: when you're in a marriage with the psychic. It's just
Speaker 1: so hilarious. The Psychic relationship is fantastic because not only
Speaker 1: did we find out what it's like to be married
Speaker 1: to a psychic, but she also did a past life
Speaker 1: reading for Nick and I where we found out that
Speaker 1: we were Vikings together, married Vikings in a past life,
Speaker 1: but not the raping and pillaging kind of Vikings. The
Speaker 1: community building. Hopefully you still have the hats, though Nick
Speaker 1: still has the beard. Good, well, wonderful, Joe. I'm curious
Speaker 1: before we jump into the to the nine things, what's
Speaker 1: been your favorite part of this show so far? My
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show is just how honest people are.
Speaker 1: I feel like people are hungry to talk about real love,
Speaker 1: real commitment, real marriage, because we sugar coat everything these
Speaker 1: days on social media and everyone's posting their adorable couple
Speaker 1: of photos, hashtag couple goals, hashtag date night, and it's
Speaker 1: really awful, right, people are hungry for something honest. They're
Speaker 1: hungry to talk about the real, nitty gritty what it's
Speaker 1: like to wake up next to the same person every
Speaker 1: day of your life. And sometimes that's amazing and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's terrible. And they're eager to tell those stories, and
Speaker 1: I'm eager to share them with the world. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for people to listen to partially because
Speaker 1: I find the story so inspiring. They really do make
Speaker 1: me want to be a better partner. And you hear
Speaker 1: these stories of like the couple who survived the marathon bombing,
Speaker 1: or like the um the couple without memory. The fact
Speaker 1: that they're constantly working to make really memorable experiences so
Speaker 1: that you can remember them is just phenomenal. It's stunning
Speaker 1: and and there's so much emotion packed in here, and
Speaker 1: I really can't wait for people to listen. Yeah, every
Speaker 1: time I finished one of these episodes, I go into
Speaker 1: Nick and I'm like, I should be a better wife.
Speaker 1: I should really we we have it pretty good. I
Speaker 1: should really just be better at this, or we need
Speaker 1: to find a better wife to join us, or let's
Speaker 1: or let's recruit a better way and that will be
Speaker 1: our next podcast. It's kind of like The Bachelorette. We
Speaker 1: didn't want to tell Joe this, but actually this whole
Speaker 1: thing was a set up to help Joe be a
Speaker 1: better one. That's that's really what this podcast is all about.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, speaking of the emotional, we thought we
Speaker 1: would jump into these courting rituals, so I started us
Speaker 1: off with carrying a big stick. So Joe, we're gonna
Speaker 1: turn it to you. Do you have a first fun
Speaker 1: fact for us in this category? So I like this one,
Speaker 1: especially coming on the news this week that the Miss
Speaker 1: America pageant is getting rid of their bathing suit competition. Finally.
Speaker 1: Um in Niger, the Woodhabi tribe does beaty pageants the
Speaker 1: way that they should have always been done, with male
Speaker 1: contestants out on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It's
Speaker 1: the men who dress up and paint their faces and
Speaker 1: dance to impress female judges. All right, that's a good
Speaker 1: one to kick us off. Okay, Mango, what's your what's
Speaker 1: your first fact? So this is a custom from the
Speaker 1: maw ethnic group in southwest China, and it happens at
Speaker 1: the Sister's Meal Festival in April, which I guess is
Speaker 1: something like a Valentine's Day. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: you remember doing this, but like when we were in
Speaker 1: fourth grade, you might pass a crush a note that
Speaker 1: has I guess, like a box to say yes or no,
Speaker 1: and you say, like do you want to go play
Speaker 1: pop pot with me? Or do you want to go
Speaker 1: to the school dance or whatever. Um. I did that
Speaker 1: with Tristan and the other day he play with me
Speaker 1: and it was fun. He marked it yes and pasted back.
Speaker 1: But at the Sister's Meal Festival, the women get all
Speaker 1: dolled up and they cook lots of sticky rice in
Speaker 1: different colors, and then they wait for these suitors to,
Speaker 1: I guess, serenade them. And I learned about this from
Speaker 1: a lonely planet. But after a gentleman caller serenades their crush,
Speaker 1: the woman will give them like a bundle of sticky rice.
Speaker 1: And if you unwrap it and you find two chopsticks,
Speaker 1: it means she likes you. And if you find only
Speaker 1: one chopstick, it means a polite no. But there are
Speaker 1: also these stronger messages there too. So if you find
Speaker 1: a garlic clover a chili in your rice, it's basically
Speaker 1: a girl rejecting in front of all your friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it basically means you've got a long neces
Speaker 1: serenading ahead of you. But if you find a single
Speaker 1: pine needle in there, it means definitely maybe, because she
Speaker 1: might see you as a fixer of single pine needle. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. I love these different traditions in ways
Speaker 1: that people like to express or ask them to, you know,
Speaker 1: to be a couple. But the pine needle, it feels
Speaker 1: awful because like, what did you accidentally eat it? Right,
Speaker 1: like it would just get stuck in your throat. Then
Speaker 1: you'll you'll remember definitely, maybe for a long time. And
Speaker 1: and that's the risk that you're willing to take for love.
Speaker 1: It is It is well speaking of the work that
Speaker 1: goes into expressing your love for someone. Actually, I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about spooning, but not the
Speaker 1: type of spooning that that we're all familiar with here
Speaker 1: in the US. But this is an old Welsh tradition
Speaker 1: that dates back to the seventeenth century. And so Welch
Speaker 1: boys would make these what we're called love spoons, and
Speaker 1: so they would work for days carving out these little
Speaker 1: wooden spoons that they would then offered to their crushes
Speaker 1: and then basically what they were waiting on was to
Speaker 1: see if they accepted them. And if they accepted these spoons,
Speaker 1: then that meant that, you know, they were able to
Speaker 1: pursue this relationship. And of course if they rejected them,
Speaker 1: then it was just sad because they were rejecting both
Speaker 1: their craft and the opportunity to be a couple. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, it's not exactly the same type
Speaker 1: of tradition now, they don't make them as in the
Speaker 1: same way, but they actually do on special occasions. They
Speaker 1: will give these um too, you know, those that they love,
Speaker 1: you know, on marriage days or other special days. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a fun tradition. I like this idea of like,
Speaker 1: I like your cutlery, but one more. Yea, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: thanks me. Another question, are you guys the big spoon
Speaker 1: or a little spoon? So this is all saved for
Speaker 1: your podcast, You're gonna have to. Uh, we live in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Were on separate sides of the bed. It's so hot.
Speaker 1: Apparently it matters. When I was talking to the Samburu
Speaker 1: tribe in Kenya, the women told me that they were
Speaker 1: the big spoons and that the women that were the
Speaker 1: big spoons ended up having the happier marriages because it
Speaker 1: let them like exert this kind of control over their husband,
Speaker 1: but also to to comfort them in their sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, Mango. It's just I just need my
Speaker 1: space when I'm sleeping. So it's like, there's no such thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what you'd be calling. It looks more
Speaker 1: like fly on the wall type thing. So all right,
Speaker 1: here we go. So Joe, what's your what's your next fact?
Speaker 1: All right? So I never knew that Cambodian parents were
Speaker 1: this progressive. But apparently in the Krong tribe, when a
Speaker 1: girl comes of age, like a little bit after puberty,
Speaker 1: her parents build her this little hut in which she
Speaker 1: is instructed to start exploring her sexuality. They even call
Speaker 1: it a love hut. And this, I mean, this seems
Speaker 1: like a much better place to explore your sexuality than
Speaker 1: in the back row of a movie theater watching aspen extreme.
Speaker 1: Not that that's where I explored my own sexual right, right,
Speaker 1: that's pretty movie. So parents in the tribe even encourage
Speaker 1: young women to sleep with multiple partners in order to
Speaker 1: find mr. Right. So it's a little bit like sex
Speaker 1: in the city, except it all takes place inside the
Speaker 1: hut because you're not allowed to be seen together outside
Speaker 1: of the hut until you're officially a couple. But the
Speaker 1: nice part about this is that it's not all about
Speaker 1: the sex. It's also a place where the kids can
Speaker 1: get to know each other away from their parents. And
Speaker 1: I think that's really civilized and rational. It makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. That's very interesting. Yeah, alright, Mango, what
Speaker 1: do you have next? So I was thinking, like, why
Speaker 1: just keep this to humans, because they're all sorts of
Speaker 1: stupid in the animal kingdom. Well, I mean, like bower
Speaker 1: birds make houses. I also love that fiddler crabs this
Speaker 1: pomp for women, just like they're clubbing at the Jersey
Speaker 1: Shore like that. That's one of my favorite things to watch.
Speaker 1: But nursery spiders are actually my favorite because, you know,
Speaker 1: just like the women at the Sisters Festival, they like
Speaker 1: to make little parcels of food that they've caught and
Speaker 1: then present them in pretty silk packets to their potential mates,
Speaker 1: and if the lady spider accepts it, he'll mate with
Speaker 1: her a while she's unwrapping and eating the feast. That's
Speaker 1: less romantic, but but I do like this presenting thing.
Speaker 1: But here's the interesting part. Male nursery spiders are also idiots,
Speaker 1: and often they'll get hungry and suck the food out
Speaker 1: from the package before they gift it, and so they're
Speaker 1: just passing along an exo skeleton wrapped in the silk.
Speaker 1: Or sometimes they'll try to dupe the women by just
Speaker 1: wrapping a twig and silk, and they're really dumb. But
Speaker 1: like the females aren't idiots, Like they'll actually way the
Speaker 1: packages and then reject the dudes immediately. Okay, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is that is pretty good. All right, Well, I know
Speaker 1: we all have one more fact to share today. Before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take a quick break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to part time Genius, where we're sharing our unusual
Speaker 1: courting techniques or facts about those. So we each have
Speaker 1: one more, if you don't mind, I'll jump in next.
Speaker 1: I've got one that I thought was pretty interesting. So obviously,
Speaker 1: all grown up knowing that whistling at someone, if a
Speaker 1: man whistles at a at a woman, we see that
Speaker 1: as inappropriate or crass, are rude, and and that's not
Speaker 1: really something that the people should be doing. But actually,
Speaker 1: in the Kickapoo tribe in Mexico, they've been using this
Speaker 1: special whistling language as a way to communicate with each
Speaker 1: other that I thought this was actually pretty interesting. They
Speaker 1: can whistle these sweet nothings to their lovers, and actually
Speaker 1: not not just that, but they have to learn to
Speaker 1: whistle in almost special ways that our code to each other.
Speaker 1: And they're communicating so it's not just to say like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm attracted to you, But then they learned to pass
Speaker 1: messages back and forth through these certain whistles, so they
Speaker 1: have to kind of develop their own tone and own
Speaker 1: little language around and that I feel like it was
Speaker 1: just super interesting. So alright, so that is my last
Speaker 1: fact of the day. Jody, have one for this last
Speaker 1: fact um, And I'm hoping that Nick doesn't listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast because I'm going to try it on him
Speaker 1: and see what happens. I'm gonna I'm gonna sneak attack
Speaker 1: him with this one. So out in the Austrian countryside
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, young eligible women had this very
Speaker 1: particular way to see if a guy was into them,
Speaker 1: like really into them. To make sure for sure that
Speaker 1: the guy liked them, during dances, she would take a
Speaker 1: slice of apple and wedge it into her armpit. At
Speaker 1: the end of the night, she'd give it to the
Speaker 1: guy that she liked and if he ate it, then
Speaker 1: they were clearly yeah. Yeah, And so I was going
Speaker 1: to add it to his apple in the morning. But
Speaker 1: you know, after after I looked this up, I bought
Speaker 1: an apple down down the street of the bodega. And
Speaker 1: it's really hard to keep an apple wedged in your armpit.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So I mean that's showing to devotion on
Speaker 1: both part. I the guy eats it. But if the
Speaker 1: girl manages to keep that apple in her armpit all night,
Speaker 1: you know she's she's really making an aff I was
Speaker 1: gonna say that, I know, while you're doing all the
Speaker 1: single ladies. I know, Yeah, how am I supposed to
Speaker 1: do that? All the single ladies dance with an apple?
Speaker 1: What an interesting tradition? All right, mangoes the last one
Speaker 1: of the day. What do you have? So my final
Speaker 1: tip recording someone is to marry a tree. And this
Speaker 1: doesn't work for everyone, but the telegraph to the story
Speaker 1: on this and I vaguely heard of this custom. It
Speaker 1: actually is from India. It isn't something that plays into
Speaker 1: my community. But um, do you guys know that film star?
Speaker 1: I swear your RYE don't. So she's super stunning. She's
Speaker 1: like known as the most beautiful woman in India. She
Speaker 1: was Miss Universe, she became a Bollywood star. She was
Speaker 1: also in Pink Panther, to which I'm sure you all saw.
Speaker 1: But apparently she's what's called monglic And it's when you've
Speaker 1: got this astrological curse on you. And apparently it's because
Speaker 1: the way the stars line up for your birth. But
Speaker 1: essentially what it means is that Mars is going to
Speaker 1: cause havoc in your marriage, and the way out of
Speaker 1: it is by tricking Mars and getting hitched to a
Speaker 1: tree like like you do this in a full ceremony
Speaker 1: with priest and family. And the idea is that once
Speaker 1: you've pulled one over on all Mars, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're free to court whoever you want, which in this
Speaker 1: case she she married a fellow of Bollywood love, So
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. I want to go ahead and admit
Speaker 1: that there have been two facts that actually reminded me
Speaker 1: of Molly Shannon's character Mary Catherine Gallagher. Putting things in
Speaker 1: your armpits was the first one, and then from her
Speaker 1: oh so terrible but also wonderful movie Superstar, when she's
Speaker 1: whispering these sweet nothings to a tree and somebody calls
Speaker 1: this and buster, I just felt like I needed to
Speaker 1: get that off my chest and admit that. So all right, Well,
Speaker 1: before we go, we've got to declare our winner, Mango,
Speaker 1: who do you think deserves to win today's fact? I
Speaker 1: mean that apple fact was so gross, so gross, and
Speaker 1: so wonderful, so wonderful at the same time. And speaking
Speaker 1: of wonderful. I do hope all of our listeners will
Speaker 1: check out the new podcast Committed. We have had a
Speaker 1: blast working with Joe and Ramsey and the entire team
Speaker 1: here at how Stuff Works on this There are a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes now that are available for all listeners,
Speaker 1: and they'll be coming out once a week from here on.
Speaker 1: We love working with you, Joe. Congratulations on this launch
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to see what's next. Thanks guys,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a lot of fun