Speaker 1: You meet someone in front of some sculpture of a dragon,
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, woman in a doctor Sue's hat,
Speaker 1: want to like have sex now here in the dirt,
Speaker 1: like because otherwise I'll never see you again, because there's
Speaker 1: seventy thousand people here. And the girl in the doctor
Speaker 1: Sue's hat would like say nothing because he was super high,
Speaker 1: and then I would continue on in my journey.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the
Speaker 2: concept of Catharsis. You know, the idea that if we
Speaker 2: watch someone else's tragedy, that we, as the viewer, experience
Speaker 2: and emotional cleansing or purification. And I've always thought it
Speaker 2: was weird that that more people aren't familiar with ecstasis,
Speaker 2: which is Catharsis's cooler, hotter sister. Now, extacis is the
Speaker 2: feeling of total immersion of being. You know, time slows
Speaker 2: down and everything clicks. It suddenly feels like everyone's breath
Speaker 2: and heartbeats are synchronized for a few moments. I mean
Speaker 2: extacist literally means to stand outside one sells, and we
Speaker 2: experience this when we see a life changing piece of
Speaker 2: art or theater, or if we're at the stadium and
Speaker 2: we see a buzzerbeat or a walk off Homer, and
Speaker 2: twenty thousand people stand up screaming in elation together. You know,
Speaker 2: I firmly believe that it's the reason why techno music
Speaker 2: is so popular. And Burning Man is the epicenter of
Speaker 2: extasis because if Burning Man was just a camping trip
Speaker 2: in the desert where people did drugs and danced around naked,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't explain the positive mental health effects that Berner's
Speaker 2: experience for months after they return home. There's something much
Speaker 2: deeper and profound going on there. I think it's the extasis. Now.
Speaker 2: My friend Madison Perry knows all about extasis. Madison is
Speaker 2: a two time Grand Slam winner for the Moth and
Speaker 2: he decided to grace our humble podcast with his funny,
Speaker 2: heartfelt experience in the black rock desert for Burning Man.
Speaker 2: I'm Will Sandy Crack McFadden and this is hashtag Storytime
Speaker 2: brought to you by iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For anyone listening that doesn't know, Burning Man is this
Speaker 1: sort of counter culture festival that takes place one hundred
Speaker 1: miles from Reno on this salt flat where there's just
Speaker 1: nothing but desert. For miles and like seventy thousand people
Speaker 1: go there at once and turn this flat, empty desert
Speaker 1: into like a tense city with all these camps and
Speaker 1: things to do and art exhibits, and people dance and
Speaker 1: do drugs and do art and make love and meditate
Speaker 1: and do yoga, and it's just like this kind of
Speaker 1: hippie party festival thing. And so when I went, I
Speaker 1: was about thirty. I had recently been dumped by my
Speaker 1: longtime girlfriend who I lived with, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to Burning Man. But I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to like heel or transcend or like learn capuera. I
Speaker 1: was going to have sex like I'd seen pictures, beautiful
Speaker 1: women scantily clad. It seems like a very sexual vibe,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I'm gonna have weird desert sex.
Speaker 1: I want to get sand places sand shouldn't go. I
Speaker 1: want to like make love to a woman wearing a
Speaker 1: wolf mask, both literally and metaphorically, Like this is my goal.
Speaker 1: As I drove out to the desert.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you were honest with yourself with your goal.
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of people, you know, have
Speaker 2: different lies that they're telling themselves when they go out there,
Speaker 2: that that is there true you know, motive, and they're saying,
Speaker 2: but like, no, I want to find myself. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: you're going for weird freaky wolf sex.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's what we all, that's what most of
Speaker 1: us want anyway, deep down, freaky wolf sex.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so like it takes a long time to drive there,
Speaker 1: and you're waiting this long line to get in, and
Speaker 1: the whole time I'm thinking about it, and like, I
Speaker 1: kind of it just seemed like such a sexual place I imagined,
Speaker 1: like when I would get there, they would like check
Speaker 1: me in and they'd be like, did you bring your
Speaker 1: penis and the like, yeah, it's packed, and they'd be like, perfect,
Speaker 1: Just head that way, you'll see a pile of naked,
Speaker 1: horny women waiting for the sex the hair. Just go
Speaker 1: that way until I see a sex pile. They'd be like, yep,
Speaker 1: sex pile. Can't miss it, Like that's this is how
Speaker 1: it works here. So I went in with like very
Speaker 1: high expectations about the quantity and quality of sex I
Speaker 1: would be having. And I got there and it was
Speaker 1: not as easy to get laid as I had imagined
Speaker 1: it was. It was like very difficult for me. I
Speaker 1: like could not make it happen. And part of the
Speaker 1: problem is like when you're there, there's no cell phone
Speaker 1: or internet or dating apps. Like I was dating a
Speaker 1: lot at this point. I would use the apps, like
Speaker 1: that's pretty good at dating and getting dates. But it
Speaker 1: was like there, it's like now or never. Like you
Speaker 1: meet someone in front of some sculpture of a dragon,
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, woman in a doctor Seue's hat,
Speaker 1: want to like have sex now here in the dirt,
Speaker 1: like because otherwise I'll never see you again, like because
Speaker 1: there's seventy thousand people here. And the girl in the
Speaker 1: doctor Seue's hat would like say nothing because she was
Speaker 1: super high. And then I would continue on in my journey.
Speaker 1: And it's and and like there was a girl who
Speaker 1: was in the camp because you kind of camp with
Speaker 1: a group of people and you have your little place
Speaker 1: you sleep and place you eat and activities and and
Speaker 1: and I got along with this one girl, but she
Speaker 1: was like, I don't look and I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: hook up with anyone in the camp, Like I think
Speaker 1: it's just you know, don't eat where you shit kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And so like even at this hedonistic desert festival.
Speaker 1: This girl is following HR protocols. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is not what I expected at all. There was a
Speaker 1: couple of times I came close to having sex. I
Speaker 1: danced with this one girl for like thirty minutes at
Speaker 1: this like rave party, thing, very physical, and then she
Speaker 1: pulled away and she introduced me to her husband, who
Speaker 1: is a great guy, really nice guy. Another woman just
Speaker 1: walked straight up to me at a party and licked
Speaker 1: my nipple and I was like, well, this, wow, must
Speaker 1: be on. This is this is like Nope, led to nothing.
Speaker 1: That was just a handshake out there.
Speaker 2: I guess she was a she was a cannibal.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah. I did not taste good enough to fairly
Speaker 1: or to have sex with. But she met me, and
Speaker 1: so this is kind of like For a couple days,
Speaker 1: I just like like nothing. I couldn't make anything happen.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like hard to initiate anything with women.
Speaker 1: But I had this like backup plan. I'd heard there
Speaker 1: was a camp called the Orgy Dome Camp, and they
Speaker 1: build a giant dome and then they throw orgies and
Speaker 1: that's like what they provide to the Burning Man attendees.
Speaker 2: It was pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, not a subtle name really.
Speaker 2: And so how did you just find out about this
Speaker 2: on the third day?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's there's a handbook that they give
Speaker 1: you and as a list of all the things you
Speaker 1: can do, and you know it's alphabetical. So it was
Speaker 1: a couple of days in I got oh, all right,
Speaker 1: they h and so I tried to go and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this is a can't miss plan. But I found out
Speaker 1: you cannot go as a single male. You can't just
Speaker 1: show up as a single dude. You have to bring
Speaker 1: a partner. You have to bring a woman with you, which,
Speaker 1: like after the in Russ I'm like, of course that
Speaker 1: makes sense. If you were allowed to go as a
Speaker 1: single dude, it would just be a long line of
Speaker 1: single dudes being like, when's this thing kicking off? Where
Speaker 1: the lady's at?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I just like I was sexually frustrated at Bernieman.
Speaker 1: There's beautiful, mostly naked women all around me. Nothing, I'm
Speaker 1: not making it happen. I'm not making it happen. But
Speaker 1: I did have another great experience, which was drugs. I
Speaker 1: tried drugs for basically the first time in my life.
Speaker 1: I was thirty at the time. I had I'd smoked
Speaker 1: pot a couple of times, but didn't even like it
Speaker 1: that much. And just like had had a fear of
Speaker 1: drugs my entire Like the DARE program worked on me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, I'm in I'm here at George Bush,
Speaker 1: I'm fighting the war. I'm saying no, like I believe
Speaker 1: in this. But at Bernie mad I was like, wait, no,
Speaker 1: I'm at this thirty, I'm single, I've just had my
Speaker 1: heart broken, I'm at this place. Let's let's let's do
Speaker 1: some drugging. And so the camp that I stayed with,
Speaker 1: they had a tradition that on the first day on Monday,
Speaker 1: they had a tradition called Acid Monday, and similar to
Speaker 1: the orgy dome, pretty clear, pretty clear name. Yeah on Monday,
Speaker 1: you do it.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of subtlety. No, yeah, it's a great
Speaker 2: way to kick off the week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is like like all the beautiful traditions, the
Speaker 1: simple ones are really the ones that resonate. And so
Speaker 1: that evening, the entire campus, which was thirty or forty
Speaker 1: people all did acid at the at the same time.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's spent like my entire youth and
Speaker 1: young adulthood, thinking like, why would people even do drugs?
Speaker 1: They're scary, there's all these consequences, And that night I
Speaker 1: learned that people do drugs because they're pretty fun. They
Speaker 1: are a lot of fun. Turns out, turns out I
Speaker 1: like LSD very much. And so just for the whole night,
Speaker 1: I wandered around and there's crazy things to look at,
Speaker 1: and they're made even crazier by the LSD. And I
Speaker 1: noticed that in addition to the physical effects, there's kind
Speaker 1: of like this emotional bonding thing that happened with these people.
Speaker 1: I was there's like five people that I was wandering
Speaker 1: around with, and and so I was not having luck
Speaker 1: sexually yet and I wouldn't, but that night I bonded.
Speaker 1: I fell head over heels in friendship basically with this
Speaker 1: guy named Brian, who was this English guy.
Speaker 2: Deeper a deeper, yeah, deeper, Yeah, was formed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very fast. It was like a non
Speaker 1: sexual soulmate. We were just simpatica and like that night,
Speaker 1: we were just always around each other, laughing at things.
Speaker 1: It felt scary. If we were apart, we would go
Speaker 1: out to the bathroom together. We would like tell jokes together.
Speaker 1: We would look at things that we didn't even know
Speaker 1: if they were there or not together and then I thought,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this is like a drug thing.
Speaker 1: Probably this but they like it. Like it kept on.
Speaker 1: We like stayed attached all week, Like we basically did
Speaker 1: everything together. We would like share a beer and pass
Speaker 1: them back and forth, started calling each other hubby, you know,
Speaker 1: like you need some more coffee, hubby. You know, wish
Speaker 1: would go to night hubby. At some point the camp
Speaker 1: like voted us cute at couple because we were just
Speaker 1: hanging out that much.
Speaker 2: It would be if if he wasn't even real.
Speaker 1: That would be I mean, you can't tell. I mean
Speaker 1: he was English, so who knows. Maybe he went back
Speaker 1: to the Ether and not to London.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he could have just been a figment of the
Speaker 2: acid imagination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would also be sad if, like my imagination,
Speaker 1: it was like, you came here to have sex. The
Speaker 1: imagination is not going to make a beautiful woman that
Speaker 1: you see.
Speaker 2: But no, yeah, this is what you need now, you
Speaker 2: need this really supportive englishman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just need a charming English chap to make
Speaker 1: you feel good about life. And so we just hung
Speaker 1: out all week and like I have many male friends
Speaker 1: I had before that, but like usually in life, you
Speaker 1: like become friends with someone slowly over time, and it
Speaker 1: was just like, I feel like you're my best friend.
Speaker 1: I've known you three days and so we get to
Speaker 1: the end of the week, have not had sex. I
Speaker 1: have not even kissed a girl. But oh well, I
Speaker 1: met Brian and at the end of Bernie Man, the
Speaker 1: name of the festival is because they burned a giant
Speaker 1: statue of this wooden man thing and it's like the
Speaker 1: biggest then and party of the week, and it takes
Speaker 1: quite a while because it's big to burn down. But
Speaker 1: then when the last piece falls, like everyone just kind
Speaker 1: of goes nuts and runs around, and like I got
Speaker 1: really caught up in it, and I was like yelling,
Speaker 1: and like I took my shirt off and I started
Speaker 1: running in a circle around the ashes and I was
Speaker 1: like howling, and it was just like it was really
Speaker 1: a moment of like being primal and like animalistic. I
Speaker 1: was like I don't know where I am or what's happening,
Speaker 1: but this is life and I'm living it. I was
Speaker 1: on LSD again at this point. I should mention was
Speaker 1: probably part of the I figured, yeah, and so I
Speaker 1: like kind of come to from this like drug excitement
Speaker 1: fugue state, and my first thought is where's my hobby,
Speaker 1: Like I've got to find him. And I had this
Speaker 1: feeling like it was the last day of summer camp
Speaker 1: and I had to tell the person had to crush
Speaker 1: on the whole summer camp that I liked them before
Speaker 1: we all went home. And so I like went running
Speaker 1: into the crowd. I was looking for him in this
Speaker 1: giant mass of people. Just to give you a visual,
Speaker 1: I was dressed in skin tight bright blue pants and
Speaker 1: no shirt and had face paint all over my makeup.
Speaker 1: But like that's me at the end of the row, calm,
Speaker 1: running to find my hubby and fully tell him how
Speaker 1: I feel. And so I find him in a heart Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically I had the I was ready for war, but
Speaker 1: I was just a dude on drugs at bernemann uh.
Speaker 1: And so I find him and I say, you know, Brian,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you before the drugs were off
Speaker 1: that I love you. And not even like he didn't
Speaker 1: take it as a romantic thing. It wasn't a romantic thing,
Speaker 1: just like you're a you're a human dude. That I
Speaker 1: love and he he said thank you, and he actually
Speaker 1: started to cry a bit. He's like a bit of
Speaker 1: a crier, hubby is. And then we had a nice
Speaker 1: hug and and and then we went on about our night.
Speaker 1: And it's not like a it might not seem like
Speaker 1: a big deal, Like a guy on drugs told another
Speaker 1: guy he loves him. That happens quite a bit, and
Speaker 1: I didn't really realize it until afterwards. But it was
Speaker 1: the first time in my life I had told a
Speaker 1: non family member male that I love them and like it.
Speaker 1: Just like the way I grew up, it like had
Speaker 1: a bit of a macho culture and a super into sports,
Speaker 1: and that kind kind of thing just didn't seem okay,
Speaker 1: Like it just seemed weird that you would be watching
Speaker 1: football and be like, hey, Bud, I like great play,
Speaker 1: and also you're really special to me. Like I never
Speaker 1: did that kind of thing growing up. You know, I
Speaker 1: had friends that I loved and family members that I love.
Speaker 1: And so even though I went to Bernie Man but
Speaker 1: like I just want to get laid, who cares about
Speaker 1: this hippy dippy stuff. But in the end, I was
Speaker 1: just a grown man hugging another man. Crying, saying that
Speaker 1: we loved each other and having an emotional breakthrough.
Speaker 2: Did he say it back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he said I love you too, hubby.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, okay, good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was just worried. I was worried he left your
Speaker 2: hang out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you. No he did, he did not.
Speaker 1: We're still in touch to this day. He lives he
Speaker 1: lives in London, so we're doing doing the long distance thing,
Speaker 1: but he's worth it. My wife is very understanding of
Speaker 1: our relationship because I knew him before I met her,
Speaker 1: so she gets it. And then it's a little log.
Speaker 1: The last day we're packing up camp. The girl that
Speaker 1: had turned me down from my camp on the first day,
Speaker 1: she came up to me. She was like, I'm really horny.
Speaker 1: I haven't had sex all week. Do you want to
Speaker 1: go have sex? And I was like okay, and she's
Speaker 1: like it doesn't mean anything, and I was like I
Speaker 1: don't care what it means, Like, let's go. And we
Speaker 1: had about one minute of very hot, sweaty, dirty sex
Speaker 1: on a half deflated mattress and that was it. That
Speaker 1: was my sexual odyssey at Burning Man. So at least
Speaker 1: I did I did make something happen in the end,
Speaker 1: but it was. It paled in comparison to.
Speaker 2: What I had with Brian, but mission accomplished.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, figured it out. Goodness, what a journey. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a good experience.
Speaker 2: I'm the opposite. I tell like everybody I love them,
Speaker 2: Like do I sign off zoom meetings? Yeah, I'm just like,
Speaker 2: all right, buddy, I love you. It's like we I'm
Speaker 2: your accountant. You shouldn't be telling me.
Speaker 1: I have become more of that way to offer it up. Yeah. Wait,
Speaker 1: you see how much money I got you back from
Speaker 1: the I R S before you tell me that.
Speaker 2: Well, this is another sign that I feel like I
Speaker 2: need to make a trek to the Black Rock Desert
Speaker 2: and uh and go to Burning Man. I've had so
Speaker 2: many friends go and have these sort of these life
Speaker 2: altering experiences, and I want a piece of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. Uh. I tried not to convince people
Speaker 1: to go, because if you don't really want to go
Speaker 1: on your own, like, you shouldn't be convinced of it
Speaker 1: because there's many annoying, horrible things about it too, and
Speaker 1: like all the bad ideas and the good ideas you have,
Speaker 1: they're like all true, all true there. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: have now been I think five times since that first trek,
Speaker 1: so I guess I'm super into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're a burner. Yeah, do you have a Do
Speaker 2: you have a burner?
Speaker 1: Calling myself that? But I suppose I am.
Speaker 2: Do you have a do you have a name like
Speaker 2: a burner name when you're there?
Speaker 1: I don't have a hardcore one where like most people
Speaker 1: just call me Madison. I sometimes people call me the Deputy.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I was helping a guy who's named the Douche Marshal
Speaker 1: do some work, so he deputies me building a shower
Speaker 1: in our camp. He was the douche Marshal. He's also
Speaker 1: like a bit of a douche, so it was like
Speaker 1: a double meaning word, but a very a very severe,
Speaker 1: kind of mean German guy. But I love him, so
Speaker 1: I'm his his deputy.
Speaker 2: The douche deputy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing exactly.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I want a cool burning Man nickname. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll take Maybe I'll take story time. You know, I
Speaker 2: could take story time and do storytime live at burning Man.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the stories would be nonsense. And I went to.
Speaker 1: A story show there and told a story I really
Speaker 1: heard some stories, and it was much more like an
Speaker 1: AA meeting vibe, like super fun story hour, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of people really like opening themselves up in a
Speaker 1: way like yeah, maybe not so much, like maybe close
Speaker 1: it back down a little bit, like.
Speaker 2: A little TMI.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So we were all sitting around in a
Speaker 1: circle and people take turns telling their stories. It's like,
Speaker 1: where's where's the stage, where's my mic the where's the lights?
Speaker 1: Where's the time limit?
Speaker 2: That's the other idea that I've I've you know, I
Speaker 2: love theater and I love acting, and I've always thought
Speaker 2: about creating some sort of a show to take to
Speaker 2: Burning Man and to perform there. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it would be some immersive theater or Midsummer Night's Dream
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are amazing things like that that are you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that's very slap dash and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this is barely anything, and then there's
Speaker 1: things where you're like, oh my gosh, people worked for
Speaker 1: months to like build this art and they have parts
Speaker 1: and like it's very immersive, and the people that really
Speaker 1: like go full in, like it's really cool. You know,
Speaker 1: last last time, the most impressive thing was you went
Speaker 1: through this door down an alleyway between like these RVs,
Speaker 1: and then behind it was a little like town with
Speaker 1: like three different restaurants and three different bars that were
Speaker 1: all like built like they'd framed them and they had
Speaker 1: like they'd been set decorated, and like you went. I
Speaker 1: went into one and there was a whiskey bar and
Speaker 1: the guy like just brought it was a whiskey collector,
Speaker 1: and he brought every whiskey and he'd give you a
Speaker 1: taste of like any whiskey he had, like he didn't
Speaker 1: it could be really rare, really expensive, and he would
Speaker 1: tell you about it, and you're like wow, like these
Speaker 1: people did this all for free, for no reason. And
Speaker 1: then like I was like this is cool when I
Speaker 1: walked in here. Yeah, that stuff is great.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to hear that guy's stories. I want
Speaker 2: to sit and drink whiskey with him, Yeah, and hear
Speaker 2: his tails.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be good.
Speaker 2: Are you going to burning is Burning men back? Now?
Speaker 2: Is it happening? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It is happening this year for the first I think
Speaker 1: they took two years were canceled. It's happening again this year.
Speaker 1: A lot of people I know from there are going.
Speaker 1: I am not going up two small children now, so
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: Know when I will bring them.
Speaker 1: Dude. You see kids out there, man, there's like camps
Speaker 1: that are made for like families, and you drive by
Speaker 1: and there's just like half naked kids covered in dust
Speaker 1: having the best time of their life. It just looks
Speaker 1: like Lord of the Flies. I'm not sure I'm ready
Speaker 1: to take a care I feel like I barely survive
Speaker 1: out there myself, let alone taking care of a child.
Speaker 2: You turn into a child.
Speaker 1: You don't bring the child exactly, man, you get it.
Speaker 2: You play at the heart of a child. Don't bring
Speaker 2: a child, man. Yeah, trying to go to the orgy
Speaker 2: dome with the child. That is illegal.
Speaker 1: That's illegal. Man, Come on, yeah, you get you get
Speaker 1: the ethos.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I think I'm ready.
Speaker 1: You are ready, you know, not to bring kids. And
Speaker 1: that's how you need to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the main thing. And like, find a find
Speaker 2: a bro, find a bro mance out there.
Speaker 1: Man, find a bro. Well maybe you'd maybe you'd have
Speaker 1: luck with the ladies more than I did.
Speaker 2: Who knows. I'm I'm I'm locked down. Oh, I'm shocked up.
Speaker 1: So you know that's a better way to go. You
Speaker 1: go out there, there's no expectations about that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you spend time on other things.
Speaker 2: It would be it would be a it would be
Speaker 2: a problem if I was having a lot of sexual
Speaker 2: success in burning men, that would be life.
Speaker 1: Several several couples that have had that issue haven't out there.
Speaker 2: So I did have a friend who was out there
Speaker 2: who she got married on the plaia after a pussy
Speaker 2: eating contest age old story. Yeah, you know what a
Speaker 2: meet cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they that's how she met the person she married.
Speaker 2: Yep. Wow, I don't think they're still together.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a shame. I'm sure it was a maybe
Speaker 1: a short but very pleasure filled the marriage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully an amicable divorce.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And I don't know if the marriages out
Speaker 1: there have as many legal implications. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: all right, didn't work out.
Speaker 2: We got to split our stuff. You get this half
Speaker 2: of the the air mattress and then I'll take these feathers.
Speaker 2: Are my feather your that's your boa.
Speaker 1: Yep, that's what would happen.
Speaker 2: Well, cool man, Well that was great. That was that
Speaker 2: was a beautiful That was a beautiful tale.
Speaker 1: Oh good thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you. I'm glad you shared it.
Speaker 1: I feel good to have shared it.
Speaker 2: First, Last, Best, Worst is a it's a kind of
Speaker 2: a game that we like to play on the pod
Speaker 2: where we pick a category and then you share your
Speaker 2: your first experience, your last experience, your best experience, and
Speaker 2: your worst experience in that category.
Speaker 1: So, so let's do breakups.
Speaker 2: So the first the first breakup.
Speaker 1: Uh so, my first breakup, my my first girlfriend was
Speaker 1: in second grade, right, and this this girl Amy, on
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day brought me a chocolate heart and gave it
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, and for a reason I don't know why,
Speaker 1: I just opened it immediately and shoved the entire thing
Speaker 1: in my mouth. And this was like three inches by
Speaker 1: three inches solid chocolate heart, and I like could not
Speaker 1: get it down all into my little mouth, and I
Speaker 1: started having trouble breathing, and I ended up spinning out half
Speaker 1: of it onto the ground and there's like a brown
Speaker 1: saliva string to the ground. Get my face wiped up,
Speaker 1: and she says, will you go out with me? Like
Speaker 1: she'd stood there through all of this and she wanted to.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what we called dating in second grade
Speaker 1: is will you go out that's love? Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: said no and ran away to play kickball. And like
Speaker 1: she was a very nice girl, a cute girl. I
Speaker 1: got along with her in class. I was just like
Speaker 1: so prepubescent like that. I that just like wasn't a
Speaker 1: thing in my mind.
Speaker 2: Right at this point in my life, mostly focused on
Speaker 2: chocolate and kickball. That was funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was like, all right, Coolly, I had your
Speaker 1: chocolate and now I'm going to play kickball.
Speaker 2: Like got everything.
Speaker 1: But I told my mom what happened, and she was
Speaker 1: like really mad at me for like being rude and
Speaker 1: for like eating the heart right away and not saying
Speaker 1: thank you, and like she was like, if you don't
Speaker 1: like someone, don't accept their gifts and her false pretenses,
Speaker 1: and so she she said, I had to apologize, and
Speaker 1: I apologizing when you're eight is like the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world. So I was like, well, I'll just
Speaker 1: tell her I'll be her boyfriend. I'll just go out
Speaker 1: with her, and that will like solve all this. So
Speaker 1: I told her I would be a boyfriend, by which
Speaker 1: I mean I told my friends to tell her friends
Speaker 1: to tell her that we were we were dating. That day,
Speaker 1: we did not talk at all, because what the what
Speaker 1: the heck do you say to your girlfriend? The next day,
Speaker 1: my best friend told me he'd hurt a rumor that
Speaker 1: Jamie at Michelle's birthday party had put a tube of
Speaker 1: chapstick in her vagina. That was the rumor going around.
Speaker 2: And he's an aggressive rumor if I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i'd like only recently stopped calling it a budgina.
Speaker 1: So this is like all very like unknown territory. And
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what to make of it, but
Speaker 1: I could tell by the way my friend Brian was
Speaker 1: telling me like that this was bad that I couldn't
Speaker 1: be so I broke up with her, by which I
Speaker 1: mean I told Brian to tell her friends to tell
Speaker 1: her that we were broken up. So that was my
Speaker 1: first breakup, and I handled it horribly. We dated for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours without speaking, and then I didn't tell
Speaker 1: it to her face. So I feel bad about that one,
Speaker 1: but I was just I was in over my head.
Speaker 2: We didn't even get to the bottom of whether the
Speaker 2: rumor was true or not. You know, that could have
Speaker 2: been a well.
Speaker 1: When do you hear a rumor like that? I mean,
Speaker 1: you got to know it's true I mean something like that,
Speaker 1: spreading around the playground. There's just no way that that's
Speaker 1: not totally made up by who knows who?
Speaker 2: Oh no, poor Jamie.
Speaker 1: I know, Yeah, it worked. Things worked out for her.
Speaker 1: She grew into a beautiful woman, was very popular in
Speaker 1: high school. I did not date anyone until college. So
Speaker 1: I really I missed the boat. Missed the boat on
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope she's doing okay today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, Me.
Speaker 2: Too, Jamie. If you're out there, love I love you.
Speaker 1: You guys would be a good fit.
Speaker 2: Okay. So that was the first. What about the last breakup?
Speaker 1: The last breakup was the woman I dated before I
Speaker 1: met my wife. So this is I've been married for
Speaker 1: nine years now, so so a while ago, and I've
Speaker 1: been dating here for four months and on New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve or maybe two months, sorry, on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1: We've been dating for two months, and she told me
Speaker 1: she loved me, and I like, in that moment, was
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: like love for me, but like it was New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve and we're having a NIC's evening and it was
Speaker 1: like the midnight kiss, and so I set it back
Speaker 1: and said I love you too, and I kind of
Speaker 1: convinced me. I was like, you know what, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a slow burn, and like I do really like her,
Speaker 1: I enjoy my time with her, and like maybe this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of a very healthy sort of like love.
Speaker 1: And then two months later she dumped me, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of like, what the Like, you told me
Speaker 1: you loved me. I like, I was still lease it
Speaker 1: end of the thing, and you told me that, and
Speaker 1: now like you're out, You're just gone, like and so
Speaker 1: I was. It was not a long relationship and I
Speaker 1: was not fully committed, but it was a frustrating one.
Speaker 1: And uh and then uh, like two or three months later,
Speaker 1: I started dating my wife and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what it feels like when you're in love.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, maybe I should say it back.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I'm dying to say it. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to say it. I hope she shays it back,
Speaker 1: which I knew.
Speaker 2: But she was your good luck chock.
Speaker 1: Yeah she was, she was, I guess.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And that was with that. That was the only like
Speaker 1: two weeks after that, she came over to talk and
Speaker 1: we had That's the only time I've ever had breakup
Speaker 1: sex in my life, which was oh wow, odd but
Speaker 1: like somewhat cool. I guess it was not No, no, it.
Speaker 2: Was I ran into her at the outside of the
Speaker 2: Orgie Dome was she.
Speaker 1: Was like, I know that. Plus now that's a meat cute.
Speaker 1: So that's my last breakup. I hope, I hope it's
Speaker 1: the last breakup of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. Okay, So then what about what about
Speaker 2: your so I guess your first, No, we've did for okay,
Speaker 2: So that let's do your your best. This is a
Speaker 2: weird one, but your best break.
Speaker 1: My best breakup was I think what was the easiest,
Speaker 1: the easiest.
Speaker 2: One, most amicable.
Speaker 1: This was like not quite a breakup because we weren't really dating,
Speaker 1: but I was dating this like it wasn't serious, but
Speaker 1: I was dating schoo. I'd gone out a few times
Speaker 1: and she at some point was like, Hey, I think
Speaker 1: we're getting too serious and I think we should we
Speaker 1: should stop. I'm like looking to kind of just casually date.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing other people. And I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, Like, no no pressure. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that came across, but I'm not really looking for a
Speaker 1: girlfriend at the moment. Anyway. So if you're just using
Speaker 1: this as an excuse not to date me, all cool,
Speaker 1: enjoy your life. But if you were just worried about
Speaker 1: like hurting my feelings, like we can continue dating and
Speaker 1: seeing each other. And she was like, oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds great. And so we just like saw each
Speaker 1: other a couple times a month for like three months,
Speaker 1: and then I started dating someone. I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I am I'm going to get into an exclusive relationship now,
Speaker 1: so this has to stop. And she was like, cool,
Speaker 1: thanks for letting me know. And if it doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: you can reach out. And I was like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is like this is like adult, this is just like
Speaker 1: a business deal, where like we hang out, we like
Speaker 1: each other, we'd like talk about other people are dating.
Speaker 1: I would like drop her off. She's like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: dropped me off this farmer's market. I'm meeting a guy
Speaker 1: for a date. I'm like, sure, have a great time.
Speaker 2: The beauty, the beauty of communication.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was firing the cylinders.
Speaker 1: That's how I want all breakups to go. And That's
Speaker 1: the only time's ever happened in my life where I'm
Speaker 1: just like, we'll just sit down, have a conversation, shake
Speaker 1: hands and part his friends.
Speaker 2: And that no emotions.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, we both know it's it's it should end.
Speaker 1: So let's simultaneously decide.
Speaker 2: Perfect that is a good one. Okay, So then we'll
Speaker 2: close it out with the worst breakoup.
Speaker 1: There's there's one where I really got crushed.
Speaker 2: But that was just like, that's that's what I want
Speaker 2: to hear that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, all right, that's the one that
Speaker 1: led to burning man. I was I was thirty, I'd
Speaker 1: lived with the girl of three years, and one of
Speaker 1: those ones we're in retrospect, you're like, oh, of course
Speaker 1: that was coming, But in the moment I had, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. I was just like, ah, she's really
Speaker 1: going through something for these six months where she's distant
Speaker 1: and hanging out with other guys a lot, and like I,
Speaker 1: at one point, she was hanging out with this guy
Speaker 1: a lot, and I like met up with them, and
Speaker 1: it was like kind of hard to meet up with them.
Speaker 1: Every time I text him, they were like somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I kind of knew the guy and kind of consider
Speaker 1: him friend. And then I finally caught up with them
Speaker 1: and I walked in and I kind of saw the
Speaker 1: way they were talking to each other in a booth
Speaker 1: at the bar, and I was like, oh, I think
Speaker 1: I'm interrupting a date that my girlfriend is on. That's
Speaker 1: the like energy and vibe that's happening here. And like
Speaker 1: I sat down and we're chatting, and I'm like, why
Speaker 1: do I feel like the third wheel whenever my girlfriend
Speaker 1: and another guy? And so eventually I like I hung
Speaker 1: on really a long long time. I wrote her this
Speaker 1: very long love letter, like ten pages, left it for
Speaker 1: her before I was going on a trip. You know,
Speaker 1: I love you. I will work through whatever's going on,
Speaker 1: like I'm always here for you, and I just like
Speaker 1: the first part of the trip, I just waited for
Speaker 1: her like volunteers, saying like how sorry she was and
Speaker 1: that she loved me, And instead she just like texted
Speaker 1: like thanks for the letter. I was like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a bad sign. That's the The follow up to the
Speaker 1: ten page love letter is thanks thanks for the letter
Speaker 1: in the flowers via text. So I kind of knew
Speaker 1: it was over and I had to sort of force
Speaker 1: her to break up with me, because like I was,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't want it to end. I was
Speaker 1: still in love and so one day I was like,
Speaker 1: what's going on. She's like, I'm just going through something.
Speaker 1: I was like, ah, that's not enoughing of an answer anymore,
Speaker 1: like what is happening? Like why? It really seems like
Speaker 1: you don't want to be in this And then she said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't, and and then she dated the guy I
Speaker 1: thought she was dated. She was hanging around a lot
Speaker 1: with like three months later, and so I was just, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was very crushed for two or three months, but
Speaker 1: then I found solace in the air.
Speaker 2: Was there cheating going on? Or did they?
Speaker 1: She claims now, I never had a definitive proof. I
Speaker 1: just at the very least she was emotionally moving on
Speaker 1: to this new guy. And then ultimately, you know, when
Speaker 1: I ran into her and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: heard you and that guy are dating now, She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a surprise. It was like not to me.
Speaker 2: So was this also outside of the orgy dome?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, Basically you said you couldn't go with me.
Speaker 1: Now you're here and you haven't plus one, what.
Speaker 2: All of these interactions from all your stories, I'm just
Speaker 2: imagining taking place outside of the or.
Speaker 1: Just waiting outside the orgy done trying to talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're in this brave heart wolfhead. You know,
Speaker 2: blue blue tights. That's where I'm picturing all of it.
Speaker 1: You know. Ultimately I found a very charming London English
Speaker 1: chap and it all worked out for me.
Speaker 2: So well, yeah, that was I hope the two of you,
Speaker 2: and I hope the two of you never never break up.
Speaker 2: I hope that relationship.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what would what would happen to break
Speaker 1: us apart, because when you've when you've done LSD with
Speaker 1: someone man, that connection buying be shattered.
Speaker 2: Yeah forever. Well beautiful, Well, uh, mass, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for for your stories. I really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: Well that about does it for this week's episode of
Speaker 2: hashtag story Time, Thanks again to Madison. Make sure to
Speaker 2: head on down to description toun for them sweet sweet links.
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