Speaker 1: Plead Flex and Frooms.
Speaker 2: Flex and Firms.
Speaker 1: This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello Lovely, we know that you love it when we
Speaker 2: have a little am I the asshole moment or a
Speaker 2: little love line, or someone's asking for some advice and
Speaker 2: we have one. It's been a little while since we've
Speaker 2: got a actual voice note from a listener. Police send
Speaker 2: them through to at Flex and Frooms on Instagram. We
Speaker 2: are always ready to open our ear holes. Thank you
Speaker 2: Mickey for.
Speaker 1: Trolling through them.
Speaker 2: Here is one. Let's just play the tape, Mickey, please.
Speaker 3: I get near it a lot, or I would say
Speaker 3: maybe once a week or so. So I've got with
Speaker 3: my friends looking hot and sexy and out of the above,
Speaker 3: and I meet a lot of other people who are
Speaker 3: hot and sexy, and we get along and we kind
Speaker 3: of do an all mighty together if you want so.
Speaker 3: I know that situation is probably not the most normal one. However,
Speaker 3: I meet all these hot and sexy people all the time.
Speaker 3: I tried to make with my intentions towards these people
Speaker 3: and like try to set up a date or something
Speaker 3: like that, something more intimate, but I keep getting hit
Speaker 3: with Oh, I think you're really hard and resexing. Your
Speaker 3: energy is really special and it makes me feel so comfortable.
Speaker 3: But I'd better just be your friend, which begs the
Speaker 3: question sometimes like am I doing something wrong? Like am
Speaker 3: I not making my intention clear to the other person?
Speaker 1: This is powerful.
Speaker 2: This is like the self reflection that I want to
Speaker 2: see in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as a bare minimum, not to say the listener
Speaker 1: voice notes that have come before this or that will
Speaker 1: come after this are not as good. But it's lovely
Speaker 1: to hear how the person is thinking, not just the
Speaker 1: situation they're going through. So we don't double down with
Speaker 1: advice or feedback. That's irrelevant.
Speaker 2: FLEXI initial thoughts place.
Speaker 1: My initial thoughts are, this is just the contradiction of
Speaker 1: being alive. It kind of reminds me when you talk
Speaker 1: about straight people dating, and men often say I like
Speaker 1: a confident woman, a strong woman, someone who knows what
Speaker 1: they want. And then realistically, the qualities in which people
Speaker 1: find most attractive are submissive and affirming and agreeable and
Speaker 1: not chaotic, and so there is this contradiction between what
Speaker 1: people are putting you out into the world, what they're
Speaker 1: actually attracted to, and who they're willing to date. Another
Speaker 1: thing that comes to mind, is that whether or not
Speaker 1: you think it's true, people really do date within these
Speaker 1: preconceived ideas. Because a lot of us view partnership with status.
Speaker 1: We have an expectation of the person we actually want
Speaker 1: to date I'm nodding aggressively versus the people that we
Speaker 1: keep at around us to you know, share our lives with,
Speaker 1: but also to bolster us and make us more appealing
Speaker 1: to people we want to be appealing to. Because there's
Speaker 1: also that the power in what your connections do for
Speaker 1: you and how you want to be seen by other
Speaker 1: people outside of your inner circle. So that's what's coming
Speaker 1: up for the most part. I also think there's something
Speaker 1: about friend dynamics that really confuse romantic dynamics, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people have been burned in the past by
Speaker 1: trying to make a romantic situation out of a friendship situation.
Speaker 1: And for a lot of people, it's just not worth
Speaker 1: ruining the vibe. It's hard to especially when someone is
Speaker 1: just like just like generically kind of hot. Like in
Speaker 1: order for you to ruin the friendship dynamics, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need us to be solms. What do you reconize?
Speaker 2: Sometimes that does happen I really like what you said
Speaker 2: about like the people that you choose to be friends with,
Speaker 2: for example, can be so different to the people you
Speaker 2: choose to date, and the idea that it's a status thing,
Speaker 2: like speak on it. I feel that very deeply, and
Speaker 2: it's a difficult thing to like recognize in yourself.
Speaker 1: Which is why, for the most part, people don't really
Speaker 1: struggle with picking genuine friendships. I feel like it's also
Speaker 1: why a lot of people don't have friends, because it's
Speaker 1: a very genuine transaction. Like I like you for who
Speaker 1: you are. You like me for who I am. You're
Speaker 1: not really concerned with what I look like, or what
Speaker 1: I dress, or what I do in my spare time,
Speaker 1: what my job is. Because we're just here to be friends.
Speaker 1: That is the expectation. If we were to say, oh,
Speaker 1: we're here to share lives, co create, bring something else
Speaker 1: into this world, a third party, secret, a third thing.
Speaker 1: Suddenly I'm now thinking, are you a good partner for me?
Speaker 1: Do we have the same shared goal, same shared values?
Speaker 1: And even if it's not that deep, maybe you're just shallow. Strangely,
Speaker 1: in the last two years, I've found myself in a
Speaker 1: similar situation. People obsessed with your energy. They want to
Speaker 1: be friends, but they don't want to date you, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to unpack when it's you. So to avoid
Speaker 1: taking yourself out of the situation, let me tell you
Speaker 1: all the things that I would tell a friend, varying
Speaker 1: degrees of mean, just to get the point across.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: The first point I want to make is that I
Speaker 1: don't feel like a lot of us are aware that
Speaker 1: we all have agendas with who we choose to associate with,
Speaker 1: period whether or not you have the agency to act
Speaker 1: on that agenda. You know what you want out of
Speaker 1: your interactions. I want to have a good night out
Speaker 1: as I to Kiki with this person. They seem fun.
Speaker 1: This person has the best energy. I want to be
Speaker 1: around them. It makes me feel good. I love the
Speaker 1: way that person dresses. They look cool, and I want
Speaker 1: to be cool. These aren't mean things. It just means
Speaker 1: that you're sometimes just a pawn in somebody else's experience
Speaker 1: and it feels personal because it's you, But for that person,
Speaker 1: you could have just been the accessory to their experience.
Speaker 1: And so by bridging that gap and trying to merge
Speaker 1: your experiences, what you're experiencing is that awareness that they're
Speaker 1: not the interaction you had was mostly about them. For
Speaker 1: the most part, they can just not be interested. But
Speaker 1: I think when you're someone who has something to offer
Speaker 1: in the realm of social clout, people want to have that.
Speaker 1: It's yummy to be across that. If you think about
Speaker 1: it objectively, most people do not benefit from social clout.
Speaker 1: I'm talking being really attractive, being really charismatic, being really
Speaker 1: well connected, having a lot of money, having a lot
Speaker 1: of resources, having the house to go to after after
Speaker 1: the club, having the house to go to, priests to
Speaker 1: Let's say only ten percent of the population have access
Speaker 1: to that, and so when you have that, you become
Speaker 1: the gatekeeper for somebody else's experience and they know exactly
Speaker 1: how close to be with you to be to gain access.
Speaker 1: I don't want to use that dumb phrase, why buy
Speaker 1: the cow. You can get the milk for free. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to when it comes to friendships and
Speaker 1: just casual social relationships, you can get a lot from
Speaker 1: them without investing or committing to dating. Dating is a
Speaker 1: lot of effort, and nine times out of ten you
Speaker 1: come out of that traumatized, not in a grand way,
Speaker 1: but in a way where you kind of a lip.
Speaker 1: Without that, you gotta live without that. In the words
Speaker 1: of threw me from three months ago, oh dear, they're
Speaker 1: just not that into you. He's just not that into you.
Speaker 1: It holds true, not in the sense that you would
Speaker 1: need to how do I explain that, in the sense
Speaker 1: that it's often not about the other person. Like I
Speaker 1: can walk through my life interacting with so many people
Speaker 1: making them feel a certain way or based on what
Speaker 1: I needed in that moment. I needed a good chat
Speaker 1: and so as being a chatty caffe you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And then at the end of it, someone's like,
Speaker 1: let's hang out for coffee and I said, nah, I
Speaker 1: got my fix. Thank you. I will say another fallacy
Speaker 1: about social interactions, being upfront doesn't mean you also receive
Speaker 1: upfront behavior. Okay, So your confusion with going into these
Speaker 1: interactions and being upfront and saying I really want dating,
Speaker 1: I really want romance and being expected to be met
Speaker 1: with that same kind of forward behavior is a fallacy.
Speaker 1: It's not how that works. Your forwardness isn't going to
Speaker 1: suddenly invigorate somebody else with enough self confidence to engage
Speaker 1: in the situation in the same amount of way. Also,
Speaker 1: the way that you're perceiving your forwardness. You know, like,
Speaker 1: I'm leave no room for error. It's clarity, you know
Speaker 1: exactly what I want. People like the safety of ambiguity.
Speaker 1: People like knowing that you can go hang up with
Speaker 1: someone and you don't have to know what it is
Speaker 1: or what it isn't. As soon as you make something romantic,
Speaker 1: they are expectations of the pace or how you fit
Speaker 1: into each other's lives or where it goes from now,
Speaker 1: and all of that just isn't fun. And so I
Speaker 1: guarantee that if you were hanging out with all of
Speaker 1: these hot sexy people and not being forward, you'd probably
Speaker 1: be getting near it way more often interesting people like.
Speaker 1: There's so much contradiction in the way that people behave
Speaker 1: but I know for like I would put money on it.
Speaker 1: People do not respond well to somebody else being forward
Speaker 1: because it puts them in a state of powerlessness. It
Speaker 1: makes them feel like they don't have options anymore. And
Speaker 1: now you get to decide the pace, the tone, what
Speaker 1: it is, what it isn't. But when you're all just
Speaker 1: you know, not just friends, when you're just like neutral
Speaker 1: socializing beings, it's just stuff.
Speaker 2: It's like when you feel. It's hard when you feel
Speaker 2: like you have to make a decision mm hm. When
Speaker 2: someone's like I want to date you, it's like wait
Speaker 2: but ah, and like, oh.
Speaker 1: It's been brewing for you. You just told me, and now
Speaker 1: I got to like agree to go on a date.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how I feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, even just yeah.
Speaker 1: And dating is a lot of pressure, you know, Like
Speaker 1: that's why we're always looking for like a spark or
Speaker 1: something that makes us certain, because it is very painful
Speaker 1: to be on the receiving end of someone who's not certain.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot of people are hesitant to
Speaker 1: go into situations knowing they're not sure. Yeah. True, So
Speaker 1: that's why they would say to you, I like your energy,
Speaker 1: I like your vibe, I like all these let's just
Speaker 1: be friends, because choosing to now engage in this like
Speaker 1: romancing means I've got to now be sure and that's
Speaker 1: just not fun.
Speaker 2: What do you reckon here?
Speaker 4: My boyfriend, my current boyfriend, was always like you're peaking out.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, he was.
Speaker 4: Always like putting out the vibe. That's something was going
Speaker 4: on between us.
Speaker 1: But I just shot him down for so long because.
Speaker 4: I was like no, like we're friends, we go, we
Speaker 4: enjoy time together, like we're not doing it. So I
Speaker 4: definitely understand the some extent when you're out and bout
Speaker 4: and you're trying to meet people, they're not necessarily the
Speaker 4: people that you want to blur those lines with in
Speaker 4: particularly if you're having so much fun with them, you
Speaker 4: don't want to be like last week we kiss and
Speaker 4: this week I don't really.
Speaker 1: Want to care And why did you kiss somebody? Yes,
Speaker 1: like oh I thought it was us, And oh you're
Speaker 1: sleeping within another friend of mine. That's weird.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it can just get confusing.
Speaker 1: There is a virtue and just not trying to date
Speaker 1: your friends. I get the one size fit to all
Speaker 1: approach with like if we get along so well and
Speaker 1: you're hot and I'm hot, and we're here, let's just
Speaker 1: do it. But if that would work, if that was
Speaker 1: a strategy that was going to work, it would have
Speaker 1: worked by now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'd be certain. I was certain that
Speaker 4: I was like we need to do this, yeah, because
Speaker 4: there's no going back. We've like blurred the lines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also there is something to say about like
Speaker 1: I know a lot of dating these days, like catch
Speaker 1: a vibe and see how you go. There's something to
Speaker 1: say about knowing exactly what you want and then knowing
Speaker 1: that person fits the criteria as opposed to just like
Speaker 1: playing throwing someone at the wall and seeing if it's stick,
Speaker 1: instead of throwing stuff at the wall. Knowing what your
Speaker 1: personality type is and knowing how you can be perceived.
Speaker 1: Save that energy for someone you're definitely sure about, who
Speaker 1: you know is kind of sure about. You. Don't just
Speaker 1: assume because you're all hanging out and having a good
Speaker 1: time that they're just an option, okay, because that creates
Speaker 1: a weird energy. It's like one of those things where
Speaker 1: like you know, they say, like cis hetero, men can't
Speaker 1: be friends with women because I think when women are
Speaker 1: nicer than they want to flirt. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: that vibe. Just because you're all hanging out doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you are all romantic prospects. So you kind of
Speaker 1: need more data. So when you do go to make
Speaker 1: that shot, you have more chances of.
Speaker 2: Scoring and why is that because you miss every show
Speaker 2: you don't take.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent, but also gonna be mindful of how
Speaker 1: to take the right shot, so the right goal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used you when I play sport, throw it
Speaker 2: full peal and then if it gets in, everybody cheers
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of the energy here. Like you're like, well,
Speaker 1: my enthusiasm should mean that I'm more likely to get
Speaker 1: that goal because I'm trying really hard. But then what
Speaker 1: if you miss? It doesn't matter for you. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was just something else. But everybody else is like, oh,
Speaker 1: they really wanted that. They might be so embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's see that we came together to do a
Speaker 2: good analogy.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, that was really cute.
Speaker 2: Thank you for setting the voice.
Speaker 1: Note the best of luck, good luck. People are fickle,
Speaker 1: so and too hard on yourself.
Speaker 4: You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.
Speaker 4: For more, tune Indicator on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.