Speaker 1: My name's Nan. I'm a storyteller on Fine and Tell.
Speaker 1: I'm Australian born Korean and I'm currently living on Gadigle Country.
Speaker 1: I'd like to recognize the traditional custodians of this continent
Speaker 1: whose land was stolen nearly two hundred and fifty years ago,
Speaker 1: in particular the Camaragle and Warneri people, whose Land Is
Speaker 1: podcast was recorded on and we extended our respect to
Speaker 1: all Aboriginal and torrest Right islander peoples. The rich storytelling
Speaker 1: history of the world's oldest living culture is what we
Speaker 1: pay homage to when we tell stories on Fine and Tell.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Jimilla Risby and this is Find and Tell,
Speaker 2: the search for the next generation of Australian storytellers, and
Speaker 2: here we are. We started with hundreds of applications from
Speaker 2: wannabe podcasters from all around Australia. We narrowed it down
Speaker 2: to just four storytellers who you have gotten to know
Speaker 2: and fall in love with on the show over the
Speaker 2: last few weeks, and now now we're down to the
Speaker 2: final two, Ben and Mark. All that's standing between them
Speaker 2: and being crowned our first ever Find and Tell Champion
Speaker 2: is one last story whoever tells it best will win
Speaker 2: the crown and they'll take home best in Class podcasting
Speaker 2: goodies and gear from the team at Rhade Australia and
Speaker 2: a range of short courses from the Australian Film, Television
Speaker 2: and Radio School, so our winner can continue to find
Speaker 2: and tell stories well into their future. Both Ben and
Speaker 2: Mark's final theme is lost in translation, and today we're
Speaker 2: going to hear from Mark. Since his very first story,
Speaker 2: Mark has been willing to be totally vulnerable with me,
Speaker 2: with you, our audience. He's shared his experiences as a
Speaker 2: gay man growing up in the Mormon Church and the
Speaker 2: everyday challenges faced by people who are plus size. He's
Speaker 2: even tickled our nostalgia by bringing up memories of Cosma
Speaker 2: DeVito's dramatic exit from Australian idol what feels like one
Speaker 2: hundred years ago. Mark has this natural talent for bringing
Speaker 2: us the audience into his world. He weaves his humor
Speaker 2: and his warmth into everything he does, even when he's
Speaker 2: tackling some really serious subjects. So for the very last time, Mark,
Speaker 2: welcome back to find and tell Hi.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, that was a bitter sweet This really
Speaker 3: is the last time right, it's.
Speaker 2: So exciting to see you again. But yeah, knowing this
Speaker 2: is it, I am so psyched to hear your final story.
Speaker 2: Tell me, have you developed your storytelling style over that time?
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you know a bit more about
Speaker 2: the kind of storyteller you are?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I guess it just depends on the
Speaker 3: story as well. Some will require a lot of me,
Speaker 3: some won't. I may just be a platform or I
Speaker 3: may just be like a conduit. So I think the
Speaker 3: biggest thing that I've learned really is just to be flexible,
Speaker 3: to be agile, to take things with grace, and to
Speaker 3: problem solve in ways that I never thought i'd have
Speaker 3: to problem solve, like even from a logistical perspective sometimes,
Speaker 3: particularly with this episode. So yeah, just to be flexible
Speaker 3: and love the whole process.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, the theme for this final episode is
Speaker 2: lost in translation. When I first told you and Ben
Speaker 2: the theme where did your Where did your mind go?
Speaker 2: Did you have a story that came about quickly? Or
Speaker 2: did you have to go hunting?
Speaker 3: Actually, this was the first time that I was stumped.
Speaker 3: From the very beginning. I think I had I had
Speaker 3: stories that I wanted to tell, even going into this
Speaker 3: competition that I was able to work into the incredible
Speaker 3: themes we've been given before. But this was the first
Speaker 3: time I was like, oh my goodness, I don't have
Speaker 3: anything that come immediately to mind, and so I had
Speaker 3: to work through that freak out first and then eventually like,
Speaker 3: really back in, have a good solid think to really
Speaker 3: just like dig deep and look inwards. And I hope
Speaker 3: people enjoy listening to me.
Speaker 2: Yep, they definitely will. I know that for sure, So
Speaker 2: let's do it. The theme is lost in translation and
Speaker 2: Mark this is your fourth and final contribution to Find
Speaker 2: and Tell.
Speaker 3: So I hate being ghosted. I hate being left in
Speaker 3: the dark. When you're left with gaps of information, you
Speaker 3: fill it with your own. Is it because I'm fat?
Speaker 3: I do something wrong and I say something wrong?
Speaker 2: Go?
Speaker 3: I don't I deserve an explanation. Ghosting can sometimes feel
Speaker 3: like a stab in the heart. It's so much worse
Speaker 3: than regular rejection. It's like a rug has been pulled
Speaker 3: out from under your feet, which really fucking sucks. I
Speaker 3: remember the very first time I was ghosted. I was
Speaker 3: twenty one and super fresh to the dating scene. Into
Speaker 3: that apps, I matched with this cute Filipino guy in
Speaker 3: my area and we hit it off. We spoke day night,
Speaker 3: punding over our love for K pop, and I remember
Speaker 3: messaging chat tomorrow one evening, but by the next morning
Speaker 3: his profile was gone. So why do we keep putting
Speaker 3: ourselves out there? Well, I guess we're all looking for
Speaker 3: that spark, right, I'm talking Anne Hathaway early two thousands
Speaker 3: y two k cheesy rum coom spark. To some, it's
Speaker 3: a kiss that has you kicking your feet up, like
Speaker 3: in the Princess Diaries.
Speaker 4: In old films, whenever a girl get seriously kissed, her
Speaker 4: foot would just.
Speaker 3: Kind of popped, or a sloppy passion the rain like
Speaker 3: in the Notebook. To others, it's enemies to lovers, cliche
Speaker 3: like and you've got male or friends to lovers in
Speaker 3: suddenly thirty, I'm.
Speaker 5: Just crying because I'm happy.
Speaker 4: I want you to be so so happy. I love you, mad,
Speaker 4: You're my best friend.
Speaker 3: Cheesy, cheesy, I know, but I want that so bad.
Speaker 3: I want to stroll hand in hand with someone in
Speaker 3: Central Park. I want to spend hours yapping and explaining
Speaker 3: and venting. I want that Gilmore Girl's conversation speed where
Speaker 3: the connection is undeniable and almost unspoken. It's a little
Speaker 3: sad to admit at twenty eight, but I don't think
Speaker 3: I've ever felt that spark, at least not in full.
Speaker 3: I've come really close, but they would all just eventually
Speaker 3: fizzle out. But one aspect of dating in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four that Renee Zelger and Colin Firth didn't prepare me
Speaker 3: for was ghosting and fair Bridget Jones's Diary would have
Speaker 3: been a completely different movie. The ending was Bridget blocking
Speaker 3: mister Darcy on Tinder. So why do people ghost? And
Speaker 3: how do we move on? Sometimes I wish I could
Speaker 3: go back in time, break all the rules and revisit
Speaker 3: some of my almost not to beg but to just
Speaker 3: I don't know, find out why why didn't it work out?
Speaker 3: If only I had a platform where I talked to people,
Speaker 3: and if only iHeart was the same company that an
Speaker 3: old flame now has his own radio show and podcast with,
Speaker 3: I could reach out and ask the questions I've been
Speaker 3: wanting to ask.
Speaker 6: Oh wait, hang on a minute, Oh god, Oh, I
Speaker 6: don't know. I feel bad. I feel guilty. I feel bad, Okay, cool, I.
Speaker 3: Don't feel guilty. No, that wasn't the intention of this
Speaker 3: chat at all.
Speaker 6: You can grill me.
Speaker 3: I'm an open book if you want to grill me.
Speaker 3: He grilled me, absolutely not. Look so that's Mitch true.
Speaker 3: He's the night show host on Kiss in Sydney and
Speaker 3: we matched on Tinder back in twenty seventeen, and from
Speaker 3: the jump I felt a connection. We would chat for
Speaker 3: hours and hours and hours, and he got all of
Speaker 3: my pop culture references. We were right on the cusp
Speaker 3: of that spark, but that soon dropped off. We'll come
Speaker 3: back to him later. It's juicy, I know, I know.
Speaker 3: But before we get there, we got to do some work.
Speaker 3: We're going to therapy. I have so many questions about
Speaker 3: ghosting as a phenomena, and I want to understand why
Speaker 3: people do it, or if people feel the same way
Speaker 3: I do. In the aftermath, I first reached out to
Speaker 3: my mates and ask for their ghost stories.
Speaker 4: I've been ghosting so many times I don't know.
Speaker 3: Usually it's not like dates with people, and then I
Speaker 3: think that maybe they're a friend of confrontation or don't
Speaker 3: want to spend the energy on it. Maybe the same
Speaker 3: reason I goost people. The sheer number of friends who
Speaker 3: have been ghosted did not surprise me, But what was
Speaker 3: surprising was how many had been the ghoste.
Speaker 1: So I have ghosted myself just once.
Speaker 4: It wasn't fair.
Speaker 1: He didn't deserve it, but he was just a nice
Speaker 1: guy and I was a bit young and a bit silly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I just never messaged again.
Speaker 3: I think most people would agree that ghosting isn't the
Speaker 3: most mature way to end things, but I learned that
Speaker 3: sometimes ghosting is necessary to keep yourself safe.
Speaker 4: On the third day, he invited me to his place.
Speaker 4: The apartment creeped me out. Basically, I was not feeling it.
Speaker 4: I was really anxious. My intuition was like, get out
Speaker 4: of here. He took my phone and wouldn't let me
Speaker 4: book the obar and I had to like pam my
Speaker 4: way out of there. And I managed to get out
Speaker 4: of there. And then he sent me a few messages
Speaker 4: wanting to meet up again, and I didn't respond.
Speaker 3: So is ghosting as black and white, as right or wrong?
Speaker 3: Some stats on mind found that most people actually think
Speaker 3: ghosting is appropriate in certain situations, and nearly two and
Speaker 3: three have ghosted someone else. Almost everyone will experience it
Speaker 3: at some stage. I guess people just ghosts and that's
Speaker 3: a reality. But why what are the reasons?
Speaker 5: I think you know that I'm about to say this.
Speaker 5: There is no single answer and there is no simple
Speaker 5: answer as to why people ghost others.
Speaker 3: As promised, here is relational psychologist Smoothly there who practically
Speaker 3: gave me a free therapy session answering all of my
Speaker 3: big ticket questions about ghosting. Smoothly helps people who've been
Speaker 3: impacted by relationships and the trauma that can come with
Speaker 3: personal displacement. For the Darwin based psych ghosting is so
Speaker 3: much more complex than we could ever.
Speaker 5: Think, and for so many people who ghost, it is
Speaker 5: about being too overwhelmed to own up and say they
Speaker 5: don't want to see the other person again. And I
Speaker 5: want to be clear, this is not an excuse. This
Speaker 5: is usually the reason they do this. Sometimes it can
Speaker 5: be too stressful or too uncomfortable to say no. Some
Speaker 5: people ghost others because they're insecure themselves. They might not
Speaker 5: be emotionally mature or empathetic, or they might refuse to
Speaker 5: take accountability for how their behavior impacts other people. Regardless
Speaker 5: of intent, this kind of behavior is extremely poor communication.
Speaker 5: It's hurtful to the other person. Usually, ghosting says more
Speaker 5: about the person doing the ghosting than the ghosting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes sense. I don't need a therapist to
Speaker 3: tell me that when I get ghosted, I automatically blame myself.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's why it hurts so much when someone
Speaker 3: leaves me with no answers. I'm not to find that
Speaker 3: closure on my own. It brings my deepest insecurities to
Speaker 3: the surface, and I become my harshest. In our critic
Speaker 3: for Smithie, this pattern of thinking is what ghosting really
Speaker 3: taps into.
Speaker 5: Someone who gets ghosted, if they already struggle with loneliness
Speaker 5: or rejection, sensitivity, or self esteem, ghosting can then perpetuate
Speaker 5: that thinking, and they might internalize the rejection and they
Speaker 5: might be convinced that somehow they miss the mark or
Speaker 5: they're not good enough to date. They might start building
Speaker 5: this narrative in their head, built on confirmation bias, that
Speaker 5: dating is never going to work out for them, or
Speaker 5: that they need to change who they are, they need
Speaker 5: to change their personality in order to be likable. If
Speaker 5: somebody tends to have this experience multiple times, and if
Speaker 5: they are not encouraged to self reflect and think about
Speaker 5: this from a mental health lens, it just drives them
Speaker 5: further down a really negative paths.
Speaker 3: Those anxious and irrational thought cycles are hard to predict
Speaker 3: and control, and we may not always have someone else
Speaker 3: to help us out of them. So then, how do
Speaker 3: we change that? How do we not internalize the external
Speaker 3: data we've been given? How do we feel empowered to
Speaker 3: break these cycles on our own? Look, I think it's
Speaker 3: time to face the inevitable. We need to look inwards,
Speaker 3: confront the dark stuff, and work our way to the light.
Speaker 3: Except that our feelings may not always be reciprocated, and
Speaker 3: accept that ghosting is unavoidable, whether that be from a
Speaker 3: lack of chemistry or a loser with no empathy. So
Speaker 3: what now? What should we do when we're ghosted? Scream
Speaker 3: into our pillows, close the curtains and blast olivery of Rodrigo,
Speaker 3: Cry into a drive through speaker box, Oh just me,
Speaker 3: Oh my bad. Smoothie suggests that we focus on what's
Speaker 3: in our control. The way that someone acts on Tinder
Speaker 3: is not in our control.
Speaker 5: You are going to feel some sort of faith if
Speaker 5: you get ghosted. Let's accept that feelings of feelings and
Speaker 5: fighting and invalidating your feelings is not going to help.
Speaker 5: What is going to help is understanding why you feel,
Speaker 5: how do you feel, and starting to process them. This
Speaker 5: can include things like self reflection, understanding your triggers, understanding
Speaker 5: your past experiences how do these shape your current feelings.
Speaker 5: This might involve not immediately believing your just because someone
Speaker 5: did not text you back. It's very easy for us
Speaker 5: to fall into feeling shame when we perceive ourselves as
Speaker 5: not being good enough or being unworthy of being responded to,
Speaker 5: being replied to. I would really encourage people to replace
Speaker 5: that with what you would tell a friend who got ghosted.
Speaker 5: It sucks. It's really hard, so remember to be self compassionate.
Speaker 5: Being self compassionate will not fix the problem, no, but
Speaker 5: you know what, it'll give you enough time and space
Speaker 5: to start feeling like yourself again so that you can
Speaker 5: then reflect and problem solve and re energize and talk
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 3: I'm a big believer in rejection being redirection. If I'm
Speaker 3: going to be a loyal subscriber to faith and that
Speaker 3: everything happens for a reason, I must also believe that
Speaker 3: some connections aren't meant to be. It's not the end
Speaker 3: of the world, and he it may just not be
Speaker 3: that into me This might be hard to hear, but
Speaker 3: surviving a ghosting may require some tough self reflection. I've
Speaker 3: always struggled with confronting rejection head on. I lose myself
Speaker 3: in those inner conversations so easily, but to ground myself
Speaker 3: I must push through. Smoothie says that self care is
Speaker 3: a vital part of the process, so I asked her,
Speaker 3: how can we take better care of ourselves when we're
Speaker 3: grieving and processing a rejection.
Speaker 5: I agree that sometimes it is about having those difficult
Speaker 5: conversations or honest conversations with yourself, and self care is
Speaker 5: definitely not about massages and candles date They can be great,
Speaker 5: but self care has to be sustainable. It is about
Speaker 5: putting yourself first, about valuing yourself and making a habit
Speaker 5: out of it.
Speaker 3: After chatting with Smithie, I took her advice and started
Speaker 3: to self reflect. I paused my sixteen three watch of
Speaker 3: The Devil Wares Prada, opened the curtains, fluffed and reshaped
Speaker 3: my pillows, and I looked back on my almosts, on
Speaker 3: the ghosters and on the fizzlers. Some were short lived,
Speaker 3: some a bit longer. I can forgive most of them
Speaker 3: and still hurt with the rest. But I can't think
Speaker 3: my way through that pain. I have to feel it
Speaker 3: and then eventually let it go as I work through
Speaker 3: the self deprecation and the confusion to then eventually find
Speaker 3: my own approaches to self care. There is one situationship
Speaker 3: in particular that keeps making a recurring guest appearance in
Speaker 3: the Rolling rom com in my mind. So let's get
Speaker 3: back to Mitch, the radio host that I almost felt
Speaker 3: that spark with, the one I've always wanted to look
Speaker 3: in the eye and have a conversation with.
Speaker 6: This will be fun, fun, I'm say.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I'll read the script narration that I have
Speaker 3: planned for this and then we'll go straight into a chat. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited. Okay. So, like I said, things with
Speaker 3: Mitch started as most modern love stories do, on Tinder
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. This was before he was kiss a
Speaker 3: Fem's night show host and before he was voted Australia's
Speaker 3: most relatable media personality. Whatever he was though, the cashcock
Speaker 3: running errands for Kyle and Jackie. Oh oh god, our
Speaker 3: banter was electric. This was the chemistry I'd been waiting for.
Speaker 3: We both adored sushi and spent so many late nights
Speaker 3: laughing about musical theater. We shared our dreams and aspirations
Speaker 3: of living in New York, and we were so hopeful
Speaker 3: for our features. This went on for a couple of months,
Speaker 3: and we promised to meet, but things just never worked
Speaker 3: out and our timing never aligned. Then I started to
Speaker 3: feel him pull away. Was that accurate? Is that how
Speaker 3: you remember?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 6: Why am I pining for this relationship that never happened.
Speaker 7: I'm moaning the loss of the love that I didn't
Speaker 7: even know existed.
Speaker 6: I've got a half erection. I didn't even know it's possible.
Speaker 7: I am in love with you all over again, and
Speaker 7: I do remember it in that way.
Speaker 3: There, it is that mixtruy charm. We just bounced off
Speaker 3: each other so easily. But it was only seven years later,
Speaker 3: on the other side of that fizzle, that I was
Speaker 3: comfortable and secure enough to reach out and speak to
Speaker 3: him again.
Speaker 7: I'll be honest, that part of my life was very
Speaker 7: weird at that point. I was like, send me in
Speaker 7: the closet. I was using dating and the apps to
Speaker 7: enter that world. Right. I was just nervous, But I'm
Speaker 7: a nervous person in general. I don't like letting people down.
Speaker 3: Like I still had a minute where I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: is it because I'm this or is it because that
Speaker 3: person is this?
Speaker 7: But then like, if you want the answer, how many
Speaker 7: years later has it been seven years six or seven
Speaker 7: six or sevenays later? That's not the reason, it's not
Speaker 7: your beautiful. The connection was really strong and I remember
Speaker 7: it and it was like I genuinely thought, like, Wow,
Speaker 7: I'm really enjoying this conversation with this person.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 3: Okay, I need to come clean. I need to come clean.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I can't keep painting sweet Mitchell
Speaker 3: this way as some dreadful Ghoster because he wasn't one.
Speaker 3: No Mitch came to the top of my mind because
Speaker 3: he didn't ghost me. He instead just told me straight
Speaker 3: up that things were getting serious with another person and
Speaker 3: that he would just like to be friends.
Speaker 7: I remember writing how I actually felt I just want
Speaker 7: I owed you, I really liked you, and I owed
Speaker 7: you a genuine reason as to why I wasn't gonna work.
Speaker 7: It was getting very serious with my then partner, who
Speaker 7: I stayed with for five years.
Speaker 6: So I do remember that.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, you know, like the original and immediate reaction
Speaker 3: was oh my god, this is shitty. But then that
Speaker 3: only lasted for like two months, less than a month, okay,
Speaker 3: like forty five minutes.
Speaker 6: I'm worth maybe three months.
Speaker 3: No, maybe like a minute and a half. Okay, interesting,
Speaker 3: what you had done was given me an answer? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I had a thought that I could grasp onto. You
Speaker 3: didn't leave me in the dark. I was given an
Speaker 3: uncomfortable answer, but at least I was given one. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my time for me to move on, find someone else
Speaker 3: I have better compatibility with.
Speaker 6: That's how you do it, guys, Yeah, it's not hard.
Speaker 3: By saying the uncomfortable stuff out loud, Mitch had saved
Speaker 3: me from the blame, the turmoil, the confusion. I felt
Speaker 3: that with others, but he was one I didn't have
Speaker 3: to worry about, and I can't thank him enough. He
Speaker 3: could have left me on red, he could have ghosted,
Speaker 3: he could have been awful, but he wasn't. Sadly though,
Speaker 3: Mitch was the exception and not the rule. Some conversations
Speaker 3: will never be had and some things will get lost
Speaker 3: in translation, and that has to be Okay, what was
Speaker 3: that great saying again? Yeah, rejection is redirection.
Speaker 6: Oh well, like that you was at the Darwin Psychologist.
Speaker 3: No, it was someone else. It was it was a
Speaker 3: thirty five year old.
Speaker 6: Interest it got it okay and sent me the link.
Speaker 3: Shall we call it a rap? Before we roll the
Speaker 3: final credits, here are some last bits of advice straight
Speaker 3: from the director. Cut.
Speaker 7: Dating is tough. You can't let it get you down.
Speaker 7: That's not your person. A person's not right for you,
Speaker 7: or that's not your hook out, that's not the moment,
Speaker 7: they're not right for you.
Speaker 6: You cannot let a little ghosting stop you from dating
Speaker 6: or going forward.
Speaker 5: And let's also be real to the ghosters out there.
Speaker 5: Ghosting others is not going to make it easier for
Speaker 5: you to date. People don't like being treated like they're disposable.
Speaker 5: So unless it has to do with your safety, consider
Speaker 5: if you can communicate what you're feeling in ways that
Speaker 5: are clear and non blaming. So practice communicating effectively and assertively.
Speaker 3: Everyone deserves today if that's what they want, of course,
Speaker 3: and if ghosting is an unfortunate inevitability, then we must
Speaker 3: remain open hearted to keep our peace. Maybe then it's
Speaker 3: about making sure that the firing you burns bright on
Speaker 3: its own, so that when the ghost's clear and the
Speaker 3: sparks come fireworks.
Speaker 2: Mark, I can see you smiling. How does it feel
Speaker 2: listening to that?
Speaker 3: That felt so Norah Efron, queen of two thousands of
Speaker 3: wrong goings?
Speaker 2: Hey, there's nothing wrong with having a self comparison to
Speaker 2: Norah Efron. You did bring all the feelings. You brought
Speaker 2: all the feelings in that one. And I promise I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to the podcasting, but I have to
Speaker 2: ask about the personal stuff first. It would have been
Speaker 2: confronting reaching out to contact Mitch and ask him to
Speaker 2: be part of this. How did you do it and
Speaker 2: how did you kind of get yourself ready to do that?
Speaker 3: It was so funny. I think I put off having
Speaker 3: that initial invite conversation with him, but then this was
Speaker 3: simply just a matter of like reaching out to him
Speaker 3: on Instagram like, Hey, I've got this incredible interview coming
Speaker 3: up and I want you to be part of it.
Speaker 3: Are you down? And he was so willing to help
Speaker 3: and so lovely about it. I'm so grateful for him
Speaker 3: for his vulnerability as well. It was very healing speaking
Speaker 3: to him, and to interlace that with what Ruthie was
Speaker 3: speaking about, it was just I feel like, I've felt
Speaker 3: a lot of romantic feelings and fragments, and so to
Speaker 3: have these two conversations really helped provide like a framework
Speaker 3: to how I emote and how I should move forward
Speaker 3: and you know, feel my feelings instead of think through them.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was such a healing experience speaking to
Speaker 3: Mitch and then to Smithie as well.
Speaker 2: What made you want to tell a story about ghosting
Speaker 2: and explore the subject.
Speaker 3: Well, I am very proudly a hopeless romantic.
Speaker 2: I think I got that. I think that came through.
Speaker 3: I also would consider myself a late bloomer. I never
Speaker 3: experienced romantic love when I was younger, which, you know,
Speaker 3: now navigating this in my twenties, I feel a little
Speaker 3: bit stumpeded, which sort of overtakes my mind sometimes. When
Speaker 3: I finally took ownership of sort of my dating life,
Speaker 3: I found I was encountering ghosters a lot and it
Speaker 3: bothered me a lot, And I was like, why does
Speaker 3: this bother me? There are people who are get ghosted
Speaker 3: and it's not a big deal, But to me, I
Speaker 3: was like, why is this the case? And so I
Speaker 3: really really wanted to like explore this phenomena, learn so
Speaker 3: much about myself and about how ghosting works, and then
Speaker 3: take the listeners with me as well, so that it's
Speaker 3: a big overall learning experience for all of us.
Speaker 2: What do you hope that listeners take away from this story?
Speaker 3: Look, there are two major takeaways for me, the first
Speaker 3: being you know what I learned with Smoothie. I think
Speaker 3: to love yourself is to be uncompromising with your wants
Speaker 3: and needs. You know, in the meantime, interrogate your feelings,
Speaker 3: feel them, do your thing. The second thing really is
Speaker 3: that I am single, I am on the prowl. I'm
Speaker 3: single and ready to mingle. Yeah. So if there are
Speaker 3: any queer men who are listening and are interested and
Speaker 3: have loved my storytelling and my voice, I will happily
Speaker 3: do the same in their ear. So if you're interested,
Speaker 3: reach out. You know, my dms are open.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's a whole new spinoff podcast that
Speaker 2: I am seeing that is possible right now, Mark all
Speaker 2: the producers, they're going to have their inboxes flooded, flooded
Speaker 2: with requests from admirers of yours and your beautiful voice.
Speaker 2: I have loved what a great job you have done
Speaker 2: with all your episodes, and particularly today Thank you so much, Mark.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, folks. Mark has set the bar high and in
Speaker 2: our final episode we will be hearing from Ben. That's
Speaker 2: before I decide who is going to be our first
Speaker 2: ever Find and Tell Champion. It is getting really exciting
Speaker 2: now everyone, you do not want to miss it. Hit
Speaker 2: follow in your podcast app now because the epic conclusion
Speaker 2: to Find and Tell is on the way. Thank you
Speaker 2: also to Afters and Roade Australia for supporting our storytellers
Speaker 2: with some incredible prizes. Find and Tell is a co
Speaker 2: production between iHeart Australia and the black Cast podcast network.
Speaker 2: Black Cast empowers First Nations people and people of color
Speaker 2: to reclaim their narratives, to strengthen cultural identity and contribute
Speaker 2: to a more inclusive Australia by showcasing exciting emerging talent
Speaker 2: from Australian communities.