Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Beautiful people, this is The Moments Podcast and I'm your host, Lexi Hidalgo. I hope you're ready to learn a little bit something new about yourself or the world or feel a little bit more seen, heard, and understood because you are. And you are beautiful and valuable and I want to be your big sister and your best friend and I'm going to remind you of that hopefully in each and every episode that you listen to. So tune in and enjoy The Moments.
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Somehow, they won't go away no matter what I do, no matter how incredibly awful and mean I am to them, but I don't mind doing this work. In fact, if I'm being honest, I think it's God's work. So make sure y'all follow me on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes every Wednesday. This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who's been a teacher for a
who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu. Hello, my beautiful people. Welcome back to the Moments Podcast. I'm your host, Lexi Hidalgo, and today...
We're getting into a conversation that I have... Sorry, I'm still stuffy. I think we're on week three or so of my nose sounding like this. Anyways...
This is a topic I've touched on before. We've done a couple of episodes about it. We've done, you know, Instagram, insert your questions, let's give advice on relationships, boys, situationships, love, intimacy, all of these things. But this week's episode, I want to solely...
Make it about that. I want the title of this episode to be how you should be loved, how you deserve to be loved, what love looks like, something along those lines, because I do think I've gotten to a point in my life where I can so clearly see and feel love that I honestly think I deserve and I can give some quality advice on what a relationship should look like. And again,
This is not everybody's situation. This is not everybody's case scenario. Like I know we've all got different things going on and love looks different for everyone. But if you are someone who's trying to figure out what love should look like at all, especially like if someone would have told me these things in high school or college, someone other than, you know, my mother, because we never want to listen to our moms, I think it would have been very beneficial for the way that I let people treat me because I
When I was younger, and as many of us do when we're younger, we are so...
We act like doormats like we let people walk all over us Especially and as I go about this know that this reply this applies to any romantic relationship ever I want to be as inclusive as I can with my language because love is love and I think you should love anyone you want Whoever you want. It doesn't matter to me. It's not my business good for you. I love it But I've also only been in a straight relationship So that's where most of my scenarios are going to come from but know that this applies to anyone and everyone
Love is love, you know? Moving on. A lot of us at a young age, in high school at least, I used to think that if a boy was mean to me and if a boy treated me like garbage, it meant he loved me more. Crazy. You know, even from when we're born, it's told to us, oh, that boy's being mean to you at the playground. He's hitting you. He's punching you. He's pushing you. He must have a crush on you. That is what we are spoon-fed.
From the ages of probably two to three years old. Like my best friend pushed me down the stairs. My boy best friend pushed me down the stairs. And our moms were like, you guys are going to get married. I knew he loved you. What? That's not their fault. That's just how the older generation was. That's how so many of us have been trained. That's why I think a lot of men still think it's okay to bully a girl to get her attention. But that's when we're going to change the script. I'm not...
Not here for that. I'm really not. That being said, in high school I was. The meaner a boy was to me, the more girls he was hooking up with, the more I thought I had a chance with him. And on top of that, the more I wanted to be with him. Garbage. Garbage. It's crazy looking back on it. But I could not see love or relationships in the way that I do now had I not gone through all of that and had I not now felt and grown with someone like
Through those chapters and through those phases. So we're going to take it from the top. I think that we live in a world where most relationships aren't even face-to-face. Like we text, we Snapchat, sometimes people FaceTime. I never FaceTimed. Like every little situationship I had ever, I was text, text, text, girl. There was no, I still don't pick up my phone. I still don't FaceTime anyone except my best friend and rarely text.
Do I FaceTime my boyfriend of a year? Given it's helpful, we're together 24-7. But besides from... Can I speak? Can I speak? Aside from the point. There's also a really strange disconnect. Like, it is hard for a lot of us to feel true love, find a true relationship because we are not connected face-to-face. And when it comes to the times that we are connected face-to-face, I think so much...
the nerves and the anxieties of like meeting someone for the first time or hanging out with someone is just...
It takes away... Let me try to rephrase this, okay? We are texting so much. Our relationships, our friendships, everything is so much through the phone that we forget how to be humans in person until you've really gotten used to this person. And maybe this is just me. But for me, I didn't go on first dates. I didn't do none of that because I was scared of people. I was scared of connection. I was scared of intimacy. And when I say intimacy, I don't just mean...
intimacy in the bedroom or hooking up with people I mean in general like having conversations about things other than the weather that scared the living crap out of me and I think that that is something that so many of us face and breaking through that is really difficult and I think that that's why so many of us get stuck in situationship after situationship and I
If you don't know what a situationship is, honestly, I think we all are trying to figure out. This term means something different for everybody, but the way I am referring to a situationship is where you are back and forth with someone like, oh, maybe we like each other. Maybe we don't. Sometimes we kiss. Maybe we haven't. But there's no label on anything. Maybe we're exclusive, but nobody really knows. It's just like very much a situationship is a maybe. And I think as us powerhouse people,
of females or males listening to this, props to you if you are, but I know my girls. We got like 99.8% female listening here. And I think that 0.2% is like the occasional time my boyfriend tunes in, but, or my dad. Aside from the points, us girls need to like really step up and...
Just understand that it's either in we're in or we're out and if it's up to you being the maybe I can get that I can get behind that like all power to you, but at the same time I don't think you need to waste your time with something or someone that isn't worthwhile and I really do stand on that So we're gonna move on I have like a tiny I made a tiny little outline It's nothing super detailed, but I made like a bullet point list of some of my requirements when it comes to relationships
Period. I'm not even going to add situationships onto that. Okay. When it comes to you being with someone, here are the things that are, this isn't like my green flags, my X, things that you need. No, this is what we 100% need to prioritize in our relationships if we want to find love. And let me just throw in this little note too.
The more that you chase down love and the more that you search for it and the more that you try to change who you are as a person for someone that you think you love, the less likely your love is going to last. And it's a hard pill to swallow because I spent a lot of different situationships trying to change who I was for someone else. And I quickly learned that when you do that, you lose yourself. And when you lose yourself,
you're going to realize again very quickly that you need you. You are the person that is the most important. And let me just start, when it comes to requirements or whatever it may be, the most important thing I want you to take away from this podcast episode. If you don't love you yet, you're not ready for a true love. And actually, let me just, let me rephrase that a bit. Because no, I can confidently say that I learned to love myself a lot through my relationship.
But I was very confident in who I was and when I say that I mean confident in the way that I like to decorate my house. Confident in the way that I like to do my hair and do my makeup and have hobbies that I knew that I loved. I found...
I maybe didn't fully love myself. I think that we love ourselves and we work on doing that every single day. It doesn't happen overnight and it won't happen until the day we're in the grave. Loving ourselves is a constant mission. But knowing yourself, yes, you're going to undiscover, unveil new things about yourself every day. But if you know your core and you know your true values, and I did an episode on this. It's one of the first episodes of season two. Hmm.
It's a few down, probably early January or early February when it came out. I did a whole episode on how to discover yourself. I want you to go listen to that episode. I want you to tune into that. Figure out who you are. What are your core values? What are your morals? Once you know those, it helps you eliminate very quickly who is the right person to waste your time on and who is not. It's simple. Um...
But that also being said, you got to love you. You are your own teammate. You got to be your best friend. You got to root yourself on and be proud of yourself. Know your worth. Know your value. Understand what you bring to the table. Because I have a pretty strong feeling that you don't give yourself enough credit for the incredible human being that you are. For all the things that you've done, accomplished, you're going to do, your dreams, your goals. See that.
And hold on to that and know that as you move forward with someone, because there's a lot of people out there, males and females, who take advantage of other people,
In the worst possible ways. In the ways where they shut down your dreams, shut down your goals, make you think the way they think, love the way they do. And it's almost normal in our society. And I think that even if you have been in relationships, you've maybe experienced that from someone or maybe you've been the one to dish it. I know there's been times in my relationship where I have to really take a step back and recognize like, hey, that's my dream.
That's not his dream. I shouldn't force that upon anyone ever. So that all being said, let's move forward. Just know yourself, okay? And stand your ground and hold your bubble and know that love, a true love can still exist with you just being you because there is somebody out there who is handpicked, made exactly for you. So let's get into it.
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Quick little intermission, you guys. We all know how important it is to prioritize the right things in our life. And maybe for you, that's prioritizing doing leg day at the gym or making sure you go for your hot girl walk. But how often are you prioritizing your mental health and making sure that therapy is a part of your weekly routine? If it's something that you've been open to, if it's something that you've been considering, I highly recommend BetterHelp. And thank you so much to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode.
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Conversation. This is my first, I'm calling them requirements, but I think they're more just like topics of conversation we're going to have. Communicating. Okay. Conversating, communicating 100% think that you need to communicate every feeling you have ever. Now this is more of a hot take. It's a little controversial. Some might say Gabe and I,
And this is something that we kind of set in stone and talked about very early on in our relationship. And it's something that we still do to this day. Anytime we feel something, whether it's anger, sadness, jealousy, an issue, like something's bothering us about one another or because of something that one another said...
We talk about it. Now, there's a lot of relationships out there where I think people are always like, no, don't sweat the small stuff. There's no need to talk about it. Like, just brush it under the rug and keep moving. And sometimes that works. That's like how me and my best friend work and it works really well for us. But my best friend also isn't going to be my wife. You know, this isn't the person I'm going to make humongous life decisions with forever. Right?
This is someone that I want to be able to be 100% open and honest with about everything. And he has been the greatest person. He has been so respectful of that. And now we both do it like from the beginning. The little thing bothers us. We're not going to let a million thousand of those little things just keep building and keep stacking onto each other and keep going. We're going to beat them, beat them down right then and there.
And we're going to figure out the root cause of the issue, even if it's so small. Like, listen, today, this is what happened. Gabe was, I've always been very open about how much I want to travel, how I want to see the world, why I'm so excited to see the world. And I always am pushing that on people in my life. And it's very important to me. And I want to travel with him. I want to travel with my best friend. I want to travel with everyone.
And what tends to happen is everyone's like, oh yeah, like me too. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But never exactly see it the way that I do. And that's fine. It is what it is. But Gabe today came in after work and he was like talking to his client and he's like, yeah, this guy was telling me about traveling and seeing the world and he lived in a van and he backpacks and he was so excited when he was telling me about what this guy did. And I'm like, and I got mad. Now I got mad because
Not just because someone else encouraged him. I'm excited. If anything, it should make me over the moon happy that we're going to now... Now he wants to travel the way that I do and we're going to see the world at some point. But the reason that it got me so upset and I felt it so deeply is because for so long in my life, one of my... I don't even want to call it a pet peeve. Something that makes me feel really bummed out is when...
I am like, let's take a simple example. You should read this book. You should read this book. You've got to read this book. And they're like, no, no, not interested, not interested. They have one other person tell them they should read the book and all of a sudden they read the book and love it. That's a very minor example. But for so long in my life with so many people in my life, that is exactly what
what happens. Like another example, I've been wearing my cowboy boots because I love them for so long. And I have this one friend who, when I used to wear them was like, no, ugly, ugly, don't like them. Just gave me like such a side eye when I would wear them all of a sudden loves cowboy boots has like 20 million pairs. And I'm like,
Okay, it's fine. I'm glad. It's exciting. It's awesome. But it's been so constant in my life on so many bigger, deeper levels that obviously I'm not going to bring to the podcast. It just gets under my skin. Now I've gotten very sidetracked. Before we move on from that argument, before any of us ends the conversation and moves on and deals with something else, it is important for us to get to the root of that. It is so important because it helps you...
Ooh, sorry if you hear that squeaking. The garbage truck just went by. It helps you understand each other on such a deeper level, which is so important in any relationship. I don't care how young you are. I don't care how old you are. I don't care if it's new, if it's old. You need to know each other beyond the surface. And that is truth. So that kind of goes into my next one, which is like another hot take, I guess. You have to argue with your person.
It is important to argue with the person that you love because another thing that people say, which is basically the same thing I said before, like, no, brush under the rug. You should never argue. If you're really in love, there's nothing to argue about. No, that's not how it works. We are all different humans with different upbringings, with different past. Past cannot speak. Different pasts. I actually can't say that word. We have a different history.
There is no way, no way, I don't care if this is your soulmate, your twin flame, your life partner, the love of your life, there is no way you are going to agree on every single thing ever. And if you do, one of you is lying. One of you is giving up something of you, which is okay. There's a lot of things that Gabe and I don't agree on and I'll be like, okay, whatever, I agree with you. And he'll be like, okay, whatever, I'm team you.
Certain things, yeah, that's okay. But like you have to argue. You have to argue, again, to know each other deeper. And I think knowing each other deeply is one of the most important things in a relationship. And I think that that is something that a lot of relationships are lacking. Just that communication, those arguments, that deep digging into each other's feelings, those open conversations about what you've struggled with, what your trauma looks like.
You gotta be willing to have those conversations if this is somebody that's going to stick around for a while because I think that for a long time, I feared that a lot because I was scared that once I showed somebody my vulnerability and the deeper feelings inside me that maybe feel silly to me or the traumas that are silly to me, I was worried that when somebody would see those parts of me, hear those things about me, they would think that I...
Didn't deserve love because that's how I viewed it. I didn't think I deserved love I didn't think anybody could love me through my flaws and through those parts of me, but what I've proved myself wrong on is the fact that I gave and I love each other so much more and so much deeper because of those conversations because of that vulnerability because we are so
We know so much about one another. We have this different level of respect, this different level of sympathy, this different level of everything, you know? So the next one I have written down goes to respect, which is obviously important, but I think it is scary the amount of disrespect that men have towards women and vice versa in this world. I posted a TikTok the other day, two days ago actually,
Dancing in my kitchen because I got my countertops done and I was so excited. I'm like, "Oh my god, I have a kitchen!" Like a girl does. I dance and I spin around my room and I'm proud of it. Wasn't wearing a bra because who wears a bra? Not me. Anyways, all the men found that video. And men are disgusting. Disgusting. And I'm sure that there's women who comment like that on men's videos too, but I know damn well that I've never seen anything like that ever. These comments were crazy.
And a lot of these comments came from men who have their family in their profile picture. Their children and their dogs and their damn wife. And they are commenting about what my boobs look like. And when I say men, I don't mean like a few comments from a few weirdos. Hundreds, hundreds of comments. And it is sad because that means there's not all of them are in relationships, I'm sure. But
There are hundreds of people out there treating their special other, the love of their life, the person that they choose to marry like that. And maybe they do treat that woman like a queen, but you cannot be telling me that you treat that woman like a queen and that is what you are consuming on your For You page. That is what your media looks like. I had one guy comment, family photo as the profile picture, where my OnlyFans link was.
This is a whole another level of respect, a whole another conversation. If you are with someone, that person deserves your undivided, full respect. This means you're not going and following new people on the internet. You're liking videos on your For You page of guys thirst traps. You're seeking out conversations with new males to become your friends.
Because I know damn well, at least for me, if my boyfriend were to do that, that is not respect. That is not love. And this is, again, I think a lot of my takes on love are quote-unquote hot takes or they're controversial. But to me, they're common sense. I am confident in the way I feel about it. Maybe I'm...
People might want to call me. If a man listened to this, they'd be like, "You're crazy. You're so jealous. I can have girlfriends. I can Snapchat my old friends from college." Okay, yeah. But I think there's also boundaries. There is no need for you, as my boyfriend, to be going and actively keeping in contact with people from college.
that you maybe have been with. Like this, I'm just, I'm saying this as a very general idea here because I know that when I do do my little advice boxes on Instagram, a lot of people bring this up. They're like, girl best friends, college friends, friends with people you've slept with. For me, that's a no. It's a no. I don't see why. Again, people have different situations. There are different scenarios. I'm not one to just be like, if you've ever kissed that person, they are not allowed to be in your life.
I don't want to be like that. But I want to have a conversation about why this person needs to be in your life. Sometimes there's a valid answer. Sometimes there's a point. But other times there's not. There's not. Why do you need to grow a relationship with someone who you've slept with, kissed, talked to, period, when you have me? Does that make sense at all?
And I think we live in a time where a lot of men respond to, or women, respond to that with, well, we were friends before. Okay, explain to me how long, why, what were you friends about, what did you bond about, why is this relationship so important?
And I just feel really strongly about this one because I think that, again, it is such a common thing in this day and age that we disrespect each other. And we disrespect each other in those ways by consuming things that are disrespectful. Like my For You page now is all about relationships and love and relationship advice and traveling and couples. It's not a bunch of men. And I think that if the other gender of the person that you're with
has a For You page where they're consuming all of this stuff to compare. I don't know. It's disrespectful, okay? Also, another thing a lot of people put in the little advice box is to grow best friends. "My boyfriend loves his girl best friend. They hang out alone." No. No, no, no. No. Let's evaluate here. For me, something that I've even said to Gabe from, like, basically when we first got together a year ago,
In the way that I feel about best friends of the opposite sex who are could potentially be attracted to you You know what I'm saying? I think very strongly there is no need for you To talk to someone to talk to you. No, let's take let's say my boyfriend. This isn't the situation He's my angel perfect boy, but it's let's say he had a girl best friend that he was texting all the time There is no need
the way that I see it, that you need to be talking to another female just as much or more than you talk to me. That's not fair. That's not respect. That's not love. Again, everyone's situation is different. I'm here to give you my advice on how you deserve to be loved. And it is fully and it is truly and it is like you should feel like the only person in the world, which is kind of my next thing.
You should be treated like the only girl in the world. And that being said, that being said, I want to do another episode on how you should love. Because all of this is like, yeah, give me this, give me this, give me this. Everything I say, I want you to know it goes both ways. You are equally as responsible to treat your man, to treat your girl like they are the only person in the world. Treat your person like they are the only one that exists. Because it is so important. There is so much...
out there that you can do to show your person that you love them and it's simple it's very simple like when you're out and you hear a song texting that that song made them think of you write them a letter draw them a little picture of a flower bring them a heart bring them a piece of chocolate pick up their favorite gum at the store bring them something that makes you think of them like you had your first sleepover and you saw the mouthwash that they use bring them a little travel one
Like there's so many little ways that you can make someone feel like the only person in the world. And the way that I am made felt like the only person in the world is when you hear me and you listen to me down to the little things. And that's another thing I think is really important in a relationship. If you are trying to figure out with your, if you're with your forever person, one, I think when you know, you know, there's no questions once you know. But I think that it is important that the person you are with
hears you, okay? Not just listens to you, but hears you. Like, I want you to be able to have a conversation with this person and they get you on a deeper level, on the level that you're trying to explain it to them, even if you don't say all the right words. You got to be with someone who gets you, who can read your mood, who can understand that, okay, I know that when she's... This is an example for me. Like, there's certain days where I'm getting ready and I just...
I can't do it. My anxiety beats me. My insecurity beats me. And I just have a really hard time like getting myself together or feeling at all decent about myself. And I'm really hard on myself. Gabe knows when that's happening. And this happened on Valentine's Day. We were going to go out to a nice dinner. And I'm getting ready and I'm just like throwing my fit. Like not actually, but yeah, like I'm just, I can't feel satisfied enough in anything I put on and anything I do with my hair, makeup, whatever. He's like, let's just stay home.
Basically cried in his arms because that's all I needed to hear. I didn't want to ask, but I wanted it to be heard without me having to say it. You get me? It's important. It's very important. And if you are with someone who doesn't give you that, who doesn't make you feel that way, just think about it. Okay? Think about it.
You want to feel safe with your person. You don't want to have to spoon feed them every feeling ever. Now, let me backtrack that, okay? This is not something that happens right away. This is not something that happens overnight. This is a trait in the relationship that your special other, is that the significant other?
is not going to pick up on for a long time because it takes a lot of time to really be able to read someone and get to know them. Like I can know something is on Gabe's mind in like 0.2 seconds now just by the way he takes a breath and the way he breathes and the way that he walks. I couldn't do that before. You got to give yourself time. But I'm saying if you're in a few year long relationship or even a few months, if you're not seeing signs of this or little tastes of it,
Just think about it and maybe have a conversation about it. This is maybe very feminist of me, very fuck all men of me, but like truly scientifically, I think you got to explain things to boys a little bit more. You do have to spoon feed them certain things because I think a lot of men, boys, whoever, whatever have, I don't want to say less emotional intelligence because that makes it sound like what I'm like, it's a bad thing. No, that's not at all.
What I'm saying is like men have been taught more than us women their whole lives to toughen up, to deal with it, to just take it and move on and just don't feel anything. That's how a lot, a lot, a lot of men are. Therefore, when it comes to more emotional, soft, deeper, feminine things,
lot of times men just don't know how to handle that they don't know what to do with it they don't know how to figure it out but I Gabe and I sit down and have conversations constantly about my feelings about his feelings we shift each other's perspective we make each other think differently and I've had to kind of straight-up tell Gabe I want you to hear me without me having to say anything and he takes that and the one thing that I think is
Make sure when you do bring something like that up to your person, they listen to you and they take what you're saying and they apply it. There's nothing worse than constantly, constantly, constantly having to tell someone the same exact thing and seeing no change from them. Actions are always going to speak louder than words. Sorry, that's a fact. But while I'm on the topic of feelings...
and boys' feelings. You need, this is very like feminine energy of me, which I love, you need to be a shoulder to cry on for your man, for your person. I, with Gabe, if we're having an issue about something or honestly, if it has nothing to do with us and he's feeling a certain type of way about something going on in his work or in his personal life,
We will sit down, we'll talk about it, and I will try to help him understand the deeper root of the feeling. Because this is something we all work on all the time, especially if you listen to this podcast. I know you've been working on it, like figuring out why you feel a certain way. It's not usually just because the red light was taking too long that you're so angry and you want to punch a hole through your window. It usually goes a little bit deeper.
usually goes a little bit below the surface and I think because this is more of a theory men have never been taught that it's okay to feel those things to feel those emotions literally like I just said they don't know how I want you to guide him or her I think it's important and I think it's a beautiful thing that you can do for one another
is to just let each other feel and to be there for each other when you are feeling. Not hurrying each other up and telling each other to get through it, just get over it, just be tough. No. Be a shoulder to cry on. Be an ear to listen. Be there. Just be there. And I think this also goes on the same, I don't know if you want to put this on the respect or wherever you want to put this. Another thing that's important, equally as important, is that
this person that you are with does this for you. I see this with my parents all the time. My dad, my father, he is the most, he's the best dad in the world. He's a great husband. He does so much for our family. That being said, he's a man. So when we, when it comes to things about mental health or anxiety or any kind of conversation, if my mom or I or anyone just wants to rant to them, just wants someone to listen,
That man does not just listen and provide comfort. He's like solution, perspective, which is great. Oftentimes it's very, very beneficial. But like once in a while, you don't want all that. You just want someone to hear you and to comfort you and to validate you. And I think that you need to be with someone.
Who can do that for you? And again, this is when I still bring this up to Gabe once in a while. I'm like, hey, love all the solutions and the motivation and the words of affirmation, truly. But like you could tell right now, I don't want to fix this. I want to feel it and I want to soak in it for a second.
Just let me, you know, just validate me and be like, you're right. It's okay. I know you're having a bad day. It's been horrible. It's been such a bad day that your food came out cold. You know, like when I want to be a drama queen like that, sometimes you just want that validated. Not constantly. Sometimes someone's got to snap you into your shit, snap you back into the real world. But let's move on. I think I've gotten a little bit sword trapped.
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If you are with someone, okay, who you think you want to be with for a long time. Let me reiterate this. If you're questioning if you want to be with this person for a long time, it's probably not the person. Probably not. Unless it's new and fresh. Like I will literally take you back first three months of Gabe and I dating. Because of my relationship anxiety, my social anxiety, my normal anxiety, I spent about three months under high stress. Under high stress.
finding it hard to catch my breath ever because I was so scared that I was in a relationship and like in the back of my mind I always wanted to end it just because I was so scared of what the future held. I am so grateful that God did not let me do that because I'm living an absolute dream and within those three months I never thought for real that I wanted to end it because I was so in love with this boy. He was just from the beginning has been the most incredible human being in my life but
It wasn't to do with him. It was all to do with me. So in the beginning of a relationship, if you're facing those feelings, I do encourage you to stick it out because Gabe was doing all of these things, treating me with all of this love and respect. I was just feeling that because I was getting through my own walls and my own boundaries and trying to work through them and figure it out. Different story if from the beginning someone's not treating you with this. But again,
You can't expect what you don't clearly communicate. Gabe and I's relationship is only so strong and so healthy and so open because I've had conversations with him about how important that is. And he's had conversations with me about how important that is. So moving forward, where I'm at now is if you think that you want to be with this person, you need to evaluate and make sure that you guys are having conversations about the future.
You deserve to be with someone who wants a future with you. And I, again, maybe this is a hot take. It could be. I think that if you are with someone who's like, no, no, it's not the future yet. We don't need to talk about marriage. We don't need to talk about kids. We don't need to talk about our ideas and the way that we want to raise our kids or our family or things that we like. If you are with someone who's avoiding those conversations and won't have them openly with you, it could be something to think about. And again,
Everybody's got a different situation. This is my advice, my hot takes, my love story that I'm basing this off of. I think that the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with is going to want to talk about the future with you. No doubt. No doubt. Gabe and I have been together a year. We talk about rings. We talk about marriage. We talk about kids. And it's not because we're rushing. It's not because we're going to do it right away. It's because we are so sure that
That we are going to be with each other forever. No matter how hard it is. No matter what we have to go through. No matter what challenges we face. We love each other. And we know that. And I would have married this boy six months ago. So I think that if you're with someone who's not willing to talk about those things with you. For whatever reason. Think about it. Okay? Think about it. I think that talking about the future...
is essential to a relationship because why waste your time if you spend three years with someone and you've never talked ever about kids and you find out in three years that this person doesn't want kids and all you've ever dreamed of is having three you know have the important conversations before you've wasted too much of your time or before you're so caught up that you now feel like you have to give up a part of yourself to stay with this person you get me
Next one, boundaries. This kind of goes into what I was saying earlier, my hot takes, my controversial takes, where like my boundaries are, I'm very specific about who I want you to be friends with, more on the opposite gender side. Like your boys, I'm not here to interrupt your boy friendships. You've had those forever. Even if they're maybe not my favorite people, certain times, certain situations, they're your friends. They're your friends and I don't care, but...
friendships of the opposite sex. I do have boundaries. I do. And I want him to have boundaries with mine too. We're also both very, like I said, we, if we feel a certain kind of way, we talk about it in this on the spot. So if I do something and Gabe's jealous, he'll tell me or I'll make him tell me. And I will tell him the second that something bothers me about him or not about him about, I don't know, whatever I'm jealous about.
And we crush it there. We break it down. We figure it out. We have a conversation about it and we move forward. But I think it's very important for you in your relationship to have boundaries. You deserve a certain level of respect, simply put. That's it. That's it. I don't even need to deep dive into that, okay? But while I'm on that topic, another hot take. I have also a bullet point list of hot takes, but I've kind of covered most of them now.
Along with my boundaries, there's also like a level, and this is one that is definitely more of a hot take because I know that there's people who like go out a lot more than Gabe and I do. But since Gabe and I don't, for me, I personally wouldn't feel so comfortable if Gabe was like constantly going out to the club, drinking, doing drugs without me.
Now, I know that in a lot of relationships there, people say there's like that level of security, trust your person, let them go do whatever they want. For me, it's not about that. It's never about trust. It's about I don't know how I feel about the person that I'm going to be with forever doing those things because I wouldn't want myself to be doing those things either. Does that make any sense?
Like this is more based on wherever you are at, like wherever your head is at. If you don't want to be going out, you don't like going out, it doesn't make you feel good, you don't like drinking, you don't like smoking, you don't like drugs, whatever it is, I think it's fair for you to have the boundaries that you don't want your partner doing that. I'm not saying you have to make them give it up cold turkey if they do, but like I think that it is fair to meet each other in the middle there, okay?
because I just, I don't know what made me think of that, but it's a very common thing that I hear. Like, oh, my boyfriend's out with all his boys, they're at the club, they're doing this, they're doing that, and I don't care. Like, okay, good for you. I probably would. Maybe that's crazy, but I don't think it is. I think it's, if you love someone, why you gotta do all that? To me,
I'm also now 23. I'm not 18. If it was college, it would be a completely different story, I'm sure. Because at the time, I loved going out and doing those things. And we'd probably go out and do all those things together. So that one, take it with a grain of salt, okay? It's not supposed to be so... Your boyfriend goes out, he goes to the club, that's not your man. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. But if you get what I'm saying, take it. If you don't, let's just move on to the next one.
I think I'm going to kind of leave it at that for now. I think those are cover quite a few things about how you deserve to be loved and how you should love. But I will do a deeper episode on the way that I love and how much I love to love and how to do it. I think, well, at least from how I know, I, of course, have things I'm constantly working on.
We're always learning to love. Learning to love a human being is not an easy task, but it is a damn beautiful one and it is so worth it and it is so incredible and yada, yada, yada. I'm just going to shut up.
Moral of this episode, moral of the story here, you deserve to be loved, respected, valued, and seen, and heard, and listened to, and treated like a queen. And you deserve to have conversations, and talk about your feelings, and set boundaries.
And all of that should come naturally and gracefully. And you should remember that certain times you're going to have conversations about these things before they can flow naturally. But you can tell when someone's choosing not to listen to you. And I want you to notice that in every relationship moving forward. And I want you to let go of chasing the bad boys or the boys who want to disrespect you because we grew up thinking it was cool.
I promise you it's a lot cooler on the other side. And I can also assure you that someone out there is made just for you. You are going to find someone who makes it simple, who makes it easy, who makes you feel genuinely cared for. It's out there. And I never, ever, ever want you to stop believing that. And I also want you to know it's probably going to come when you least expect it because you've heard me say it a million times, but...
I was not looking to fall in love when I did. Whatsoever. I've loved being single as long as I can remember. God has a mysterious way of working and he has very big plans for you. And they'll show up.
They will show up. So I love you so much. Please enjoy your life, enjoy your day, and I will talk to you next week. And if you want to talk more about love, we can. Just give me a ring, shoot me a DM, and let's talk about it. I love you. Bye.