Episode 78: LAWLESS COUNTRY

LETS GOOOOOO!!!! WE ARE IN SAFE HARBOR HOURS NOW!!!! JUST SURROUND SOUND BY JID on repeat AND ME SCREAMING INTERMITTENTLY FOR AN HOUR!!! (no, but really, I do play a song twice so have fun)!!! ANARCHY!!! Queer politics…....... !!!!! EPIC TINDER AWKWARDNESS!!! THE DEEP MURKY PSYCHIC TORTURE!!! FIXING YOUR SHIT!!! WE ARE USING EACH OTHER!! & HALLUCINOGENS!!!

Excerpt from the show:

“EVERYONE HAS BEEN GOIN THROUGH IT lately…

And there has just been an infinite amount of complex STUFFFF going on. So first things first. I downloaded TINDER. Yes, me, I, Olivia Wade. Downloaded a freaking dating app. And it precipitated a horrible series of events. This ended in me missing a meeting with a client for the first time by accident. But anyways, rewinding back 2 weeks. I was sitting in my living room, completely alone, feeling like absolute garbage, for the first time in a long time. Turned out I had mold poisoning. I found some in the house and promptly disposed of it. But before I did, I downloaded tinder. I have to say, of all the people in all the world, I hate dating apps so much. This was an unprecedented impossibility. But I did it. Well, because I live in the world's smallest town, and you know what is damn near impossible to find in a really small town. Any other gay people! I mean queer people. I mean women that like sleeping with other women but not just once in a while or with their boyfriends, I mean actually one to take out to dinner. Someone kind, and stable and level and normal.

Not that I am really either of those last two things. But you know. Reach for the stars. And this downloading precipitated a just horrible conversion I had with the partner I’ve been seeing on and off for the last year and a half, and I have to be honest, it made me really not want to see them anymore because it made me feel really worried and unsafe. We had some really uncomfortable conversations suddenly around sex and the lack thereof in the last few visits they had made to me. And they reacted really poorly when I told them I had downloaded a dating app. THEY LIVE IN MAINE, 4 hours away, and I’ve had a whole other partner while we’ve been dating, one I lived with and still do. And somehow, all of that is fine, and the moment I decide I want to sleep with a woman, it becomes the end of the freaking world. Now I’m sure they would tell you that it wasn’t about that, that it was about my ability to hold space for and validate their feelings. And I am sure some of that is true. But man, it feels pretty scary to me. It feels like my queerness is a threat to them. It feels like my sexuality isn’t good with them. It feels like danger. Because unfortunately, with cis straight people, sometimes that is just how queer people have been treated. With their gayness pushed aside, overreacted to. Oftentimes, the person will claim, I have no problem with you being queer and then act like a complete buttface about something seemingly completely different, and yet, in our minds, there is a thread of connection. The person feels uncomfortable. They are lashing out. We can see it.

And this can be completely subconscious, on a level that isn’t even perceived. And who knows where this stems from? But there is some deep level of discomfort that comes up around queerness. And mind you; this is not a choice I made. I did not wake up and go, “hey, I’m attracted to women.” It’s deep and original for me. There’s some mechanism given to us by society that is like, “don’t look into these deep dark questions about us that have been sealed away.” It’s that most straight people won’t do a deep investigation into themselves and to even examine their sexual orientation because it is so taboo, still even after all these years. And it’s a continual process of your existence for queer people. And there is an unwillingness to go into this process in general.

And this, unfortunately points to a bigger issue I have seen in this relationship. That a friend mentioned to me the other day. You have to examine a couple of things at a certain point in a long-distance relationship. Especially if the energy feels completely off and disconnected. And so we ask this question. What needs are you fulfilling for each other or trying to fulfill? And why are you searching for them in someone who is literally and metaphorically unavailable? If your relationship has gotten to a point where it’s just more stressful and painful, then it is good. Then things stop coming from a place of “I want to connect with you, no matter what that looks like, I just love you and want to spend time with you,” and it starts being about what the other person is doing for you. And my friend pointed out, “Well, it seems like YOU want partnership, someone who wants to do life with you, go to the grocery store, clean the house together, sit and watch a movie, everyday things. You want a teammate, and instead of being like, well, this person is far away and doesn’t seem to have the capacity to do those things when they are here, and be that teammate, you are afraid of starting over, not having at least the idea of a person who is going to help you get through life. So you are using them for something they aren’t capable of, and it seems, based on their actions actually don’t want to do, and then they are in some way using you for what you give to them. You are always available to listen and to talk to them, you are enabling them to rely on you to regulate their emotional states, and that’s not working either because their emotional states aren’t regular. What they get from you is sex, and someone to lust after, without the actual scary commitment of being in a real everyday partnership. They want sex more than anything else and then can’t keep it together if they don’t get it, but they aren’t entitled to your body, and you are not their therapist or their mother. And really most of this is stuff they should be going deep inside, feeling and figuring out how to work with themselves or with a counselor, and in this way, you both have veered away from connection and true partnership. It’s become more about what you can or can’t get from each other and less about actually just enjoying being with each other. The energy in balance is palpable, and unfortunately, running the show.”

And this was all very hard to hear, but I heard it. And there was some truth to it. And there’s always this part of me that wants to fight it and be like, “but this wasn’t always the way our relationship was, we do really love each other, and we’ve shared so much together, and we truly do care” but when faced with the reality of the situation this sounds like whining, sounds like bargaining. And there is nothing sexy or fun about whining and bargaining. And so I spent the second half of this week sitting alone in my room with the curtains drawn, feeling like garbage, alone in my house, with reality finally crashing down around me, and 10 unread and unresponded to people sitting in my tinder inbox.

It’s not the world’s best picture.

In fact, it’s pretty darn close to where I started this show in the first place, bitter and jaded, alone in a room with my dog. Staring at the everynothing. And I am not sure, my dear friends, what is supposed to happen next.

But I guess that remains to be seen. For now, I’ll nurse my splitting headache, reminiscent of the days I used to drink myself to sleep at night. But I’m in no way correlated. And I’ll wonder if my spark of romance, that hopeless romantic I used to be, will ever come back. Or I’ll just end up channeling all of my energy into my work. I think, folks, that it’s about time, time I started truly practicing magic again. You know, in my own unusual way that I do. The everything is connected kind of magic. The universe works in mysterious ways kind of magic. And let go, truly of all the things I cannot change. So with that, let’s head over to the music. Now there have only been a few times in my life when something musical has truly truly moved me. I mean, I get this feeling like my chest is full of sparks, and they are warm and urgent and spread out over my arms, and I want to scream at the top of my lungs and run down a highway in the dark. That kind of feeling. And it’s been a year since I really found a song that felt that way to me. But I finally did. So here’s Honey, by The Lone Bellow. And you know what? Because this is my show, my world, and I am in complete control, and I can do whatever I want… Here’s the exact same song all over again. Because why the hell not? I can do that. You can’t stop me.”