Welcome to Don't Scare the Newbies, a podcast
where we talk kink, raw and unfiltered. I'm Carisel,
a lifestyle submissive in a 24 -7 dynamic who
likes their kink heavy, intense and scary. And
I'm S, Carisel's dominant, who knows how to deliver
all of the above. And today we're going to be
talking about long -distance relationships, including,
of course, long -distance power exchange relationships.
Because what else would we talk about? We are
a kink podcast. Yes. We should do that. We should
talk about kink. I think we do that. In our kink
podcast. Yes, it's been known to happen. I'm
actually quite nervous about this episode. Yeah,
it's going to be a lot of you talking, isn't
it, Max? It's a lot of me talking and I've done
the outline. This is the first episode where
I've done most of the outlining. Well, to be
fair, I did get some help. You did? I did speak
to my ex -partner, who I was in a long -distance
relationship with, to get their perspective on
it, yeah. So I just feel like I should get that
out of the way first so that if this episode
turns out to be rubbish, it's entirely my fault.
This is not an indicator of the start of the
decline in quality. if it's rubbish i won't do
it again i think it's going to be a good one
and it made sense for you to outline it because
you have got far more experience of long distance
than i have both in terms of length of relationship
and distance involved that is true which i suppose
is a really good place to start isn't it is talking
about long distance relationships but like what
do we mean by that Yeah, I think it's really
personal what counts as long distance to you,
because I think so much of that is affected by
how long the distance feels. Like if you don't
drive and you've got limited money, it wouldn't
have to be very far for it to function essentially
as a long distance relationship. Yeah, yeah,
I think you're right. I mean, my long distance
relationship was an international long distance.
4 500 miles away i think on the east coast of
the united states yeah so that is both in terms
of just pure distance but also those kind of
things about ease of access yeah you can't just
pop over i can't just kind of pop over of an
evening and say hello and then come home yeah
uh yeah even if money was no object there's still
going to be some some planning and logistics
yeah yeah it's an eight hour flight yeah so you
know if there's an emergency it's like i'll see
you tomorrow yeah see you see you in two days
something interesting i've been thinking about
with this is and this definitely it's not a long
distance situation in either case but contrasting
the early days of my relationship with you with
the early days of my relationship with hope yeah
because the distance was identical hope used
to live on the same street as you yes with with
her family yes um so when i first started dating
her she was coming to my flat in walker from
here and when i first started dating you i was
coming from my flat in walker to here to see
you yes um but you have a car i do and hope had
no car and at the time that we first started
dating she had no job and i was on a very low
income yeah so the distance then felt so much
further Yeah. Because you could just pop over.
It's, you know, it's a significant length drive,
but you could, if I was having a bad day, you
could just go, do you want to come over? I'll
come pick you up. Yeah. Where for me and Hope
to see each other, it was about two hours by
bus. And if neither of us had bus fare, it was
impossible. Yeah. Yeah. So very different, very
different feelings around the exact same journey.
Yeah. I think that's a really good point because
I think for me that it isn't the... physical
distance that makes a long distance relationship
a long distance relationship as weird as that
might sound it is the ease of access and the
practicality of access because you're right i
had a intercontinental long distance relationship
you you've you've been in a relationship with
someone in another city i have yes mix um and
then you've got the the as you just said the
relationship with with hope all of that is kind
of create barriers to access to each other yeah
you know When I was thinking about the outline
for this, I was thinking about it's not just
international. It's not just intercity sort of
within the same country. But you also think about
kind of places like London. Yeah. Like if you
live in Hounslow and you're dating someone in
practically in Essex, that's a hell of a journey.
Yeah. Just across one city. Though the transport
there is good. I feel like you probably have
an easier time making that journey than you would
from here to Newcastle by bus. Yeah, probably,
probably. If you could afford the tube fare.
Or if you were willing to navigate the M25 at
five o 'clock on a Wednesday afternoon, kind
of. That doesn't sound like fun. No, no, I couldn't
drive when I lived in London. And I'm really
pleased because I think I would have given up
driving. I would have just stopped. Do you know
what? It's not worth the hassle. Just abandoned
the car somewhere and walked away. Never returned.
Yeah, yeah. Do a Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
The reference has gone over my head once again,
Mix. Is it another one that's too old for me?
Yeah, probably. Mid -90s, probably. I was a small
child. You were a small child. I was alive, at
least. Yeah, yeah. Some of your references, I
wasn't even born yet. Michael Douglas is a man
on the edge and loses his shit in LA traffic
and goes on a bit of a violent spree. And I feel
like that would be me trying to navigate my way
around London on a daily basis. I think that's
valid. So for the purposes of this episode, we
are defining a long distance relationship by
a relationship where there are potentially extended
periods of time physically apart. Yeah. And actually
where the barrier is access rather than distance.
Yeah, I think that's fair mix. Because when I
start talking about what I class as my one long
distance relationship I've been in, I think how
people view that will vary very much depending
on where they are. It's really normal for Americans
to travel, you know, two or three hours to get
to work. Yeah. To go on a day out. Yeah. Where
in this country, we tend not to travel as far.
Moderate distance travel is less normalized,
I think. And at the time, me and the person that
I was dating were very, very short on money,
which makes distances further. Yeah, yeah. There's
always that silly meme that you sometimes see
on Instagram, like Americans think 200 years
is a long time and the British people think 200
miles is a long way. Yeah. You know, it's different
attitudes, I suppose. So given that that's how
we're defining a long distance relationship,
we both have experience of a... a relationship
at a distance yeah um do you want to tell us
about tell us about your experience of it yeah
so my long distance relationship or longish distance
relationship mix is actually the reason i'm in
the northeast so even though the relationship
wasn't great i'm really glad it happened because
it got me up here got me to meet you got me to
the job that i have now like everything everything
good in my life really came from that relationship
um but the relationship itself was not always
ideal uh so when i was I would have been 18 coming
up to 19. I had just finished a course that I'd
done. I did a year training to be a beauty therapist.
I've never worked as a beauty therapist and I
never will. I hated it. But I did scrape through
the course and I was looking for someone to be
my date for my graduation because I was single
and I wanted to take a date. And I was going
through one of my many sort of periodic slut
phases at the time. So I basically went on a
dating website. This was pre -apps and was...
Anyone I was messaging with was letting them
know I was looking for a date for my graduation.
I wasn't looking for a relationship and I wanted
someone who was good in bed that I could fuck
after the graduation. That was literally my criteria.
Excellent. And a guy from Newcastle messaged
me and I wouldn't have considered a relationship
with someone in Newcastle, but I wasn't looking
for a relationship. So that was fine. So I invited
him to my graduation and we ended up. liking
each other um there was a spark there so we continued
seeing each other and we were in a relationship
for a little bit over a year maybe getting on
for a year and a half um with most of that time
he was living in newcastle and i was living in
halifax in west sussex um is halifax in west
sussex no mix it's in west yorkshire I used to
live in West Sussex as well. That's where it
gets really confusing with all the Wests. Yes.
So, yeah, I was in Halifax in West Yorkshire.
So that's about a two hour drive, I think, next.
About that. Yeah, yeah, roughly. But neither
of us drove. So it was two or three train rides.
depending on the connections yeah and it was
about usually probably two two and a half hours
with the faffing with the connections and the
getting to the station and yeah getting from
the station to his house and all that factored
in um so still not not an impossible journey
to do there and back in a day definitely worth
it for a weekend but add to that at the time
that we met um i hadn't got a job yet i just
finished college and hadn't figured out what
i was doing and he was a student so he didn't
have a job either yeah so between us we had an
income of basically nothing yeah um over the
course of that relationship i did get a job but
it was only a temporary job that lasted for i
think six months i was covering part of someone's
maternity leave and then i was at the end of
that unemployed again and this was in uh 2008
into 2009 and for anyone who remembers what the
world was like during that period of time basically
if you were unemployed you were fucked yeah i
was applying for multiple jobs a day i was doing
you know what the boomers tell you to do going
around like shops and offices and handing your
cv out to people yeah um i was because also the
internet was a thing as well as well as that
i was doing every online application i could
find every single day and it took me probably
the best part of six months to get another job
yeah um it was it was a grim time to be new and
entering the workforce uh so yeah for a big chunk
of the relationship i had 50 pounds a week benefit
money and he had no income at all yeah with being
a student um when he graduated he was then getting
50 pounds a week in benefits and there was a
couple of small segments of time where i had
a retail job sort of near the beginning and near
the end yeah so we didn't have travel money um
So that was the biggest challenge for us, was
being able to afford the train fares in either
direction. And when we could make it to see each
other, we would spend as long as we could with
each other because travel was difficult. So I
would, when I was unemployed, I would go up there
the day after my job centre appointment and I
would stay up there until the day before my next
job centre appointment. And I would job hunt
while I was up there because the plan was if
I managed to get a job up there, I would move
in with him. And I did, ultimately towards the
end of that relationship, I did get a job up
there and move in with him. And we lived together
in his parents' house while I was going through
the process of buying my flat. And then about
a day after I completed on the purchase of the
flat, we broke up. Nice. So I moved into the
flat on my own and stayed in the northeast ever
since. Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, that worked out
quite well then. It did, yeah. Long term. yeah
like i'm really glad i ended up in the northeast
like yeah i knew that as soon as i started coming
up to see him like i knew i really liked the
northeast i was looking to get a little bit of
distance from my family and i hadn't really known
where to go and i'd always wanted to live in
a city because my parents have always preferred
living out in the middle of nowhere much like
i now do and i think when i was in my late teens
early 20s like that was the time that it was
ideal for me to be living in a city i really
enjoyed the nightlife and all of the easy opportunities
to meet people and make new friends and all of
that stuff that I really wanted to do. So finding
someone to introduce me to a nice, moderate -sized
city that wasn't too overwhelming for someone
who'd always lived out in the country. That was
great. Yeah. But didn't work out. No. No, he
wasn't very nice, to be honest. There were some
issues there. Probably a good thing. So that's
a summary of mine. Like I said, it lasted about
a year and a half, most of it long distance.
But what about you, Mix? Tell us about your long
-distance relationship. So my long distance relationship
was with someone, as I said before, living on
the east coast of the United States in the southeastern
corner of the States in a very, very hot state
over there. We met back end of 2019. I think
it was when I'd separated from my previous partner
and met them on Tumblr of all places. Oh, wow.
I know. And it was. You know, started off as
one of those kind of flirty things of, like,
as you do online. Fairly quickly got into that
routine of communicating on a really regular
basis. And, like, got to that point really quickly
of, like, my favourite person is in my phone.
Yeah. So we acknowledged that. We acknowledged
the challenge of distancing. We were like, oh,
yeah, it's fine. Absolutely fine. No problem
at all. And got into what was. serious romantic
relationship with a DS element to it as well.
I'm a little bit hazy on when it ended. When
did we meet? We got together in 2023, Mix, and
you were relatively recently single. I don't
know exactly how long, but I think a similar
timeline to me. Yeah, so that relationship lasted
a better part of three years. Yeah. And then
met you fairly quickly. After that, it was, with
the exception of 10 days, where I went over to
America to see her. It was entirely at a distance.
We only met once for a vacation period. And yeah,
it was a really good relationship. I think it
primarily ended because we were both kind of
acknowledging that actually being together physically
would be... Really, really tricky. You know,
kind of some really basic stuff of... I didn't
really fancy moving to America. Although I would
have done. I think that was the thing. I think
she didn't really want to... Had the same attitude
in the other direction. Probably would have,
but would have preferred not to. Yeah. I think
she's quite close to her family, so would have...
been difficult leaving them behind and I think
less probably less so for her than for me but
I was also really conscious that my own parents
are getting to the age where at some point I'm
going to have to move pretty quickly from where
I am to where they are not relocate but like
I am going to have to get from where I am to
where they are at pretty short notice potentially
for all sorts of different reasons and if I'm
four and a half thousand miles and two days away
that's not possible yeah So it was those sort
of things that I think precipitated the end of
our relationship. But still really good friends
with her. It was a really positive relationship.
We both got a lot from it. I think we kind of
met each other at a time in our lives when we
needed the other person. Yeah. And we got through
a lot together and came out of it stronger as
individuals, but also pretty strong as a friendship
as well. Yeah. So like an overall. positive experience
but really quite challenging at times yeah and
i always i have a hard time imagining it because
i have only experienced you as a clingy bitch
yeah yeah like when we first started dating literally
our first date i was trying to play it quite
cool and be like no like normal people are not
as clingy as i am so i need to be chill and you
were like after our first date i would like you
to sleep over for the first time i was like hell
yeah and then like the next Time I saw you was
maybe three days after that. You said come for
the whole weekend. Yeah. And then within a week
or two, I was spending probably four nights a
week over here. Yeah. Like a midweek, one or
two nights a day and then a full weekend. Yeah.
Every week. And I moved in when we've been together
for three months. That seems like your pace.
Yeah. So imagining you in a three year plus long
distance relationship where you only physically
saw the other person for 10 days. Yeah. I feel
like you would explode. Yeah, it was quite difficult
at times because, yeah, kind of that physical
closeness, spending as much time as I can with
someone is important to me. Yeah. And there are
ways to do that in a long distance relationship.
We have the technology now. I said before, my
favorite person was in my phone and I always
had my phone with me. So I always had them with
me. And it was. Obviously, apart from when we
were sleeping, it was a constant conversation.
Yeah. It wasn't like, you know, in some relationships
where you have physical access to your partner,
you're not necessarily constantly communicating
by text. Yeah. Or on a call or whatever. That
was a really big feature of our relationship
was just constantly talking to each other, narrating
our day, which was really nice. So I think it
was kind of substituting that physical closeness
with a different type of closeness. Yeah. Was
how we got through that. You are a really good
texter. I noticed that when we were first together,
when we weren't living together, that you will
keep a conversation going all day. And I quite
actually will as well. But some people do not.
I've had relationships before where they would
sort of like text good morning and text good
night. And give me updates on anything particularly
interesting that happened. And that was about
it. Like there have been people I've dated where
we would exchange a maximum of five texts in
a day. Yeah, yeah. And that is not for me. Yeah.
I like the relentless narrate me your day kind
of texting. Yeah, yeah. And even to be fair,
even when one of us was asleep, because there
was obviously a time difference. So there was
a lag. I would wake up and there would be a stream
of text messages where she was just telling me
about what she was doing. Yeah. And then... we
would have because she fucked up her sleep schedule
we had a brief period in the morning in my morning
where we were where we had time together and
then she would go to bed and i would narrate
my day yeah so she would wake up to dozens and
dozens of text messages of just the random shit
that you get up to during a day like even my
work day i'm going to a meeting now that was
a silly meeting It's so loud in here today. You
know, stuff like that. Yeah. Which is really
intimate. Actually, really quite personal. Yeah.
When you think about it, you know. Because I
work upstairs in a house. And when I come down,
first thing I do is I ask you how your day is
going. Yeah. It's that sort of information that
you're kind of providing in real time. Yeah.
To someone. Yeah, because you don't even think
about how much you talk to each other in a day.
Like we will quite happily sort of sit and stare
at screens or just sit and listen to music and
chill. But just pottering around the house, the
number of little things where you'll come down
and ask how my day's going and I'll complain
about some silly decision someone's made at work
and the chaos that is ensuing as a result. And
you don't remember that as a conversation, but
you notice the lack of it. No, not any rate.
That's really nice to just be involved in each
other's lives in that way. Yeah, yeah. And I'll
come down and grumble about a meeting that I've
got to have. Yeah. Generally a pointless meeting.
You always complain about meetings and I'm the
complete opposite. For me, in the job that I
do, a meeting is my chill time. Yeah. A meeting,
even if I'm presenting, a meeting is just sitting
and chatting to people. I think because I'm really
extrovert as well. Yeah. Like... Most of my day
is spent looking at data and notes and listening
to other people's phone calls and digging through
records and sometimes speaking to a customer.
But it's not always a particularly cheery conversation
because if you're speaking to an insurance underwriter,
something's up. But when I have a meeting, I'm
hanging out with like my team or someone else's
team and we're chatting about stuff and it's
really chill. So I'm always like, yeah, a pointless
meeting. And you're like, ugh, a pointless meeting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I might be being really
unfair. But I feel like the proportion of meetings
that could literally have been an email are quite
high. Yeah. And instead of doing that, they put
in a 45 minute meeting, which takes 45 minutes
because that's the time that's allotted for it.
But it could have been a five minute conversation.
Yeah. So how did that feel for you? That relationship
at a distance with that person? I don't think
I found it particularly hard at the time mix.
I definitely, I wanted the long distance portion
of it to have an end point to it. Yeah. And the
plan was always, once we established we were
having a relationship, it was like, if this goes
well, I'm going to move to Newcastle. because
there was no reason for him to move to me and
he was happy. Like he was really close with his
family. He liked the area. There was no reason
to consider him moving to me when I was very
happy to move and I was looking for an excuse
to. So the plan was from pretty early on that
I was going to move up to Newcastle and that
I would be primarily looking for work up there.
I mean, because I was unemployed and I was desperate,
I was looking where I was as well, but it was
always with the intention of continue then looking
in Newcastle and that I would move up once I
got a job and got a property. So we always knew
that that was going to be something that was
achievable. And even with the way that the job
market was at the time, it wasn't going to be
years and years. We were talking months, not
years. Yeah. So it always felt quite manageable.
And we did see quite a lot of each other. When
I was working, I was spending most weekends with
him. So very different to how it was for you
and your ex -partner. We were seeing each other.
like most weeks yeah there were a couple of stretches
where money was tight and we would struggle to
do it but the solution we ended up finding out
was spending longer periods together like i said
when i was unemployed i would go up for almost
two weeks so yeah that would take most of my
benefits to get up there but i only had to spend
it the once yeah um by the way i think if you're
on benefits you're not actually supposed to be
leaving your area for stretches as long as that
but but if you are on uh universal credit it
would be now do check with your job coach before
doing this don't take this as advice um so yeah
we saw each other a lot um he was a fellow clingy
bitch like us the main stress was just the fact
that it was always kind of unpredictable how
long we would be able to maintain that this was
you know going back to 2008 2009 they were always
trying to get you off job seekers allowance both
of us had the threat of having it taken off us
at various times just because it was always intended
as a very short -term benefit and the job market
didn't support people getting into work quickly
like he graduated and And there were no law jobs.
He had a law degree and couldn't get a law job.
So started applying for literally anything else
going and couldn't get anything else because
they were like, well, you're overqualified and
you'll leave in a month. So he was stuck. I was
qualified for nothing except beauty therapy,
which I didn't want to do. And there were no
jobs going in that anyway. So, yeah, it was that
constant threat of instability was a lot of a
source of stress and some issues in the relationship
itself rapidly became a source of stress once
we were in the same place long term. But in terms
of managing quality time together, that part
ended up working out okay. Well, that's good.
Yeah. Lucky you. I'd wanted to ask, obviously
you talked about the conversations that you and
your ex -partner had about potentially one of
you moving and ultimately what led to the relationship
ending was that that didn't feel like it was
achievable. Yeah. Was that something that...
You talked about early on at all. Was it that
plans changed or was it one of those things that
you just kind of tried to avoid looking at the
problem until it became a bigger problem? I think
probably a little bit of both. We acknowledged
the distance and we kind of talked about the
longevity of it early on. But I think we were
probably a little bit naive about kind of how
simple a process that might be. You know, I am
good at what I do, but what I do is not an in
-demand occupation. Yeah. You know, it's not
like I'm some kind of tech bro or a surgeon or
civil engineer or something like that, where
you can say, actually, no, there is a shortage
of those people. We will welcome you into our
country. And my ex -partner was going through
university and graduating. She kind of started
a little bit later than you normally would. So
it was kind of fairly new to the jobs world as
well. It's a bit like your partner with a law
degree and can't get a job kind of thing. Overqualified
for a lot of jobs, underqualified for other jobs.
Yeah. So the practicality of going through that
application process to get into the country,
I think we were probably quite naive about that.
Yeah. And I think we concluded literally the
only way that we could resolve this problem quickly
is for us to get married. Yeah. And for me to
go over there essentially on a green card. Yeah.
That feels like a big thing to do, given that
I was technically still married at the time.
Yeah, that would have been an issue. You know,
that would have been a challenging thing to do.
So, yeah, I think it was probably a little bit
of both and couldn't really see a way through
it in that. That would have provided us with
the level of stability at the other end that
we both wanted. Because it would have been a
little bit continuous if either me moving there
or her moving here wouldn't have been a permanent
move straight away. Yeah. Unless we get married.
i think even if you get married there's still
at least coming into this country there's quite
a lengthy process where you have to reapply and
confirm you're still married and confirm everything's
going well it doesn't become permanent for a
few years so i think there's always yeah it seems
like a very high stress process for people i
know who've been through it even coming in as
a married couple yeah And if I was going to go
there with employment, I would need to be sponsored
by the organization bringing me in. And let's
say I am a talented, intelligent person who is
good at their job, but I do not possess the skills
that are worth sponsoring someone to come internationally
because I did a stupid business degree at university.
At least you have a degree. I mean, yes, that
is true. That is generally considered a good
thing. Although I think the main thing that I
learned from my degree is I don't want to work
in marketing. Yeah, the main thing I learned
from my beauty therapy qualification is I do
not want to be a beauty therapist. It's funny
how often further education does that. So why
don't you tell us some of the things that you
can do if you're in a properly long distance
relationship to keep things fun, Mix? I think
one of the things I was conscious of when I was
thinking through this episode was, and we will
get to it, but everybody talks about how you
deal with... a long distance relationship like
how do you resolve the challenges yeah of a long
distance relationship and that's really really
important people have to think that stuff through
but actually there's a load of stuff that you
can do to maintain intimacy and closeness and
are actually really fun there are some really
nice things about the fact that you're at a distance
which makes you think a little bit differently
about how you approach the relationship i just
think it's i wanted to start with that yeah rather
than the oh here are all the problems you need
to think about Here is a list of things to put
you off from having a long distance relationship
with someone because they can be really fulfilling
and really good relationships. Yeah. And to be
fair, my ex -partner was really helpful with
thinking about this because when I first sent
her my thoughts, it was a list of... here's a
bunch of stuff you have to think about. And she
reminded me that actually we had a really good
time. I hope her feelings weren't too hurt by
the initial version of the outline, just listing
all the problems. So I think the main thing for
me as a certified clingy bitch was, as I said
before, the constant conversation. It was literally
a three -year conversation. that didn't really
end and you learn so much about a person's who
a person is what their routine is what their
life is like by having that kind of narration
and i probably found it easier than i have in
other relationships to pick up on things that
are important to them and pick up on things that
would be difficult to them Because there was
that written record, I managed to retain it a
little bit better than I think I sometimes have
in other relationships. So it's nice to have
that kind of almost written soundtrack is a stupid
thing to say. But that's kind of what it's like.
No, that makes sense. I like that. You just had
this constant stream going on all the time. And
it was genuinely really nice to wake up and have
sometimes over 100 messages to kind of go through.
Yeah. Because something exciting was happening.
something interesting was happening. She likes
to watch college football. I like to watch college
football now. She got me into college football,
which is another really good thing that came
out of our relationship. But at the time, we
hadn't fathomed a way for me to watch it with
her because of the time difference and not having
access to it. So she would commentate the game
to me and give me the highlights. So I would
wake up and there would be this long screed of
texts from her, which was talking about the game.
So I thought that was really, really sweet and
intimate and really nice and always good fun.
And I think that it makes you think about dates
as well a little bit differently. Or how you
can replicate the date experience when you are
a long way from each other. And again, this is
the benefit of living in the age that we do with
the technology that we have. So a lot of the
time... we both have Disney Plus accounts, and
I think you can still do it. You could set up
a watch party on Disney Plus. So you could set
a movie going, invite someone to join you, and
you could watch it together, like synced up.
Yeah. And it didn't require you, because you
could do the same with Netflix as long as you've
got access to the same catalogue. But it didn't
require you to do that thing of, right, I'm going
to push play three, two, one, now. Yeah. Because
it's essentially the same stream that it's giving
to both of you. Yeah, that's really cool. So
we would have that on the TV or on the laptop
and then we would be on a voice call. We wouldn't
necessarily say a lot because we were watching
the film, but it was just a really nice way of
replicating what we do, where we sit and watch
TV and occasionally we talk to each other. Yeah,
that's really nice. But she was very much a person
who, if she had thoughts, she had to pause. Yeah.
So like, you know, like a 90 -minute movie. would
very rarely be watched in 90 minutes. Because
if she had thoughts to share, she needed to pause
the movie and then tell me about them. But like
doing joint activities, making sure you've got
plenty of time, phone calls or FaceTiming and
stuff like that. There was a few times where,
because of the way that she fucked her sleep
schedule, when I woke up, she was still awake.
So sometimes we would have like a, like if I
was driving to work, we would talk when I was
in the car. Yeah. That kind of thing. And finding
ways to do activities together using technology.
I was wondering about that when you said about
movies. Is that something that carried over into
other things like go for a walk together, for
example? Yeah. Yeah. Or if either of us had like
a long drive to do, we would keep each other
company. That was more when she had to drive
places because she lives in a place where you
have to drive two hours to get anywhere. Yeah.
But yeah, kind of finding those opportunities
to do things together, finding ways to be together
when you can't do the thing together. I think
there's a real joy that comes from that and it
makes you appreciate really small mundane things
a lot more than you might. So like you talked
about going for a walk. I like to go out and
wander along the coast. And the number of pictures
of things that I saw that I took and sent to
her is just ridiculous compared to now. I have
this thing where I tend not to take loads and
loads of pictures because I prefer to be in the
moment. But actually in that relationship, it
was important to be in the moment with her. and
she would do the same for me it feels really
kind of close and intimate to do that and being
really mindful about that kind of thing and you
know showing this is this is what's happening
this is what i can see this is what i'm doing
because ordinarily you would be here i just thought
did you take selfies mix because she would have
wanted to look upon you i took some selfies yes
because you hate to take a selfie i do yes well
we used to have a thing where um I mean, it started
out as part of our DS dynamic, but we had a thing
of sharing outfit the day. So I would, yeah,
I would take a selfie most days, a mirror selfie.
So that I was like, this is what I look like
today. To be fair, you did that for me a little
bit when we were first together as well. Like
on days that we didn't spend together, you would
sometimes send me a mirror selfie. But as soon
as I started spending more than half the week
here, the selfies stopped. You are very glad
to get away from having to take pictures of yourself.
Yeah, always, always good to do that. But yeah,
like outfit pictures, pictures of where we are,
pictures of the food that we're having, all of
that kind of stuff that you would normally see
in a relationship where you are physically close.
You can kind of replicate in a long distance
relationship. I like silly little traditions
as well when, you know, if I had to go into the
city. I would park in the same car park on the
same level in pretty much the same spot. And
I would take a picture of the view across the
river and I would send that to her. Yeah. Because
you really like the view. It is a good view.
It is a really good view. So it's little things
like that, that you just take joy in those mundane
moments that you can share with someone, even
though they're not, even though they're not there.
Yeah. You know, it was very nice. It was also
really nice getting mail. Yeah. It sounds a little
bit silly, but sending each other little gifts
was a really nice thing to do. It was really
exciting because it's come all the way from America.
And we kind of made that a little bit harder
for ourselves than it necessarily needed to be
because you can probably send stuff using Amazon,
which Amazon just sends from their warehouse
to the person. In the other country. Yeah, I
think you said you did that sometimes, didn't
you? Like getting her a specific gift that you
could just get from Amazon. Yeah. But not always.
But yeah, like getting a little parcel with like
USPS on it or Royal Mail in our case if I'm sending
stuff that way. It's just really nice. Yeah.
Yeah, that part sounds like it would be really
fun because I think one of the things that sucks
about living in the future is no one gets exciting
mail anymore. yeah when we get mail it's always
from the tax people or it's a bill and very rarely
even bills most of those are digital as well
yeah usually it's just spam it's like here's
a leaflet for something you don't care about
yeah and that's it and and it'll go days without
getting stuff where i remember being a little
kid just pre -email where you would get postcards
from friends and family members and like people
were still doing things where you could like
sign up to get a pen pal and people would send
each other packages a lot more and it would come
from the person rather than coming from amazon
yeah and then that's all kind of disappeared
and there's something really exciting about mail
Yeah. We should do that. We live in the same
house, but we should just do that. Send each
other things. Yeah. I once, years ago, I have
this friend and we had this really annoying in
joke that ran for a long time that ended up really
pissing him off where we accused him of wanting
to have sex with a tiger. He did not. There was
no reason for it. There was no basis for it.
It was just. Just a joke. Just one of those jokes
that went way too far. Yeah. But one time I was
out shopping and I saw a pack of like party napkins
with tigers on them. So I bought this pack of
napkins and I bought a big box of envelopes and
I mailed the tiger napkins to him one at a time,
a day or two apart. So he just continuously was
getting tiger napkins through the post for a
couple of weeks. Oh, that is mean. That is cruel.
But fun. It's funny. Really, really funny. There's
something so much more personal about mail. Yeah.
Both in a nice way and also we want to be with
someone. Yeah, yeah. The poor lad got like literally
every single one of his Christmas presents that
year was tiger themed from various friends. Yeah,
I remember you telling me. Which might have been
the point where the joke started to need to be
stopped. Yeah. Poor guy. Can't believe he trusted
me to do a speech at his wedding. Yeah. I did
not mention any tigers. I was going to say, you
were very well behaved. I think you had received
the message. Yeah. I think even just that one
joke aside, I am known for being the person in
the friend group who will just roast people relentlessly.
And I think everyone was expecting the sort of
stereotypical best man speech that goes a bit
too far. And I ended up just being really nice
and genuine and saying lovely things and making
people cry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which was unexpected
and a good surprise, I think. Yes, it was a good
surprise for everybody. I remember that everybody,
because there was a few people who gave speeches,
wasn't there? And everybody just kind of talked
about how lovely they both are. You know, and
everybody was getting a bit emotional about it.
It was really nice. Yeah, it was a really nice
day. But yeah, none of us roasted them. There
were definitely funny moments in the speeches,
but none of us went for the... that version of
the the speech no nobody gave that yeah let's
say the typical best man speech anyway we have
diverted as we like to so you'd mentioned that
your original outline of this was just a bunch
of problems to solve and things to think about
yeah um from what you've talked about already
you mentioned that that she really messed up
her sleep pattern so i'm guessing one of the
problems on your list was time zones mix Yeah,
definitely was. There's a five hour time distance
between the UK and Eastern time in the US. So
not the most extreme time difference in the world,
but like a really awkward one. Yeah. You know,
because if we wanted to have time together when
I woke up, I would need to get up at six in the
morning at the latest. And she would be up until
1am. Yeah. At the earliest. So, yeah, if you're
in a relationship that spans time zones, you
really need to think about how you schedule your
time together and how you deal with sleep. I
am not capable of being a nighttime person, both
physically and psychologically, but also because
of the job that I have. Yeah. I am expected to
be at work during. standard office hours so there
was a limit to what I could do but yeah her sleep
pattern was just ridiculous it's a miracle that
she managed to function because it wasn't like
if she went to bed really late she could kind
of sleep in all day the next day to recover that
wasn't an option for her either um because that
is what some people do isn't it yeah hope who
we've had on the podcast before had a one year
one year ish relationship um with a woman in
beijing yeah and literally hope just switched
on to chinese time for that entire year but i
had a night shift job and could do that so yeah
it's not an insurmountable problem but it is
something to think about especially if you are
like both of us and i mean both of us and both
me and my ex -partner if you're clingy as fuck
then you're not gonna want to sleep No. When
your favourite person is awake, you're not going
to want to do that. So it can be tricky to navigate.
And weirdly, part of our DS dynamic was me trying
to enforce bedtime. You were both the problem
and the solution. Yeah. And I found that really
difficult to do. Yeah. Because I was like, yeah,
you need to sleep. But at the same time, if you
go to bed, then you're not here, which is sad.
So yeah, that is definitely something to think
about. I suppose. And actually kind of more fundamentally
thinking about the kind of person that you are
in a relationship. If you are a really clingy
person, if you like physical connection and physical
touch, then you have to think about is a relationship
where you are not going to be spending very much
time physically together. Something that is good
for your mental health. Yeah. Something that
is good for the relationship. I would agree with
that. I think that the long distance, longish
distance relationship I had is the longest I
would have been able to sustain. both in terms
of the distance we were from each other and the
period of time that we were long distance before
we moved to the same city yeah um i've recognized
that about myself since forever that i wouldn't
a lot of people i knew when i was a teenager
were getting into long distance relationships
with people in other countries and i had a lot
of online friends at that age who were in america
and canada and sometimes other places and it
was great for friendship and it was great for
having people to socialize with on the internet
and chat about our weird little internet hobbies
with yeah but i knew i recognized about myself
that that wouldn't have worked as a relationship
for me i need i need too much actual meet space
time with a person yeah because i like texting
but i think from the way you talk about it it
seems like texting feels a lot closer to real
world quality time for you than it does for me
Yeah. Texting is only ever a method of sharing
information and getting to know someone. For
me, it doesn't feel like quality time. Yeah,
I think that's fair. It felt like quality time
for me, but I can see how it is a different type
of quality time. And it's almost like the way
that that relationship worked, it was almost
like it was compensating for the lack of physical
closeness. If I can't be physically close to
you, we will be in constant communication in
another way. That totally makes sense because
the way you describe it, that's essentially like
a continuous three year conversation. Isn't how
I experience you. We chat a lot. That's why we
have a podcast. We chat a lot. Yeah. But we're
also both pretty comfortable with sitting in
sort of comfortable shared silence for quite
long periods. And yeah, things like looking at
our phones, looking at the TV, listening to music,
even on drives and stuff. We'll quite often just
kind of zone out and and relax. Yeah. So. I don't
experience a continued conversation with you,
but it makes sense because you're getting the
physical quality time with me. Yeah. That maybe
you don't need to sort of build that closeness
in other ways. Yeah, I think so. And I think
weirdly, ironically, I think if we, I would find
a not long distance relationship where there
was that constant conversation. So us living
together and just constantly talking the entire
time. i would find that really tiring yeah so
it's almost like that kind of ideal world of
i am able to be quiet in the space that i am
in but i am also having a proxy of physical closeness
with my partner yeah it's a it's a weird thing
to think about when you when you do start to
think about it because i i would find non -stop
chatter in the real world really quite draining
i do Yeah. That's a skill that I've definitely
learned with you. I used to be very much an anxious
talker and couldn't just sit in silence with
anybody. And I've learned that it is not good
for your brain to be relentlessly stimulated.
And you do need some quiet time. And then that's
allowed me to actually get comfortable with quiet
time and go, no, if we sit in silence for an
hour, that doesn't mean we've run out of things
to say to each other. It means we're just chilling.
And that's nice. Yeah. You have nothing to say
right now. Yeah. And that's all right. But I
suppose that, I mean, it's something that people
have to think about if they're thinking about
a long -term, long -distance relationship. But
it is also because it's about making sure that
your needs are met. Yeah. And actually, if you
are someone who really values their own space
and likes to spend a lot of time, physically
spend a lot of time on their own, then that distance
might not be so much of a challenge. Yeah. It
kind of works the other way around. If you're
not clingy as fuck like I am, if you are comfortable
with that. bit of separation or that that's what
helps to energize you in a relationship is to
have that separation then actually a relationship
where you don't see each other every single day
might work yeah you know that makes a lot of
sense i think if you are i was going to say more
introverted but you're quite introverted but
still like to spend every second of every day
glued to me which is great yeah um for some people
i think that introversion does extend even to
their closest relationships and they do still
need alone time from their partner and don't
want to be in each other's space all the time
and for that long distance probably if anything
is going to be a benefit it's certainly not going
to feel like anywhere near as much of a challenge
no but it's one thing i'd be interested to hear
what you think one of the challenges that we
had earlier on is picking up context from the
written word yeah so like if i saying something
to you and texting it to you are two very different
things like there's no tone there's no facial
expressions all of that kind of stuff and it
took us a while to navigate that and i guess
i mean i'm interested because it's not quite
the same for me and you because we didn't have
that distance but we were texting quite a lot
yeah and whether that was something that came
up for you around understanding what people are
actually meaning when you've just got flat text
on a screen i tend to be quite good at tone from
text mix i think because i was very kind of isolated
from my peer group when i was a kid so i spent
a lot of time talking to online friends so that's
been quite normalized for me is being able to
understand people well when it is all text -based
and then add to that a layer of trauma with associated
hyper vigilance i'm very sensitive to changes
in tone so i tend to pick them up through text
and that can mean that i misread it and think
that someone's annoyed just because they've used
a full stop yeah but i think it helps you don't
You don't text like a Gen X. You definitely text
like a millennial. Right. I can read millennials.
Okay. Gen X and older. I have no idea what that
means. So a lot of people your age and older
will like use properly correct grammar in all
of their texts, including full stops. Right.
They won't use any emojis or they'll use very
few. Yeah, yeah. That makes it really hard to
read tone. If people are writing like they're
writing a formal letter, it always comes off
like they're a little bit pissed off. where you
use emojis you will not bother with full stops
you will not always bother with capitalization
apart from protocol stuff yeah like that makes
it a lot easier to follow tone because it's more
conversational writing yeah yeah and you use
millennial selfies no And you use millennial
emojis. You don't use the Gen Z emojis because
I don't understand what the fuck they're saying
half the time. What does the dead rose mean?
I don't understand. No idea. And we're not supposed
to use the cry laughing emoji anymore. Apparently
that's cringe, but it's the best one. Fuck off.
It's the best one. Do you use the one? I genuinely
can't remember now. Do you use the one where
it's straight on or the one where it's at an
angle? I usually use the one where it's straight
on mix in texting, but on Teams I use the one
on an angle and I don't know why. Oh, well, there
you go. But apparently both are cringe and we
shouldn't be using them. What do they know? They're
fucking children. I was there when the internet
was invented. I was there when emojis were invented.
Do not cite the old magic to me. But that is
definitely something me and my ex -partner had
to learn. And it manifested itself in really
quite strange ways. It's interesting you talk
about using full stops. Because actually, I think
that is something that I've learned from her
is not to send paragraphs. If you've got multiple
things to say, send them as individual messages.
That's what she would do to me. She would send
one thought comprised of several sentences. as
separate text messages so i've got i kind of
got away from forming full paragraphs but also
really subtle things like we didn't use and we
still don't when we when we text don't tend to
use laughing emojis we use the word heehee right
like heehee or heehee if it's a big laugh but
what we learned was if you write heehee that
is something funny and amusing if you write the
word ha -ha, H -A -H -A, that means that you're
actually quite annoyed by what is occurring.
Right. You know, my car broke down, so I have
to go and get it fixed now, ha -ha. Ah. Do you
ever have trouble reading my texts then, because
I use ha -ha the same way I use the cry laughing
emoji, where I think something's funny. I'm pleased.
There is still, I think I'm learning, but I think
there is still that kind of throwback in my head.
Yeah. they have to check okay think about the
context think about what they're saying and and
decipher from there but yeah it's like subtle
little things like that of differentiating between
actually laughing at something that is funny
and an ironic this is a pile of shit yeah anything
um and did you sometimes have to ask each other
is this a a fun time or a displeasing time mix
yeah yeah yeah um that that was definitely something
that we we navigated as part of our ds dynamic
and the way that we communicated with each other
within that dynamic um but we talked in parentheses
yeah as well like if we were having a conversation
and we weren't sure of the tone but we didn't
want to kind of derail the conversation we would
send a text in brackets to check in yeah you
know without kind of necessarily interrupting
the it was It sounds silly when you say it, but
it didn't interrupt the flow of the conversation.
It was like a sidebar. Yeah. Going, just want
to check. This is how I'm reading this situation.
Is that okay? And then she would reply in parentheses.
And then we would move on. Yeah. I can't be sure
for certain, but I think we developed that while
we were sexting. Right. It was a way of not interrupting
necessarily the flow of the... sexy times i have
an important question mix that has just occurred
to me the little smile on your face did you send
dick pics mix not as many as you would think
because you are so reluctant to take and send
dick pics and i suddenly thought like three year
long distance relationship you must have done
probably not many not as many as you might think
But yeah, probably. Not as many as I would find.
Not as many as you need. Yeah, probably, yeah.
Yeah, I did. But I don't send them to you because
you can see it whenever you want. Yeah. You see
it every day. I would like to have images next.
I would like to have a collection. I would like
to be able to see it not only every day, but
at all times. Whenever you want. No matter what
we're doing. Yeah. Whip out a little dick pic
to have a look at. Oh, yes. Yep. Ridiculous.
I'm assuming you've cleared with your ex that
you're allowed to talk about this. Yes. I'm not
going to go into massive detail. No, that's fair.
So aside from, I think, probably cruelly infrequent
dick pics, how did you two manage with sex mix
if you only met? In person, the ones in all that
time, I imagine you had to get pretty creative.
Yeah, we had to get comfortable with sexting.
Yeah. Phone sex, for want of a better phrase.
Yeah. I don't think we ever did it on, like,
FaceTime. That surprises me, because that feels
like the most natural to me. That feels like
that would be the most natural. Yeah. We did
it while we were on calls with each other. Yeah.
But they were audio calls. Yeah. So there was
lots of descriptive language going on. And there
would be, much to your disappointment, you will
learn, there was pictures shared. But I think
we both felt a little bit awkward about doing
it, doing that kind of stuff on a screen. And
I don't know why. I can see that for you, though,
because you are not... It took you a while to
be comfy with any kind of pictures or videos
of us playing. So I can imagine you, if you could
see yourself during as well, that would freak
you right out. Yeah, yeah. And I think she was
probably the same as well. Probably not quite
to the same extent as me. But yeah, that's an
option for people to think about. I suppose if
that's something that you're comfortable with,
it's not something that we did. text -based or
or on calls but also we use like those the kind
of remote control toys yeah oh we're talking
about sex and you've got the giggles because
it immediately made me think of little little
cars that you you have the little joystick for
yeah in kind of that's what it made me think
about when i said remote control toys Chasing
her around at home with a remote -controlled
car from 4 ,000 miles away. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And we tried out different brands. Different
brands have different qualities to them. Some
are better than others. Some have a better range
of functions than others. Some have better connectivity
than others. All of that sort of stuff. I will
say that as a penis wielder... They are a little
bit disappointing. Yeah. Yeah, don't really work
for me. Like in terms of sensation. Yeah. It's
not the stuff that we tried wasn't a massively.
I don't think I've ever really seen any remote
control toys for penis wielders. What kind of
stuff did you try, Mix? It's essentially kind
of really heavy equivalents of fleshlights. Right.
And there's the i think it was the same one um
but the one that i had either either the other
person could just control it um so they would
be on the app doing whatever they wanted to do
while it was on my penis kind of kind of thing
in the same way that you would with a vibrator
in the other direction yeah kind of put it in
and i control the vibrations and the speed and
all of that kind of stuff um but the brand that
we had you could sync up A vibrator with a masturbator.
Right. So the theory is that if the vibrator
is being thrusted and used in a particular way
on one end, that feeling is replicated on the
masturbator for the penis wielder. End of it.
Yeah. To, I guess, mimic actually having sex.
Yeah. Good idea in theory. Good idea in theory.
bit shit in reality right from my perspective
that those kind of toys were really very effective
on on her yeah i am pleased to report um well
i guess that depends how you how you define it
i was particularly good at um getting her to
the edge and then slowing down that does not
surprise me turn the intensity right down that
was a talent that i had Which I think she hated
me a little bit for sometimes. And now I know
where you learned that from. Yeah, because I've
done that to you. You have, yeah. Not with a
remote control toy mix, but when we were first
together and not yet living together, our first
experiment with surveillance kink was having
a camera in my bedroom at the flat. And you watched
me through the camera. told me to touch myself
and then texted me telling me to stop. And you
somehow managed to time the getting out of the
camera app, sending the text, me receiving the
text perfectly to be the most annoying moment
possible. Quite impressive. And now I see that
you had extensive practice. Yeah, I had quite
a lot of experience of that. I'm surprised that
she didn't get on a plane to come and slap you.
True. Yeah. That would have been a reasonable
hour to do. So yeah, I think for me, I mean,
it was good. All of that kind of mutual stuff.
You don't have to use a toy as a penis wielding.
So that was always fun to do. But it took a little
bit of getting used to. Yeah. Because I am very
good in writing. I am not particularly good at
out loud dirty talk. No, same. I need to plan
ahead. Yeah, yeah. Like little bits of it I can
do. Little snippets of filthy talk I can do,
but kind of extended storytelling. Yeah. Dirty
talk I cannot do. Write it down. Brilliant. Absolutely
fine with all of that. But saying it out loud
feels a little bit weird. Yeah. So that took
a little bit of getting used to. So kind of thinking
through how mutual gratification and sex works.
Yeah. when you are any distance apart but thousands
of miles in particular requires some thought
definitely need to get very creative and yeah
highly motivated i imagine to to keep things
working well yeah yeah um and you have to have
faith in your phone's bluetooth connection as
well otherwise the phone will start edging you
as well for the phone starts yeah yeah on more
than one occasion it wasn't ever the transmission
of the instruction from my phone to her phone
or in the other direction it was the connection
to the device yeah that was the problem um and
the apps are a bit shit they're not app developers
these people they're sex toy developers yeah
so what would you say would be your like recommendation
of toy brand or brands mix for people who are
wanting to get into that kind of thing um i i
think the lovents one's quite expensive probably
at the more expensive end of things but really
good quality like the the things themselves are
quite good quality yeah um they went through
a period where they kept fucking about with the
app i think they have sorted it now because they
had at one point they had an app for if you wanted
to control it yourself but you had another app
if you wanted to control somebody else's that
seems needlessly convoluted yeah yeah and then
i think they tried to bring them together and
then they broke both um So that was, I think
it was the Lovense where we had the vibrator
and the masturbator that kind of could sync up.
Yeah. We've tried WeVibe. But I don't think we
used that very much. Didn't seem to be quite
as effective. I think that was, yeah, we had
the little WeVibe like click stimulator thing.
But I couldn't connect to the fucking thing.
Oh, no. It was a really dodgy thing. It was really
inconsistent. Yeah. And edging it was really
fun, but not in that way. Yeah. You want to be
in control of it, not being failed by technology.
Yeah, yeah. Lovense is definitely the one that
I've heard the most good things about. So it
makes sense that your experience backs that up.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're really good quality.
And a good range of patterns and stuff with it
as well. And that's also one way you can kind
of get it to... work along with music as well.
So if you have a song, it will vibrate along
with the bass line, I guess. But it's not something
we ever tried. I actually think I've got a lot
of events upstairs. Yeah, I remember when we
first got together, you mentioned that you had
one and we were going to do some stuff while
I wasn't living here and then I moved in. You
immediately moved in. Yeah. And then we got a
doxy and kind of any other sex toys now become
redundant. True. I do love the doxy. You do love
a doxy. Another thing that can be really difficult
is navigating support for your partner through
whether it's difficult days or changes in mental
health, big life things that are difficult either
physically or emotionally. You can feel really
useless at a distance, I think. However supportive
you're being, you just feel like you're not doing
enough. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know,
if either one of us has a bad day, we immediately
say, well, what can I do to help? Yeah. What's
going to help in this situation? We're both quite
good, I think. I am probably less good at it
than you, but I think we are both quite good
at not immediately jumping into solution mode.
Yeah. It's like, you know, what do you need?
Do you need to vent? Do you need validation?
Do you need solutions? Kind of. kind of thing
it's so interesting you say you're less good
at that than me because i am very solutions based
and i really struggle not to jump into solutions
so i'm glad that i'm masking that well um to
the point where i get quite irritated if people
don't want solutions it's like accept the solution
i'm good at this no i don't ever feel like you're
kind of jumping straight there or if you do because
i am a little bit like that as well it's like
how can how can i help you fix this yeah is often
my kind of knee -jerk response to that. Yeah.
So if there is a little bit of that coming from
you to me, then that's okay because it would
come from me to you. Yeah. In that way. But you're
really limited. If you're physically separate,
you can't even give them a cuddle and say, it'll
be okay. I mean, you can say it'll be okay, but
you can't kind of give that physical reassurance.
Yeah. And especially if it's something that is
kind of like an ongoing thing that they're dealing
with. yeah i think useless is the right word
you can feel really quite useless yeah and and
if you don't get it right you can also feel a
little bit unsupported as well even though the
other person is trying their best their best
is pretty limited yeah like full of good intentions
but not particularly effective yeah definitely
i found that with like friendships over a long
distance as well yeah and i really contrast that
with when we were first dating there was a day
where We hadn't planned to see each other. I
think I was meant to be coming over here in like
two or three days time. And I had a really bad
wobble, like major insecurity, flare up, jealousy,
just generally feeling like not myself and having
a big freak out and a big breakdown about stuff.
Yeah. And it was. It was feelings about our relationship,
but it wasn't triggered by anything that you'd
done wrong. It wasn't a conflict or anything.
So there was a limited amount that just talking
it out was going to, you know, if it had been
an argument, we could have probably resolved
that at a distance. But what I actually needed
was to feel close to you. I needed that to like
regulate me and get me out of my crazy spiral
that I was in. And you were just immediately
like, I'll come pick you up, like pack a bag.
be outside in 20 minutes kind of thing yeah and
i think about that a lot when we talk about long
distance where if we hadn't been able to do that
i'm sure our relationship would have survived
and i would have been fine but i think i would
have had a really bad night i think i was just
gonna continue to spiral either until i saw you
or until i exhausted myself yeah if you hadn't
been able to come over then yeah yeah and i think
that's that's where it must get really challenging
yeah yeah and it can be quite draining as well
on both sides of that yeah like if you're not
in a in a cynical or a negative way but feeling
unsupported because you're not getting the support
that you in the way that you would need or want
yeah from your partner but also feeling kind
of powerless on the other side of that and so
i really want to help fix this but i can't yeah
that could be like a really practical thing i
remember something happened with a shower and
she sent me a picture of what was up and i was
like it would take me five minutes to fix that
yeah i could pop around fix it in five minutes
and it'd be sorted but because I couldn't. And
because she felt like she couldn't, it became
this whole thing that you had to get someone
to come and fix it for her. And even stuff like
that is really difficult. It's literally a five
-minute job. And I would do it for the price
of a blowjob. I would do it for ice cream. So
it's little things like that as well. it's not
just kind of the heavy emotional things that
people experience it's really practical things
as well like yeah i think practical help with
things is a big part of your love language as
well because i've seen how much you're willing
to do like not even just for partners for friends
the number of times where someone we know has
needed help moving house or needed help getting
to a place or yeah um your your ex -partner who
is not in america needed a spider murdered in
our house recently yeah yeah and you just do
stuff like that for people that you care about
yeah no bother yeah and i can imagine you finding
that really frustrating to not be able to do
those sort of things because that's just what
you do if someone you know is having a difficult
ego i can i can drive a car i can kill a spider
i can carry a heavy object down your garden whatever
it is yeah that's who you are yeah that is true
which yeah just it's it's frustrating Not being
able to do that. Yeah. It can be difficult to
navigate when you're not fully aware of what
is going on. Yeah. Because, like, if you're having
a bad mental health day or if you're having a
bad day at work or whatever or something is going
on in your life that is impacting you negatively,
I know about it and I can see it happening so
you can respond to it better. I think, like,
particularly I struggle to tell people when I'm
having a rough time sometimes. Yeah. And if I'm
in your house, you can see it. Because I'll be
sitting at my desk swearing at the computer or
something. Yeah, yeah. Or having a cry or like
wheezing. Yeah. Where if I'm not there in person,
I might hold off on actually admitting there's
a problem until it's a much bigger problem. Yeah.
So kind of thinking through how you're going
to provide that support, I think is something
to think about in a long term, long distance
relationship. Yeah, definitely. And I think the
last thing that I would probably say people should
think about is being on the same page about that.
direction that you're going in i imagine for
some people having a open -ended long -term long
-distance relationship will probably work you
know kind of have that balance of we see each
other less frequently but we have all of these
other things that kind of sustain us in the meantime
probably does work for some people but you need
to be really clear about that yeah and i know
that actually you know if if your end game in
life is to be married with children and that
wasn't my end game that is just an example of
an end game then if you're in a long distance
relationship at some point somebody's got to
move because last time i checked it is quite
difficult to have kids if you're four and a half
thousand miles apart kind of ferry them backwards
and forwards yeah yeah or parent trap it and
take one each yeah yeah yeah well i was thinking
about the physical act of making children oh
yeah you do at least have to visit to do that
yeah yeah but like that's a really tricky thing
to do yeah when you're thousands of miles apart
So if that's your end game in life, then maybe
a long distance relationship is not quite right
for you or you need to really think about how
you make it work if it is. Yeah, they're almost
two different things, aren't they? There's the
long distance relationship where it's until one
of us moves for a few months or a couple of years
and you're both actively working to make that
happen versus the long distance relationship
where at least for the foreseeable future, that
is just what the relationship is. You kind of
accept it as it is. I think the... the mindset
and the preparation needed for those two types
of relationships can be very very different from
each other because i could do at a push i could
do the long distance with a goal in mind to end
the long distance and be in the same place i
think like if i really had to i could do that
for a while yeah but i couldn't do open -ended
long distance that would just make me immediately
like clinically insane yeah yeah yeah yeah i
think that was probably the same Well, it was
definitely the same for me. I think probably
the same for my ex -partner as well. Yeah. Was,
this is great. This is a really good relationship.
I feel very supported and validated and I love
you and we have a good time and all of that kind
of stuff. But this cannot be the rest of my life.
Yeah. I want to be in a relationship with someone
who I can put my hands on and squish them. You
know? Yeah. So that's a fairly depressing section
on all of the things to think about that might
make a long -distance relationship difficult.
I think one of the things people probably in
any relationship need to think about is how monogamous
or otherwise it is. Because your relationship
with your ex -partner, if I have got this right,
was mostly monogamous. It was monogamous at the
start, it was monogamous at the end, but there
was a period in the middle where you experimented
a little bit with non -monogamy as well. Do you
want to tell us a little bit about how that...
Comes into the mix, mix. I mean, I think for
us, I think it was probably less consciously
polyamorous and more a little bit kind of kinky.
Yeah. A bit of a cuck vibe to it. Yeah. But it
took some thinking through and it took some navigating
and it wasn't always the easiest thing. I think
that is probably tied more into the way that
we are in relationships. than it is about what
we were doing if that makes sense actually there
was a little bit of it's a really fun and hot
idea and it was a really fun and hot thing to
do but actually there was a little bit of insecurity
that kind of came with that as well and and that's
really difficult to see and understand and navigate
at a distance because it relies much more on
very explicit communication which polyamory does
non -monogamy does But doing that at a distance,
I think, is probably a little bit kind of trickier.
Yeah. I suppose so. It was a relatively short
-lived experiment. I was part of that. You were
part of that, yes. So, you know, that worked
out pretty well in the long term. Probably clarify
the timeline because it's getting really confusing.
So you and your ex -partner were together roughly
2019 to 2023. Yeah. I don't know exactly how
long your open period of that was, but it definitely
overlapped with autumn of 2021. Yeah. Which is
when we met once. Had a hookup. Yeah. For the
cuck vibes. Yeah. And then I... Met Hope and
got into a two year long relationship with her
that was largely monogamous. So didn't contact
you again after that. Yeah. I believe sometimes.
You properly cut me off. I have looked back over
our texts, right? We both, for a period of time,
both tried to arrange another hookup. Yeah, yeah.
And our schedules just didn't line up. Yeah.
And then the last text that you'd sent me. was
after quite a gap after i'd asked you if you
wanted to hook up again and i hadn't heard back
from you in my defense and then you texted me
asking to hook up and obviously i was monogamous
by then yeah and then yes i did simply ghost
yeah but but i i had communicated prior to that
and you had been flaky fine fine um but yeah
after i got into a monogamous ish relationship
with hope i think not long after that you closed
things up again with your ex um and then we both
broke up with our partners around the same time
without knowing the other person was doing that
yeah yeah and we met in october 2023 for the
second time so yeah our timing has ended up being
weirdly quite good that i happened to meet you
during the brief period that you were available
for a hookup And I happened to meet you when
you were very recently single because you don't
seem to stay on the market very long. So I got
straight in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost
like it was predestined. Yes. Our lives were
leading to this point, which is quite nice. It
is. It's quite nice to think about. Yeah. Though
it does make me feel slightly like I invaded
your relationship. Just with a brief cameo from
your fated mate halfway through. Hello. Well,
I think that's what they call foreshadowing.
Yeah. It's like if you watch, I don't know if
it's like Game of Thrones, but you kind of watch
those shows which kind of have an arc over several
seasons. It's like you see someone in one episode
and then they disappear for three years. Yeah.
And then they come back. It's like Lost, right?
You remember the TV show? I do, because I tried,
I think, four times to get into it and I couldn't
make it past season one. But go on. What they
would do every day, because they had a... In
keeping with all good American TV shows, it would
usually start with a previously on Lost. And
it would tell you... what happened in like the
last episode and maybe the episode before yeah
but every now and again they would say previously
on lost and then it would be a clip from something
three years ago oh yeah now now it's important
all of a sudden three years like we've forgotten
that it even happened now it's crucially important
to the plot yeah and you're a little bit like
that thank you previously on s I think the other
thing I wanted to, what has occurred to me about
kind of long distance and non -monogamy or monogamy
or polyamory is I think a version of that that
I would really struggle with, even if polyamory
was something that I was fully comfortable with,
which to be fair, I'm not for me personally.
Yeah. But there are people that I've met who
have in -person romantic connections, romantic
relationships with. and they have a long distance
romantic relationship with someone and i i would
really struggle being any one of those people
in that scenario yeah i think i think i would
probably struggle most being the person who is
at a distance from me but i just kind of i'm
in awe a little bit of people who are able to
manage that kind of dynamic I think it must take
really good boundaries and communication for
it to work well. Yeah. Because the thing that
I've always found difficult when I've been in
poly relationships is that feeling of missing
one partner when you're with another. Yeah. That
feeling that whatever you're doing, it's the
wrong thing. kind of thing like you don't want
to be texting someone else when you're on a date
but also you don't want to be blanking your partner
for hours and it's yeah that tension is hard
enough to navigate when they're people that you
see in person and spend roughly the same amounts
of time with yeah if one of those people is also
4 000 miles away i think that would be a really
hard balance to get right yeah like how do you
balance the prioritization of that how do you
balance the time of that especially and i hadn't
even really necessarily thought about like international
time zone based long distance relationships but
that must be a there must be people who do that
as well like when when your time with your long
distance partner is partly dictated by time zones
how do you then navigate that with the person
that you are physically with the the idea of
it just blows my mind and like i said i am in
awe i am generally in awe of people who can successfully
manage multiple romantic relationships Because
I just don't think I could do it. I don't want
to do it. But I don't think I could do it. I
don't think I could cope with that. But then
to add in the distance to it, it's just mind
-blowing to me. Yeah, I think the more layers
you add that complicate it, the harder it gets.
I have had a couple of poly relationships and
it's not my relationship style. It's something
that... was interesting for me to explore and
has made me realize over time like that i am
romantically i'm monogamous yeah that's a better
fit for me it's as i've touched on before on
when we had the episode on polyamory i think
i am capable of being in love with more than
one person at a time but i am not capable of
loving more than one person at a time the way
that they deserve to be loved yeah for me to
really give that amount of my time and attention
and energy to someone i can only really maintain
that with one person The feeling of the emotion
of love is relatively easy. And we all love loads
of people. We just love them in different ways.
So being able to feel a romantic connection and
romantic love for more than one person. Yeah,
absolutely makes sense to me. Being able to navigate
a relationship with more than one person and
really do all of it justice and stay sane. Yeah.
Not for me. Can't achieve that. But well done
to people who can. Yes. Bravo. So, as a kink
podcast. Oh shit, yeah. We're not a relationship
podcast. We're a kink podcast. Doesn't the intro
say something like sex, relationships, kink and
more or something like that? Does it? Maybe it's
the description on Spotify. I feel like I've
seen that phrase somewhere. Probably. I know
my own podcast really well, guys. Yeah, yeah.
Wait, what? We're putting this on Spotify? So
obviously your long distance relationship was
a dominant and submissive relationship. Yes.
Power exchange. It was. How were those elements
long distance mix? How did you find that? I think
overall that was probably the most straightforward
part because it was quite structured, more consciously
thought through in a weird kind of way. Yeah,
that 100 % makes sense and is what I was thinking
is that sounds like the easy bit. Because a structure
of a DS relationship is the thing that kind of
creates the boundaries and the correct order
of things and the correct way of doing things
for you. So much of the stuff that is harder
to do over a distance, it kind of does some of
the legwork for you, I would imagine. Yeah, I
think so. Even if you think about the way that
our dynamic is structured, there is a way of
doing that when we're not physically together.
So with my ex -partner, as you would expect,
spent a... good bit of time kind of talking about
what we wanted, what we needed, what kind of
dynamic we wanted. So this is the partner that
I've talked about in the past, who has ADHD,
is peer -reviewed autistic, and has some of those
kind of executive function challenges. so what
was really important when we were thinking about
kind of rules and protocols was making sure that
we were doing the best to support that yeah so
we a lot of our rules were about kind of um function
of daily life a lot of our rules were about what
other parts of our rules were there was an element
of appearance control so i would pick her out
pick her day um and and the way that we manage
that in that relationship whereas in our relationship
You wake up in the morning and you say, what
do you want me to wear today? And I go, this.
The way that that worked with my ex -partner
was that she would send me pictures. Yeah. And
I would pick from two or three options. So it's
kind of modifying the rules that you might see
in an up -close -in -person dynamic and just
adopting them for the fact that you're not physically
together. Yeah. I think the trickiest part of
that is thinking through how they're going to
be enforced and how discipline works in terms
of kind of rules and protocols. So much of it
was essentially based on trust in the honour
system. because i'm not i would say that's the
same in person though like you can't even with
the cameras all around the house and even with
us both working from home and living together
you can't actually supervise me at every minute
of every day if i wanted to break a rule i know
where the blind spots of the cameras are and
i know that you're not watching them 24 7 like
i do rely on on a certain amount of honesty in
a dynamic i think yeah yeah that yeah that's
absolutely true um but there is also a lot that
i can observe yeah um so much like we do in our
dynamic we have rules about kind of you are responsible
for cleaning the house yeah my ex -partner had
had not quite the same rules but similar rules
about maintaining her space yeah and i had a
thing i still have a thing that if you're going
to keep one space in your house tidy it has to
be your bedroom yeah Because that is your sanctuary
from the wild. It's where you can crawl under
the covers and pretend the rest of the world
doesn't happen. So that should be a calm, doesn't
have to be perfectly clean and tidy, but it should
be a calm space. So the rule was she had to keep
that space, her bedroom, relatively clean. She
couldn't allow laundry to pile up on the floor.
She couldn't allow rubbish to pile up. What I
discovered was that she managed to create a blind
spot. So the way that we enforced the rule that
the bedroom needed to be tidy is that she would
send me pictures on a regular enough basis that
I could see that it was tidy. She found a way
because of the way that her bedroom and her apartment
was laid out is that she could send me a picture
of what appeared to be the full bedroom, but
wasn't. And it was a relatively small space within
the bedroom that was just a complete fucking
disaster. And she got quite good at making sure
that kind of, you know, where the mirrors in
the room were positioned and where the windows
were when she was taking pictures. So that's
what I mean when I say it kind of relies on the
honor system. She wasn't doing that in bad faith.
I want to be really, really clear. She wasn't
doing that in bad faith. She wasn't doing it
as a way of bratting, even though she is a massive
brat. She was doing it because she was struggling
with maintaining that. And rather than just saying
that, she was like, no, I am going to pretend
that I am being a good girl and doing what I
need to do. And that came out and we dealt with
it. And it wasn't a big thing. So I think that's
what I mean when it kind of relies on trust and
the honor system. And that's a two -way thing.
There are a lot of things in our dynamic between
you and me that I can observe being done. yeah
a lot more than than if you're a lot more yeah
than than if you're at a distance like thinking
through how you set rules that are achievable
and demonstrable and thinking about how you enforce
discipline in in that relationship and we we
approach discipline in that dynamic very differently
to the way that we do it in ours yeah because
she doesn't really feel that because she doesn't
really feel that punishment is helpful for her
does she mix no So it was more about reward for
doing the things and the absence of reward for
not doing them rather than punishment in there.
And that worked really well. Yeah. And that's
a really good approach. I think a lot of people
think of discipline as the D and BDSM discipline
part as being all about punishment. And actually,
there's a lot of people who don't like that or
don't respond well to it or don't feel they learn
anything from it or it doesn't feel effective
in some way. And reward can be a really good
alternative form of discipline. Not even alternative,
like positive reinforcement is a common animal
training technique. It's commonly recommended
in parenting. Positive reinforcement is a legitimate
way of enforcing discipline. It's just I need
punishment. I need to be under constant threat.
And that's just as valid. People work in different
ways. But I think as well... Again, living in
this modern world that we do, I think there's
something about the way that you use technology,
both to feel the pull of the dynamic, I suppose.
So it was that relationship which introduced
me to Life360 as a way of tracking someone's
location. Big fan of that. Big fan of that. So
the way that rules and tasks would work is that
I would create a shared note with all of the
things that I needed her to do in a given day.
And that was a kind of a collaborative thing
as well. She would let me know if there were
things that she wanted to be on there. So there
was that kind of external discipline of she has
to go to the pharmacy. Left to her own devices,
she might not do that. If I say she has to do
it, she'll do it. Yeah. I also love to use...
ds relationship as a hack for my executive function
yeah yeah yeah so i would spend a little bit
of time every every every day while she was asleep
creating a shared note with some expectations
for the day um and then she would have that and
it was a way of kind of checking off whether
she's done a good job on any given day um but
it's also a really nice way of staying connected
to the dynamic as well yeah it's like we don't
we don't do that we don't I don't create a list
of tasks for you to do. You have a list of tasks
that you set and create for yourself. But what
we've got is a set of standing rules and a contract,
which we then work to on a daily basis. Yeah.
But that kind of shared note and collaborating
on the tasks for the day helped to stay more
connected to the dynamic because it was a conscious
act every single day. So it worked really well.
Yeah, having that as like a shared thing that
you create it and she takes off as well. Yeah.
That in itself is an element of communication.
It's another communication line that you've got
open where you can both see the progress in real
time. Yeah. I think that's really smart. Yeah.
Because another way people sometimes do that
is there's apps like the Obedience app that are
quite popular. Yeah. I know you told me you've
tried that and you weren't a big fan of it where
you mixed. Just it didn't quite work for your
dynamic with her. No, we had a look at it and
just didn't seem to get on with it. I don't think
there's anything fundamentally wrong with it.
And maybe we were just kind of stuck in our ways
at that point. Because the list that I would
do every day was literally, it was check boxes.
So I would write the list, put the tick boxes
on it. And then as she went through, she would
tick them off so that we could both see at any
point in the day how she was getting on. And
she really liked it. ticking things off because
it felt like an achievement yeah so um and i
think that was maybe not quite as as prominent
in the obedience app or didn't feel like it was
quite as prominent as it was in the obedience
app um and given that we were so used to using
notes in google keep it just seemed a bit over
engineered yeah well i think that's definitely
one that's From what I've heard about it, I've
never used it at all because I've never been
anything even close to long distance when doing
power exchange. But you don't have to be long
distance to use it. To be fair, I've met people
who've used it for in -person relationships just
as a way of helping them both kind of keep on
track with what they need to be giving to the
dynamic. Some people absolutely love it. So I
think if you are in or considering a long distance
power exchange relationship, it's something that's
worth checking out, having a try, see if it works
for you, see if there's elements of it you like
that you could use in other ways. If not, yeah.
worth it and i think that dynamic was not to
the extent that we are now but there was a lot
of transfer of authority and transfer of decision
making to me which was sometimes a little bit
tricky because if a decision was needed after
i had gone to bed then i wouldn't wake up to
deal with it so there always needs to be a little
bit of flexibility and actually because of the
way that we communicated in that stream of consciousness
kind of way that we we talk to each other quite
often what would happen is a situation would
present itself. And I could see her working through
it and almost going, well, what do I think you
would say? Yeah. What do I think you would think
is the right thing to do in this situation? Which,
again, was quite a helpful thing because regardless
of what I would have actually done, I could see
the logic of it. Yeah. And I wasn't going to
go, well, that was the wrong thing, so now you
are in trouble. It became a conversation of,
OK, well, if it was me, if I was around, this
is what would have happened. That's OK. I am
not mad about it sort of thing. But it helped
to kind of develop those things as well. Yeah.
Like it was it most often came up if it was getting
to the end of her evening and she hadn't done
all of the kind of the practical tasks that she
needed to do. It was it was a case of I have
the time and the spoons to do one of these two
things. what do i think you would prioritize
which we do yeah like in our dynamic if you've
got a load of tasks and you are feeling overwhelmed
or whatever then then we will sometimes talk
through and go actually no this is the priority
so it's a similar sort of thing having a ds dynamic
means you have to think through a lot of that
but i don't think actually having a ds dynamic
is is any more difficult necessarily done at
a distance you just have to think about it in
a different way yeah and be a little bit more
creative sometimes because i was thinking while
we've been talking There's not a lot of our dynamic
that would have to change if we suddenly went
long distance. No. I am not suggesting we do
that. I do not want to do that. No. But I imagine
if we were suddenly to have to have a long distance
relationship, there might be things we would
add to it and some new stuff we would come up
with to keep that interesting and exciting. But
I don't think there's anything that would actually
have to come out. No. Because all of it would
work just as well. You do really rely on that
trust and honesty for me to tell you if I'm not
doing the things I'm meant to be doing. But that's
something I'm... I'm generally pretty good with
anyway. My conscience kicks the shit out of me
if I try to get away with anything I'm not meant
to. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's probably,
you know, you do see quite a lot of people on
FetLife who are in long distance DS dynamics
and you know nothing about the amount of time
that they actually spend together, if any. But
fundamentally, the structure that you create
within a DS dynamic is going to be different.
From person to person, from in -person relationship
to in -person relationship, doing it at a distance
is just a variation for me. I guess this is less
about power exchange and more about slightly
more general kink. I think the bit that we found
the hardest and had to work the hardest at was
bratting and discipline. Right. I think they're
a very different thing. But I think we had similar
challenges with them. So my ex -partner was a
brat and a gleeful one at that. I can really
see that in how you write rules to this day.
You're preparing for brats. Yeah. And I think
navigating that in person, as long as it's something
that you have consented to and as long as you
understand what is going on, actually navigating
that in person, for me, it feels relatively straightforward.
because you can kind of see on someone's face
when they're being a dick for the fun of it.
Yeah. But when someone is acting out on a text
message, it is sometimes difficult to work out
whether they are acting out for the fun of it
or whether they are acting out because something
is up. Yeah. And the context clues that you get
from someone in front of you doing it is different.
Or they're just not there. So kind of there's
that kind of potential for misunderstanding.
And then similarly with discipline, I would sometimes
kind of express disappointment that a thing hadn't
been done. She'd broken a rule or something of
that nature. And because of the way that her
mind works, that immediately went into, you hate
me. You're mad at me and you want me to die.
Yeah, that's relatable. You know, and that's
a caricature of it. But as is common with a lot
of... People who are neurodivergent had some
issues around rejection sensitivity. So it was
pretty sensitive to criticism, was pretty sensitive
to the concept of being a disappointment or disappointing
or upsetting others. Getting that point across
when a lot of your, so much of your communication
is by text can be really, really difficult. And
one way to resolve that is to talk to them and
actually pick up the phone and have a conversation.
And actually quite a lot of the time, that's
what we did. Yeah. But yeah, unless you're really,
really clear. And really, really careful with
how you express discipline. It can be. It can
be quite challenging. And I go back to what I
said earlier on. One of the ways that we dealt
with that was by having a phone call. We talked
about it when we needed to. But also we were
talking parentheses. So if I wasn't sure if she
was being bratty or if she was actually upset,
I would ask that. Yeah. If she wasn't sure whether
I was being dominant or whether I was mad at
her, she would ask that. You know? To this day,
I'm not fully sure why we did it in parentheses,
but it seemed to work really, really well. It
didn't interrupt the flow of the conversation.
That makes total sense to me. I don't know if
it's just because I spent a lot of my life chronically
online, but that feels like a good way to do
it. You're acknowledging this is an aside. It's
not part of the conversation. We're not changing
the topic to talk about this thing. We're just
checking. Yeah, so we did a lot of that and a
lot of checking in. You know, especially if I
wasn't sure if she was bratting or whether she
was upset. It was like, bracket, are we flirting?
You know, that sort of question. Yeah. Because
if you get that wrong, it can end up being a
bit messy. Yeah. I'm like, oh yeah, having a
great time. And she's having a breakdown over
there because of whatever's happened. Yeah, easy
mistake to make. Yeah. something that we talked
about on a previous episode the one about breakups
from ds relationships yeah is about planning
for a breakup as best you can and about de -escalation
from power exchange about how those hard stops
can be really hard how was that at a distance
mix i mean i can't imagine it was a fun time
but it wasn't a fun time no um and it wasn't
something that we planned for right So in that
episode, we talked about your experience of a
DS breakup because that was the episode with
Hope, wasn't it? It was, yes. And I think one
of the lessons from that was about actually thinking
ahead, which is a great lesson to learn, but
it is not one that I had learned at the time
of my relationship with my ex -partner. Yeah,
you never get that right the first time, I don't
think. No, we were in a pretty good space, other
than beyond the obvious horribleness of breaking
up. interpersonally we were in a good space we
were both very sad about it we were having a
lot of feelings about it but we weren't rejecting
each other and we weren't mad at each other for
it so we fairly quickly kind of had that conversation
when we needed to and we said we've got a fuck
ton of rules we've got a fuck ton of routine
and protocol that we've been following for a
good while so how do we navigate that and some
stuff just dropped off straight away so like
the protocol dropped off straight away I stopped
making um a lot of the decisions for as you would
as i think you would probably expect yeah we
didn't immediately stop the daily list we still
did that collaboratively but it was more driven
by her than it was by me i wasn't saying here
are the things that you need to do tomorrow it
was it was kind of flipped that conversation
you go okay so what are the things that you need
to do tomorrow what are the things that you want
me to hold you accountable for tomorrow That's
our list, which I think, and to be fair, we've
never talked about this. I suspect that element
of it was probably harder for her than it was
for me. It felt like a gap for me. It felt like
a loss for me. But for her, there was an element
of there is a gap and there is a loss. There
is a risk that I become less functional as a
result of that. That was definitely my experience
when me and Hope broke up is I just. for a little
bit kind of forgot how to be a person both through
a combination of not having this structure that
I'm used to having and also there being no consequences
no immediate consequences to me doing dumb shit
so it's like yeah like my entire diet is energy
drinks and cigarettes now this is great it's
like that there are consequences to me to doing
that but I couldn't get in trouble for it so
I did it yeah yeah yeah yeah it's exactly the
same sort of sort of thing so it's kind of that
gradual a gradual de -escalation a gradual ramping
down of it rather than kind of cutting off cold
yeah from it and you know to be fair you know
every every now and again still today she will
say can you make sure i do this thing yeah tomorrow
all right yeah i can do that i remember you talking
to me about that when we first got together you
were like yeah there is no ongoing relationship
here but because of the position that i used
to have in this relationship She sometimes asks
me to kind of give her, kick up the arse to do
stuff. Is that okay? And I was like, yeah, of
course that's okay. That's transitioning into
a friendship where she knows you have the skills
to help hold her accountable. And that's, I think
that's really healthy. Yeah. And that is something
that is vanishingly rare now. And it's usually
really, really little things like remind me I
need to go and drop off my prescription tomorrow.
Yeah. Yeah. You need to do that, don't you? Microdosing
speed. So you need to make sure you're doing
that. um yeah it wasn't planned for we didn't
have a breakup agreement about how that would
go but we fairly quickly realized that we needed
one when we needed it and and came up with one
which seemed to work you know i used to say like
the favorite part of my day with her was i would
always do it on my lunchtime um i ended up eating
boots meal deals Every single day because Boots
was right there. It was a five minute walk. I
would be in, I would be out and I could spend
the rest of my lunch break working through the
list so that it was ready for her when she woke
up. Yeah. And that was quite a big loss for me.
It was really weird. Big change in routine. Yeah.
I think people underestimate the impact that
having responsibility for anyone or anything
else has on you. like having other people that
you're responsible for or having pets that you're
responsible for anything where you're accountable
to someone other than yourself and you're needed
by someone other than yourself can sometimes
make it easier for you to cope with stress because
it takes the focus away from how you're feeling
and onto someone else yeah i've often felt like
my most functional self when i've got other people
that rely on me and if that suddenly stops like
ah yeah yeah i think there was an element element
of that but i still it was i think it was still
helpful to me so that it wasn't just kind of
fully no we're done with that and now we're straight
into being mates but yeah it was a it was it
was quite tricky and there was just a lot of
checking in as well you know because it almost
becomes reflexive yeah how you relate to each
other and how you talk to each other and stuff
like that um so there was a lot of kind of checking
in going oh was that all right kind of thing
i'm sorry i said that by you know we used to
have honorifics that we use for each other and
sometimes they would slip in yeah because it
becomes muscle memory when you're doing it and
it's like oh i'm sorry that was a mistake so
yeah i think just like any other ds dynamic thinking
about your off ramps ahead of time it's a horrible
thing to have to think about but probably a smart
thing to think about yeah i i think people should
talk about it at least a little bit in any kind
of relationship not just ds it's Like, yeah,
no one gets into a relationship intending to
break up, or at least not many people. But you
know that it happens to more relationships than
it doesn't. So at least having a little bit of
a conversation about what kind of exes you would
want to be to each other is probably a good idea.
I agree. So we've talked about some nice stuff
and we've talked about some challenging stuff.
And I'm very conscious that both of us have talked
about long distance or longish distance, in my
case, relationships that have ended. Yeah. So
do you think... Do you think it's worth it? Do
you think it can work, Mix? Yeah, I do. To both
of those. I think that relationship was definitely
worth it. It was a really good relationship.
I have made a really good friend out of it. Had
an amazing time. Amazing person. So I'm glad
I had the chance to have that relationship. I
think I am too clingy for that to be. a relationship
style for the genuinely long term yeah that makes
sense i think that would make it like unrealistic
for me unless like you mentioned with your relationship
there was that kind of clear plan that you would
be together it wasn't just something that you
talked about and go yes it would be great if
we were together actually that so i think i would
need that fairly early on to be able to navigate
another long distance relationship you know Like,
if we suddenly ended up in a situation where
we were going to be long distance, to feel fully
comfortable in that, I would need to go, OK,
but this is temporary. Yeah. I think it has changed
my definition of long distance, though. I think,
like, if you were... Like, if you were in London
and I was up here, I think I would probably be
all right with that. Having survived a three
-year, four -and -a -half -thousand mile. Like,
would you be OK with that long -term mix? No,
I think it would be easier for me to... Deal
with that. I see. Because that would make me
insane. Yeah. Not living with you would make
me insane. That's fair. I am not for the long
distance. I am 100%. I need to move in immediately.
That's more my place. And same. I think what
I mean is I would probably be more comfortable
with that as a situation than I would be with
an international long distance relationship.
That's not to say that it would be easy or straightforward
because I am fundamentally a clingy bitch. Yeah,
same. Yes, but I think is the answer to that
question. And just because it's not the right
fit for us doesn't mean that it can't work. I
think that's the thing. As we've said a few times,
we are both really clingy. We are both people
who like to spend a lot of time together. like
even for a couple who live together we spend
a lot of time together yeah we both work from
home we both tend to do all of our activities
together or the vast majority of them uh we spend
very little time apart where i know people who
aren't long distance you know married couples
living in the same house who live very separate
lives because that's their preference yeah and
i think there are people who because they like
that higher level of independence and they like
their own personal space and they like their
alone time where probably long distance does
feel really viable Particularly if it is time
limited, long distance like that, where you do
have a plan to eventually move to the same place.
But even really long term, if you like to be
alone more or you like to have your own life
independent from your partner a lot more, I think
that's where it becomes a lot more viable. It's
just you've listened to a podcast by two people
who really like the interdependence. Yes. What
some might call codependence, but what I call
interdependence and good vibes. Yes. Yeah. Yes,
we definitely have a perspective on long distance
relationships, don't we? Which is not the only
perspective to have. Yeah. But it is ours. Yes.
And it's our podcast, so we'll say what we like.
Yeah. Anyone who does long distance should be
put in prison. There you go. There's the episode
title. That's definitely not the episode title.
Clingy bitches might be. There you go. There
you go. I think we have said everything we were
going to say. I feel like I've forgotten to say
an awful lot, but we have been recording for
a very long time. We have. Let's wrap up there.
Bye. Bye. See you next time.