Goes Without Saying - loneliness, fomo, & solo dates: podmas #16

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

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Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hi, hi, hi. Welcome back to Podmo. Day 16, I'm hearing. Day 16. Do you want to open back the door? Yeah, go on. Let's dig back in. Okay, so we kind of got it wrong last time we did we did the wrong door we did the wrong door we didn't get it wrong

we just changed our mind we did change we just scribbled out the picture inside and just do something we changed it yeah look it's fluidity it's the fest it is the season to change your mind yeah okay so yeah what is this door then this one is FOMO solo dates yeah loneliness in the Christmas the podmas season I'm there okay how should we start I don't know what if you were in a rom-com what would you do who would your leading man be who's your leading man that's um I couldn't help but ask you though I know it's such a good question thank you but let's not do it again because we'll get no let's, let's not, let's not. How have you found this Christmas slash Podmas season so far?

Bit of a whirlwind. In terms of loneliness, FOMO, things like that. I'm not feeling loneliness, FOMO, but I am feeling like the days are rushing away from me. I think also because we're counting it in quite a, I mean, we're doing extreme way to honor each day yeah yeah it just it feels like it's been going so fast and i feel like i've got it's just the classic thing like i feel like okay end of the year i'm feeling it like i've got a lot i've got a lot going on like my eyes everywhere i'm like whoa i can't yeah how could i possibly keep't what about you yeah no I think I'm I've been quite determined this year to feel Christmassy which is quite nice and feel like like even um last night like I drove

I was driving in the dark and I could see all like the Christmas lights and stuff on people's houses and I was like oh my god like I think I just had the Christmas feeling yeah yeah like I'm definitely feeling that more and more but yeah no I don't think I felt particularly lonely or FOMO-y this year which is nice because I think my experience of Christmas has often been that thing of like people are sort of talking about like parties they've got going on it's like oh yeah I don't particularly have a load of stuff going on at the end of the year like that isn't really my my December my December is often quite like chilled and quite like homely rather than um oh I'm just rushing here there and everywhere

whereas this year I do feel like not at all that I'm rushing about really in any way but I'm quite happy with what my December Christmas period has looked like so far I feel like it's definitely the time where there's just an extra awareness of like what are you doing who are you spending your time with yeah like how is everyone else spending their time like i should be doing that and almost like the guilt that comes with i don't feel christmassy enough or like oh i don't have enough plans or like oh i haven't done that this year or yeah i think also like the thing that comes to mind for me is i feel like a lot of people see things they want to do or they see other people doing certain things obviously on social

media like rarely in real life i feel like people are seeing people do things like on instagram on tiktok whatever and they're like i want to do that fair enough but then the guilt that comes with like not doing it i don't have anyone to do it with i can't do that like that sort of thing i'm feeling like disappointed and almost like guilty and just generally not good enough for not being able to do certain things and it just shows the bollocks of life really it's like for not having a christmasy enough christmas it's like i was just thinking about like how it's just same problem new season it's like totally this didn't we discuss this in summer didn't we all feel this in summer like oh everyone's out doing stuff and like it looks everyone's having

good time and like why there's always something it's like winter really is there's always something with us well like christmas is just the summer of winter if you know what i mean no it really is when you were saying this the other week i was so fucking funny because you were like winter is just like summer but worse it feels like summer but just wintry, I was like, it was so fucking funny because you were like, winter is just like summer, but worse. It feels like summer, but just wintery. And it's like, no,

you're so right. But Christmas is specifically, has all the summer anxieties, but it's also in winter. It's also tied to like, it's really not good. Kind of love of your family and like acceptance at home

and like lots of kind of broad, like a sense of belonging. Triggering items. Yeah. Lots of items on the agenda which i'm not loving yeah yeah i'm feeling a little bit um kind of pulled out yeah it's a little bit upsetting i think yeah christmas is a weird time like also it's so it's so weird like it's just such a huge i don't know like for example we've made this whole thing this month about Christmas. And we're not the only ones making it a whole thing. Like, Jesus, we've all got these weird things.

We get a little chocolate every day. And we say, have you done your Christmas shopping? Like, everywhere I go, it's Christmas music. Like, it is so strange. Like, this weird kind of Christian world. Parallel universe opens up. Yeah. And it's Christian month.

like this weird kind of christian universe yeah it's christian month like it is just this huge month of of consumerism nonsense but god i'm so bought into it i love it love it i love it well i love the idea of it because it's so it's so the potential something it's really like scrappy old thing that you never should have got with that you were looking at the potential and actually like they were just kind of they were all right like i feel like the potential and the idea of christmas and like even just like the ending of a year is so um it's all the promises do you know what i mean like it's all like in the abstract well i think i think christmas the whole that yeah you're so right with the term abstract because that's kind of how i view christmas of like the fictional version of christmas is so much better than the reality of christmas like

there's this huge mythology around it yeah outside of like the actual religious mythology like then there is this huge mythology of like home alone too lost in new york yeah like we've got all this like iconography for it and music and food and like presence and feelings and like all these images that are associated with it. It's like it's way bigger than the actual experience of the day. Yeah. And the tangible experience of, as you say, one day. You can't experience it. No, because it's.

Yeah. Yeah. but then so no wonder then FOMO is kind of um rife at the time because it's like you're trying to access something that is to be honest inaccessible because it's built on a history that is so long of you consuming all of this um sort of Christmas content in your youth and like over the years that you're trying to then access this feeling and it's like well you can't really or like you're trying to access um almost the scenes from the Christmas things about the Christmas dinner it's like realistically a Christmas dinner my experience with them anyway you're trying to access um almost the scenes from the christmas things about the christmas dinner it's like realistically a christmas dinner yeah my experience with them anyway is pretty stressful

oh wow i'm getting hungry just thinking about it oh i hate roast i could eat them honestly i'm gonna i'm gonna gorge myself i'm gonna henry the eighth myself i'm gonna gorge myself but on something else i think i just love oh my god i can't wait i think i'm gonna do lots of sweet things this year like i'm gonna do like a vegan cheese board from my favorite cheese brand honestly tasty big big big fan over here not sponsored and i think i'm also gonna bake quite a lot of like apple strudel like loads of sweet things and just be sweeting out all day okay yeah that's oh god that sounds good because roast dinner's not for me i think as well the feeling it makes me feel like kind of in

on the like fomo and like solo dates angle i feel like it makes the way that it makes me feel is almost the idea that what i'm doing is wrong everyone else is doing it right and i'm doing it wrong like and i think that is why the kind of concept of solo dates or just the idea of like just spending time in your own company at a time where you're being told so much that you need to spend time with people that you love and like you need to have a big group around you and needs to be very social and all of these things. The idea of spending time with yourself really just directly opposes that. And i think it can be easy when you're doing something on your own it's why we have this podcast together doing something on your own you don't have the inherent validation that

comes with another human being backing it up like yeah we are comfortable to do this because you've got another human being saying yeah i'll do that i'll put my name to that yeah fuck it like how embarrassing can it be when there's two of us it's like well you can't come at seffy like okay so i'm fine like if it can't be that bad do you know what i mean if there's two of us doing it whereas if it was just wing it would be doesn't i mean it just would never happen it would just never happen and i feel like i carry that through kind of everything else in my life like if i'm doing something on my own it just inherently doesn't feel as valid as if i was doing it with someone else and i feel like that's an important that's an important like workaround in my mind of like

just because i'm doing it on my own it's still valid it's still fun it's still um a good thing to do like it's not wrong it's not like less worthy it is weird that as like as a society we've all kind of agreed that the only way you can spend time on your own on earth yeah just like the only way that you should be on your own is in kind of down time or like in time to kind of um rejuvenate for then social experiences it's like the idea of just actually enjoying potentially actively having fun yeah being like i or like it's okay to do kind of chores on your own or run errands or whatever these fucking phrases are or i'm just relaxing i'm just having a bath whatever those are all seen as like okay those kind of okay activities for alone time but the second you start reaching into like i'm gonna go for dinner on my own

i'm gonna go to the best place in the world cinema on my own i'm gonna go to a museum on my own i'm gonna go shopping whatever all of this stuff that is potentially seen as like or i'm gonna go to a cafe on my own like all these things are seen as like social activities as soon as you're doing them on your own suddenly there's an idea of like oh it would be better if there was someone else with me though and actually the truth is often that it wouldn't not necessarily it would just be different could be better it could be worse it's just different yeah but often it isn't like there are so many times when it's like oh or some of my favorite experiences of like um some of those activities have been on my own and some of my favorites have been with people

like it just i always say the best company should always be your own company if you're in your own company you're not in bad company but for some reason we think it's like we think it's like my own company is bad company it's definitely company i'm a fun girl i can have fun it's like if i if i'm on my own then i need to just like put the tv on distract distract distract i'm not here i'm actually with i'm with my characters i'm not with me like it's like what is this and the idea of also like my podcast yeah and we're so grateful thank you so much thank you i honestly want to never say no thank you thank you thank you we do it on our own without you i'm never walking about podcasts like even the idea of like it you're taking it's kind of a statement of like you're dedicating time to yourself like you're solely being selfish and like indulgent in that moment of like i'm gonna sit down watch my

favorite film i'm gonna get all my favorite snacks and i'm gonna do all my favorite and i'm gonna sit and i'm gonna enjoy it and blah blah blah yeah it's almost like well how dare you how dare you go to all that effort for yourself and i feel like there's the expectation that if you're doing something on your own it needs to be low effort low um impact low expectations like how dare you give yourself a nice time it you almost need to just like 100 you just by accident spending time with yourself you can't intentionally sit down and create like a moment for yourself like you're not allowed to do that you're not allowed to give yourself that time or be like okay i want to um i'm gonna make a christmas um something like a little christmas cake and it's like well how dare you do that on your own i think in terms of food there's a huge thing of um i was actually just thinking as you were saying that in the office

the u.s okay pam creates a board where they all put a new year's resolution on it we should possibly do our new year's resolution soon that'll be quite nice and fun we'll do them on the pod yeah we'll share the fun and andy's one is he writes learn to cook for one which he later changes to meet a loose woman if you god you're so good at the office and i remember there being like a real like he's sad about it he's like oh i'm having to cook for one and i was like oh god i didn't realize that was like seen as a sad thing because i think that's such a flaw in our society i mean come on we have to eat to live guys we're so fucked up three times a day we're literally

not allowed to do it on our own you're not allowed you have to be with someone at all times i remember even being in school like walking to a different lesson it's like don't don't walk don't do that oh god no it's so embarrassing it's so embarrassing please come with me please come with me it's mental it's insane it's insanity it is actually insanity and it's so like fundamentally you probably came to this earth on your own unless you're a twin which shout out does your twin also listen would love to know wow how are they um hope they're well um you are the superior twin as we all know just say that just elephant in the room you're obviously the favorite um i know someone that's listening that's a triplet you do and i do too but through you

yeah um hello um so formal so we get quite shy i know it's literally my sister yeah unless you came here on your like unless you came here with a twin or with somebody else somebody followed you to this life you probably came here on your own and probably unless you go in a crazy way you're gonna go on your own as well you're gonna die on your own yeah and not in a sad you're gonna die alone guys sort of way but just like if you don't have literally your own flesh and bone and skin of your body if you have not yourself what have you got you're empty there's nothing like we have if we literally can't have our own backs that is so embarrassing coal coal coal you get coal coal for you honestly naughty list but also that is the i think that's the trick that that's

how they almost think like that's like oh i just i get everything else acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend nature i've got a gay rooster named francois is so gay these rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson, and this is A Field Guide to Gay Animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world.

The animal kingdom is queer, and we are a part. Find A Field Guide to Gay Animals on Spotify, Apple apple or wherever you get your podcasts a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com and then maybe that feeling will come of like oh and then i kind of have earned my self-love or whatever like if i get the good grades if i get that if i'm pretty enough whatever the fucking shit is when i get that then i'll just naturally have the feeling of loving myself

that will just come right question mark answer no we've all been there no no no it literally doesn't though like if every single marker that i've hit in my life and i hear it from everyone else every marker they've hit in their life does the feeling come does the feeling come no no no no no coal coal coal for everyone coal all around can we get some coal for the table please are you gonna eat table of 10 just some coal is anyone gonna have that last bit of coal for everybody how silly of course it doesn't come at the end you you don't have anything like this is why you hear kind of actors and celebrities and all the people that have won awards and have the mansions and all of the money and all of the stuff they literally sit there and say i didn't i've had it all i was sitting in my mansion i was miserable

they all say yeah which sounds nice honestly i'd rather be miserable in a mansion but still also i'd rather not be fucking miserable exactly you're better off just actually focusing yeah you can have all of the stuff but like if you don't have that connection with yourself you don't know you you know it's like an end of podcast it's like that's the crap you don't have anything nothing end of like you're in the void you don't have anything there's nothing more i think i've been realizing that so much with my whole thing at the moment of like feeling emotions which sounds so fucking weird but it's like actually realizing and tuning in and being like right okay i'm feeling happy i'm feeling angry rather than just like moving through my day

but when now that i've actually been noticing it's like oh my god i feel happy and that gives me i can feel it like in my stomach feeling of happiness blah blah it's like so i've just been kind of passively experiencing my life but not really ever noticing any of these feelings really it's almost like actually to take the time be like i feel angry i feel anxious but whenever they come and go all these feelings that they do if you can't tune in with that really you have nothing you have nothing no because that's surely your lived experience experience yeah lovely christmas time stunning there we go that was so festive oh wow spend time you know do something nice for yourselves i would love to know yeah what's one nice thing you're gonna do for yourself today

oh i always say hot chocolate which is so boring i know it comes to mind but it does come to mind because i see my mug right in front of me and i'm like oh just say hot chocolate and get out of it it's like a real answer although i probably will uh what else could i do i might do my nails i do need to do them oh that's nice yeah what are you gonna do i don't know yet i haven't even thought about it but i do love doing my nails this year has been the year of doing my own nails and like not going to get my nails done i'm not gonna lie i'm pretty good at it yeah you are you are thank you do you sit down and watch like a movie whilst you're doing it like make it all nice uh sometimes sometimes

yeah i'll just it just depends sometimes it's like oh my god i'm leaving the house in 15 minutes quickly do my nails but yeah sometimes it's i almost like thinking about this kind of embarrassing actually but i feel like i take the colors quite seriously like i really like absolutely i'm like what's this who am i right now and like what does that mean for me to choose um whatever color i'm gonna so god knows what i'll choose maybe it's interesting considering the colors you've been choosing you've been choosing brown yeah dark kind of shimmery chocolate brown you'd be doing christmasy christmas actually do you think well the brown isn't christmas but you've been doing it's wintery yeah you yeah you had um it's quite a rich um dark you had like a dark

thing like a gray yeah i do i've been liking a bit of a shimmery kind of bejeweled moment it just is nice it means i don't go and fucking spend 50 quid every month on nails that i don't even like and i hate the experience of sitting there getting my nails done for an hour with somebody this is why i can't do it anymore it's like i have bitten stubs but i'm like i wonder if um kind of social media has done that to my brain where like i can't just sit there for an hour with this is why i can't do it anymore it's like i have bitten stubs but i'm like i wonder if um kind of social media has done that to my brain where like i can't just sit there for an hour but it kills me it is but they're always the most lit rooms they're white and everyone stares at you like you killed their son when you walk in it's so embarrassing they really do and also just i encounter some horrible people sometimes in um it's unpleasant they can be a

bit weird and also i just feel out of place everyone's saying every single time i go in one where they're literally like stop biting your nails they're disgusting that's annoying they're just like they're so short i hate that though when it's like i'm coming here for a service and i'm leaving feeling so embarrassed and ashamed i just feel like everyone's looking at me yeah oh you bite your nails you shouldn't do that i hate that when you're getting your hair done and it's like god your hair's like really dry it's like oh thanks for that yeah thanks thanks so amazing do you know what i mean it's like yeah now i feel good yeah now i'm definitely gonna come back did no one teach

anything about this at business school business school michael's got about business don't insult your customers honestly it's horrible crying in the chair i'm like yeah that's perfect thank you do you like it i love it i hate it i love it oh i love it thank you so much thank you literally crying i had such a bad thing once at a hairdresser's this was actually awful it wasn't like i was i don't know i think i'm gonna say 14 15 young young young this is like my local hairdresser's i had one hairdresser who i would always go to and he well oh i know this story do you yeah i was dying from quite an early age like i always just had a bit of problem with my hair color which is literally

the hair color is now it's just like basic brown but for some reason i wanted it either light or dark i just didn't like it um and the guy dyed it for me and it was black like it was jet black hair um and i did the classic i love it thank you so much thank you so much I absolutely adore it thank you here's like 70 pounds for my hard-earned cash thank you so so much I feel so good about this exchange yeah perfect experience I'll be back in a few weeks or in a few months and I left obviously in tears oh god and I and my mum had like friends over. And I was sitting in my room crying, being like, I hate this. I've got to go to school tomorrow. And I hate it.

I look so ugly. Classic. All this stuff's going around in my head. And my mum's friend came in, who has actually recently since died. So rest in peace. She's an absolute queen. Yeah. She came into my room and she was like, she's actually my godmother as well.

Oh. Rest in peace. Rest in peace. She came in and she was like um she's actually my godmother as well oh rest in peace um she came in and she was like what's wrong what's wrong and i was like my hair is so dark i hate it it's so ugly and she was like literally looks the exact same sort of classic situation yeah that's good to hear but i was in tears and tears and tears so my i got my mum to phone up the hairdressers and she was like can we make another appointment for tomorrow like can she just have another appointment tomorrow and they're like oh yeah do you want it with the same guy and she was and i was at the other and being like no please not him like he can't know that i hate it and she was like no no can she not have the guy

just like a different guy to fix it sort of thing like i was crying she was gonna pay for me very nice very nice of her yeah um because i was like i'm not going to school you were traumatized yeah no yeah you were causing a problem i was causing an issue in the issues were happening yeah yeah um i went back the next day i was sitting there who walked down the stairs the guy the guy who works there you've come to his workplace i have i was like hi and he was like yeah i'm gonna do it because i don't like anyone else touching my work and he was like it is brown it's brown it was absolutely the most jet black thing maybe technically it was brown it was the most jet black thing i've ever seen god i'm in pain and then a few years he did my hair again i think he might managed to marginally lighten it now that i know about hair god knows how he did

that yeah um poor guy but yeah he did his work the few weeks part of a few years past sorry i'm working in a pub in town he comes in orders some jaeger bombs from me cut to you've got dark hair i've got dark hair yeah he's like oh you look good with that hair color yeah nice and dark and he was like i poured some jaeger bombs for him and his friend and he said can everybody just give everybody at the bar just give poppy a round of applause she's doing such a good job it was so evil slow clap and him his friends all slow clap me i was 18 years old shaking in this bar i was terrified he hated me for years since this thing it was horrific jesus yeah no yeah also bear in mind i was i was

a child at this point um when the dying issue happened but i mean look doing hair is they they've seen some things they have they have and also it must be annoying someone coming in saying can you you've dyed it the wrong color i Beyond annoying. I mean, it's insulting. The colour you asked. It's insulting. It's like, look, I know what I'm doing. 14-year-old girl, I think I know better than you as a professional hairdresser. But look, you know, money doesn't lie.

You came back and paid the next day, I hear. We did, we did. But which is very nice of my mum to do that. I'm sure that was a bit of a scene at the house on that day. I'm sure I definitely paid the price i'm sure you did yeah maybe you still are in a way um but yeah god well how did we get there i wonder i don't know that's the story of me dying my hair yeah and um if you don't hear from us assume we slayed too goddamn hard. Wendy's Small Frosty is the ultimate summer refreshment. And not because it's cool and creamy and made with fresh Canadian dairy.

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