Laurel: Can I tell you about the dream that I had

Daniel: there's

Laurel: really not a lot to it.

Laurel: go for it. You know, Tim Hortons, the like Canadian, like coffee chain.

Laurel: There's some in Buffalo. There's probably some another like Canadian border. Towns or whatever, but um,

Daniel: Rugged Canadian border towns.

Laurel: Okay, I don't know if Tim Horton is an actual guy or not. Just like I don't know if if Dunkin Donut is an actual guy or not. But in my dream Tim Horton was definitely a man, small in stature, gray hair, white, like middle aged, wore like kind of a cute plaid suit.

Laurel: I know this because in my dream, there was like a whole event, and I was just watching it like televised. Tim Horton was just in like an office chair, like a rolly office chair, on the shoreline that like, visually I understood to be in the UK, like a rocky,

Overcast shore. And they just pushed him out onto a very narrow rock peninsula in an office chair.

But the rock peninsula was really unstable. It just crumbled and Tim just fell into the ocean. Okay, and

Talkin bout love and sex and power, All our polyamateur hour.

I woke myself up laughing. And I like wanted to tell Daniel right away. But I was like, I'm not going to wake him up. And I just laughed to myself, like in the middle of the night.

Daniel: Maybe it's just not funny to me because I don't know who Tim Horton is. We

Nichole: also don't know that Tim Horton is a person.

Daniel: And we definitely don't know if Dunkin Donuts, I hope that there's somebody out there with the name of Dunkin Dunkin Donuts. Yes.

Nichole: So it was a, it

was an annual event, like the groundhog like, like if he falls into the ocean, there's only three more weeks of winter.

Daniel: I was thinking it was like a funereal thing. Like when you're pushing off into an ice floe. Yeah. Like when Vikings put you in a boat. And just send you out to sea. In

the office chair. In the office chair. And I think people were like, Oh shit. Oops. This didn't go as planned.

What was the plan? I don't know what the plan was. I'll have to go back to sleep to find out. I

Nichole: mean, typically people telling you their dreams is like super boring, but that is fucking, because it's that dream logic, right? It's like

in your dream, that he's in the UK, you know, this is a thing that is a televised event that happens.

Yeah. You're missing the gaps of like, why is this happening?

Nichole: To what end? This is

Daniel: a fantasy news cycle, man. I wish that was what was on the news when I turned it on these days. Yeah,

no shit. That'd be nice. All right. Canada, please help us and go push Tim Horton on a rocky coast peninsula.

Daniel: Are you doing this just to reach out to our new Canadian listeners?

Nichole: Do we have new Canadian listeners?

Daniel: Yes. Uh, Ever since we did the uh, the ad on Greatest Jen Greatest Jen, we've had

Clip: Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet! Engage!

Daniel: a few Canadians that just, that just appeared out

Laurel: of nowhere. Canadian Trekkies.

Daniel: Canadian polytrekkies.

Daniel: It's my favorite, very precise demographic.

Laurel: Amazing! Please reach out to us, polytrekkies, so we can interview you for uh, my own poly Idaho. Oh, I did want to make my heartfelt plea for people to actually leave like written out reviews on Apple podcasts. Cause, I think, I've been told that helps them generate searches. So if people are like, I'm searching for a polyamory podcast or relationship podcast or funny jews uh, We need to

Daniel: put that in our SEO, that's not really in there.

Laurel: So, uh Yeah, if you write a review and say what you liked about the podcast or what was helpful or funny or whatever,

Daniel: Or Jewish helpful, funny, Jewish.

Laurel: Welcome to Polyamateur Hour. I'm Laurel. I'm Daniel.

I'm Nicole.

Laurel: Ugh, I should have layered, because I'm just wearing a sweatshirt, but now I'm warm.

Nichole: Do you want to borrow something?

Laurel: I think I'll be okay. I'm just having like trouble temperature regulating. Can we have a segment about perimenopause? Because I'm obsessed right now.

Daniel: Is he related to Dunkin Donuts?

Possibly. Is that my drag name? Ooh. Oh, that would be, that's a good one. Ooh, for all you drag kings out there. Perry Menopause that, oh

Daniel: fuck. I wanna host a drag show just to get this on stage. Yeah. the drag king. No, women are happy to see .

Aw

Laurel: We're, what are we starting with today?

Daniel: I think we're going out of our usual established order. And hitting up a little, is this poly?

song: Is this Polly or not?

Nichole: for Is This Polly Today, we are going to be reviewing Challengers, the 2023 movie starring Zendaya and a couple of other jokers. And asking the question, is this Polly?

Daniel: I'm really glad that you're like Zendaya and a couple of other jokers because I think that This movie made me think of those cocktails, which are really just all about one central spirit, you know, like a uh, um, a Bobby Burns is really just like a vehicle for Scotch.

Daniel: Just a couple other ingredients to hold up the Scotch.

Nichole: Like celery is just a delivery mechanism for ranch dressing.

Daniel: Exactly. And I think the plot of this movie, peanut butter,

Nichole: ranch dressing,

Daniel: peanut butter, Oh, is this our uh, Pauly face off segment?

Yeah.

Daniel: So this struck me as a Zendaya cocktail with just some, some garnish of dicks.

Daniel: There

Nichole: were dicks in it. Yeah. Not any of the main dicks, just some background dicks. Yeah.

Laurel: Just a lot of background dick.

Nichole: All right. So this movie starts, we open on a small town challenger tournament for tennis.

Nichole: So it's a small town small time tournament. There's these two guys competing and you Find out through a flashback of 13 years ago that These two guys grew up together went to boarding school.

Nichole: They're both tennis aficionados, they're not pros.

Daniel: And they jerked off together which is a very special and specific type of friendship.

Nichole: This is why I'm doing this because this is, you jumped ahead 900 steps. Okay. I

Daniel: think it's important to the character development.

Nichole: It is. All right. So these two guys.

Nichole: We know that they grew up together. They play doubles with tennis and then they compete against each other sometimes, and they're at a part of a tournament where there is a rising star in the ranks and her name is Tashi and she is already sponsored by Adidas and she is incredibly hot and both boys, cause they're boys at that point, are like, oh my God, instant boner. boing, boing, boing, boing, boing,

Nichole: Boing.

Clip: at that fucking backhand. Team

Clip: Love.

Nichole: Tashi is played by Zendaya. This is a vehicle for Zendaya.

Daniel: What Daniel? I'm just gonna come back to the jerking off together thing.

Nichole: I'm almost there. I'm almost there.

Daniel: Cause I want, I think even before that's made as an announcement, there's all sorts of homoerotic stuff in the scenes that you've described already, right?

Daniel: Like, when. They win their doubles match against two other unseen doubles. They like almost hump each other on the fricking clay. Like one of them just straddles the other. And when they're watching Zendaya and they're like, Oh, she's so hot Or her backhand is so strong, one of them grabs the other's thigh.

Daniel: And the camera is really salacious about it. It's like, ooh, boy hand on boy thigh.

Laurel: Yeah. Also, I'd like to point out like Daniel's like on the clay. They humped each other on the clay. Like what the fuck do you know about tennis now? Apparently more than we do. I know what their courts are made out of.

Nichole: So Zendaya. zendaya and her family are hosting a party at this giant fuck off house. Celebrating her one win, two sponsorship by Adidas, they decide to go and they awkwardly chat her up a couple of times and eventually invite her back to their really shitty motel room where they are staying for the duration of the tournament.

Nichole: So they're talking before she gets there.

Clip: She's not coming. She might. You made it sound like we wanted to fuck her in here. What, you think that's beneath you? I think it's beneath her. What if she chooses you? You don't feel comfortable sending me away? She's not coming, Patrick.

Nichole: And then there's a knock on the door. And who is it? Zendaya. She walks in, she's wearing the tiniest shorts I've ever seen on a person.

Nichole: In public. And they're all drinking beer. Like they do. It took me instantly back to like dorm room parties. Yeah. Yeah. And. I could taste the cheap beer and I could also taste the forcing of a laugh and forcing of interaction and like, this isn't awkward, this isn't awkward, I'm not being awkward.

Daniel: There were no laughs in this movie that were not forced.

Laurel: Yes. Yeah, Yeah. It's interesting because like the beginning of it where they're like coming on to Zendaya and like going to that party and have her in the motel room. This could be in like a teen movie like a funny teen movie but it's in this movie and it is very like tense

Laurel: it did feel

Nichole: real Yeah, like I think a situation like this wouldn't necessarily go immediately into Sexy times. Yeah, it would be all this build up that yeah awkward build up. So Eventually Zendaya asks, have you two ever hooked up? And they tell the story of Daniel's favorite part of the movie,

Clip: I taught Art how to jerk off.

Clip: Okay, Patrick, Patrick was an early bloomer, okay? And I think that I was on time. And, one time, when we were twelve, he thought I was asleep, and he was, you know, Jerking off. Jerking off, yeah. And I asked him, what are you doing? And he told me, he's jerking off. He asked me if I had ever done it before, and I told him no.

Clip: And, so, he just, he showed me how, you know,

Clip: You mean he showed you how? No, I mean, I mean, he did it on his bed. I did it on my bed.

Daniel: I think that this movie, Is a love story between the two men more than it is a love story between Anybody and anybody else and it's not a love story at all But if it is any kind of love story, I think it's the two dudes for reasons that we'll kind of get to

Yeah,

Daniel: but also, at this scene. I wanted to pause for just a second and talk about the preview for the film I feel like like I read the dating profile that was like saying that it was Polly or was in an open relationship.

Daniel: And then I like go on a date with the movie and it's like, not at all. Cause it just edited this scene with the threesome together with other scenes from the movie to make it seem like it was all about this like some kind of triad or some type of. more intimate or active love triangle than it actually was.

Daniel: Yeah. So I don't know. I just wanted to declare how I felt cheated by the system.

Nichole: So spoiler alert.

Nichole: So they start an awkward threesome. And eventually the two dudes are making out with each other's and Dia looks very pleased with herself. And she's like,

Clip: I'm going to bed.

Clip: What about your number? I told you I'm not a homewrecker. Please? Um, okay, uh, I will be watching your match tomorrow. Whoever wins can have my number. Alright. You can beat him, you know that? You should beat him, actually. Are you saying you want me to? I'm saying you're not gonna get my number if you don't.

Clip: But what do you want? I want to watch some good fucking tennis. Goodnight.

Nichole: Patrick wins the match.

Nichole: Oh, I don't know if I shared the men's names. They have names, Patrick and Art. Yeah. So Patrick wins the tournament, gets her phone number. This movie jumps around time.

Laurel: Did you get confused? I got confused multiple times about when we were.

Nichole: I didn't because they did the thing that they do in every movie.

Nichole: And TV show to signify the passage of time, the woman's hair changes. Yes, that is true.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: With white women in the past, they have bangs and then in the future or in the present moment, they don't because they learned better. Yeah. Zendaya's hair just gets shorter over the years.

Nichole: Zendaya's hair just gets shorter.

Daniel: And then you knew what was the latest timeframe. In any of these because Patrick swag character just looks feral.

Daniel: Yeah.

Nichole: Yes. So the hair was doing a lot for this movie. So the movie jumps around in time and you, uh, Come to find out that Zendaya and Art are married and they have a child together. I'm sorry, Tashi and Art are married and they have a child together.

Daniel: we're going to need a Zendaya gram.

Nichole: So, I throughout the course of the movie, they are, their relationships are circling each other, right? Art and Zendaya, God damn it. Art and Toshi end up at Stanford together.

Daniel: There's no point. In trying to censor your natural Zendaya. Just let it go. She is Zendaya. The movie is about Zendaya. She can't be

Laurel: contained by any character.

Daniel: Yeah,

Nichole: you're right. So Art and Zendaya end up at Stanford together and Patrick is coming to visit Zendaya during one of her tournaments.

Nichole: They get in a huge fight. He doesn't show up at the tournament. She. lands on her foot wrong and like totally busts her knee. This dream of going pro for her is done. Yeah. And so over the course of her knee injury, graduating college, she and Patrick break up, presumably because he wasn't there for her.

Nichole: And Zendaya and Art end up getting together and Zendaya becomes his coach.

And

Nichole: then they end up married, and they have a kid, and he is going pro. And they are making a lot of money, they are getting sponsorships from cars and shit, fast forward to the future. Art is not doing well in tennis. And so Zendaya decides he's going to compete in this tiny podunk tournament.

Nichole: And who else is competing? Patrick. Patrick is down on his luck too. He is not doing well. And he's sleeping in his car. And Art and Zendaya have a fight, basically.

Nichole: Where art says, I need you to say that you won't leave me if I don't win this tournament tomorrow.

Daniel: And she's like, I'm going to leave you. If you don't win this tournament tomorrow,

Nichole: is that

Daniel: helpful?

Clip: Tell me it doesn't matter if I win tomorrow.

Clip: You tell me if it matters. You're the professional competitor, Art.

Clip: You can beat him. What if I don't?

Clip: If you don't win tomorrow, I'll leave you.

Clip: I'm serious. Does that help you?

Nichole: Yeah. And so he's curled up in her lap saying like, just be with me until I fall asleep.

Daniel: I feel like there's a lot of sub and dom dynamics that are purposefully teased out in this film where that like, um, she's kind of a switch and she is a top for art and a bottom for

Laurel: I don't know that she's a bottom for him. I think that they are, I think they're in a power struggle. Cause that's what their whole fight is about, basically.

Laurel: Yeah. That she wants to assert her dominance over him and he won't let her. And he's just like, fuck you, I'm your peer, stop talking to me like I'm not.

Nichole: Patrick says that.

Laurel: Patrick says that, yeah, in their fight.

Nichole: Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah. But Art will, and he also says that, he's like, Art will be your bitch,

Daniel: Yeah.

Nichole: So Art falls asleep, Zendaya texts Patrick, he picks her up in his home car and drives her to an abandoned parking lot. There's a storm going and she basically asks him like, throw the match tomorrow. And they are fighting and the wind is going and it's so crazy. And they start making out and then they fuck in the backseat of the car.

Nichole: They don't do a Titanic thing where they put the hand on the window, but it was there.

Daniel: These people are so hot and intense that they affect the weather. You know, when, When um, You know, Republicans say the coastal elites, you know, are uh, are, are affecting the weather. It's mainly with Zendaya.

Nichole: Yeah. So he basically agrees to throw the match.

Nichole: Fast forward to the present. It's down to the final round or whatever it's called. Set?

Daniel: Yeah. Set. There's sets and games. I think games are the elements of sets. Oh, sure. So it's the opposite of what you think it would be.

Laurel: Okay. There's six games in a set or six sets in a game.

Nichole: I don't

Laurel: care. Moving on.

Laurel: They're playing the last little ping pong.

Nichole: The last round of ping pong.

Daniel: Imagine if this whole The whole movie was exactly the same, but it was about table tennis.

I want to make that movie. Oh my God, that's such a good idea. Yeah, remake Challengers, but it's table tennis, but it's actually poly. And it's called Challenges.

I love it.

Nichole: Okay. So it's the final set. Let's go back very briefly to when Patrick won the tournament 13 years ago and got Zendaya's phone number. Art challenged him did you sleep with her? And then Art says to Patrick, show me in your serve, whether you slept with her.

Nichole: And Patrick goes, you know, when you serve, you put the ball right up to the center of your racket and they use that as a code for, yes, I did sleep with her.

Laurel: It's funny because there are a lot of things that are like, very subtly well done about this film. And then there are a few things that are just like, so obviously coming down the pipeline. Yes. That it's like, boring.

Nichole: Yes. In this final match point set, whatever, Patrick puts the ball in the center of the racket before he serves.

Nichole: And Art knows. You fucked my wife.

Daniel: And it feels like this goes on for so long. Like they do the same scene over and over again. And because we don't understand how tennis works. Yeah. Yeah. Like, We're like, okay, why are they doing this scene again?

Daniel: And why isn't he putting the ball on the hole? We know he's gonna put the ball on the hole because he thinks about it.

Laurel: And it's all these slow push ins of super sweaty, just dripping water men.

Laurel: Yes. And it's, yeah, it's so slow. And intense music. And intense music, and it happens three times.

Nichole: Yes.

Daniel: There's a moment, too, where they look at each other And they smile, like both of them smile, like they're like old times.

Daniel: It's like old times when we were jerking each other off, which is these Which

they never did. They didn't

Daniel: jerk each other off. They Patrick

Laurel: showed Art how to jerk off by demonstrating.

Daniel: You have your fanfic, I have mine.

Nichole: So , there's a final moment where they're like both very close to the net. And Art leaps up to strike the ball down and somehow Patrick lets go of his racket and he catches Art in his arms. And Zendaya from the stands goes, Come on! Yeah. No,

Daniel: She's stoked. It's like the first game. She has the same. Yell, come on, as when they saw her win that first game at the beginning of the movie.

Daniel: Right.

Nichole: So they embrace, and they're laughing, and that is the end of the movie. One important note. Trent Reznor did the music for this movie. Oh.

Oh.

Nichole: And, Every scene where you would think there would be swelling music, were these driving beats drilled into my skull and made me pay attention.

Nichole: And I was like, fuck off. I can do it myself. I can consume a movie.

Nichole: Okay, I've been talking a lot. Let's talk about like, is this Pauly? Yeah.

Daniel: I had some feelings leading up to the end of this movie where I was like, this is the ultimate anti Pauly movie. This is A movie that is about monogamy as a competitive sport, where it is a zero sum game, actually , zero sum game means that like one person wins and the other person always loses, but I think it's more like everybody fucking loses in this particular competitive game ,

Daniel: so that was my feeling for like 90. 99 percent of the film. I was like, okay, I'm watching a a toxic monogamy fest, a la Bachelor in Paradise.

Daniel: Then, the last scene did make me rethink things. where they ended up in each other's arms. And I was like, Oh, and Zendaya cheered. And I was like, have you ever heard the term synecdoche?

Daniel: which means like one piece of a piece of art that represents the whole piece of the piece of art. Is the scene with Zendaya, getting them to make out in the hotel room and then being stoked about it,

a

Daniel: synecdoche?

Daniel: Because then at the end, That's what she's celebrating.

Laurel: Okay. Cause while you're saying this, I realized I think it's when she's talking to them at the beach at her party.

Laurel: She makes a metaphor. She talks about tennis, but it's a metaphor for the entire film, where she's like,

Clip: you don't know what tennis is. What is it? It's a relationship.

Clip: Is that what you and Ana Mila had today? It is, actually. For about 15 seconds there, we were actually playing tennis. And we understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It was like we were in love.

Laurel: Yeah, like in this moment, like when we're playing together Yes, like that is what's happening and that's mirrored through the whole movie where in tennis matches Zendaya's attending and watching and there's, they cut to these scenes where everybody in the audience is following the ball, like all of their heads are moving back and forth and Zendaya is never doing that.

Laurel: She's never watching the volley. Because she's There's no there's no relationship there. And then when it comes to this very final scene where they actually, where Patrick and Art actually get into relation again and start playing good tennis, , her head moves. Like you see that, like she starts following it.

Laurel: this is my entire experience of watching this movie where I was like, Annoyed and bored just like Zendaya is in her entire life through this movie. I'm annoyed and bored Because no one is actually in relation with each other they're all just competing and being ego brats and It's so annoying until yeah, like you're saying at that last scene everything changes now I'm like, I'm actually like getting like chills thinking about that last scene.

Laurel: But I'm like, I hated this movie for like two and a half hours.

Nichole: Fuck

Laurel: you.

Nichole: It's not even, it's like the final moments of the final scene.

Laurel: Yeah, it's not even the whole scene.

Nichole: I just don't understand. So my only touch point with this movie before watching it was listening to an episode of the polyester podcast which is With the two editors of the polyester zine. So it has nothing to do with polyamory.

Daniel: It's all about fabrics.

Nichole: It's about culture. They're both from the UK. It is interesting. And they took the phenomenon of challengers and equated it to the rise in popularity of polyamory and so in my head, I had like, people must think that this is a polyamorous movie

Nichole: but there's nothing polyamorous about it.

Daniel: I think what you observed on polyester is more about people talking about trailers and synopses of. pieces of art in place of the actual thing itself because the trailer was Pauly.

Daniel: So it's like the rise in popularity of the trailer of challengers.

Yeah,

Laurel: there was nothing yeah, it was yeah, it was yeah toxic It was like specifically toxic monogamy through and through.

Daniel: Does the last 15 seconds of the movie change that at all as a verdict?

Nichole: Not unless there's a Challengers 2.

Daniel: Electric boogaloo.

Nichole: Cause truly, like what we have is what is encapsulated in the movie from beginning to end. That's the only information that we have. And it's the only story that we have.

Nichole: We're left to, I think, speculate on what that next day looks like. Personally, I would think this would 24 hours and then go back to this. competition thing that they're doing.

Nichole: So verdict?

Daniel: No, it's not Polly, but I think we should review the sequel.

Laurel: Yeah. I can't wait for challengers too.

Nichole: Yeah, no, this is not Polly

Daniel: laurel?

Laurel: bad movie. All right, shall we move along?

Daniel: Sure thing.

Laurel: Oh, yeah to um, ask the amateurs.

song: If you got questions, don't demur, it's time to ask the amateurs.

Nichole: Alright, what's our question? Alright,

Laurel: our question.

Laurel: My question is about comparisons. Humans tend to compare ourselves to other people a lot or compare our relationships to our friends or parents relationships. I feel like this could get magnified or really difficult in non monogamy. How has this played out in polyamory for you all?

Laurel: Do you find that you compare yourself to your metamores often? Do you compare your partners or relationships to your other partners in relationships?

Nichole: Oh, no.

Laurel: Oh, gee.

Laurel: normie corner for the word metamor?

Daniel: Let's do it!

song: I said, all the cool kids with the real sick perm they go to Nor corner. Nor corner. That's where we define our basic glossary of terms down at nor corner nor corner.

Laurel: Metamore is the love of my love. Get it? Meta Amore.

Laurel: My partner's other partner.

Daniel: Mean, it makes it sound like it's the partner beyond your partner, the partner within your partner, the partner that encompasses your partner.

It's like a matryoshka doll.

Daniel: So for instance, Nicole and Laurel are metamors because they're both in relation to me.

Laurel: Yes, correct you are correct. Thank you for participating

Laurel: Comparisons. I, like, whenever I talk about comparisons, I always think of that old adage, comparison is the thief of joy. Have you heard that? Yes. Which like, I use that as a, if I start doubting my own partnership competencies because something in my anxiety brain tells me that my partner is more compatible with my metamor.

Laurel: And then I have to remind myself, Comparison is the thief of joy. And like, it's like, like, my partner loves me because I am me, not because I am their other partner.

Nichole: So to answer the first part of the question, it definitely exists.

Laurel: Totally. Yeah.

Nichole: Polyamory.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. And I also think that there's ways like, like that's how it comes up negatively. Like in, in terms of like jealousy or insecurities, I do think there are like positive cases for it too. Or like growth moments I think it is.

Laurel: Inevitable, like making some comparisons are inevitable. It's just what we do as humans and like you definitely shouldn't let them dictate your life, Sometimes you're in a relationship with somebody and you're like, oh wow. I've never been treated like this before I've never been treated so well or felt so heard or have had someone like follow through on plans so well.

Laurel: And then you, and you do compare that to your other relationships and you're like, wait, it is possible to show up for me in this capacity. Why aren't these people doing it? And so and that definitely has, the capacity to sort of change the trajectory of your other relationships.

Daniel: Whether you're like pulling those relationships along to meet the needs that you're getting met in one relationship or inform you that maybe that relationship isn't sustaining you.

Laurel: Yeah, totally. And I think that's like the, sometimes, like, When we make comparisons, like when I'm comparing myself to my metamor, and I think Oh, they're more compatible or whatever, like the fear is like I'm going to lose this relationship because they're gonna realize how much better this other relationship is.

Laurel: I think the reality is like sometimes that happens. But,, for me, the way of combating that is to make sure that I am showing up like in my full capacity and integrity and in ways that my partner wants and if the relationship eventually falls apart or doesn't work out or whatever, like I know that I brought everything I could to the table and then it's not about me at that point anymore.

Nichole: We, tend to practice kitchen table.

Yeah,

Nichole: polyamory. We're actually meeting partners Yeah, or we are hearing about partners. I have a partner who most of his partners do not want to know anything. About his other partners they don't want to know about me and I genuinely want to know about them.

Nichole: Yeah, because

Nichole: I will fill in the gaps. Yes. Always. And so if I don't know anything about a person immediately, I'm like they're obviously sexier than I am. And they're obviously funnier than I am. And they're obviously skinnier than I am. And they're obviously better for this person because this person is going out of their way.

Nichole: To be with their partner and they would never do the same for me. So I think for me, this is part of the reason why I don't love parallel poly, which I believe we've designed, we've explained in the past, but quick normie corner,

Nichole: parallel poly is when you do not hear about your partner's other partners and kitchen table, we tend to.

Nichole: Practice. You do meet other partners. You hear about other partners. And so the comparison comes when I am trying to fill the gaps in my knowledge and like, just because of the way that my brain is, I have to work extra hard to reverse track and focus on my personal relationship with my partner, because it is wholly independent of their other relationship with their other partner.

Nichole: But I also want to say for the positive, as far as comparison, I would say a very good example of this is Between you and I, Laurel, you tend to be more outdoorsy, more adventurous. You're wearing a sweatshirt with mushrooms on it right now.

Nichole: And you've described going out into the wilderness and covering yourself in mud

Daniel: before.

Daniel: And if you haven't described it, we've imagined

Nichole: it. But this is something that Daniel has tried for years to get me to go camping with him. And I'm like, absolutely not. It's not something that I like. And you do.

Nichole: And so you provide that sense of adventure and fun and getting out in wilderness for him. And then I provide the coming home to a warm meal and watching moonlighting. So there's just, it's just different.

Laurel: Lord knows I do not cook.

Daniel: But you like to travel and adventure too, Nicole. You're not just a uh, a soup and TV girl.

Nichole: That's true. I do. And once I'm in a place that I am like so fucking in it and I'm having a great time and an adventure, but I think it's particularly the outdoorsy thing, right? That is something that's important to you.

Nichole: It's not necessarily important to me. It's important to Laurel. And so you guys get to connect on that. That's just like very basic, like surface level shit. Yeah. But it illustrates how comparison can be. What I get to see is you having an amazing time with someone who can provide that amazing time for you.

Nichole: Yeah,

Daniel: that really resonates with me on the positive side of comparisons. I'll come back around to like the classic jealousy, mind killers. Jealousy is the mind killer. Elements of comparison in a minute. But the first thing that occurred to me, When I heard this question was not the negative shit.

Nichole: Teach me your ways. God damn it.

Daniel: Because I actually don't think that comparison is one of the real cruxes of my own jealousy, my own jealousy. Generally comes from a wailing wilderness deep within me that doesn't even really register people as full human beings. It's more just like, will I be abandoned and be forced to, gnaw off my own leg?

Daniel: This is a mash up of a bunch of scary uh, wilderness situations, so maybe I'm not as outdoorsy as you think.

Daniel: So I don't know if it really comes from conscious comparison. When I think of comparison, I often think of the ways in which I've learned about my partners through seeing them in relation. to

others.

Daniel: And I think it's been really positive. I was thinking, I was trying to get this into like a visual physical model, right?

Daniel: Like you perceive each person in your life like a stationary camera. Like you can really only see them from one angle. But when you see them in relation with others,

Daniel: These other elements of them emerge. You, it it like fills out all the angles that you could possibly imagine with the person and you see them more dynamically.

Daniel: It provides, I think, inspiration for me sometimes in ways that I can interact with my partners. When I see the ways in which you react with my metamors, People are gonna need a zen diagram for this, I think. Hmm? Ha ha Ha! Um. It made me think of our running Muppet model, right? And how last week, or the week before, it all runs together, what is time.

Daniel: We were like, joking around about how, Oh, this is pretty binary for a Polly podcast. Oh, you're one thing or the other. You're this or that. And in this particular instance, I was like, Oh, maybe it's not like you just become a chaos Muppet or an order Muppet in each relationship. It's like the number of Muppets is infinite.

Daniel: And everybody that you interact with, you just become a different Muppet. And so when I see you interacting with other partners the Royal Polly, you, I'm speaking to both of you present right now, I get to see all the Muppets that you can be, not just the Muppet you are to me. Sorry, I didn't mean for that to rhyme when I started it out.

Daniel: Yeah. In instances of negative comparison, it's usually not that thought out, I don't spend a lot of time brooding about it. About the relationships that either of you have when you're away from me because hey, Do you even exist when you're away?

Daniel: It's like the half just a half. You're just a half Drunken seltzer on the table of life But sometimes I compare in the moment. On Jealous Star Trek Night that we discussed once where Laurel brought over a partner to Star Trek Night and I was getting some feels. It's like I'm comparing myself to your relationship directly in ensconced with this other person, you're all cuddling, you're giving them priority.

Daniel: I'm like, they are prioritizing them intently in this moment. Does that mean that they are no longer prioritizing me? Or is this a, the beginning of a trend towards not giving me the attention I need.

Daniel: For me, those instances are usually pretty contained.

Yeah.

Daniel: In a given instance. And I'm not, I don't really have the brain space to get paranoid that you're having a better time with somebody. With somebody else. Cause, cause I know that you are. Cause I'm a frickin drag.

Nichole: So as far as practical advisor, like tactics

Nichole: Laurel, I think you and I do the same thing as far as comparison. Yeah.

Yeah.

Nichole: Filling in the gaps and imagining that other person being way more compatible with that partner. For me, I have to hyper focus on our relationship, the relationship that I have with that person. And really reinforced to myself, it is a unique standalone thing.

Nichole: I think the other side of it is I don't necessarily compare partners with other partners.

Nichole: Yeah. I'm hoping that this person is also not doing that and being like, yeah, this person is like way better than Nicole. I should really cut my time down to 30 minutes, maybe for two months.

Laurel: And you just get like a, and it's like a little notification on your phone. And it's like, your time has been cut.

Daniel: Dear Lord. Black mirror poly relationship.

Laurel: Yeah, I do think, I definitely do the same thing and and I I'm on the same page of you as I, I always prefer to know and meet my metamors because I can just stop imagining that they're perfect. And usually it's a lot more difficult for me to dislike somebody once I've met them, because I'm like, oh no like, you're, like, I can't make up stories about them and then I get to experience, like, how delightful they are and then can appreciate that.

Laurel: And it is there have been very few times where where I've had logistically it's available to meet my metamor, but they just don't want to meet me, or they're, like, scared to or whatever, and and that always feels worse

Nichole: to me. It does, I, it does bother me that none of this per, this person's partners want to meet me.

Nichole: Yeah. And they actively do not want to hear about me.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. I get people live that way. But, okay,

Nichole: let's say you're unable to meet a metamore. Yeah. What do you do in that situation? What are the active things that you do to take care of yourself?

Laurel: If there are, so yeah, if I am inventing things Yeah, my partner, one of my partners is a big like mountain biker and had another partner for a period of time that did a lot of mountain biking with him.

Laurel: And I was like, oh I can't do that. Like this person just fits into your life so much better than I do. Cause that's what you want to do on your day off. And now you have a hot person to do this with and what's even the point of me anymore? And so I did have to, I did have to like sit and focus on do I trust my partner?

Laurel: Yes. They continually tell me things that they appreciate about me. and love about me, and do continue to make time for me. So I need to believe them. If I trust them, I need to believe them. If I'm having a particularly hard time with that, like sometimes, I don't often ask for like direct reassurance of hey, will you just tell me you still like me even though I'm not a professional mountain biker?

Laurel: It's more um, like, what do you enjoy doing with me, or what do you think is really special about our relationship? As just reminders of like, okay, no, you're in this for a reason, and your entire life is actually not just this one hobby. And it's not, and it's actually not my job to fulfill every niche in your life and like, be active for that.

Daniel: You've got to be a mountain biker, a mini golfer, an outdoors woman.

Daniel: Thinking about What kind of information gets passed to me via both of you? I'm thinking about some of the stuff that we've worked on, Laura, where Like my comparison sometimes might be tainted by getting information that is about the struggles too, where maybe I've been insulated a little bit from wondering if things were always better because they, there've been these times where I just get, I've gotten the hard stories.

Daniel: And I'm like So I just imagine that

Daniel: That all my partners

Laurel: are

Daniel: treating

Laurel: me like

Daniel: shit

Laurel: all the time.

Daniel: Yeah, I'm like, wow, that's a really low bar for me. I just have to, Why am I showing up this much? I could, I could be phoning it in.

Daniel: But also, I'm also really aware that All of your partners, both you, Laurel, and you, Nicole they're all very different than me.

Yeah. Which is really

Daniel: interesting to see. And maybe that's another reason why I don't experience as much rumination on relationship versus relationship is because it's really hard for me to compare Mountain biking shark doctor. And you with you and me or nicole it's hard for me to you know compare.

Daniel: Anti fascist sober punk rocker like Maybe I will get really like, concerned and like, comparative if either of you starts dating a small Nebeshe Jew.

Daniel: Shall we move along, huh?

Daniel: What's next?

Laurel: Crazy Sexy

Daniel: Polly. Crazy Sexy Polly?

Laurel: Crazy Sexy Polly. Sorry. Crazy Sexy Polly.

song: Music, sexy, call me ,

Daniel: All right. I've been uh, cajoled into sharing a Crazy Sexy Polly story this last week. Me and Laurel. Took a trip to LA together, Hollywood,

Daniel: the big city get away for a weekend, and then went to her, step sister, or My step sister's wedding .

Daniel: So this is really um, uh, a story of adventure, not exactly being undercover as. Laurel's poly partner, but I don't think that her father and her father's side of the family understands what is exactly going on. Laurel may say it many times. May refer to all of her partners. And I think that they just think that she's really slutty.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they just think I'm constantly like Swapping out?

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. And then getting back together with partners that you had.

Laurel: Yeah. I don't think they like really keep track of anybody.

Daniel: Huh.

Laurel: Maybe my stepsisters do. Like, when I don't, I, my dad remarried when I was in college. I love my step family. I'm not super close with them.

Laurel: My dad and I don't talk super often. He's classic, boomer, distant dad. And I never like, properly came out to him. I just talk about my life as my life.

Daniel: All right, so Laurel told me some about her father and her father's family,

Daniel: So what she didn't tell me is that her. Her father and her father's brothers, are all like wannabe Italian gangsters and huge like fans of the Rat Pack.

Daniel: When I got into her dad's car, it's playing Frank Sinatra, and what we find out, because he loans us the car for the weekend, is that. There is only this one Frank Sinatra CD in the CD changer in the trunk. There's no other way to like interface with the audio system. So it's just Frank Sinatra's greatest hits whenever we get in this like 90s boat of a luxury Lexus with cracked It is like, there is so much picturesque wonderfulness that went on this weekend.

Daniel: He, the brother the first thing that he says to me is taking a picture of me and Laurel is like, Oh you, you part of the family now is your picture in the post office? Your picture has got to be in the post office if you're a part of the family. And then he starts telling me stories about like his cousins or friends who were on the reality TV show, American greed.

Daniel: And like these heists that they're pulling off and how they sawed through the wall of a bank. And he's, he's like chatting with his brother while the wedding is going on, while the vows are going

Nichole: on. Jesus Christ. He's got

Daniel: he's got like, um, uh, he's got a, a pack of Marlboros out and like his phone and he's like dicking around on his phone and he's talking and he's like got his Marlboros ready.

Nichole: During the ceremony.

Daniel: During the ceremony. And I'm like this man is a magical beast. I have to like, fricking uh, I have to take pictures of him. I have to write all this down. He is a short story. I'm like, as a writer, I'm like, my, my career is made. If I could just digest all this stuff.

Daniel: He is. carrying around through the weekend huge wads of 100 bills , And like has his brother's wife carrying the wads of cash for him

Daniel: just so he can like ask for it. Like, Like this is a flex and I know that I'm never going to do these things, but it works. It made me think about what would be, like, my equivalent to like, have you guys carry around for me so I just get to like, in public ask for it like, my perfumes.

Laurel: Or your like, published writing.

Yeah.

Nichole: My first thought was inhaler for some

reason.

Daniel: This is a Deborah Shih Chi theme. See, that's why I know that I'm really unique in your life. Cause I'm the only one who you carry an inhaler for.

Um. It's so funny to listen to stories about my family through somebody else's eyes. Oh, I bet. I bet.

Daniel: The Polly angles of this weekend were one, really realizing that they have no idea that you're Polly.

Oh yeah, they're,

Daniel: yeah. This brother, let's call the, the extremely gangster brother,

Daniel: The one thing that he like, that was any reference to it was like he said something to me like, yeah, you know, the guys really like my niece, huh?

Nichole: Oh my God.

Nichole: He said you did not tell me he said that. He said that?

Daniel: He said that.

Nichole: In reference to what was this also during the ceremony?

Daniel: No, this is when we went to this bar called Billy's on the Beach. This restaurant, it was like a steakhouse that had napkins with topless Polynesian women on it.

Daniel: And I'm like, he says to me, yeah, you know, the guys, they really like my niece. I'm like, that's why I like her.

Nichole: Of course you did.

Daniel: And I got to say, I knocked this out of the park. I really endeared myself to the Rat Pack, to the Rat Pack family. Mainly by just shooting shit back to them constantly.

Yeah.

Daniel: They're like, okay the way that we determine if someone is worthwhile is if they are funny and fast and a little bit mean.

Laurel: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. And I'm just like, I can do funny, fast, mean. And you did. I'm a funny Jew. I'm a funny Jew. I'm a funny Jew. And you brought up Jewish gangsters and they were like, respect.

Daniel: I was like, I was going to try and, uh. they were like, those are the brains.

Oh my God. My dad is, they know I'm Jewish. He did, He did marry my mother. He's vaguely, he's, I will say vaguely

Laurel: aware that I am Jewish.

He's vaguely aware you're Jewish, vaguely aware that you're Polly, vaguely aware that you're there.

Laurel: But the most poly part was when my stepbrother it was like asking about our relationship.

Laurel: I haven't seen him in many years. Like my stepsisters were the youngest. So I saw them more often cause they were like, home for the holidays and that kind of stuff. But at some point my stepbrother he's just asking questions about mine and Daniel's relationship. I'm like, Oh, how long have you been together?

Laurel: And And then he was like, oh, do you live together? And I'm like, no.

Daniel: And we're exchanging, you know, kind of pregnant glances.

Laurel: Yeah. And then Daniel is like, no, I live with my wife.

Laurel: And he's

Daniel: like, You're shitting me. Like that, he said it like Many, many times. Yeah, Yeah. You really thought you

Laurel: were like fucking with them. Yeah,

Daniel: you're, You're messing with me, right? Yeah. Right? You're messing with me.

Laurel: Yeah. As we like continue to explain the situation. And at some, at some point he's like, like swinger.

Laurel: It's like swinging. And I was like, yeah, but we love each other. Oh my God! And then like several times he's like, Does your wife know you're here?

What if I didn't? I know! What if I spent the entire weekend wandering around my house going, Daniel! Daniel!

Daniel: He always just walks out of the room while I'm talking and then one day he walked out of the room and never came back.

Nichole: Oh my god.

Daniel: And then finally he's like, So, Is it expensive? That was his big question.

Laurel: What? So, My, my stepfamily, They're like pretty traditional they're also Mexican, for my stepbrother, it's like, oh, I'm the man I pay for dates.

Laurel: Oh And so he's like asking daniel isn't it expensive to like take out so many women and what was your answer?

Daniel: Yes

Daniel: Um But it also came up like money was a big theme like throughout the weekend Um, I mean in part because we went to disneyland too. Oh god. Yeah. Like, es telling a story about Disneyland and like a hot dog that was very expensive.

Daniel: They were very concerned about how expensive the food at Disneyland was, how much was the hot dog. And then when you knew the press and I didn't, your your uncle was like, Oh, So how do you not know what the price is?

Laurel: Yeah. He like wanted to corner you. Like, how do you not know you paid for it?

Laurel: So how do you not know how much it was?

He had to admit he didn't pay for the hot dog. The lady paid for the hot dog.

Daniel: Yeah. So I was like, yeah, my bitch is just uh, you know, they bring me the money.

Daniel: Okay. But it's all in the form of fast food. Just a hot dog here, a hot dog there. You got Christopher Walken on it. Yeah,

what? What just happened? What just happened? That was a good Walken, though.

Laurel: But the cognitive dissonance is real because it's like these weird traditional family values and bragging about crime, like bragging about taking advantage of people, bragging about Gambling winnings, bragging about hurting people but also like, you let my niece pay for that fucking hot dog?

That's some mental gymnastics there, man. It really is, yeah.

Daniel: I was enchanted. In a way that probably makes you feel weird because, you know, it's um, It's always interesting to have other people be voyeuristic about your weird fucking family.

Laurel: No, it's honestly like kind of a nice reminder that while while I can find these people frustrating or embarrassing or I don't know.

Laurel: I'm not trying to disparage them. They're still my family. But like I do find them very frustrating at times especially for the political beliefs and how those just like seep into like sort of day to day interactions kind of stuff. It's fun to see the novelty of it again.

Laurel: And to cause I forget and that's, I was like, Oh yeah. I didn't quote unquote warn you about this because it's just my life. I forget that not everybody hangs out with guidos,

Nichole: I didn't know if it was a name or not.

Daniel: It's not a name.

Laurel: It's a totally a name. No. Guido? Guido.

Daniel: Is it a, it came from a name? It is a name. It's not, it became, it became a slur because, because it was a name. Because there were many people named Guido. Okay. That makes sense.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: I got to educate you about your Italian. I don't fucking know.

Laurel: But it's fun to see the novelty of it for other people. And like, it helps you appreciate some of that stuff again.

Laurel: And you also like, I think you also realized where some of my personality comes from. Yes. Yeah,

Nichole: the crime part.

song: This has been Polyamateur Hour, a production of Risa Records. If you have a question for Ask the Amateurs, or a recommendation for Is This Poly, please email us at polyamateurhour at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed the show, and you know you did, you perv, please subscribe to us on your podcatcher of choice, leave us a five star review, and most importantly, tell at least one person in your life to check us out.

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