Daniel: So me and Laurel were talking this morning about voiceover casting for our pets.

Nichole: Okay, yeah.

Daniel: We figured out that Richard, her cat, you're familiar with Richard. Yes, of course. Have you spent some quality time with him?

Nichole: No, he doesn't want to spend quality time with me.

Laurel: He really wants to spend quality time with you. If you're in my bed at 5am.

Daniel: So, uh, Goals, everybody who wants to hang out with a cat

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

Daniel: So Laurel's cat Richard is like a lion maned, gray, white and black, long haired, with like a regal silhouette, and kind of kind eyes. So we were thinking Alan Rickman

Clip: grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged.

Daniel: Daschle, our dog, he's like, 50 pounds, long hair, brown and white pinto spots. Close your eyes and think of the ideal platonic dog, and like, that's him. But also like some luck dragon energy.

Nichole: Also, you know, moves around like a little koi fish. When he's really excited to see people,

Daniel: he's like a 50 pound goldfish that likes to sit on your shoulder when you're on the couch.

Daniel: For Daschle my first instinct was Matthew McConaughey.

Clip: I know I want to have a monologue. I'm not sure I want to have the dialogue, but I've learned that you got to have the dialogue to have the monologue, just as you have to have a monologue to have.

Clip: The dialogue. I'm looking forward to sharing who I am with you. If it tickles your funny bone, if it makes you think a second, makes your heart swell up a little bit. If it makes you take a quiet moment for a walk and go, I got to check in with the M and the E.

Nichole: Okay, my head was absolutely going like Texan, Southern. Is it okay to say Clint Eastwood?

Laurel: Matthew McConaughey has a little bit more silly boy energy than Clint Eastwood, and I think like underneath it Dash is a silly boy.

He's

Laurel: got some silly boy in there. He's very like stoic on the

Nichole: Yeah, when he does his dramatic turns in True Detective

Daniel: I think that he's more a , Magic Mike Matthew McConaughey, that is a

Nichole: yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel: Oh, our little dog, Darla, she's like probably part doxy, part chihuahua, but also maybe part duck. She's

Nichole: a little duck.

Daniel: Just a ridiculously cute forever puppy who's activated by all moving objects on her walks.

Nichole: Alright, and who's Darla?

Daniel: Jennifer Tilly.

Laurel: I

Laurel: was so delighted with that answer.

Clip: Appreciate your punctuality, Miss, uh Moran. Monica Moran. All right. Miss Moran. Actually, that's my stage name. I'm sorry? Moran. Monica. The whole thing. It's my stage name. My real name's Blanche. Blanche. No romance, right? That's why I came up with Monica. It's what I prefer. Oh, well, that's, that's fine. But, if you call my house and my mother answers, ask for Blanche.

Clip: If you ask for Monica, she'll think you have the wrong number and hang up.

Laurel: Oh, I love that so much. Yes, yes, Yes.

Nichole: Oh, wait. What about Zoey?

Daniel: So this is for An insane, nervous very cute, but very high strung rat terrier. Who compulsively suckles blankets and is mysteriously afraid of airplanes on sunny days.

Nichole: She's the one that Laurel was walking her and some guy on the street was like, that dog's seen some shit.

Daniel: Yeah. Like she was a war veteran.

Laurel: one, I'm not great at this because I don't know stars very well, but my first initial responses were, first I said Madonna,

and

Laurel: then I said Courtney Love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then Daniel went there needs to be more anxiety.

A

Laurel: little less self assuredness, and uh, Maria Bamford.

Clip: My mom told me recently, she said, Honey, when you don't wear makeup, you look mentally ill. So now when I go home, I'm certain to wear thick green eye shadow and a line of lipstick.

Clip: around my lips, huh? Baby, look pretty now, mommy.

Nichole: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's so much better than my suggestion. Ooh,

Laurel: what was yours gonna be?

Nichole: Carol Channing.

Nichole: Laura, can you take me out, please? Please, Laura. I need to go out right now.

Nichole: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah.

Nichole: I think I only thought of Carol Channing because of Zoey's whale that she does. Yeah, you got to witness it the other day. Yeah, when we took her on a walk with Darla and Dashel.

Nichole: It sound, I can't actually describe the sound. It was it was exactly that soul shadow.

Daniel: Is Zoe responsible for the bloop?

Daniel: Okay. Realizing now that this might not be all that much fun. If you can't actually see all of our pets. So, um, please go over to our Instagram and discover. All the wonderful pets of the pedicule, which we will be posting all week.

Nichole: And what's our Instagram handle?

Daniel: At polyamateur hour.

Daniel: Welcome to Polly Amateur Hour.

Laurel: I'm Nicole.

Laurel: I'm Laurel.

Daniel: And I'm Daniel.

Daniel: Emphatically, I'm emphatically Daniel.

Laurel: Wow.

Daniel: I start high and I end low.

Nichole: Today, aren't we starting with a segment to, to build you up and get you high? Is that what it is? Yeah. Is

Daniel: that what it is? It's Smoking Out Daniel. No!

Laurel: We're gonna hotbox the shit out of this basement.

Daniel: A couple weeks ago, I had a comet partner, say some tough things to me that put me in some doldrums. Gosh, darn it. I felt very bad despite the fact that I've done nothing wrong. Was where I settled on. And so I was very cute and tender On the couch, and I was saying to Nicole and Laurel, I was saying, can we have a segment where you just say nice things about me?

Daniel: And we can take turns, like we'll say nice things about y'all next time, but just, I need a pass the pipe over here first.

Nichole: I really regret saying any of that before. I really don't want this to be any allusion to weed.

Daniel: But the very sweetness and tenderness of this segment, I'm really happy to say we've undercut with the title.

Daniel: Spit toasting.

Song: Spit, spit, spit, spit, spit toastin from the left and the right. Spit toastin gonna get some tonight. We're gonna cram you full of nice things that we think of you.

Laurel: Let's spit toast Daniel. Is there a start, like a ceremonious beginning to the spit toast?

Laurel: Do we have to like start cranking?

Laurel: The rotisserie?

Daniel: They don't want to know how the sausage is made.

Nichole: I wrote notes. Aw.

Daniel: When we spit toast to you, I am going to compliment your.

Nichole: We're not going to spit toast

Laurel: me,

Nichole: so don't worry about it.

Laurel: We're going to record a secret spit toast and just slide it in. Nicole just looked like she's going to fucking sock me in the face.

Nichole: All right. Can I, Can I start?

Daniel: I'm going to be really passive here. I'm the one getting spit toasted. So,

Laurel: But what have you, Oh man. Okay.

Daniel: You want me to have a rebuttal for each compliment?

Nichole: Okay. So your acts of generosity are unique to each of your relationships.

Nichole: Okay. And with Laurel, you help clean her house, like top to bottom, and you walk Zoe, her dog, , like you drive over and walk Zoe. With your best friend, you hold immense space for him, to just let him do what he needs to do, and then you're right there for him when he needs you.

Nichole: And with me, I will never forget, very early in our relationship a nurse told me that I might have polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS. And you had Siri read the entire Wikipedia article about PCOS to you while you were driving to work out in Beaverton.

Nichole: And you called me to talk to me about like possible next steps for this. And it was, I had never had anybody do something like that for me before. You don't copy and paste your generosity. You absolutely like tailor make it to the person that you're in relationship. with

Laurel: which I think speaks so clearly to The level of engagement that you bring to your relationships Like I think we joke about your adhd sometimes, but I do think when you Talk to people you have Moments where it's like, we're engaging.

Laurel: We're like face to face right now. It is like, so specific and intense. And you have a natural ability, I think, to read and understand people. Within the context around them. But I think beyond just like having that ability or, growing up with that skillset, you also put a lot of work

Laurel: into trying to mend whatever blind spots might be there. And so it's not just something that like, you take for granted. It is also something that you actively work on doing to make sure that the people in your life feel safe.

Nichole: Next one. Next.

Daniel: Oh my God.

Nichole: Okay.

Daniel: I gotta do some deep breathing. Uh, I know you're not supposed to breathe into a paper bag when you uh, are hyperventilating anymore, but who's got a paper bag? Just for funs. Pass the bong and the paper bag.

Nichole: Okay. All right. Your willingness to fight with me is one of the things I'm most grateful for.

Nichole: Okay. In our relationship,

fuck you

Nichole: Um,

Nichole: you really encourage me to confront my own bullshit and I have never been supported in that way before. And not only are you willing to fight with me, you're willing to end fights with me and really work through. And I think the time between the ending of our fights and our ability to laugh at it has shortened with each fight that we go through.

Laurel: So every time you say something, Nicole, I'm like, oh that reminds me of a thing. I'm trying not to just like riff directly

Daniel: Laurel did not take notes. .

Laurel: Oh yeah. I, yeah. I'm not a note taker.

Daniel: I love that you take notes, Nicole, and I love that you don't

Laurel: , Fighting is hard and there's certain kinds of fighting that I can engage with. And then there are clearly times where I just I shut down. And I physically feel like I can't engage anymore. it's not something that I've really had the opportunity to work on.

Laurel: But I do think in, when that has come up in our relationship, there is a sincere dedication to bringing that connection back even when I feel like it's inaccessible. And I do think like, it's something that's gonna take a lot of work from me. But like, I can already feel pieces of it moving. And I think that's just because you are able to create such a safe place from which to have conflict. And it is very clear. In ways that it has not always been clear to me that the end goal is just to like, be connected and feel connected.

Laurel: It's really hard to actually like manifest that in conflict, but I think that you do that in like your like willingness and desire to connect.

Laurel: What do you got to say to that? Funny boy.

Daniel: Do we just end when the spit toasted person cries? I

Nichole: have one more.

Daniel: Okay.

Nichole: Alright.

Nichole: You bring creativity to everything that you do. It's not just that you're creative. It's that almost everything you do is infused with creativity. And obviously like you have music and you have writing and you have your work and our house and the way you dress and your perfumes

Nichole: but I think it's, it's what I so admire is that you endeavor to bring creativity to everything you do. You really try. And I think to other people it can seem like it really just comes naturally to you, but it's like you're trying to spark joy in others and you are working to it. Bring a little light and levity to our lives.

Laurel: Not just saying this, but like, I was going to say a creativity thing. Shit. I'm sorry. Cause also I'll get to another thing, which Nicole will hate, but,

Laurel: but as someone who like considers themselves an artist, And went to art school and all that stupid stuff. It's really exciting to meet somebody who inspires me to make shit. Um, maybe I can, credit going back to therapy or boosting my estrogen a little bit, but I think like one of the biggest things that has really.

Laurel: Inspired and motivated me and changed my mood is the, effort and creativity and the excitement that like this podcast and like your specific effort and excitement and creativity that you bring to it. Like, I was excited to make my office at home. So I have a space to go like update our stupid website and shit and make stupid Instagram visuals and stuff.

Laurel: And that's just like really exciting. It's really exciting to be creatively inspired by somebody. The other thing is that you just fuck like a champion.

Daniel: You heard it here first, folks.

Nichole: I mean Hard agree. I don't know why you would think I would not. I like that. I, I, I heart agree.

All

Daniel: right. I'm full. You know, strange thing to say after a spit toasting, but, um, you've been stuffed

Laurel: in both

Daniel: ends.

Laurel: Thank you guys.

Daniel: If if you would like to be Spit toasted and made as satisfied and uncomfortable as I am.

Daniel: Oh. Should we combine this with a little poly pyramid scheme?

Laurel: Yeah, let's do it.

Song: Polyhuraman Huramanski. Polyhuraman Huramanski. Polymega bolts, join the cult. Polyhuraman Huramanski.

Daniel: Alright. I've been inspired. If y'all want to be spit toasted on poly amateur hour, then leave us a five star review and a written review.

Daniel: On Apple podcasts. We need those written reviews for the sweet, sweet algorithm so that the computer knows that we're real. Take a screenshot of that review when it posts, then send us that screenshot through email at polyamateurhour at gmail.

Daniel: com.

Nichole: Or if they want to spit toast somebody else.

Laurel: And obviously put like details and stuff in the spit toast. So we know who to speak to, what kinds of things.

Daniel: Yeah. You do not want. Yeah,

Nichole: that's why I took notes.

Daniel: Yeah. You're going to have to write a list of nice things about um, yourself or another person. Probably another person. I mean, but you know,

Nichole: It's a good exercise to do for yourself.

Nichole: You asked for this and I think that is also, just to continue the spit toast, just, it was, it is inspiring to ask for that kind of thing. I am loathe to ask for anything. I would love to give that kind of support to other people that I don't know.

Nichole: Anonymous stupards.

Daniel: We love you.

Nichole: Should we introduce our next segment?

Daniel: I think so. Today we've got a very special My Own Pauly Idaho we've had.

Song: How I long to be in my own Pauley, Idaho, where I can be free and blow who I want to blow.

Laurel: Uh, The polyamory subreddit I mentioned the podcast. So I mentioned my own Pauley, Idaho. And we had a listener from Missouri say that they would love to come and talk to us.

Laurel: Which was really exciting. So we have Jamie from Missouri that got on Zoom with us. They're wonderful, we had a great conversation that we pre recorded so we'll throw that on here, but yeah, they're a neuroscientist, MD, PhD candidate that's gonna give us some insight into

Daniel: And it worked out really well with our holiday timing. They just happened to have in their back pocket A holiday themed, ask the amateurs question. So we got double the segments for half the price. A deal you too can enjoy. All right, guys. Roll film.

Laurel: I've started

Daniel: recording.

Laurel: Yay!

Laurel: Okay.

Daniel: Have I, Have I said anything incriminating?

Laurel: Lots. All the time. What is really funny is Nicole and I came in, set up and turn the zoom on. And then Nicole was like, do you think we're going to get stood up? I was like, Jamie's a scientist and I have complete faith in scientists.

Jamie: Maybe less to do with my status as a scientist and more to do with my status as a person who likes talking into a microphone.

Laurel: Yeah, maybe I should have, I should have used both of those data points, scientist and podcaster.

Daniel: Scientists and rappers.

Laurel: And rappers. Yeah.

Daniel: Um, I'm glad that we can finally take this position now. It's very brave of you, Laurel. In this podcast, science is real.

Laurel: Yeah. Big, risky step to take, but that is our stance y'all.

Jamie: Cold statement in 2024. I know. Scary.

Daniel: Jamie, you're coming to us live from Missouri.

Jamie: Yes.

Daniel: Yeah.

Jamie: Yes. That's where I am.

Daniel: Usually the first question that we ask everybody on this segment, my own Pauley, Idaho is. What's different about being Polly in Missouri? What are some of the challenges? Usually you want to lead with the hard stuff, but feel free to go positive and inspirational if you're so inclined.

Jamie: Yeah. Um, I gave this one a lot of thought because even though I, I don't. Come from Missouri originally, and I do come from one of those, East Coast liberal states. I was not poly when I was there. So I don't know exactly what's different because I don't have a frame of reference. I will say that maybe both a challenge and a strength is the size of the community, where I at least imagine that it's quite a good deal smaller in the Midwest.

Jamie: And in a relatively smaller city than it would be in a larger , city on one of the coasts. But I think this also is a strength because both in poly and queer communities, we show up for each other a lot. And there is a sense that we need to protect each other. Because the climate of the state is not very friendly.

Daniel: You're the underdogs. We're here. Here we've almost reached polycritical mass to the point where there's like monogamous backlash On the fricking apps and stuff where they're like, I shouldn't have to say that I'm monogamous. Um, I can't believe that I'm in Portland. I have to, I have to specify because I'm in Portland.

Daniel: I have to specify my monogamy.

Jamie: Here it is. It is still primarily monogamous unless you're on field field is sort of become the congregating place for all variations of Polly and kink. Okay, field

Laurel: segue, because at least here, like it, it definitely came up as the non monogamous app, but I feel like has become like the kink hookup app.

Laurel: Is it the same way in Missouri,

Jamie: it is a little bit of that, but I think, again, because of the size of the community, it has to be both. Yeah. So there is like the polyamory and. Unicorn Hunter shitty polyamory and also the kink. And I feel like those are a little bit, there are, there's overlap, but it's also different segments where it's not guaranteed that someone who's like looking for poly is also looking for kink or vice versa.

Jamie: So like both segments exist on field.

Daniel: It's too bad. It's a little bit like um, how, when you go to a party and they try and make the gluten free option and the vegan option, the same option, just in order to put all the other dietary restrictions in one pot, yeah.

Jamie: It's also like here there's the phenomenon of like, Generically international grocery stores or like the pan Asian supermarket where it's not that there is a specific supermarket for a specific like Asian ethnicity.

Jamie: It's all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I. Yeah. I hear from my Asian friends, it's both like incredibly frustrating because these are not similar cultures in many cases, but it's also fun because the whole community communities are like put into one place and there's exploration and like camaraderie there as well as what the heck this isn't similar at all.

Jamie: That's so fun. Like, I really like that metaphor. Talking about polyamory and pan Asian supermarkets. Right? Yeah.

Nichole: These are like my two favorite things. I fucking love grocery stores. And polyamory.

Laurel: I love grocery stores. That's how we know you're a real freak. You like the grocery store. You animal.

Daniel: I think everything can be understood by food metaphor.

Daniel: I was talking with my massage therapist. When I went and got a massage this morning. I was like, I want you to treat my trapezius muscle, like string cheese, . When you do the abdominal work, it's like kneading bread. With the rhomboid in the middle of the back, like cracking a nut.

Daniel: And with my back, I just want you to treat it like a bag of ice and, take it out of the freezer, drop it on the ground a few times.

Daniel: What is our next question that we usually ask? I'm glad that you pulled them up because I thought that I had them memorized. I do not. But you don't.

Laurel: Nicole knew better.

Laurel: Nicole

Nichole: is off to the side. Like you did say Oh, I have the memorized and I just went over to Laurel's. And

Jamie: now we've immediately strayed. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Laurel: This is our MO. It's just meander through conversation.

Daniel: If you think that our podcast is digressive in the form that it reaches the public, you should see the

Jamie: rough cuts.

Jamie: Brutal. I do love all the behind the scenes stuff because I. schedule my recordings for my podcast for two hours long. Yeah. And then cut fully an hour of that.

Nichole: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Do you mind dropping the name of your podcast?

Jamie: Yeah. So my podcast is called In Plain English. It is a science communication podcast. That's all about making science approachable, open source, jargon free. We bring on experts in different fields of research and then guests that don't know anything about the subject.

Jamie: And we have a. fun chat about science. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah.

Nichole: I love it. That's what makes you the great first guest for ever on Polyamateur

Laurel: Hour. You know what you're doing. You know what you're doing. We don't. It's actually, I've listened to a couple of episodes. It's like really interesting, really fun listen.

Laurel: Would 10 out of 10 recommend.

Jamie: Awesome. Yay. Thank you for the recommendation. Yeah.

Laurel: Okay. So next question, and this is segues from your last answer. You're like, what are the poly, what's the poly community like where you're at, like resources that are, aren't available to you.

Jamie: There are actually like really a couple of really good in person sort gathering points for it.

Jamie: And again, it tends to be like. Polly and kink and queer. We have this one coffee shop that has meetup nights for various different aspects of all those communities. It is a explicitly queer coffee shop, so that's just their vibe all the time, but then they have Polly meetup nights, kink meetup nights.

Jamie: And it's really fun to go like, especially if you're new to the area or you want to find more community, that's Good place where we actually like have in person meetups to get started. I actually think that I met quite a few of my Polly and queer friends at protests. For the city I'm in is very that's like the most, I think that's maybe the most St.

Jamie: Louis thing to have ever happened. Meet like queer Polly people at protests.

Daniel: I just imagined you. Going down to the protest with a, a picket sign that says I am lonely.

Jamie: Or the dark version of that, looking for a third.

Nichole: I love that. That's really, that's, that is something that I have Not ventured into at all is like in person poly meet ups. I briefly joined one meetup group on discord here in Portland and quickly got overwhelmed. So it's just it's the same. great that's available and that people actually participate.

Daniel: On our last My Own Pauly Idaho, we were talking a little bit about how we can have a tendency here to get a little too cool for school because because there is polyamorous culture and community accessible in the mainstream. To an extent that I think that we can get a little cynical about like poly events, poly groups where we're like um, we just have our own thing going on.

Daniel: And I think we were saying that. In these areas where you just don't have you don't have pandemic Polly uh, which is not, which is not being Polly during the pandemic. It's,

Nichole: but turns out that's when it was on the rise. Yeah. According to a Vogue article in 2021. Anyways, go on.

Jamie: Fascinating.

Daniel: Do you feel that's the case? That you were drawn together in. Social groups more, more acutely in, in Missouri?

Jamie: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely still cliquishness. And again this is also referencing queer communities as well as poly communities. Where like, it's small enough that everybody knows everybody.

Jamie: But at the same time, because everybody knows everybody, there are groups and you can pretty easily run afoul of a segment of the community by associating with another segment of the community. Ooh, sharks and jets. Yeah. I don't, I wouldn't say it's quite that intense. Oh, there aren't any dance battles?

Jamie: There should be. There's just battles between extremely mediocre gay bars.

Daniel: Now, do you live in St. Louis? Is that's in Missouri, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's not St. Louis.

Daniel: No.

Daniel: Although

Jamie: like it is pronounced that way in Meet Me in St. Louis in one of the songs. I think it is meet me in St. Louis to rhyme with whatever the next line of the song is.

Nichole: Meet

Jamie: me at

Nichole: the fair. Oh, are you going to? Meet me where the lights are shining. I'm not going to continue.

Laurel: I did have a, not really my own Poly Idaho question, but a science y question, because one of the first science, where science and polyamory overlap, a lot of the people I um, meet in polyamory? Like There's just a larger percentage of like, PhDs. And I'm just wondering if that's like, true in your like, if you found that to be true. Yes.

Jamie: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I have a number of friends in my and other PhD programs who are various flavors of poly and DNM.

Jamie: So yeah, I would say that holds true, and I think that part of that is because we don't make that much money. We need other incomes to help support us.

Laurel: I also, there's also something about like just the like the emotional stress of a PhD program, where not only do you need the extra monetary support, but you need the extra emotional support to just get through life.

Nichole: I'm curious about this. Because PhD candidates and those who hold PhDs that I know are genuinely like just very curious people. And I feel like there's an aspect of polyamory that lends itself to if you're curious, you are, you will be successful in polyamory.

Nichole: And so I wonder if there's a little bit of crossover there in that, you're always the student.

Jamie: Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think also part of it is just in any place, academia is going to be a little bit of a bubble. So even being in a more conservative state, I'm already in a bubble in St.

Jamie: Louis, and then academia is even more of a bubble with people who mostly don't come from here.

Jamie: And then I think part of it is that like curiosity and questioning and like to do a PhD, you don't just have to be really good at learning things. You have to be really good at questioning why things are the way that they are. And if you're doing that about aspects of the physical world, then I think, some people take that the next step and also are like okay, why is this relationship norm the way that it is?

Jamie: Is

Daniel: science inherently poly?

Jamie: I've seen PhD students fail quite spectacularly at being Polly. So I don't know that that's necessarily the case. The skill

Nichole: sets don't always transfer that well.

Nichole: That's fair. All right. So my hypothesis is incorrect. Is this science? But they tried it. Is this science?

Laurel: yeah, and then the remaining question was, um, if there were any fun stories that you felt like exemplified Polly in Missouri. That

Jamie: one, I have to. Give me a minute to think about it because I think I had a fun story and then it is flown entirely out of my head.

Daniel: We already have protest hookups.

Jamie: Yeah, that is a good one. Protest hookups are a good one.

Laurel: What does that look like? Like you're doing a die in in City Hall and you're like, accidentally brush hands with somebody next to you.

Jamie: I think it's just that it's a really like, intense space where you get really close. You feel very close to people and very bonded to people very quickly The thing that you all have in common is doing the protest.

Jamie: Um, So I don't know that many of those relationships last super long but it's like It's a very intense moment.

Daniel: I just keep thinking up other flirty protest chants. Like, uh, Who's place? My place.

Laurel: I like it. I like it.

Jamie: , on a similar note as my answers to previous questions, I think. At least within the circles I run in, people date their friends or their friends friends a lot.

Laurel: Yeah. And so

Jamie: a friend group in a polycule can start to look a little bit like the same thing.

Laurel: Yeah, just because it's like an amoeba that just goes around and eats all of the other amoebas and growth. Do amoebas do that? I think that's science. I

Jamie: heard about it once. I don't know anything about amoebas. I

Daniel: realize I have no idea what your PhD is in.

Jamie: Neuroscience. Great. Wow.

Daniel: This is poly.

Jamie: The brain is very poly. The neurons are making connections with like millions of other neurons. It's pretty great.

Nichole: Oh God. That's so cool.

Daniel: Jamie, we have an idea for a segment maybe doing this again beyond my own Pauley, Idaho. Because, my own Pauley, Idaho, it's a one time thing. We can't have, we can't have you back. Under the auspices of that, but I had this idea that we could do a segment if you can collect like concepts within the field of neuroscience that relate to polyamory. We could have we could have a quick segment now and then called poly sci get it?

Laurel: I do get it. I do get it. I like it. So would you like to do homework? Would you like to, would you like, would you, yeah, would you like more

Jamie: work on your plate? I am constantly doing this to myself, where I'm like, oh, that sounds like fun. I'll add that to my growth list of things to do. And then my partners are like, seriously?

Jamie: So the med school does a musical every year and they had to ban me from participating this year because they were like, last year you were a wreck. You were anxious. You had no free time. Like you can't do this again. This year.

Daniel: He's like cut off like at a bar.

Jamie: Yeah.

Jamie: You're you can't have any more extracurricular activities at all.

Daniel: Do you identify with like Leslie Knope energy or her mye or other people who are Yes.

Jamie: Harry Potter was like my, I was obsessed with Harry Potter when I was younger, which is now devastating because JP Rowling is the way that she is. But yes, I very much identified with Hermione and constantly doing all of the things and knowing all the things and rescuing these two chuckle fucks from trouble.

Nichole: That's me. It's her, the

chuckle fucks. It's her. Oh,

Nichole: do we have any more questions or do we want to move into ask the amateurs?

Laurel: We can move into ask the amateurs.

Laurel: Unless you thought of a different Missouri story that you wanted to tell, but no pressure.

Jamie: I think that I'm happy with just the general gist of like, people date their friends all the time. Yeah. Like constantly. Yeah. That's fair. It makes the dating pool is all a messy list.

Laurel: , does it make everything just dramatic and more messy? Or do people like figure out how to navigate it? Like, Are you more like mature in navigating it? No, I don't think so.

Jamie: Fair. I think we maybe within my own polycule, have had a success story recently where things between one of my partners and a friend started to get like, blurring the line between platonic and more than platonic.

Jamie: And we actually did healthfully discuss our concerns about it and, possibly the first instance that I have been a part of where this was all resolved like adults.

Laurel: Oh, nice. Congratulations. Yeah, that's awesome.

Daniel: This is something that I feel like we chat about off mic a lot, but haven't really brought it into the arena of the podcast, is like, physical relationships with friends.

Yeah.

Daniel: I think that this is one where we may have differing positions.

Daniel: I'm pro fucking friends. That's my sign at a protest.

Yeah. Fuck your friends.

Daniel: Whose friends? My friends. Everyone's friends. Yeah, everyone's friends. Um, I think that Nicole, I feel like oftentimes I'll recommend uh, a friend of mine or yours and you'll be like,

Jamie: no, they're a friend.

Daniel: In that voice. It's wild.

Jamie: No.

Daniel: You seem to have more concerns about messing up friendships.

Daniel: With,

Nichole: uh, I have to think about that. I don't think that's true. I don't have sexual attraction to a lot of people, right? So like, I think that my saying but they're a friend might be a mask for, I'm not attracted to them.

Nichole: So like, why would I fuck them?

Daniel: And then once you get to know somebody,

Daniel: you know.

Nichole: and then once I get to know somebody, yeah. And then I'm kind of like, yeah.

Jamie: Okay.

Maybe.

Jamie: Okay. Boner killer. I feel like I'm in Nicole's boat. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody. Thank you. This might be the first time.

Daniel: I'm extremely

Jamie: demisexual, so yeah I like don't really feel sexual attraction to very many people at all.

Jamie: Yeah. Yes. And it just is confusing to me when my, one of my partners are like, Oh yeah, I'm, like, really attracted to this person. I'm like, Okay, wait, hey slow this way down.

Nichole: You talk to them for 10 minutes. How can you possibly be attracted to them? I know. It's so confusing. Haven't you figured out like four things that are annoying about them yet?

Laurel: Yeah, we need, yeah. Maybe we should just have Demi Corner. Demi Corner, Daniel and I just step back.

Jamie: It's me and Nicole being like, it's so hard out there.

Nichole: All right. Should we move along?

Laurel: Yeah. All let's move along to our our Christmas special or holiday special because it's also Christmas and Hanukkah overlap.

Laurel: Hanukkah.

Laurel: I'm super excited because our guest Jamie, . Not only has given us the hot deets on polyamory in Missouri, but also has a holiday themed question for ask the amateurs.

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

Daniel: We got a little uh, sneak peek of this question before we started recording, but Jamie, I'm, I can't remember. I guess we're used to answering questions that are not really in the form of questions.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: But if you can do the reverse Jeopardy thing and ask the question in a form of a question.

Jamie: Okay, yeah, so just ask a question.

Laurel: Yeah, exactly. That one. I really like

you. Nicole feels so

Laurel: at home right now.

Jamie: This feels very I'm just chatting with friends, even though I just met you an hour ago. Yay, I love that. I love it

Laurel: too. Yeah,

Jamie: I feel

Laurel: very, yeah.

Daniel: Welcome to the pot a cule.

Laurel: Yeah. The pot a cule. The extended pot universe. There is a, there's like a little whiteboard by my kitchen sink that at various points in time had my polycule on it, like a map, and then had a map of the pedicule on it, and now it's a map of the poticule, and I'm gonna add in plain English to it.

Laurel: I'm so excited. I love that. That's awesome.

Jamie: Yeah. I will try to phrase this in the form of a question. So a little bit of background. I am in a triad, so we're all dating each other. Also free to date other people, but that's not relevant to this question.

Jamie: Since it is the holiday episode, my question is holiday themed. My family is a very large Catholic family that does a very big Christmas every year. For the older cousins, our aunts and uncles get us gift cards, cash, useful things for like, starting your life in the world as an adult.

Jamie: And as we have gotten partners and some of us have gotten married, not me but some of the cousins have gotten married, then this has expanded to include the partners and spouses of the older cousins as well. And one of my partners has been coming around to family Christmases for many years and is already included in this tradition.

Jamie: The other one, is more newly included in this tradition and my aunt reached out to ask for their contact information and to ask like what they would want for Christmas, like in, in the vein of gift cards to various useful stores. So I broached this with them and they reacted surprisingly to me, which was that they didn't really want to be included in the Christmas gifting tradition and didn't really want gifts from my aunts and uncles. I was, um, Very touched that my aunt reached out and wanted to include them because my large Catholic family can also be very conservative.

Jamie: And I wasn't really sure if they saw my relationship with both of my partners equally. So them reaching out and saying Hey, I really do want um, Stubert to be included meant a lot to me. And then the fact that Stubert said, hey, I don't, I really don't want to be included, baffled me.

Jamie: So I guess my question is how should I handle this situation follow up question.

Nichole: Did you ask them why they were uncomfortable?

Jamie: Yes, and their response was mostly that they didn't want to feel beholden to my family for various gifts.

Daniel: Some families have this dynamic where You're not really expected as a younger person to give, to gift up. He only gift, you only gift down to people who are, younger where they're really going to need, like you said, like the tools, supplies survival kits for living.

Daniel: And So there might be a misunderstanding, right? Are they beholden? They may be applying a. A different theory to the situation than exists in your family itself.

Laurel: Some families in general are much more transactional.

Daniel: Yes.

Laurel: And not necessarily like explicitly, but implicitly and some I don't think my family is hugely this way, but I think there is, especially on my dad's side, a little bit more implicit transactional thing of like, if you betray the family in some way, or leave in some way, it's like, but look at all we did for you. We included you in Christmas we got you gift cards, how could you do this to us? Kind of thing.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. Which could be part of the mentality there a little bit. Like I see that in the like, be beholden to them

Jamie: kind of thing.

Jamie: I don't think they mean, I don't think they mean materially.

Jamie: I do think that they mean like gifts in exchange for. . Relationships. Yes. Yeah. In

Daniel: exchange for loyalty.

Jamie: Totally. Yeah. Which, when it comes to a conservative Catholic family, is quite a sticky subject. That's probably my dad's family's Catholic, too,

Daniel: It's really interesting that as a conservative Catholic family, they are willing to welcome in these queer and poly relationships.

Daniel: Did I hear that right?

Jamie: It's, yeah, so part of it is that the request came from my aunt, my mom's younger sister, who is the other more liberal one in the family. And I'm not quite clear on whether the requests specifically came from my aunt or whether there is really buy-in from the rest of the family.

.

Daniel: They're like tricking the uncles into.

Daniel: Donating to the poly radical cause.

Laurel: Yeah. You're gonna use it to buy protest supplies, aren't you?

Daniel: You mean condoms?

Nichole: So, In your partner's response, How did you feel?

Jamie: I felt like a little bit of the rejection maybe on behalf of my family. I felt like they were making an effort and that it was turned down. And that I want them to be included because they are a full and equal partner in my life.

Jamie: And I want them to feel like that is true in all of the possible ways that's true for monogamous people.

Daniel: Do you feel like this is something that might change over time? How long have you been seeing this stupor?

Jamie: For four years, although my family, cause we live in different states my family only met them over the summer when my brother got married.

Nichole: Did you bring your other partner?

Jamie: Yes. Yeah, they were both there. Great.

Nichole: That's a big gesture of like, this is a family event that I am bringing you to. Yeah. And so they have a frame of reference for who these people are, right?

Nichole: They've interacted with them physically. So it's not like they're an amorphous mass of Catholics that just are existing somewhere.

Jamie: Just spit out gift cards, like.

Daniel: I just thought of, that Japanese video game where you like roll cows and, uh, trees up into your giant rolling ball.

Daniel: Yeah.

Nichole: Yeah. It's that, um,

Nichole: So they at least have a sense of who these people are. And I'm also wondering if it's worth having a conversation of like, how would they like to be included?

Nichole: Because the coming to a wedding is a big gesture and it seems like they were totally game for that. And it reminds me of like, Laurel fucking hates games and hates like mini golf, but on the surface you wouldn't think that would be a Big deal, right? Like you would think that Laurel to a mini golf game would be totally fine, but it would actually send her into a total fucking spiral.

Nichole: So I'm wondering what is a way that your partner would want to be included?

Jamie: Yeah. I think that's really good advice because I was just narrowly focusing on the gifts and not necessarily on the broader inclusion in family dynamics. And it is weird because we do live halfway across the country from my family.

Jamie: So right now in inclusion in family dynamics really does look like weddings and Christmas. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Daniel: And I would add on to that, gather more information. It seems like you've got some idea of what their feelings around it are and why they reacted with a little bit of a flinch and a recoil, but I think that there's probably a lot more there. And probably a lot that you can share too, if you haven't shared how it made you feel emotionally yet.

Jamie: But I, I am the less like emotionally communicative one, at least in our like dyad dynamic. Yeah. Um, They're Very emotionally intelligent, very communicative are always like, there to dialogue about stuff.

Jamie: That's they love dialoguing, I'm not always in that frame of mind, so I think that's actually maybe useful for me to hear that hey, you can just, you can just have a chat. It doesn't have to be a deep chat, and like, this is actually kind of a nice question, I feel because nobody's dramatically entering or leaving a relationship.

Jamie: Yeah. Yes,

Nichole: yeah. They could be a very good person for you to have this kind of conversation with.

Nichole: And so, In the vein of your constant curiosity and your PhD and MD and all the things the all the D's that you're getting Um, this could be an opportunity to to see how they respond and what questions they ask and and How they express themselves.

Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah emotionally intelligent communicative people are the best people to practice Getting better at your emotional communication with, because they're likely going to be a lot more like patient and a lot more curious about how you're feeling rather than defensive about it.

Laurel: It sounds like a very fertile ground to have a good conversation from where you'll probably both learn a lot about each other,

Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's really, that's a really nice way to put it.

Jamie: Yeah. Because, yeah I think in general, I care quite a lot about. My family's opinion, even though I do a lot of things that in general, they wouldn't approve of. I still want to be authentic with my family. And, I see my siblings getting married and I'm like, I can't have that with a triad, but I deeply want the full inclusion that a monogamous spouse would have in the family for my partners.

Jamie: And I think, it's a Maybe simple, but important, like reminder that I should ask them if they want that kind of inclusion in the family or if they want something different.

Laurel: Yeah. And yeah. And then, and have them understand that is something that is important to you, which I do think in queer poly spaces is hard sometimes.

Laurel: Like I have a partner who has a difficult family and is not always super accepting and I think it's really easy from a radical queer perspective to be like, fuck them. But like,

no,

Laurel: but he doesn't like, he wants a relationship with them. He wants to feel like part of the family , but he also wants to be himself with them.

Laurel: Yeah, being in sort of like queer activist space, it's easy to lose sight of how important, like more conservative people and like, and family of origin units can be to people. And like, sort of the grace we need to have around that.

Daniel: This is really out of character for us, to be giving so much good, heartfelt advice. These

Laurel: chuckle fucks at least, not Nicole. Nicole clearly always has her shit together.

Daniel: I just need a palate cleanser now. Are you into practical jokes? Cause I have a suggestion.

Jamie: Oh no. Sure.

Daniel: If, if uh, you know, it works out.

Daniel: So your partner , grudgingly acquiesces to being part of a gifting network. I think initially you should go to a Goodwill and like, get a bunch of little porcelain angel sculptures and anything else, any kind of like horrifying, middle American tchotchkes and pretend that this is what they're in for now, forever, just.

Jamie: You joke, but some members of my family genuinely do give me those like precious moments, angels.

Daniel: Too close to home. So if they know this, I think that might be the reason why they are so skittish

Jamie: about it. They're like, I don't want a Precious Angels

Daniel: sculpture.

Laurel: Did we help? Yeah. Did we help? Did we answer the question?

Nichole: So Jamie, do you mind telling us your podcast again? Oh,

Laurel: yeah.

Nichole: And where you would like people to find you or follow you?

Nichole: On the socials,

Jamie: yeah, my podcast is called In Plain English. It is about making science approachable, open source, and jargon free. And we bring on experts in different fields of research and people who don't know anything about the topic to have a fun little chat about science. So you can find us at InPlainEnglishPod.

Jamie: org, where you can see all of the different podcast episodes. And there's also like a contact page. You can also find us at Plain English, P L A I N E N G L I S H S C I on various social media, although increasingly blue sky, because Twitter is a hell hole. And please, if you want to. If you want to be on the podcast, either as an expert because you have expertise in an area of research, or as a guest that doesn't know anything, I'm always looking for new podcast guests.

Jamie: So please do reach out either via the website or via the social media handle. And yeah, you too could learn about some science while laughing about random things that aren't at all related to science. It could go on far too many tangents.

Daniel: Yeah, but not these chuckle.

Jamie: No, I would love to have any or all of you on for various episodes of my podcast.

Jamie: If that's something you're interested in, I feel like we should do it. Absolutely. Yeah. I feel like we're

Daniel: going to sabotage the experiment, whatever's going

Nichole: on. That's why I'm going alone without you.

Jamie: It'll be just Nicole on her own episode. And it'll be great. And then you two on something completely unrelated.

Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. It'll

Laurel: be like great, fascinating, inquisitive, and then Daniel and I will just have the fucking chuckle fuck comedy hour and everyone's just like, wait, what is going on?

Nichole: What do you think about

Jamie: Muppets?

Jamie: I'm sorry if you were talking about cancer.

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.

Song: But we hope you tell three. Remember, the advice given by the amateurs should not be followed. Unless you are prepared to be ecstatically happy, successful, and strange. Until next time!