Laurel: I'm going to experiment and do a coat of gel over these and then see if that'll like Keep it in place?

Laurel: Keep it, yeah, keep it in place better because the gel like fucks up your nails. It does. Any nail

Nichole: polish fucks up my nails.

Laurel: Really?

Daniel: I know this is a hardened piece of dogma for you, Nicole, is there any hope now that you have a deepening relationship with Anna, who is lobbying for the possibility of healthy nail polish habits.

Nichole: Daniel, is convinced that because I have long, natural nails that I need to put polish on them. That it's a crime that I don't have polish on them.

Daniel: That's right, a crime. You do

Nichole: act like it's something that I'm doing to you.

Nichole: You

Daniel: did call the cops once. Yeah. Which was like, fucked up, man.

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

Daniel: And on that , how to fight fascism, Pamphlet that you were handing out. I totally sharpied out the section on allowing for natural long nails

Nichole: But okay, so years ago kill the cop in your head. I was watching making a murderer?

Nichole: Instructional It was on Netflix. It was one of those like true crime. It was one of those true crime documentaries that everybody was watching. And, , the lawyer in it had no eyebrows and the longest, sharpest painted nails I had ever seen outside of a Nagel painting. So I found it inspiring, and I painted my nails, and then they were fucked up for a year. You painted

Laurel: your nails

Nichole: and

Laurel: shaved off your

Nichole: eyebrows?

Daniel: And went to law school.

Laurel: I know eyebrows and like, hair aren't the same thing, but I just imagined the witches from the movie The Witches. Thousand percent, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. This is the lawyer in this.

Nichole: The Angelica Huston one.

Daniel: Wait, there's another one?

Nichole: Yeah, Anne Hathaway. There's a remake. Which is What is the Point?

Daniel: It's called What is the Point?

Laurel: Welcome to our newest segment, What is the Point? That's this whole podcast.

Laurel: Touche.

Daniel: Welcome to Polyamateur Hour.

Nichole: I'm Laurel. I'm Nicole.

Daniel: I'm Daniel.

Nichole: Why are you confused?

Daniel: Slidey. When I'm playing Daniel on the radio,

Daniel: Where does the radio Daniel stop and the real Daniel begin?

Laurel: What's even the point?

Daniel: Oh this reminds me of the little mini segment that we were going to do, which began with the title, Who the hell are you? Oh, yeah. And then evolved into read alert.

Song: Real nerds, take off your shirt. It's a real nerds, everybody. Write

Song: to Holly Amateur. Holly Amateur Hour at gmail. com

Daniel: This is a little mini segment in honor of Stubert Reed of Florida, who we love very much a, semi platonic podcast context. You don't have to qualify, just let love be, man. Yeah, I'm just, I'm uncomfortable with sharing my feelings. Are you worried about freaking out Reed?

Daniel: It's too late. We've done it. It's over. It's over. It's over. It's over. one day we were talking about the few Listeners that we had in Florida, and he was like, wait, is that me? We

Laurel: specifically were like, if you are our listener in Florida, please contact us. And it worked.

Nichole: And I'm so glad he did.

Daniel: Yes.

Nichole: Yeah.

Daniel: He is a wonderful read. He's the best read. That we have. Okay. Way better than Read from Star Trek Enterprise.

Clip: Read alert? That's not bad. I've also been working on a new alert signal. Tell me what you think.

Clip: Shut off that damn noise! Shut it off!

Laurel: This is gonna be a two part segment, because one, we'll get to the actual point of it, but the other one is, if you think you're a better read.

Daniel: Especially if you're a better read in Florida.

Oh, good luck.

Daniel: So read alert is now the segment where we reach out to random listenership that we have noticed in a specific region of the earth. , ask who the hell are you? Please contact us. Please contact us and tell us about the poly resistance cell that you have begun in your town.

Laurel: Yeah, what's, what is this week's? Region. Region of read alert.

Daniel: It's Australia.

Laurel: The entire continent of Australia.

Daniel: More specifically, it looks like we've got a concentration in Melbourne.

Laurel: Ooh. Okay.

Daniel: And please, please, please. Give me some kudos Melbourne for me pronouncing it right.

Nichole: I've heard Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne.

Daniel: Well, You're gonna lose us, our Australian listeners right

now.

Daniel: So we noticed we've at least got like Three solid subscribers in Melbourne, and we have no contacts in Australia. So we're like, these are organic, natural stuberts.

Laurel: Homegrown stuberts.

Daniel: Homegrown stuberts. No

Laurel: GMO stuberts.

Daniel: We have a couple theories, like. do we? I have a couple theories that I shared with you and you pretended like you were listening. Oh, that's yep, yep, checks out. Okay. One, maybe there's only one theory. One, are they a polycule? in Melbourne. Is this Oh yeah, I do remember this theory. Is this a polycule that we have recruited to, I guess this is not a theory, but a desire if they are not,

Nichole: can

Daniel: we make one?

Nichole: Yeah. Connect them together so that they know each other. I like this

Laurel: idea. Yeah. So listeners, Stubert's of Melbourne. You need to write to us at polyamateurhour at gmail. com. If you don't use email, wow. Is this

Daniel: the opinion that you have of Australia? It's like, do they even have email?

Laurel: No, I was just thinking about a younger generation that probably just was like, fuck email.

Laurel: Oh. You think they're advanced, beyond? Yes, I think they've evolved beyond email.

Nichole: Probably, whereas our first email addresses were not our first and last name, our first name dot last name at. Server. com. They were like, happy girl, 69, you know, like fairy dust, angel wings. Oh, what was your email. com? These are

Daniel: like the names of my mother's cats.

Nichole: Yeah. Your mother's cats inspired my AOL instant messenger names. I was in three. Mine

Laurel: was punk rock babe, spelled R A W K. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause punk rock babe the other way was already taken? Probably. For some reason we were spelling rock R A W K. Yeah.

Laurel: I don't know why that was a thing.

Daniel: Was this like a Riot Grrrl era kind of thing?

Laurel: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

Nichole: Slightly after Riot Grrrl. Yes.

Laurel: Yeah, it wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't as. We were a little too young. Kathleen Hanna was.

Nichole: Yeah, we were a little too young for Riot Grrrl. Please

Daniel: relate it to something that I understand from the 90s.

Daniel: Um, Mine was Fuzzy Professor. Which is still my hip hop name for the secret rap albums that I make.

Laurel: Adorable. I'm actually proud of my email handle. It was womanray1 at hotmail. com.

Daniel: Oh, womanray? Like manray. Nice.

Laurel: Thank you. I was a sophisticate. I was a depressed teenager.

Nichole: I'm really proud of my live journal names.

Nichole: I had Jane Doe Adair.

Laurel: Yes, that's good.

Daniel: I'm gonna chuckle and nod like I understand what that's a reference to.

Nichole: That's a reference to They find a body that they don't know who it is. They can't identify it. It's a Jane Doe. And then Doe a Deer from Sound of Music.

Daniel: Aww. That's one of my favorite things.

Daniel: Has Nicole done an Australian accent on the podcast yet?

Nichole: I was going to say, if they reach out to us, I'll do it. It will take everything in my body not to like respond on zoom in their accent.

Daniel: This is a threat or a promise Australia. If you write in , Nicole will read your letter

in an

Daniel: Australian accent, and then you get to critique it. Ooh,

Laurel: yeah. I like that. Yeah, it's definitely a threat because it's not gonna be good. Please let us know if you're amenable to being hooked up with each other.

Nichole: Ooh yes, yes, yes. If you don't know each other, like, Even if it's, just meeting up like. If you need help finding your people,

Laurel: We'll find them for you. We'll find them

Nichole: for you.

Laurel: I don't know if, if y'all know this, but we are all adept at wingmanning.

Laurel: Have you ever wung, wung manned for me? That's the best tense of

Daniel: wing wung. I love this.

Laurel: I don't think, yeah, that's true. I don't think we've wunged for each other.

Daniel: I mean, Me and Laurel have tried to pick up people in the wild and succeeded. Got numbers and stuff and then never followed through. That's more about our ability to like text message than

Laurel: anything else.

Daniel: Or about biting off more than we can chew. Like, um,, It's just really, ,, it's going to happen that night or it's not.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And tonight, Melbourne, tonight it's going to happen.

Laurel: Tonight. Tonight. What song is that? I don't know. Tonight is gonna happen for you.

Nichole: Why are you both looking at me? I don't know. ,

Laurel: I'm waiting for you guys to start singing the, the song that

Nichole: you're making up.

Laurel: Yeah, tonight. Tonight. Tonight. It's gonna happen for you,

Daniel: Melbourne.

Laurel: Tonight.

Daniel: Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.

Daniel: It's gonna happen for you. Happen for you Melbourne. Oh,

Laurel: fuck. I'm so sorry. They can

Daniel: send Oh,

Laurel: fuck. I'm so sorry. They can

Daniel: send us, they can send us pictures of each other. Of each other? Of themselves. And then if they want, us to.

Laurel: And then we take. We'll start a thread. And then we take the pictures and then we summarize what they wrote and then email to it.

Laurel: And we just are middleman, we just middleman the whole thing. Great. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Melbourne.

Daniel: And, just saying Melbourne, I'm not sure if this is also , a threat or a promise , but the last person who got a hold of us. , read of the titular read alert, , we've now arranged rough plans to go visit in the Orlando area.

Daniel: So, Hey, Melbourne, here we come.

Nichole: I don't know that any of the last segment is a selling point for us to come visit. Do people really want three people? Making up songs in their general vicinity, just looking nervously at each other and

Laurel: Do you know what I'm doing? Do you know what I'm doing? Did we do it? Did we do it? Did we win? One of us is talking in a bad Australian accent. Yeah.

Nichole: Anyways. Anyways, what's our next segment?

Daniel: It's all Australia themed today. Just kidding. Should we uh, start, quote unquote, with a little invitation to love?

Song: Come inside, and take your shoes off. Have some pie, and shake your blues off. Join the conversation, this invitation to love.

Laurel: Oh, okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Daniel: Last time on Invitation to Love.

Laurel: Last time on Invitation to Love.

Daniel: We looked at my field profile and updated it with new photos, new text.

Oh yeah.

Daniel: And a special offer for the gentleman out there in my quest for a boyfriend.

Laurel: What was the special offer to the gentleman? That we would all come hang out? Oh boy.

Daniel: No, actually. We're all gonna come out was the message of the original profile and you guys had me take all that out That's yeah But mostly actually I've been Looking at and conversing with men on tinder. I also updated my tinder profile to kind of match The guidelines which you to set forth.

Laurel: Yes the guidelines we prescribed for Your profile.

Daniel: Yes And I applied those to tinder So we will now look at a few possible suitors in the I was gonna call it the manosphere. That's something different

Daniel: All right we will start with Stubert.

Laurel: Okay, wait, I got a Stubert clarifying question here.

Daniel: Sure.

Laurel: Is Stubert just anyone in our podcast sphere?

Laurel: It's not like specifically a listener.

Daniel: I mean, Originally it was just somebody who wrote in. Then it became a listener. You know what? Thank you for calling me out on the misuse of Stubert because these suitors need to be named Stubert.

Daniel: By you two.

Laurel: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,

Daniel: that's what we do. That's, what are we here for? I'm Daniel.

Daniel: Suitor number one,

Daniel: nothing written in his profile whatsoever. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Great start. It's Tinder, so that's not like completely unusual. People are like, just fucking, you like the way I look? Talk to me and let's see how it goes. Just because it's

Laurel: legal doesn't mean it's right.

Nichole: What? For now, it's legal to not have anything in your Tinder profile.

Daniel: Laurel sharpied out that section of the anti fascist document that we're looking at. Alright, , so I will just start with pictures and then I will share the Opening line that he sent me.

Laurel: Okay.

Daniel: Okay. So picture number one. Hello. All

Nichole: right. Hi

Laurel: man with beard Smiling with button down shirt Buttoned to very down to nipple line.

Laurel: Yes. You can't see the nipples, but That's about the access they would be on.

Daniel: I feel like he's got intelligent, bright eyes.

Laurel: When you first pulled up that first picture, I thought John Benjamin.

Daniel: Is John Benjamin from Bob's Burgers. Oh my God. And that fucking terrible comedian with the clip about poly people that's going around.

Daniel: Have you seen this?

Laurel: No.

Daniel: Where she says, all poly people look like Bob's Burgers characters. Oh yeah. Come to life. Fucking Bob's

Laurel: Burgers characters are

Daniel: hot.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: Damn straight.

Laurel: Ugh.

Daniel: All right. Picture number two.

Nichole: Standing shirtless. In front of bike. Bicycle. Bicycle. We have to

Laurel: clarify for the people who don't live in Amsterdam, in Portland. . Yeah. looks buff. Yeah, it looks okay. It looks pretty buff and like badass.

Daniel: He is just also giving him us a lot of his face.

Laurel: Yeah. A love face pick. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel: Artistic, thoughtful. John Benjamin's headshot. . Is this John Benjamin? I

Laurel: think John Benjamin is hitting on you.

Daniel: Nice.

Laurel: He's fucking funny. He's a funny man.

Daniel: Eat his burger

Laurel: I like the face pics I like that there's a lot of face

Laurel: It actually took me a minute to get that one. Alright. He's posing

Nichole: in front of a replica Easter Island head.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: And there's a resemblance.

Laurel: Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. It is funny. I'm going to say for somebody who has nothing written in their profile, those are good picks.

Daniel: And his opening was good.

Laurel: Okay. Okay. Let's have it.

Daniel: So you know that I have a picture.

Laurel: Read it in your best Australian accent. Read it in your best John Benjamin voice. Can we have AI do this yet where we have John Benjamin read this? We can.

Daniel: Yeah, we can probably insert this. No, not really. I do not have the patience to go talk with Chet.

Laurel: It's a waste of water. Chet, fuck you, Chet. You waste so much water. So much water.

Daniel: You know how in my profile I've got the picture of me at a steakhouse with a big steak in front of me licking the steak knife? Yes.

Daniel: Yeah. with The very Freddie Mercury gay

mustache. Correct.

Daniel: Yeah. And His opening was, Can we get a steak dinner so you can recreate that photo?

Laurel: Aww. I like that.

Laurel: All right. That was John Benjamin.

Nichole: All right. John Benjamin.

Daniel: sUitor number two.

Daniel: Here is the Tinder description. Thank you for, Even though it, , is not legally enforced, thank you for writing something. Not cool or hip. For real. Fucking nerd. Partnered Polly Pan. Games. Music. Science. Are there emojis next to them?

Daniel: No. Good. T T R P G.

Laurel: Total tits role playing game. I

Daniel: love total tits. Yeah.

Laurel: Huge fan of total tits.

Daniel: Where just every character is like a total tit. A different type of completely stacked human?

Laurel: No, they're just like a walk a pair of tits. There's like all kinds.

Daniel: So they're like D& D creatures, but just giant boobs. I

Nichole: was immediately thinking of heavy metal. The movie, Heavy Metal.

Daniel: See, I was thinking about the, , sorry, Woody Allen film, , Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex with the Giant Breast.

Daniel: There's like a giant breast creature.

Nichole: Everything you wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask. Yes. Yeah.

Daniel: And I wasn't afraid to ask. Don't make presumptions, Woody Allen.

Daniel: I'm canceling you for making that presumption. If

Laurel: for anything, definitely

Daniel: for that. Yeah.

Laurel: Total

Daniel: tits role playing game space,

Nichole: love space. Yeah. Space is great.

Daniel: I definitely like a little space

Daniel: you know that thing your friends are bored of hearing you talk about? Talk to me about it.

Laurel: Okay. Nice. Talk to me about it until we're like six months in, then stop talking to me about it.

Laurel: We're friends now. Yeah, and I don't, and now we're close enough that I don't want to hear about your boring shit. I've developed an allergy. All right. Picture time? Picture time.

Nichole: Yeah. Lounging

Laurel: somewhere shirtless.

Nichole: Lounging hand behind the head.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah.

Nichole: Okay.

Daniel: Picture holding a pet carrier? Is there a pet

Laurel: in there? Maybe. Maybe. What's the background? My immediate thought was like zoo. I don't know why. That's, I thought too. Yeah, why? Okay. Because we see a lot of the background.

Laurel: Why do we see a lot of the background?

Nichole: The only thing that could be interesting in a background is a zoo.

Daniel: Clearly. Look for hidden animals. Isn't that what like all primordial, like human brains are supposed to do in a, uh, when we see like a forest, a forest pattern, we're like, where's the animal

Laurel: face? Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. Did you find it? Wait, is that actually, is the photo captioned? Look for the hidden animal. I think he is the hidden

Daniel: animal. He has the hidden animal maybe I will ask him about this photo. I was and like what's in the bag

Laurel: is that a DeLorean or is that like the back of a pickup truck? My depth perception is not great. Also my image processing is not great.

Daniel: Yes I think that it comes down on the right side of the what the fuck is that? So, Not a Cybertruck, yes, a DeLorean.

Daniel: Sick. Double yes. I think it's The DeLorean?

Laurel: Yeah, is this like a sci fi? Yeah, cool. Christopher Lloyd convention?

Daniel: Yeah, you know, the Christopher Lloyd convention. The Christopher Lloyd convention.

Laurel: And a dress?

Laurel: Cute. Cool. Looks like he's having a great time.

Daniel: This is like the opposite of the other guy as far as the photo selection, because it's a parade of photos with really rich backgrounds of things that we can't really put any context on except for the DeLorean.

Nichole: It's conversation starters.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. What's this? Talk to me about that thing.

Daniel: . Here's a picture of him wearing a patterned vacation shirt. With a, sailor cap that also has like a floral pattern on it.

Laurel: Fancy captain. I'm a fancy captain.

Yeah.

Daniel: I feel like the pictures get, progressively more queer in a way that I enjoy.

Nichole: Okay. Even bigger hat! Huge, Huge hat that I want.

Nichole: I always see those kinds of giant straw hats at their stores and stuff, and I want to buy them, but I'm like, when am I going to wear this? I always think that I'm going to take it on vacation and then I'm like,

Laurel: what?

Laurel: We're going to wear it to Orlando.

Nichole: Yeah, you're right. That's where.

Laurel: What are we gonna call him? Fancy Captain. That's it.

Nichole: Who's next?

Daniel: Who's next?



Laurel: Fabulous. He yeah, that's

Nichole: the reference. He's not going to get

Laurel: He just doesn't hear them. If they don't make it through the Gen X filter, it's like they never happened.

Daniel: Yeah. Also, I have a queue of things that I'm processing, which you both know that it takes like, 10 seconds for it to get through the cotton layer.

Laurel: You know what's funny is I am, one, I'm the first person ever in the history of ever to make, to tell, to name Daniel's queue.

Daniel: You're the one, you're the one who named, you're in charge of naming the suitors and Daniel's spaciness.

Nichole: What do you call it?

Daniel: The cue.

Laurel: the queue, as in a line that we have to wait in, , but every time Daniel repeats it back to me like, you know, my cue and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Because immediately, immediately I think of Q, like capital Q, from Star Trek.

Daniel: Oh, so you forget that you coined the Q. I forget that I've labeled your Q. And you think that I'm like, I have a John Delancey.

Laurel: Yes, there you go. That's my John Delancey.

Daniel: Is that your John Delancey, or are you just happy to see me?

Laurel: Is that your John Delancey, or do you just think so little of me?

Daniel: Wait, is this a reference back to the Q? Yeah. Yeah. My Q. Your Q. Not the Q. Both. Wow. Wow. So you think that I think I'm omnipotent.

Laurel: Yeah. And I'm a peon and you're like, I can't be bothered with you, but I kind of bother with you cause. You're sexy.

Nichole: You guys should uh, talk about this in therapy.

Daniel: All right, pseudo number three, profile, superlikes are accidents. I don't like it when people open with that, I don't know. Are accidents? What does that mean? In Tinderverse, you can superlike somebody if you really are into them. But a lot of people will do it by accident because they just are a little too enthusiastic in their swiping and they swipe up rather than to the right.

Daniel: And so some people feel the need to clarify, first and foremost, hey. I don't like you that much. The super like was an accident, which I don't like.

Laurel: Yeah. Just let it go. My super

Daniel: likes are fully intentional.

Laurel: And if they're not, they are.

Daniel: Yeah., Um, psychoanalytic therapist. Okay. Okay. Open slash poly relationship.

Nichole: Okay.

Daniel: Most recently with the beard. And I think that's a reference to facial

Laurel: hair and not, or the picture he has with a woman with a wedding band on

Daniel: Scorpio.

Daniel: Six one.

Daniel: And here's some pictures.

Nichole: Yet again, you've matched with somebody who has a button up shirt that is open down to the nipple area Down to the nipple axis.

Nichole: Yeah.

Daniel: It's purely accidental that I don't have a picture of myself with my shirt unbuttoned to close to the nipple axis, because you know that a lot of parties I end up with my shirt

Laurel: I know.

Daniel: unbuttoned. To the nipple axis. Yeah. Yeah.

Laurel: That's fair.

Daniel: Muscles.

Laurel: I got a muscle. That's a little flex to fit into the picture. I don't flex like that. I flex like this.

Laurel: Grrr.

Daniel: Grrr.

Daniel: Here's a picture of him.

Laurel: Surprise! I have a mustache. Mustache,

Daniel: big eyes. Big

Laurel: eyes surprise.

Nichole: Looks surprised, yeah.

Daniel: This is specifically the, I have a mustache facial expression. Huh.

Laurel: Oh, where did this come from?

Daniel: And that concludes the photographs of suitor number three.

Daniel: Laurel, you're slipping. What's his name?

Nichole: Dr. Muscle. This is a good one. Not muscles. Just one.

Laurel: Doctor Muscle.

Daniel: You are edging in on Laurel's territory.

Laurel: I like it. I was going to call him Big Eye Surprise.

Laurel: Big Eye Surprise is good too.

Daniel: Doctor Muscles is better. Doctor Muscle? Doctor Muscle. Doctor

Laurel: Muscle. Singular Muscle.

Daniel: Alright, that's Discuss.

Nichole: Have you talked to Dr. Muscle at all?

Daniel: Yeah, we talked a bit a long time ago, and then one or both of us, probably me, probably with the Q, I was like, I'm omnipotent, I don't have time to talk to you. Probably

Laurel: with my little John.

Daniel: I'm sorry, I'm playing with my Delancey right now. God.

Laurel: I'm gonna get you, do you have a, do you have a cue action figure? I'm gonna get you one. Play with your Delancey.

Daniel: So that every time you were like, are you paying attention to me? I just hold up my Q action figure.

Nichole: Okay. So we have Dr. Muscle. Fancy Captain and John Benjamin. John Benjamin.

Laurel: John Benjamin's my favorite, even though he wrote nothing in his profile, which is technically legal,

Daniel: But still not right.

Daniel: You feel like he like by saying nothing he did not incriminate himself

Nichole: Yeah, maybe that's the best way. He's just a man of mystery. Yeah I'm going to say John Benjamin. Of the profiles we've seen. Yeah. I'm not like trying to like rank who do I like better, but as far as vibe of who could match you, Daniel, I think that John Benjamin is probably running ahead.

Nichole: Yeah.

Daniel: I think that all of them are charming people I don't want to piss anyone off.

Daniel: Don't

Laurel: piss don't make Dr. Muscle angry. He's got a big muscle. That's what he, that's what

Daniel: he says. That's what he says when he's threatening. Don't make me angry.

Daniel: He draws lips on his bicep

Laurel: and he flexes it to make it

Daniel: talk. And then he does ventriloquism, don't make

Nichole: Mr.

Nichole: Muscle angry. Is he a child psychologist? Is that what's happening? Or does he treat his patients like children?

Daniel: So I think that my date making plans with John Benjamin are furthest along. So your plans for me will not impact the natural progression of Events.

Daniel: I'll let you know if he runs when I tell him that we've talked about his profile on the podcast.

Daniel: we move along home?

Daniel: What's next up

Laurel: ask the amateurs

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

Laurel: Okay, here we go. After a very long term monogamous relationship, I'm fresh to the dating pool here in my late 30s.

Laurel: It's been made doubly confusing as I've been navigating my new polyadventure, which my current partner and I talk about often. With a couple years of it under my belt, I feel I've got a good reckoning of my values and expectations.

Laurel: I'm fortunate to live in a polypopulous city, which means I've gone on many first dates. However, lately they've started to feel like a partnership worthiness interview, rather than a date with a potential new friend. I know I'm part of the problem because I like to ask questions to see if we share similar values.

Laurel: When y'all go on first dates, what do y'all do to keep them from becoming stale Q& A sessions.

Laurel: Love, Stubert S. Stubert III Esquire.

Daniel: I believe in my heart that this is an organic Stubert as well.

Laurel: Yeah?

Daniel: Yeah.

Laurel: In your heart's heart.

Daniel: People are starting to self identify as stu bi.

Laurel: Stu bi! That's why I'm, that's why I'm just thinking about narrowing the definition of a stubert to our listeners. Because I think it's special to be a stubert.

Nichole: It is. And I want that t shirt. That is modeled after I'm a pepper, the Dr. Pepper shirts from the seventies that says I'm a stubert.

Daniel: So all you Etsy mavens out there, just make the shirt. Don't wait for us. Sell bootleg polyamory hour merchandise. That's

Nichole: when we know we've really made it. All right. getting to know someone is going to feel like a Q and a session.

Nichole: For me, When it feels stale is when I ask a question, they answer, and then they ask me the same exact question. That's stale. There's a, um,

Daniel: There's a, a term now that I heard, boomer asking, have you heard this in the Zeitgeist? No. Where you ask a question specifically desiring them to ask you the same question back.

Laurel: Interesting.

Daniel: Have you read uh, Gravity's Rainbow?

Laurel: Oh boy.

Daniel: That kind of

Laurel: thing. Yes.

Yes.

Laurel: Okay. Interesting. Okay.

Yeah.

Nichole: I just, I find that my first dates It's just a conversation and they tend to spin off into a bunch of different shit. And because I'm feeling the way that I'm feeling right now, I tend to get pretty vulnerable pretty quickly,

Nichole: and so I think that's part of like your willingness to be vulnerable. Could impact the staleness of the Q& A session. I feel like

Daniel: I haven't had this problem very much. Good for you. Oh,

Laurel: okay.

Daniel: Because my ADHD makes it so that I am constantly zigzagging in topics, right?

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: person. Like, I do ask questions.

Daniel: But I'm also very willing to kind of move the, subject to whatever comes into my brain at the time. And when I think back to first dates with both of you with, with each of you, we're not a triad, stupid nation. When I think back to my first dates with each of you, that's what it was like.

Daniel: Like a jam. There's a way that you can dance with somebody that is reciprocal, where you are responding to what that person is bringing, and then bringing your own energy and response to it, and you get into a kind of groove. And one of the reasons why I developed relationships with each of you is because we were all really good at that.

Daniel: And that's what I'm like, hearing is like, the conversations are not organic enough. They're not

Laurel: pliable, they're not

Daniel: moving.

Laurel: I feel like in some ways, like the self help industrial complex, the relationship industrial complex, has in some ways destroyed our capacity to relate.

Laurel: uh, One of our stewards like wrote in and said, Oh yeah well, like we've had the stars conversation, right? Like an acronym for the things that you're supposed to cover in a conversation with a potential partner. And I feel like there's so much in like that we go through and like therapizing.

Laurel: Making sure we'd like pick the right people and are like doing our due diligence and dating is like, Oh we have to make sure we're aligned in these eight categories with these three subcategories. And. As I was reading this question from the Stubert and like they're describing sort of the stale like, are we checking out the box?

Laurel: I just flash back to quote unquote, organic conversations that they have on like Love Island or reality TV where the characters actually get to talk to each other for five minutes and they try to have a conversation and their conversations are, do you want kids?

Laurel: How many kids do you want? Are you religious? It's family important to you, and it is like a checklist, and people think that those things are values, and they're not. And they really don't have anything to do with relating.

Nichole: Did I black out and ask this question? Am I the stu I'm just realizing, okay, so,

Daniel: we thought your blackout days were behind you,

Nichole: That, thank you, Laurel.

Nichole: . Truly. I have been having an experience recently where, I'm trying to date for like romantic reasons, right? And I have some people who like just really want to have a lot of like alignment and feelings conversations.

Nichole: Being honest about like where you're at or like, Hey, like this is a thing that I experienced or this is a feeling that I have or whatever, that's all good. But it does feel like there's a lot of pressure to be in lockstep with somebody every single moment. Yeah. And the second that you're off or that you don't meet an expectation that hasn't been set, there is some kind of conflict.

Laurel: Yeah. It's like, oh, bad. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this.

Nichole: Yeah. And what I enjoy about dating is the getting to know you, right? And the getting to find out about a person. And I'm realizing that one of the people that I'm dating constantly says that he wants to get to know me, but he never really asks me a question.

And

Nichole: I learn so much about this person. Because in our conversations, I am constantly asking questions.

Nichole: You can have as many like stars conversations or relationship escalator conversations as you want, but that doesn't actually get to the core of who a person is.

Nichole: Yeah.

Laurel: Cause I think the escalator conversations, the what are you looking for in a relationship kind of conversations? In a polyamorous context, are ones that you have once you have a relationship. It's like, okay, we've built a rapport now, what do we want to include in this relationship?

Laurel: Or in a monogamous context, you have them because you have to exclude people from your life if they don't meet all the requirements.

Nichole: Yes.

Laurel: Yes. And so I think people take it from the monogamous context Whoops. And stick it into the poly context and aren't actually like making the distinction of when is actually like appropriate or when you actually need to apply.

Laurel: Like the learnings

Nichole: Yes. Of that

Laurel: conversation,

Nichole: but also they can be fluid.

Laurel: Yes, Yes. Like, Yeah, they're not static.

Nichole: That's like I was told by somebody that like, oh I'm, I'm not what you're looking for. And I'm like, fuck off, you don't know what I'm looking for. I can have varying degrees of relationships with people.

Nichole: Yeah. That's called having relationships with people.

Laurel: That is, in fact, this wild ride we call life.

Daniel: Coming back to practical things.

Daniel: that you might do, to try and steer the conversation out of those kinds of pockets. I think first you just have to kind of reflect what you want like you have to be the open, improvisational curious person that you hope the other person is going to be in order to meet you.

Daniel: In a kind of dance, in a kind of energetic dance, in an ecstatic energetic dance.

Gross!

Daniel: In a kind of a mental contact improv. In, In order to have, in order to have that kind of organic interaction, like I think there are kinds of questions. That you contend towards, right? You don't ask, like, Where are you from? I ask those questions. You might ask those questions at first, but you've got to follow them up with the qualitative stuff. Yeah. You've got to be interested in, You've got to be interested in the story.

Nichole: I ask, what brought you to Portland? Instead of how long you've been here. I also think we might just have a little bit of practice in this like formal training, at least Daniel and I,

Nichole: because of the suicide hotline.

Nichole: Because we volunteered for the suicide hotline what's drilled into you is ask open ended questions. Just get them talking because most often on the suicide hotline, people are calling because they want to talk, not necessarily because they're suicidal.

Laurel: Yeah. You learn that in retail too.

Laurel: Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel: So treat anybody who goes on a date with you as though they are potentially suicidal or interested in a really nice dress.

Nichole: That's not what I'm saying. I just think, I think you're right, but it is

Laurel: like a skill.

Nichole: It's a skill.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: And I think that you're right, Daniel, like you bring to the table what you want.

Nichole: And you be the person that you're looking for, . few weeks ago, Laurel, you mentioned yeah, when I let go of expectations of what the date's going to be, I had a better date.

Nichole: Yeah. And sometimes. I think Laurel, you probably do this more than I do because you're more willing to take a risk. It's a date for the story.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: Totally. And I think everybody's interesting. Yeah. To a point. Yeah. Everybody has a story to tell. Find out what that story fuckin is.

Laurel: Yeah. What the fuck is your

Daniel: story? Hey,

Laurel: what's your deal, bro? That's my opening line. Every time I walk into a bar or coffee shop for my first day. Hey, you! What's

Daniel: your deal? What's your motivation as a character?

Nichole: It's the character in my story.

Daniel: What brought you to Melbourne?

Laurel: But I think that's part of like, uh, maybe a part of like capitalistic culture in general is like we treat each other as like transactions. Like when you're coming to a date, if you're treating the other human being, like they are providing you a service and that services the correct values, the correct personality whatever, et cetera, et cetera.

Nichole: Literally checking the boxes because you have a checklist in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. And and I think, we all do this where we find, we found softer ways of saying that and like disguising them as self realization, self actualization, self protection kind of thing, but we're still treating each other like mechanisms to achieve our full selves rather than treating each other like, Actual like, human beings with each, our own complex, rich lives.

Laurel: You have to show up. with the desire just to like meet that person.

Daniel: And they have already succeeded in being the right person for who the fuck they are.

Laurel: Yeah. And maybe they're not the person you want to cohabit with or marry or have a long term relationship with.

Daniel: Or even fuck that night.

Laurel: Yeah. But that's not their job.

Daniel: And I think, Stubert, you are so good at describing this experience and the reasons why it's frustrating for you. I don't know whether you're dating on dating, , apps, sites, But if you are, I would also, , recommend having that be part of your setup, your lead in, for even the potential people that you're dating might make it so you're not starting on the back foot.

Nichole: Yeah. That's good.

Daniel: Thanks. Have I,

Nichole: Have I

Daniel: been of service?

Nichole: . Yeah, I really appreciate this question. It's given me a lot to think

Laurel: about.

Nichole: The best first dates I've been on have been like , just relating about our life experiences and how they intersect with the rest of the world.

Daniel: Yeah, and I don't think that compatibility is about facts. No, not at all. You are not going to learn anything about your compatibility with somebody by getting a bunch of data and setting it beside your, Data.

Laurel: Yeah, just because you want to cohabit with someone and I want to cohabit with someone doesn't mean we should cohabit together

Daniel: God, that's a good

Nichole: point. Yeah,

Daniel: it's like It's

Nichole: like the

Daniel: uh, The idea that you know All kinky people should want to be kinky together. Yeah.

Nichole: Yeah

Daniel: Okay. Here are some other questions. Weird things.

Daniel: Here's

Laurel: just, Here's just, and now for a list of other weird things.

Daniel: Did you know that a platypus is venomous?

Laurel: Are

Daniel: they? Yeah. Okay. Conversation stopper. See if you drop one of

Laurel: those in a date. That's how you can get the fuck out if it's not going well for you.

Laurel: Hey, did you know?

Daniel: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. When I go on dates. Here, you both know this about me and we both have, I think we've all, we each know this about you,

Laurel: together

Daniel: individually, when I go on a date with you, Laurel, or you know, Nicole on separate nights.

Laurel: Yes. What if you're going on individual dates with each of us at the same time?

Laurel: And you're Mrs. Doubtfire again? And like dressing in different costumes and like having to like go to the bathroom to change real quick? And then going to the other table? Can we do that sometime?

Daniel: I mean That's kind of what I feel like energetically most of the time.

Laurel: Oh my god.

Laurel: How exhausting for you?

Yeah.

Daniel: When I go on a date and I go to a bar I like to sit with my date. at the bar, facing diagonal toward each other. I know this is just a weird, simple, physical, But this one weird trick, it makes it so you're not squared off against each other in a kind of an insular energy exchange.

Daniel: It makes a difference. Like maybe interacting with the bartender a little bit. You don't have the pressure of, Maintaining constant eye contact so that when you do engage in eye contact, it's meaningful. You can return to the eye contact and then come away from it.

Laurel: Interesting.

Nichole: I think this is why I like to go to galleries,

Nichole: it gives us something to do. And I can also gauge their reception of what they think about it. And and it doesn't feel static,

Daniel: and you get to see how somebody sees things.

Nichole: Yeah. It could be

Daniel: anything. It doesn't have to be art, but art is a really great, simple one. You are not just um, hearing facts about their life. You are hearing their opinion and their reaction to the world.

Daniel: Again, it's this another, another way of like being together in interaction with the world.

Nichole: Yes. They're also just like very special spaces. Like they're very sacred to me. And so I am like, it's another practice of vulnerability of like, I'm letting you into this space that I find very soothing and healing.

Nichole: And we also need to support art right now. So, So it's just another way to do that.

Laurel: I have this structure that you can crawl into and it's basically like a womb. And I like to bring my dates into the womb. Moral. Are

Daniel: you talking about your pussy?

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: Come on in. Hard to talk when you're in there.

Daniel: Yeah, no. God.

Laurel: Yeah, I don't really like to talk that much.

Daniel: This whole time I've been really trying not to bring up this book that I really like.

Daniel: But I think that we've put a moratorium on the Hockaloogie sound effect for being pretentious. So maybe I'm safe.

Laurel: Oh, you're safe. It's fine.

Daniel: The joke being that if you are pretentious, you secretly want somebody to spit in your mouth.

Laurel: Yeah, it was too, it was too long of a joke to

Daniel: explain. And now we're burdened with it every time we mention it.

Daniel: We just gotta show the inner workings, show, show your math. I still think it's funny. Me too.

Laurel: Anyways, say your pretentious shit.

Daniel: Okay, so there's this book by Javier Marías Your Face Tomorrow. It's like a three volume novel.

Daniel: And it's about a Spanish expat in England who gets recruited for a secret branch of MI6. And his job is to basically interpret people. So he sits with them or watches video. And then decides really like arbitrary things about them, would they turn you over to a fascist regime or are they uh, capable of murder?

Daniel: Like There are things that like spy things but he also talks about it like in interpersonal situations , if you look at someone long enough, this is a whole theme of the novel. If you look at somebody long enough, you can tell all sorts of things about them, things which you may not want to know or even confront as truths.

Daniel: Like that if you keep looking past the point where you think that there's nothing else to see or learn or observe about a person, keep looking. At the beginning of a relationship, for instance, you can know the limits of it, like you can know where it's going to end, but you hold that information from yourself.

Daniel: You can seal it from yourself. And he calls this veiling your gaze, where people are looking around. With veiled gaze. Cue joke about

Yeah.

Daniel: Gaze with cute little veils. Uh Huh. So it just got me thinking about this in the context of like a first date. Oh

Laurel: yeah.

Daniel: Like how much can you know?

Daniel: How much do you know? And how much are you holding back from yourself? No matter how many questions you have. You may ask none of these questions about that are like data facts about themselves facts about you are gonna teach you anything but right there you may be confronted just by kind of Observing somebody with all this information that you may not be willing to actually grapple with

Laurel: Yeah,

Daniel: like this person will betray me

Laurel: What Daniel is really trying to figure out is With any one person that you go on a first date with is, will they turn me over to a fascist regime?

Laurel: But you cannot ask that question directly. No.

Nichole: No, because everybody's gonna say no. Yeah. But you figure out that they're going to turn you over to a fascist regime by the signs they have in their yards

Daniel: I mean, Honestly, a lot of people with the right signs in their yards are the people who would totally turn you over to a fascist regime, In our America, that's exactly what I'm

Nichole: thinking of. They're the one, like to protect their own hide, they would 1000 percent turn you over.

Nichole: They would put up the patina of like, look how liberal I am. And then the second shit goes down, they're like, Damn!

Daniel: But you know, I gotta grade up on the curve, right? Because There's a certain point at which almost anybody would turn you over to a fascist regime. There's some people who are like gonna be like, preemptively, they're gonna be like, Ooh, I can get brownie points.

Daniel: I'm making a call. Yes. Eager to do it.

Yes.

Daniel: Yeah. I'm on the good list.

Nichole: Oh man. Did we answer the question?

Daniel: Yes, you are on the good list. What? Finally, we answered the question.

Nichole: I think we actually did answer the question.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. I think we did a good job this time. Polyamateur hour? No. Polyprofessionals. Polyprofessional

Laurel: Polyprofessional hour sounds so boring. Sounds Like open office hours. Yeah. Ugh. What a drag.

Laurel: reminds me I've got a bone to pick .

Laurel: anyways.

Song: This bone,

Song: well, it's broke and this bone

Song: I gotta pick with you.

Song: I don't need you to say, I just need you to fix this shit you.

Nichole: What's your bone to pick?

Laurel: Oh, it's so dumb. My bone to pick is kink nights at sex clubs. They just take up too much goddamn space.

Laurel: Like you don't have room to do what? Have sex!

Daniel: Just so much gear,

Laurel: right? There's so many, there's tables and benches and crosses and then just another table to lay out all of your implements

Daniel: on. And you know what? It also takes up a lot of energetic space. I realize that I'm being a little bit hypocritical because I like to take up a lot of dramatic space with my sex if I'm having sex in public.

Daniel: We're like, hey, look at us. Welcome to the room. This is the me and you show. This is the me. Welcome to the me and you show. But kink takes up dramatic space in a whole different way because it's like a formalized There's a lot

Laurel: of accessories. There's so many accessories.

Daniel: And more ceremony.

Laurel: Absolutely. Yeah.

Daniel: Narrative.

Laurel: Yeah. Yes. I realize this is an incredibly unpopular opinion. Which one did you go to? Sanctuary. , part of the thing is sanctuary is small. Yeah, once you set up, three or four tasting areas, the whole thing is full.

Daniel: Laurel needs room to swing her dick around.

Nichole: Yes, this is true. This is true. We should really take this up with management.

Laurel: I say this, I feel like I already have to walk this back.

Nichole: No, you're just, you are complaining about logistics.

Laurel: You know what they should do is they should have like a pulley system where then like another panel comes down from the ceiling so you can have double decker.

Nichole: That sounds dangerous as shit. Are you kidding? Yeah, but

Laurel: you're already like, there's already rope bunnies and stuff. Like everyone's already living on the edge, man.

Daniel: They do not want to fucking a fucking Boz Luhrmann film.

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.

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!