Nichole: , I was watching a Spanish movie the other night, like from Spain.

Daniel: Oh. I thought it was like scary movie. Spanish movie.

Nichole: I was watching this movie. From like 1993. takes place in this like, small town in Spain and at one point, um, there's a scene in a disco. And they're dancing. And the song goes X ecstasy, exta. No ecstasy, exta. No.

And I was like immediately obsessed. So I, was on a call with my Spanish coworker from Spain, who is in Spain. And I was telling her about this.

Nichole: And she was like, oh, that's like our national anthem. Everyone loves that song. I was really,

Daniel: wow. Wow. I'm wondering if it's too late for us.

I wish that we had a, national anthem that was a vaguely sexual disco song.

Nichole: I think we can make, ring my bell.

Daniel: So for Americans do not want people coming to their doors.

Laurel: I've been like paying extra attention to the no soliciting signs that I see, like while I walk the dog.

Daniel: Do you usually just solicit on your walks?

Laurel: No, but I just like been, 'cause I think about solicitors a lot because when I answer the door it is like an ordeal for them. I often talk to them for a long time. my like ex-husband got mad at me because the Jehovah's Witnesses kept coming back to talk to me and I wouldn't be home.

And they're like, oh, is Laurel here? Like, we're having a great conversation.

Laurel: Oh my God. And Daniel's gonna remember the roofers that came to my,

Daniel: I am bubbling over with the roofer's story.

Laurel: this gentleman came into my door one day, super cute, he was like, oh, hey, we're gonna be in your neighborhood tomorrow doing free estimates for people.

Can I sign you up? but he was being like very like, earnest in sincere. And I was like, you get paid by your signups or something, don't you? And he's like, yeah, and I have to like confirm your, and I was like, okay, sure. Like, whatever. I sign up, totally forget about it. The next day Daniel is over, we're on a date and two new roofers show up.

Daniel: Yeah. And we were about to fuck

Laurel: yes.

Daniel: Before they showed up.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: they come in and, they're not as cute as the other roofer apparently. The unrelated roofers, they send the ringer out. They send the cute boy out.

Laurel: Yeah. Who is like, age appropriate.

Daniel: And then they send out these two like teenage boys, essentially.

Laurel: one of 'em was older, IE my age.

Daniel: But the one was young enough where we would've felt even bad about trying to involve him in a three way if we had, you know, tried to do a porn scene. like if we involved the old one, we would feel bad even with the presence of the young one. So it's not even a good audience. So they come in and Laurel starts to fucking try to organize them.

Laurel: How

Daniel: she starts talking about labor and

Laurel: Yeah. Like how much they're getting paid to be out here doing this bullshit and. If they're unionized,

Daniel: and this is when she was at a large West coast, electronics, computer conglomerate. And I think that you had a lot of pent up organizational fury too. You were like,

Laurel: yes. I was still like very in the thick of actively organizing for that company,

Daniel: you go to the fucking seven 11 on the corner and you're like, fucking unionize the slushies.

Laurel: But Daniel's getting increasingly angry with me because we are about to go bone. And he's like, why are you fucking around with these people right now?

Nichole: How long did you engage them in? Did they ever give you a quote? Did you ever unionize them?

Laurel: I didn't unionize them, but at one point they're like, okay, we're gonna go like up on your roof and take pictures and stuff.

And I'm like, okay, great. Bye. And they're like, well, we'll come back and knock on your door in whatever, 20 minutes And then Daniel's like, okay, well let's go fuck around in the meantime.

Daniel: And you would not,

Laurel: well, I was like

Daniel: not in front of the roofers.

Laurel: Yeah. Not front of the roofers, but we went to my bedroom. And we were like kind of messing around and then like a ladder just comes up against my bedroom door or my bedroom window.

Oh my God. And at this point I think Daniel is getting more entertained with it.

Daniel: You think that in retrospect.

Nichole: Wow. You know, none of this surprises me.

Laurel: We did find out though, that one of them was Polly.

Daniel: How, because Laurel was also trying to get them into it.

Laurel: No, Daniel was becoming like more and more irritated. 'cause they came back, gave me the quote, like I had my pole up in the living room, the Polly one like made a comment about one of his partners was also a pole dancer or whatever. And then I think, 'cause Daniel was trying to make them uncomfortable enough to leave, we were like talking about Polly stuff and the other guy's like, oh, I'm Polly.

Like I live with my two partners. And we were like having a good chat about it. And the younger one that's just trying to make a sale is like, who are these freaks?

Daniel: I love that. In retrospect, like, oh yeah, we're having a good chat about it. Eventually we did end the conversation.

Laurel: Eventually I was like, we need to fuck now.

You guys need to leave.

Daniel: And I was like. Unless you age appropriate roofer wouldn't like to stay. I didn't say that. I wished I would've said that. I sometimes think of it at moments of solitude and reflection. Deep in the night I wake up and think about the roofer that got away.

Laurel: But this is why I think about no soliciting signs.

'cause I'm like, oh my God, that's how we got on this. Holy shit.

Because I'm like, I should have one that's like no soliciting for your own benefit.

Daniel: like beware of solicitor,

Laurel: beware of like, yeah, beware of talkative middle aged woman who will just waste your day.

Nichole: Well, speaking of throwing a stone and hitting a poly person.

Daniel: Welcome to Poly Amateur Hour.

You were gonna try and segue.

Nichole: I was, but we haven't introduced, you're right. I'm Nicole,

Daniel: I'm Daniel.

Laurel: And I'm Laurel.

Nichole: Oh, we did it wrong.

Laurel: Yeah, you said it. You said Welcome to Poly Amateur Hour. So you have to say your name last.

Daniel: No, we were saying that we wanted to mix it up, and I just did it just from having a sundowning moment.

Laurel: That's true.

Daniel: are we gonna hold hands and chant it? Daniel's fault, fault, fault.

Nichole: No, you're gonna write another jingle about it.

Daniel: You're gonna make me, it's like when you try and write it like this, you know, they discredited the whole dog training routine of making them smell the poop. You know this, right?

Laurel: Oh, don't rub your face with it.

Daniel: Yeah. Or I guess a more apt analogy would be if you're gonna kill someone, making them dig their own grave.

Nichole: speaking of throwing a stone and hitting a poly person we threw a stone. Um, we got to speak to Jack from Brighton.

Laurel: Jack from Brighton

Nichole: for our segment, my own poly, Idaho.

Daniel: And now for all you curious cats and kittens out there. You get a mic in front of you.

So glad we can edit this. Roll Tape.

Thank you for being here. Jack,

Laurel: Thank you for sending us socks.

Jack: Oh, you're welcome.

Nichole: I, okay. This is just, I, ugh. My brain is like, it's, I spoken to existence.

Laurel: You did?

Nichole: Like there, why isn't there a shop called Octopus? And we have a listener, an international listener in whose town there exists a sock shop called Octopus that has branded socks.

Jack: It's so gay as well.

Nichole: I thought, goddammit,

Jack: I need to have a word for 'em about their lack of like poly etiquette and like ing us, but because I wanted to send poly socks, but it is so gay.

Nichole: Wow. Well then there we, okay. I think we know our 30th piece of merch now is fucking socks that we sell exclusively at Octopus.

Jack: Yeah. Infinite socks and infinite. So,

Daniel: Is that the episode that I'm editing right now? And it hasn't actually released, right?

Laurel: I have no concept of what we've said on the air, what makes it into the podcast when it posts.

Daniel: what we're recording right now. Is this a recording?

Laurel: I have no idea.

Daniel: Yeah, me neither.

Jack: I used to be a lecturer and honestly I had like a list of things I would tick off as I went through. 'cause once you've done a tutorial four times you get into the fifth group and you're like, did I actually already say this?

Nichole: Yes. Am I

Jack: What's going on here?

Nichole: It's a possible to know.

And now you've unlocked another kink of mine. I'm gonna make lists. Please put it

Laurel: put it a spreadsheet.

Daniel: Is one of the kinks, just to be clear, is one of the kinks being gifted socks and is that why you married a Jew?

Laurel: I don't think so, because I've gifted Nicole a lot of socks and she's still not interested in me.

Nichole: And I tried to gift socks that I was gifted to me, thinking that they were your socks.

Nichole: There's a lot of sock content on this podcast

Jack: I had a certain type of house party recently. And honestly, I was just posting into a group chat. Just underwear. Just like lefties. And my wife was like, those are mine. I was like, why did you put them?

Laurel: That is so real.

Jack: You handed me a bucket of crap and said, sort this out, repatriate this shit.

Daniel: I mean, I think that she was trying to seed her underwear, right? Like, she's like, these are dead. These are dead to me, please.

Laurel: It was really just a bucket of her underwear that she wanted you to give to your friends.

Jack: The charity shop won't take it anymore.

Daniel: I was hoping the group chat was actually just when you said just a bunch of like, pictures of, I thought you were gonna say socks. And then it was just a bunch of people fucking in just their socks.

Laurel: I, that's a good theme for a sex party.

Socks only

Nichole: sock it to me.

Laurel: when you said you were sending us a present and like you mentioned that you're a drapier for the film industry.

I was like, are we gonna get drapes?

Jack: Yeah. I mean, you're at the back of the queue. I moved into my house like seven months ago and I'm still working through my own. So yeah, that's what we both do. We're both drapes masters.

Daniel: Wow.

Jack: basically what we do is if it's made of fabric and it's onscreen. It's not being worn by a human actor. It's probably us.

Jack: Curtains, upholstery, horse blankets. We made a tuxedo for a dog. We do like action prop dolls, backpacks, bags, lever work.

Daniel: I mean, we're gonna try and rope you into making some kind of like poly amateur hour drapery. Nicole is not. We're gonna drape you into, I saw you said rope.

Nichole: can you tell us more about. Poly journey?

Jack: so weirdly, um, stigma is a big part of my poly journey. the episode of enterprise where Dr. Fox's wife comes to play. I had never prior to that moment in time ever encountered really polyamory, but what I was very cognizant of growing up was that I was attracted to multiple people often at the same time.

I would like, and I was still quite young at this point. I was like 16, 17, so you can't tell if you're just indecisive or what. And there's like the whole queer tangent slash intersection of like, what's going on there. So I'm kind of trying to work out like, what's going on.

'cause everybody else is like, I'm hot on this person, then I'm hot on this person. That person's dead to me. And I'm like, I don't feel that way.

Jack: I am like so real. I'm hot on this person. I'm hot on this person. And why is this not a thing?

And then, then I watched Charles Tucker, the third awkwardly bat away the advances of an incredibly attractive woman.

And I thought to myself. One side of this equation has it right. The other side has Charles Tucker on it.

Daniel: Oh God. Your entry into polyamory was rebellion against trip Tucker. Like you were there, thereby the grace of, uh, insert problematic Star Trek producer.

Jack: uh, exactly. Like, I don't like to think about how much of my sexual awakening came in the hands of Rick Fucking Berman, but there we go.

Daniel: Hey. At least it wasn't literally at the hands of Rick fucking Berman.

Laurel: I have to say, like, I am jealous of this poly awakening. Like, I wish this were my story.

Daniel: it would've given you something like, as an opener for John Billingsley.

Laurel: Yeah, I know, He is a charming and perverted gentleman.

Jack: Did you, he's got a smile that tells you he fucks

Laurel: Oh yeah.

Daniel: Yes, and he will tell you he fucks. Comes out of the smile. You have heard our interview with him, right?

Jack: Uh, no, because I listen in the car. And I'm not in control in the car. So Christina grabs my phone and just, she's the chaos Muppet of all chaos Muppets, ah, yes. Nothing is in order. She just hits the button and we start rolling.

Daniel: All right, well, you need to like, one, have a serious talk with your unserious wife. Make a little drape room that is completely dark and enclosed, and then listen to the John Billingsley interview. you may have a second sexual awakening is all I'm saying.

Jack: I think that if I'm gonna have anything John Billingsley related in a dark room, I don't think it's gonna be your podcast guys.

Laurel: So touche share.

Daniel: We've invited you today here, for our segment My own Polly Idaho. There was no fucking segue there whatsoever. I just raw dogged that.

Laurel: Yeah. You understand him for it. That's great.

Jack: I'm here to talk about Brighton and by extension through Brighton, kind of other bits of the UK 'cause I've lived all over the uk. And a little bit in mainland Europe as well. For the other UK listeners. They'll all be going, this man doesn't sound remotely like he's from Brighton. 'cause I'm not, I'm Scottish. but my poly experience is a kind of microcosm of Brighton. And we're here because of what Brighton represents in relation to our journey getting here.

'cause Brian Foxs.

Daniel: Yeah. Ooh, alright. is that your city motto? Yeah. Is that like on the Brighton flag,

Jack: Yeah. I mean, we have two tallies as you come into the city. One's the population, the other one's the number of orgasms,

Daniel: that are happening that day, that are happening right now. Like, it's like a tick, like it keeps just like ticking.

Jack: Brighton has been like a center for Britain's ongoing, completely denied, but definitely their sexual revolution since like the 1780s

Laurel: long standing a slow burn.

Jack: We have something called the Royal Pavilion, the Brighton Pavilion, which is this big kind of Taj Mahal looking thing, built by, I wanna say George iv. Like in the 18 hundreds. 'cause him, and I think it was his father just liked coming to Brighton to gamble and drink and fuck. And notoriously George the fourth was Victoria's uncle. And amongst the other reasons she did not like coming to Brighton, even though she was kind of forced to. 'cause it was one of the first railway places you could get to. And it's like, Hey, get behind this technology. Get railed. She comes down here. Yeah, she's down here going, and he, my uncle fucked in every room at this, but it just became so synonymous with it. And then post-war especially, the British queer community. Clusters in a few places. One of them is Brighton, the ever big area is kind of theater land in soho in London. And then the last one is Manchester.

And these three places become beacons for it. But where I've noticed that like Manchester has a very active male gay scene.

Jack: And you know, most of my friends who are in the scene, certainly the ones that have lived in Manchester in some form of ethical, non-monogamous agreement, arrangement, there was a Kinsey Institute study where they found something like 60% of gay male relationships pulled in. I think it was New York City, had engaged in some form of ethical non monogamy.

Daniel: With somebody from Brighton.

Jack: Yes. Yeah. There's not that many of us, and it's exhausting, but, you know, we do our part and your part.

So we ended up down here because it's got this like rich history of just being this place. And after the war, like loads of artists, poets, musicians, came here to kind of escape some pretty draconian laws in the uk that governed like men on men interactions.

Jack: Um, and the persecution was rife in all aspects of the gay, lesbian, trans bisexual experience. but it became this little hub and it's grown up through there with really this mentality. I asked a friend yesterday who's been living here for like 20 something years. I said to him, you know, what makes it feel different here? And he went, oh, you can tell your plumber you're gay. You can tell your plumber, your electrician, the traffic warden, whoever, because everybody has gay friends.

Daniel: Yeah. If you do tell your plumber you're gay though, you have to be prepared for the music to start out. Right. And they're gonna get,

Jack: it's because he's waving the wrench around.

Daniel: he's like, oh no, I'm stuck under the sink. What? Oh, you guys obviously don't watch enough porn.

Jack: How are they getting stuck under the sink? Surely it's the washing machine.

Daniel: Yeah. I was trying to go with the plumber theme. Obviously big slut, not a very good plumber.

What is different about the poly scene in Brighton now for you or for a typical or neuro atypical resident of Brighton?

Jack: Honestly, sometimes it is size,

Laurel: sometimes it matters.

Jack: Poly itself feels a little less developed here than it does in maybe London. But the population is not so goddamn spread out. The problem in London is nobody wants to travel anywhere. As soon as you need to get on a tube or you need to travel 45 minutes, it's like, well that's, we can't make it on a weeknight.

We can't do this, we can't do that. Right. So, whereas Brighton it's large enough that everybody can be dispersed, but it's close enough that, so you're not tripping over your ex-partners. Brighton, uh, people, because they're so open, like you can go on field and if you filter by Polly, there's just a shit ton of people who are there. It's people who are actually seriously aware of themselves.

They're aware of their wants and needs. They've kind of been immersed in the culture to the point where they didn't have to maybe work that hard to pick up terms. Like, I'm looking for a comet partner.

when I have conversations with people who are in their twenties now, they're so much more aware of consent. Because they grew up with that being a primary framework for discussing interactions. Through their teens. Whereas I didn't, I got like grandfathered in under like, you're gonna learn this shit in your twenties because you over that, or you just become the other people, the bad one.

Laurel: Yes.

Jack: So, again, people are growing up in this space or they're going to the universities. There's like three universities there, here in Brighton, and then they stay. But they're more immersed and seeing these relationships and they're seeing them working and functioning for people.

Laurel: when our country stops being a shithole, I wanna set up like a Sister City program. Brighton and do an exchange. Like, I'll open up my house and you can come stay at my house, and then we'll find, it'll be like a couch surfing sort of deal. I have

Jack: the address.

Laurel: So you do whenever, whenever, whenever you decide it is safe to come. When we finally topple the regime and oust the gestapo. Like,

Nichole: I think that's a really interesting point about geography. So I would say that Portland and Brighton, I think are a similar size, right? it's a small enough city, that I run into people who I've been friends with for years who tell me they've been poly the entire time and I had no idea.

Um, but then it's also big enough to avoid your exes. And getting around is fairly easy, you know? And,

Daniel: and getting around is fairly easy.

Nichole: True.

Laurel: last night Dan and I are out at a restaurant and he's like, that person at the bar looks really familiar. He's like, is she a friend of Nicole's?

And then he thinks about it a little bit more and he is like, oh no, I think I hooked up with her. And I'm like, this is everywhere we go.

Nichole: It is everywhere.

Laurel: Did you have to scroll through your field to be like, I knew it. I knew it. He was actually scrolling through his contacts because he is like, I think I put her in my contacts as redacted lawn chair because in her profile she said she wanted to be folded up like a lawn chair.

Nichole: Oh my God. Okay.

Daniel: Yes. Which I think is a great opener personally. Like all time. Great opener. I wanna be folded up like a lawn chair.

Nichole: Oh sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one's saying that it's not.

Daniel: stop slut shaming her?

Laurel: We're slut shaming you.

Daniel: Oh, thank you. in that case, please continue.

Jack: I'm not trying to slut shame, but that process of putting people in just with like a bit of random trivia about them, is the surname is chaos.

They need to be in as redacted field or redacted tinder or redacted bumble.

Laurel: agreed. 1000% how you operate.

Daniel: Then you just end up with like 20 Kate redacted Tinders,

Laurel: but that you at least know,

Daniel: why didn't he put the redacted in there? You end up with 20,000 Kate Tinders, you know, or Sarah Tinders.

Laurel: But at least you know what app you need to go back to

Nichole: completely agree. And that's exactly how I like order people for sure until I learn their last name and then they get a last name.

Jack: Yeah. once a year I go through mine and anybody who hasn't transitioned to being a last name yet. It gets deleted.

Nichole: Wow. That's so tidy. I love that. That's so great. Nicole's gonna adopt this immediately. I absolutely am.

Daniel: This is probably the only way to function in Brighton.

So the next question we usually ask is, what kind of resources are there where you're at?

Jack: I've got a great one for people who are on the South Coast because there is a lot of poly people and I do go around town telling everybody to listen to your podcast.

Laurel: Aww.

Jack: there is an e and m book club. You can find it. It's just called the e and m book club in Brighton. And they do a couple of social events a month. They do like a sort of munch, they do a general kind of, no, I forget, no drinks, social.

And then they do an actual, we get together and they'll either read a book that has a poly influence or an e and m influence within it, or they will engage with like a blog post or something else that came out that is just thought provoking and discussion provoking.

Um, it's just called e and m book Club and if you search for it in Brighton, I don't think they have like a fixed location, but they do have a website.

Laurel: Cool. Perfect.

Daniel: Oh, awesome. It's the oldest established floating permanent book club in Brighton, says Daniel, nobody gets my Guys and Dolls reference.

Jack: Is that the one with Luke Be a Jedi tonight?

Daniel: Yes, that is.

Jack: Sorry. I'm much better educated than that. I know about the sharp lapels of the checkered coat, et cetera, but I couldn't leave the little Simpson stroke there.

Daniel: You said they sometimes do blog posts, they do books. Do they ever do a podcasts?

Jack: I don't know. Reach out to them.

Laurel: Yeah. We'll have to look it up.

Nichole: And then we have to choose an episode for them because, who knows what they'll find?

Jack: based on the census that I could take of the members. Maybe something about d and d or,

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: Nicole is lobbying us, to have our next big advertising push or something on like a d and d related podcast. Rather than, you know, 'cause we've honestly squeezed every last poly FODI think out of their fan base.

Jack: Yeah. You've got that bum bum bum.

Nichole: Yeah. And I think they're annoyed with us.

Jack: because you keep stealing the producer.

Laurel: That's what all of their like greatest Gen Trek meetings are about is Wendy is just like, can you please, can you somehow just get poly amateur hour to leave me alone now? It was a mistake. I reached out.

It was mistake protect me.

Nichole: So what's the last question?

Daniel: a story that is possibly indicative of being Poly and Brighton. Unfortunately, you've already used up the underwear story.

Jack: So in relation to the underwear story, oh, I think this is really nice.

Um, I can do a prequel to the underwear story.

Daniel: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, underwear story? Phantom Menace.

Jack: scene one. Interior. My house,

So we were asked by a couple of Christina's partners, if we would host a party. And I said, I don't know, because we plan on living here a long time and we like our neighbors and we are on a terraced house. So, you know, we've got neighbors on one side and the other. Like attached to us sharing walls.

Daniel: I thought you said you were in a terrorist house and I was like, same.

Laurel: Yes. Technically

Jack: based on recent support cases. What aren't terrorists but the world's worst chaos Muppet.

Jack: Um, and so we took a couple minutes to, or like, maybe a day to think about how we were gonna do this. And we just spoke to our neighbors and we said like, Hey, this is what we'd like to do and it's gonna be Valentine's night. And we don't know how you'd feel about it and if you do feel like weird about it or whatever, like that's fine.

And we just got the sweetest message back. It was just like, everybody needs to be able to cut loose, feel completely okay. In their home. Go for it. Like, we'll take ourselves out for the night. Have fun.

Daniel: was anybody like, do you want me to bring anything?

Laurel: Invited themselves

Jack: to a party? They're incredibly sweet men. They're sort of like in their fifties gay couple. And they just are like, they're really, really lovely. But we just were very open about what it was gonna be.

Or like, if you guys need us to be in certain parts of the house, so we're not disturbing you, whatever it is. And they were just like, Nope, it's fine. Use your house. Be happy.

Jack: And I, we felt just really incredibly blessed. By that, like, in a sort of secular sense of being blessed,

Daniel: blessed in the way that only two older gay men can bless you.

Jack: Yes. And I think that any neighborhood where you can feel that way or the people around you make you feel that way, I think it's a pretty special thing.

Nichole: Oh my God, I love that story.

Laurel: Yeah. That's very

Nichole: special. I love the many layers of that story. And it does, like, it just makes me want that for everyone.

'cause there's like a level of acceptance, but like, I think the warmth of the people who are in very close proximity to you, accepting who you are as a person and like what your life is, and the different expressions of your life like that is so rare and special.

Daniel: You know what else is really special and rare is your bravery and openness in like, telling them in the first place. Like a lot of people would just try and either be like, oh, I don't give a shit. Or they would just go out of their way to conceal it in some way. You know, where you just assume that you're going to have to all baw in the heavily draped, insulated room that you have somewhere in your home. So part of what is heartwarming about this for me is your role in a

Nichole: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel: Definitely not just their role.

Nichole: Absolutely.

Jack: I think that's just my anxiety. I wouldn't be able to have a good time if I'm like, God, they're gonna hate me.

Daniel: Hey,

Jack: could you be a little quieter? I know you're having a lovely time, but

Daniel: there are so many ways to respond to one's anxiety. And I have explored all the bad ones, so

Jack: actually, um, a previous job that I had, at a major financial institution that employs like a hundred and something thousand people in your country. I was running the Pride organization for Scotland and Ireland for a while.

And, you know, in Scotland it's super white, really pretty straight. And then somebody came to me and said, look, I know you're out as poly in the workplace. I'd like to be out. 'Cause it was causing a problem in their at home relationship that one partner came to a thing and now it's creating this hierarchy by default of I can't bring my partner to things.

Um, how do I deal with that with my manager?

Jack: I was like, well. First of all, um, you know, I can have that conversation on your behalf if you would like. but also through them we start doing Poly 1 0 1, where we talked about how to deal with and adjust your ways of behaving and structuring your speech to better accommodate people who might have multiple partners. it turns out there was a lot of people in that building and multiple partners.

Nichole: that is incredible.

Nichole: my experience is that I am very, very private at work. Like no one knows anything about my private life except that I'm married to Daniel, and sometimes he eats my leftovers and I get mad about it.

Daniel: Is that a euphemism

Nichole: wouldn't be at work? No. and like I struggle with working at this giant corporation, where I'm a known entity, but nobody knows anything about my personal life.

And I do have fears about people finding out, you know, um, it would be so much easier for me to come out as like bisexual or pansexual or whatever. But the relationship structure thing, I think because it's so intertwined with deviant sexual practices, quote unquote.

Daniel: the way you say deviant kind of turns me on,

Nichole: is it my vocal fry? Deviant deviant.

Nichole: Um, there is a stigma attached to it and I think that that is also indicative of just like American corporate culture. Right? Like, I think American corporate culture is still so steeped in puritanical culture, as much as it has like pride groups. Um, or like we celebrate, you know, women's history month at work, kind of, it's still very driven by, sex in the workplace cannot meet, I don't know that I would want it to.

Daniel: Um, I mean, I think that this is also indicative of how we've really lost a lot of ground to like in the last year and a half, like here in the United States, a lot of us corporations are preemptively caving to our fascist regime removing their own DEI practices we probably have to wrap this up soon, right?

Laurel: Yes. Let ended on fascism.

Jack: help us.

Laurel: Help us.

Jack: But yeah, thank you for having me on.

Laurel: Thank you for so much. for sending us a little care package and for coming on and talking about your life in Brighton

Jack: And thanks for the pod, like, it's really nice to have you guys sharing about your lives in. Like outside of just poly stuff, like the other bits. I'm really glad that you guys seem to be doing well after what feels like a pretty shitty three-ish months.

Daniel: thank you.

Nichole: Thanks. Yeah.

Laurel: This is accurate.

Nichole: Yeah. I've been calling it the tragedy vaudeville because it just really feels like it's just every eight weeks, it's a new thing that we're tap dancing our way through.

Woo.

Daniel: also it helps that the kind of, the goal of the podcast more or less is generally to make each other laugh. Like, we get on here just to like have a good time ourselves. And so it's the place that we go to actually when things are hard, where we can talk about really fucked up shit in really disrespectful ways.

Jack: Yeah. I mean, you have no idea. I've been on my best behavior. I don't think I've said cunt a single time. If you've ever had an hour long conversation with a Glaswegian and they haven't said cunt at least 46 times,

Daniel: I want my money back.

Jack: I'll give you a soundboard and you can just smash that shit in. A sprinkling.

Daniel: I'm so glad that Jack has invited me to smash that shit in. I usually don't do this.

Laurel: Whatcha gonna do

Daniel: I'm usually the most agreeable person on the planet and I hardly ever do bones to pick. And I especially hardly ever do bones to pick upon my metamours or former metamours. Because I just like to give Laurel the time that she needs.

Laurel: It's only me, it's only my partners.

Daniel: Nicole jumps on hers immediately.

Laurel: Yeah. I let mine fester.

Daniel: We are speaking of course, of our bones to pick.

Nichole: Oh, I jump on my bones. I thought you meant I jump on my metamours. I didn't know what you were talking about.

Laurel: I thought you meant like Nicole usually nips her problems in the bud, whereas I let them drag out until they annoy you too.

Daniel: Nicole immediately starts talking shit the day after. Things go, oh, I see what you go south. Laurel saves it up and thinks about it for a month or two, and then we do a whole special

Nichole: Yeah,

Daniel: on it.

Daniel: But I just like to bring up a very specific part of a recent Metamore debacle.

Daniel: now Laurel, feel free to jump in at any moment because I'm going to be summarizing delicate personal aspects of your life, okay? Um, is there any delicate personal aspects of Laurel life?

Laurel: Rude.

Daniel: Laurel recently had a partner for four to six months.

Laurel: Yeah. Somewhere in there.

Daniel: One of those partners that like initially presents as super nice, the nice ones. Those are the ones you always gotta watch out for.

Daniel: they're the neighbors that are gonna turn you in.

Daniel: so the relationship eventually goes sideways. He also starts dating another partner of mine. there's that little chain dating through the polycule.

Daniel: she breaks up with him first. My other partner, who I usually would name, because she loves to be named on this podcast, for this one, I won't and at the same time, the relationship between you and him is starting to break down as well.

Laurel: Yes. Yeah. I'm starting to question a lot of behaviors

Daniel: Without getting into like the many different types of shit show that he was presenting, we can say that he was trying to escalate intensely and quickly the crux of my bone to pick here is that during both the processes of him being broken up with by two of my partners to each one of you,

he blames me

Laurel: Yeah. At some point during a difficult conversation that I was having with him that like precipitated breaking up. Eventually he asked me, does this have anything to do with Daniel? And like, and preface that before, like, can I ask you something that will seem kind of direct and blunt?

And I was like, sure.

Daniel: No. And fucking,

Laurel: and fucking

Daniel: insane.

Laurel: Yeah. And then was like, and I was just like, was not expecting that at all.

I was taken, I was like paused for a moment. I was like, uh, no. And then I was like, why would you ask me that? And he was like, well, when redacted and I broke up.

She had just seen Daniel the day before and I know that you just have been spending time with Daniel. I'm like, yeah, Daniel is my partner. We spend time together. And I was also like, if it's any consolation, like he really likes you, and has definitely not liked all of my partners. Like

Daniel: Yeah. And was like defending him early on in the relationship. In various ways. Like I would be a little bit champions, like give him the benefit of the doubt, you know? this is the weirdest red string theory because he established the red string connection by dating somebody that he met through me.

Laurel: Yes,

Daniel: So he's now, he was dating two people that are partners of mine.

Daniel: And then he is like, what's the connection here? Why? There must be a conspiracy reason why these women don't like me. What's the common denominator?

Laurel: Not my behavior, probably this other guy.

Daniel: And I mean, honestly, I am slutty enough where he could probably try and like blame all the women who have broken up with him over the years.

Like, oh, she saw Daniel the night before too.

Laurel: Oh my

Daniel: God. Hey, all you fucking incels out there. Every woman who has broken up with you. It's because I saw them the night before and I was like, this guy.

Laurel: Well, the funny thing, I thought, you know, after he approached me with that incredibly blunt question and I was like, uh, no. And actually was a fan of yours.

Like, I thought that that was sort of over with.

Laurel: And then we talked again and had our actual breakup conversation. Like he brought it up again. That's insane. and I thought like, okay, this is just another way to like, sort of dissociate from your own behavior, your own responsibility.

Laurel: But then, but then he blocked you on all social media,

Nichole: but not you.

Laurel: But not me. Oh my God.

Daniel: You know what, it reminds me of what is white nationalist theory? You know how white nationalists are like, okay. Jews are really the puppet masters that are running everything.

Laurel: Like they can scapegoat everything back to

Daniel: Yeah. And, and that's racist also to like black people and brown people um, which can also include Jews, because they're like, oh, these people are like so, genetically inferior or stupid or whatever, that they have to rely on the evil.

Machinations of the ingenious, but parasitic Jews.

Laurel: Right? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Daniel: This is like the misogynistic version of that where like, it's like women can't actually fucking have their own opinions or act on their own feelings or thoughts they need, like there needs to be the machinations of,

Laurel: of their evil overlord male partner.

Daniel: Exactly.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Nichole: You just stoked a fire in me.

Daniel: Ooh.

Nichole: Oh. That just like, I knew I was mad. I don't think I realized just how mad I am because, okay, Laurel.

Nichole: I love you so much. And I also love,

Laurel: I'm waiting for the, but

Nichole: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I love redacted so much.

Nichole: And the reason that I hold you in such high esteem is because you are kind and you are smart, and you are autonomous, and you bring your entire self to this relationship, to your relationship with Daniel, to our relationship.

And the idea that you couldn't make your own decisions is fucking insane.

Nichole: Daniel, you are kind and you are also smart and you apparently make great cocktails. I don't know, but you've made great mocktails for me. You open our home to people who don't deserve it. Like people you invite with your warmth and your generosity. And you envelop people and make them feel included. And the idea that you would do that and then turn on this person arbitrarily. And that it had nothing to do with his behavior is fucking insane. The idea that the two of you would somehow not, either not have the strength or have the, like perverse machinations to manipulate the situation.

I, uh, flames on the side of my face burning. I just, that, okay. So now.

Daniel: So welcome to the angry Nicole episode.

Nichole: So, so I don't like it when men enter my space and think that I owe them something.

Laurel: Oh, yeah.

Nichole: Right. Gross. Obviously nobody likes that. Yeah, right. But the little gifts that he would bring me, right?

Nichole: Little food stuffs. Little things for us to like partake in on certain nights, whatever. The way that he looked at me and the way that he would engage me in conversation, the way that he touched me. I was like, he thinks that I'm an option. And he wanted my number at some point and I was like, really? And I somehow weasel my way out of that.

Daniel: He was like, Hey. What do you think about cohabitating?

this is the escalation that we, the aforementioned is he seemed to just be stopping people on the street. He would see a, if there wasn't a no soliciting sign on the house, he goes up to the door and he is like, Hey, maybe we could move in together.

Nichole: I feel like we all really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Nichole: You know?

Laurel: Yes.

I was like, there's no possible way I could be dating another addict.

Nichole: Yeah. Yeah. How are you to know Just this one was weasely, this one was, hi. This was like my ex

Daniel: in order to not vague cast. We will continue our non-linear reconstitution of the storyline redacted.

We should probably give him a name. Oh wait, didn't we, I think we did earlier.

Laurel: What was it?

Daniel: Ketamine, Kevin. Oh

Nichole: my God. Oh, ketamine. Ken, this is,

Daniel: wait,

Laurel: did your mom get

Nichole: Yeah, the nickname my mother gave him.

Daniel: So the name Ketamine Ken comes from Ken's ken for continuing to quaff coliseums full of ketamine in a tech bro kind of way

Laurel: in a tech bro kind of way every day.

Nichole: But also offering Ketamine to anyone who would want it

Daniel: in such large doses that, like, it ended up like putting me on the ground,

Laurel: that was the first hint to me that like, something was off cause I had a sense that he was like using it more than he wanted me to believe. Because every time he'd go to the bathroom or come back from walking the dogs or whatever it was like, but I never wanna like jump to conclusions.

Daniel: Yeah. you are used to dating Jews who have terrible nasal allergies.

Laurel: Yes. Yeah. And he is a Jew, so who knows? Like Yeah. And I was also like, okay, like even he could be using, but maybe it's just like a microdose amount, and then when you all partook on a trek night and it floored everyone, I was like, oh, that's not a microdose amount.

Nichole: You really took one for the team.

Daniel: Thank you. So maybe it did have something to do with Daniel.

Nichole: Whoops.

Daniel: As the, actually the canary in the coal mine of his fucking ketamine dosing.

next week tune in for when we discuss the terrible gut problems that he had due to the ketamine, which disrupted all of his relationships and which he never connected to the ketamine.

Nichole: We're gonna part two this too.

Daniel: No, no. But we do want people to tune in next week. So come on.