Have you ever wondered how a global pandemic would affect your sex life? Join us, Hunter and Butcher, as we venture down the path of polyamory in the time of COVID-19, sharing our personal experiences and exploring the shifts in sexual dynamics. We dive deep into the ups and downs of managing relationship changes during a unique time in society.
As we navigate these turbulent waters, you'll gain an understanding of how COVID has (potentially) shaped the non-monogamous community. We tackle the tough subjects about the rise in alternative relationships, the risks of suppressing desires, and how a global health crisis can trigger an increased sexual activity.
By the end of this episode, we will have considered a new perspective about the evolution of relationships within the lifestyle community and how it has adapted to a new normal caused by the pandemic.
H & B x
Have you ever wondered how a global pandemic would affect your sex life? Join us, Hunter and Butcher, as we venture down the path of polyamory in the time of COVID-19, sharing our personal experiences and exploring the shifts in sexual dynamics. We dive deep into the ups and downs of managing relationship changes during a unique time in society.
As we navigate these turbulent waters, you'll gain an understanding of how COVID has (potentially) shaped the non-monogamous community. We tackle the tough subjects about the rise in alternative relationships, the risks of suppressing desires, and how a global health crisis can trigger an increased sexual activity.
By the end of this episode, we will have considered a new perspective about the evolution of relationships within the lifestyle community and how it has adapted to a new normal caused by the pandemic.
H & B x
Hello and welcome to the Poly Pocket Podcast, the UK flagship podcast of polyamorous and CNN, sex parties and communicable diseases Always the fun things here. No, we're not talking about sexually transmitted ones, though, so we'll get into that in a minute. Okay, I'm Hunter, I'm your friend. I have been reminded of what we're talking about today because I have, as usual, I've forgotten. I'm joined by Bircher Bircher. How are you feeling?
Speaker 2:Better-ish than I was this time last week. Yeah, because For reasons, reasons. For reasons Do you want me to say the reason?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, it's because I was going to do my normal. Well, actually we can do it, because in a moment we'll be talking about COVID and that's why you weren't feeling well, last week yeah, it turns out I had a good, hearty dose of the C word, covid. Yeah, that one. Yeah, there's multiple C words. Yeah, they're all challenging.
Speaker 2:That was definitely challenging. So when we recorded last week I was a bit on a low air but I was lying on the sofa bed and there was really not a lot of energy or passion going on because my back had been killing me all day. I had been aching from head to toe and I'd had already two days prior to that of first day, feeling a bit weird and going from Sunday absolutely smashing it on the football pitch to Tuesday night going it's like I've never played football in my life to Wednesday feeling a bit sore throat, bit coldy, but we had an event to go to. Didn't think anything of it. Thursday aching from head to toe. Friday why can't I smell the Friday morning pancakes? Oh, I remember this, I've got COVID.
Speaker 1:And with the last remaining lateral flow test in the house, because let's face it, and as soon as people have said this, like why are you testing? And it wasn't, you didn't need to know and normally you wouldn't care, but it was more like it was just interesting. It's like I think I've got COVID, have I got COVID? And then you got to an LFT and low and bold, you had COVID.
Speaker 2:And it was that sense of having a different illness every day.
Speaker 1:Which is what you had last time, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Which is what I had last time. Every single day it was a new symptom and like I woke up with a headache, of which was terrible, when I moved my eyes, which was basically all the time, when do you ever stop moving your eyes? Never, exactly. You're a mammal.
Speaker 1:So I mean, yeah, one of those things, eyes move around a lot. They're designed to do that. If you get a headache when you're moving your eyes, you're going to have a headache all the bloody time. Yeah, as I said before we get into this week's subject, which is, broadly speaking, the impact of COVID, covid the next version, covid on the non-monogamous community. We should probably do a week in polyphila. Yeah. I think is only one thing, which is I went to go and see Lady V.
Speaker 2:Yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yesterday oh.
Speaker 2:No, I was going to say we were supposed to have a play date tonight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Obviously knock that on the head because you're riddled with disease.
Speaker 2:Well, the COVID is kind of clearing up. Now it's the to the lo and behold the bonus prize of thrush that is brought along with it as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because whenever you're run down, which COVID apparently has the ability to also run you down as well as make you enable to smell pancakes.
Speaker 2:Or move my eyes, or move your eyes. I'll be in pain, yeah.
Speaker 1:Massive downside there as well, probably more inconvenient. But also, when you get run down as a result of a bunch of things, including COVID, do you get thrush?
Speaker 2:And I think I just lent into having a nice bottle of wine and making a spag bowl and all the stuff that has like tons and tons and candida and sugar and all the things that my body goes ooh.
Speaker 1:I've got a yeast infection that can grow on that. Yes.
Speaker 2:And a yeast infection coming to you soon.
Speaker 1:Very, very soon. Yes, is that added to the following games, isn't it it?
Speaker 2:did indeed. So, yes, so I think you actually were quite welcome of your break to see Lady V yesterday.
Speaker 1:It was appreciated. It was lovely to see her, as always. It was actually like I was in London anyway. Oh, sorry, yeah. Round of applause for oh, come on. Yeah, of course. Yay, I forgot, I haven't had a button for that. God, I must have used the soundboard more often. Yes, I'm no longer in the realms of the unemployed. I now have a job. Well, starting on Monday, I do so. That's great. On the other side there, the other thing we do need to talk about, just briefly, because we know that there is at least one person who needs to be updated every week. What was Sunday's result?
Speaker 2:I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Butch's team lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's not Butcher's fault, because Butcher was too I couldn't play. Could I Exactly? So yeah, it dodged that one. You said earlier on that your team was only lost two matches so far this season and you weren't playing either of them.
Speaker 2:Which is like yeah, that's a scorecard you want, isn't it? It's a correlation, not a causation.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. You want to make that like it's all down to me.
Speaker 2:I am the Lucy Bronze of Div3Self.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I'm not just your lucky mascot, I'm what makes the dream work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. But yeah, touching back on your date with Lady V, I think it's probably worth calling out. I had a wobble yesterday, but it wasn't an existential wobble, it was a COVID thrush combination. I am just going to be a psychotic cow for About 24 hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, I didn't think it was quite that long, it probably wasn't, it's like I think it's a kind of thought it would happen and it did happen and it's a real shame because we had like a deep and serious conversation last night about planning and knowing what's going to go on, because it's probably worth talking about the. How do you manage your relationship with your anchor partner when you're going to see one of your other partners, because it doesn't always have to be sex.
Speaker 1:It doesn't always have to be anything.
Speaker 1:It could be a range of things, especially in the more poly side of things.
Speaker 1:You end up doing lots of inverted commas, normal relationship type things, don't you? So it was originally planned to be coffee because I was going to be in London for work, aligned networking, trying to get a job, kind of things and then during the course of the week it went from being coffee to being lunch and I thought it was going to be like, because I didn't think I was going to have a lot of time and then because I had a job already lined up before even went to London, all I was really doing was dotting the ice cross on the T's and meeting the guys paying me the money, that it sort of felt like I had a bit more time and a bit more latitude. And then the plans changed, like on the train on the way to London, to be do you want to have some fun together? And that all happened really quickly, but you were not in the headspace to really be comfortable with the rapidity of the change, but also as a bit, which is, yeah, we what's the bike?
Speaker 2:bait and switch you unintentionally and that is a second time that phrase has been used for a situation this week. One was a work one and I've not heard that phrase for such a long time. But yeah, it was because it was a contact shift.
Speaker 1:It was even in the diary, our shared diary as coffee with, because that was what was originally planned. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly so, in the midst of me trying to deal with and I've talked about the psychosis that comes with the thrush, and for anybody who's experienced it, they'll understand it. For anybody who hasn't, if I can give you some sort of insight to how I experienced it and I can only imagine that a lot of other people go through the same thing, which is you kind of. You start getting the symptoms and you're like, ah, you know it's coming on and actually taking the drugs, for it doesn't necessarily knock it on the head straight away. What it does or it seems to do for me at least is like draw, start drawing out the infection and kicking and screaming, and a tablet is never enough. I have to go for the more invasive route of opacery as well, which is very uncomfortable and the drugs are extremely harsh on the pH of your vagina. Basically, and, as you can imagine, anything like that.
Speaker 1:It's bitchy.
Speaker 2:It's uncomfortable and painful and it ties into a lot of things about how you feel about yourself. You feel dirty, you feel sore, you feel useless, All of these things, which then plays into the fact that it comes with a huge level of brain fog as well, because people assume that the candida and the thrush sits in one area of the body, but quite often it's kind of moving around the body, is in your bloodstream, it's in all sorts, and the reason why I and once you start cutting off the supply to it which I do through drugs and diet management it starts releasing a toxin which makes the brain fog even worse. So it actually hides it. It gets worse before it gets better. So there is what I call the peak of the infection being expelled from the body, and it just so happened to hit about 12pm to 4pm yesterday. It just has been incredibly shitty timing.
Speaker 1:You alright there? Yeah, I'm just getting comfy. Yes, it wasn't great timing, so I'd gone to see Lady V, had lunch, had a bit of post-lunch entertainment, but with only with her, for I think it was like two hours and you were reaching peak psycho just as I left her house and my plan was to stay in London and go to a networking event and, after a difficult conversation in a hotel lobby that went on for probably the best part of what, 45 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, longer than it should have done.
Speaker 1:I was like, fuck this, I'm going home. So I packed my bags and came home and then, lots of like quote unquote. Deep and meaningful conversations took place last night and then resumed again this morning.
Speaker 2:But actually I think you were saying that once upon a time. Those conversations would have gone on for days, because I was beating myself up this morning. Because the other thing is is that I know it's happening to me. I know it's happening to me and I was explaining it to my 8am work colleague meeting that I have every Thursday and that girl gives me so much to think about in life. She's incredible. Is she old? 22?
Speaker 2:22, 23, yeah, Very grounded, yes, very, very grounded. You've spent some time speaking to her and you know how grounded she is. But I was explaining a bit of the situation to her because obviously my work colleagues know about my life choices, and she went oh my goodness, that was happening whilst you were experiencing what you were telling me about your health stuff. I was like yep, because there was a couple of things that had also kicked off this week, which I'm not going to Workwise, workwise and relationship wise which I'm not going to get into.
Speaker 2:She was like oh my, wow, yeah you, oh no, that's terrible. And she said, and you know it's happening and like, yeah, she's like that must be awful, it was. But the thing is is that I kind of came out of or started coming out of it around six o'clock and I'd asked you to explain kind of the high level of it to her. And I sent her a message to say please know this isn't a reflection on you in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely a reflection on her. It was to plan properly.
Speaker 2:Well, it was partly. We've now come up with a solution of actually less is more for me. Like, don't put I'm going for coffee with lady V, just say I'm seeing lady V and then if you have sex, you have sex, if you don't have sex, you don't have sex. Like it's not for me. Sorry, kicking the table.
Speaker 2:As I said yesterday, it's not for me to dictate what you can and can't do, and if I'm going to go through these cycles and these spells of things, then I it's kind of actually better for me not to know, because actually, in many ways, what does it have to do with me if you're there with her?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Because I'm going to say, like, you follow that thought process. So if I put in lady V for coffee, do I then also need to put in lady V for sex? Yeah, it's kind of weird, isn't it? It's like you put in the vanilla thing but you wouldn't put the non-vanilla thing. Yeah, okay, it's kind of strange that I feel like I have to qualify what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's been a lesson for me, which is Don't I almost don't over-explain, not because I'm trying to- hide something, but there's there's no upside to not, there's no upside to over-explaining, and there's also no upside to under-explaining, so don't explain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just be like royalty, but it's not like. I don't.
Speaker 1:No, the complain I don't.
Speaker 2:It's not like I don't know that you're not going there. Yeah, like, yeah, it's not a secret, it's not a secret.
Speaker 1:By the way, I'm seeing someone else.
Speaker 2:You informed us on the 20. You informed us on what's that group with the birthday mansion lot from this year, which, lady V also Big News got accepted into the group today by the group.
Speaker 1:And then everybody, especially two of them, had to be on best behaviour. I give it less than 48 hours.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I'm giving it two weeks because we'll go through huge periods of time where nobody says anything on that group, so I'm giving them two weeks to drop themselves in it. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1:I'm going to work the filth group and see if we can encourage that to stop kicking the table.
Speaker 2:Sorry, sorry, it's because I've got a foam roller under my calves, I know.
Speaker 1:Insight into your life.
Speaker 2:Wild, I'm not going to talk about it. Anyway, we should probably get on talking about the.
Speaker 1:You wanted to talk about bloody COVID, so here we are going through instead of talking like this. It's about communicable diseases. Threshold nail COVID.
Speaker 2:Strapping, strapping and make sure you wipe down your strap on after use. You definitely should.
Speaker 1:What we wanted to talk about, though, is and we've had this on the back burner for months now, haven't we? We've intermittently talked about it, and we talked to a bunch of people in the community about it. Just in passing, it's like oh hey, you meet people at parties, you meet people on chat groups, whatever you meet and there'll be a oh. So how did you get into the scene? And I wouldn't want to speculate what the percentage is, but it feels like a lot of people got in during COVID, usually in 2020 or very early 2020. 2020 was the year of going.
Speaker 2:That's got to be more to life.
Speaker 1:Or I've always wanted to do this and I might die, so I might as well get on with. It is another version of that. But yeah, a little bit of Comsy, comsy, liv, all French phrases. But yeah also, there's got to be more to life, and sometimes it requires a little bit of existential dread for you to push themselves out of what I think of as like a beta zone paradox where you are not.
Speaker 1:You're comfortable. You haven't got everything you want, but you're so comfortable you won't leave your comfort area to go and find something better, because either the work or the risk of getting the better thing risks the comfort you have now, which explains arguably a lot of I want to just say as a proxy married couples, which is Because it is a risk. We took a risk, it worked out great, didn't have to.
Speaker 2:Do you feel that there would have been a risk in us not doing it though?
Speaker 1:So let me do a one-back thing. Just bear with me a second. So I think alternative forms of relationship or alternative approaches have always been part of the fabric of our relationship. So this is pretty early on things like. I remember very early on we had a conversation which is, if something happened to the other person, we'd I can't remember how we got into it, but it's like if something happened to the other one, we'd want whoever was not left, like if someone was injured, we'd want the other one to.
Speaker 1:You can go and have sex with other people, because we know sex is very important to us. If we carry on being important to whoever can't have sex sorry, to whoever can't have sex, even if the other one can't, I don't know what those circumstances would be, but something a little bit bit strange. That was part of the conversation from very early on. And then it sort of grew and grew and grew and obviously we ended up in the lifestyle. So I think if we hadn't found a lifestyle as a result of COVID, what's the risk? I think the risk is I think we have a background of not being terribly faithful to ex partners because this is a form of relationship we've always wanted but couldn't have. So cheating is the like almost of the normal way of doing it, which is Kind of the only way you can experience.
Speaker 2:but then it came with such a level of guilt because Not everybody was complicit in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's like them, the usual way most people go about doing it isn't it if? They want to sex someone who's not their spouse, you cheat or you go poly. Oh sorry, yeah, cnn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, although I still stand by the fact that I didn't want to be with my ex husband, like I, no.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be my ex wife, yeah but that's fine, I don't mean that, but the I think the risk would be. So just to close that thought is that. If we hadn't done this, we would have probably stayed together, but we would have cheated, and then it would have been like messy, but probably made it work.
Speaker 2:That's what I think and we know several people going back to. When you ask people, how did you get into this lifestyle? It either tends to be covered or one partners cheated on the other and they've made the best of the situation because this is how that person's felt. It's not that they stopped loving the other person, it's just they felt they needed something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that would mean the risk is that we would have found ourselves in exactly that position. So I'm very sympathetic to people who find my input is sympathetic to people who find themselves in a situation because that I can see A different path that would have ended up that being us, but instead covid happens and everyone like spends an awful lot of time with the same person Not being able to leave living each other's pockets and there was kind of only two choices, which was we get divorced because actually we do hate each other fact, but there's three choices.
Speaker 1:we continue garden is pretty big. I mean I could dig a hole for choices.
Speaker 2:We do what we've always done, because that's what we do, what we always did, because that's what we've always done. That's option two, or option three is life seems a little short. Should we go have some fun?
Speaker 1:Yeah and I think that that's all entry into it. But you're again talking to other people in the community. It's not everybody, but there's just a, a decent percentage. I'm not talking like it's the odd one or two people, it's a decent percentage. People who go into the lifestyle relatively recently, most of the back of covid yeah, it's a common theme yeah, very much so yeah. I try to work out what the number is, but I'm gonna say it's like People who spoken to. I want to say like 20% that feel about right.
Speaker 2:It's probably say more.
Speaker 1:Third yeah, some it's around that kind of number. You know that's if I think of people we talk to regularly now In our own like direct contact version of our community. There's a bunch of like old hands who have been doing it for years and Always been like that just accepted that that's who they are yeah, there's the people who've come in since covid and there's the covid generation, which is only three years old, but it's a. That's about a third of them and I think it's basically splits into thirds.
Speaker 2:What's the second group? Sorry, how does it differentiate different?
Speaker 1:differentiate. Yes, that if it wasn't clear, but just being ill.
Speaker 2:To the third option just there's.
Speaker 1:There's always newbies, there's all time, but then it's just like and there's. I think I said before, somewhere between about five to seven percent of the other given population are In some form of CNN relationship, which means that every year, more simple, dropping in, some will dropping out. We know both types people, so there's it's not like a steady amount of people. What's interesting about twenty twenty is there is a bigger talk of economic terms, a bigger cohort of people during the community in that time. That I do mean quite specifically twenty twenty or very early twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1:Because it's virtual right, so it's still very much a thought experiment or a Testing of the waters maybe conversations before covid, but then what happened to my read of it is the That'd be like us. Again, we're using us as a use case, but again, this is a recurring stories. People have had conversations. They might even have, like you know, a drunken, something or other happen, and never again. When covid hits and suddenly you come out of lockdown one, it's like right, we've, we've had the time to have the conversation with face, our own mortality, want to have some fun, and then they've made the leap. That's that's how I read. And then the people who happened after that to then joined as part of like steady state community joiners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do think it is like you say you come, you've said a couple of times for that thought, that of impending doom, that thought of we're gonna die or we might die or lots of people around us are gonna die, yeah, like, and I remember when having covid I did have that thought process and in many ways it was kind of stupid, because I definitely wasn't as ill as when I had flu. I've had full blown flu twice in my life and the second time was when I was pregnant with our second Child, and I have to say that it's probably the earliest I have ever been, because that's the only time I've been hospitalized, actually other than going to give birth to the first child and second one and being born so far.
Speaker 2:As you do as you do, but I was genuinely like in trouble.
Speaker 1:yeah, at one point I have fluids and yeah, and sickness made the rest of it, yeah, but again, it's not your personal illness that drives, that drives the behavior. Because then today, the, the drive to have sex, is a function of the drive to reproduce and in, in and I don't know if this research is more anecdotal that I'm saying this, but when there's a, the height and risk of risk and danger that needs to procreate increases.
Speaker 2:And so that also has an effect on sex drive. I was trying to work out where you are going with that. I was thinking more sorry. My thought process was was, whilst I've been more ill than when I've had covid, the moment, the first time round that I had covid, I definitely thought I'm gonna die.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm saying the drive behind people basically getting horny during covid is that existential dread of like. Well, there's two sides to it. Which is Want, there is a biological desire. We are mammals. The salt you can. I'm not doing it for you do your ability research but you know this, there is a lot of, if there is risk to the pack effectively. However, you want to turn in that and then there is a biological trigger to procreate that just sex drive generally procreation is like a function of the need to be horny.
Speaker 1:So there's a bit of that, but also the other part of it is that's the irrational, mammalian, animal part of you. Then there's the rational bit, which is You're already living in a risky situation, so adding a little bit more risk feels less risky, and so you take risks, and so sometimes that means having sex with people you wouldn't normally have sex with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that point around how mammals respond with sex to certain situations is, I mean, that's. It's weird how that plays out in certain situations, but again, slightly different, but with, we seem to be getting really under the bonnet of some things tonight. But yeah, I remember giving birth to the first baby. Yeah, and literally the moment I gave birth to her, this surge of hormones went through me and I thought, really do a shag, right, because I'd gone through the motion of giving birth, getting baby out of my body, and then my body goes. Well, we can do this, we can make more. Yeah, and I remember thinking it's all the oxytocin, it's all, it's everything you need in order to bond with that child. But I genuinely thought, yeah, I know I'm in a bit of a bad way right now- but if you you know, I did it but if I could, I would.
Speaker 2:And then, like the second child, I definitely wasn't as bad. Stitches were in a better place, so to speak. So we had sex in less than six weeks post giving birth, because again it's like okay, I've got a baby, I'm good at having babies.
Speaker 1:What babies? We're not having more babies, but the body responds in the way that it technically drives more procreation.
Speaker 1:And this is the funny thing about you falling in love. Sorry, this is massively off topic, but the funny thing is that Having falling in love and having babies is not a rational decision. And it shouldn't be a rational decision when someone is it's not right the right time to have children. You kind of missing the point. We try to think that we're above animals in some way. We're actually doing go like a biological heritage to service, because we all rational, because we can do like gratification delay. That's handy because otherwise you would have definitely had sex in the office and you definitely would have been fired by HR. So you know there is delayed gratification has some upsides, but the desire for it is definitely there, isn't it? Whether you fulfill that is something else and that's kind of the point we say you get to covid and you the need to delay the gratification and using that as the framework for this, of enjoying the pleasure of multiple partners and whatever way you want to do that.
Speaker 1:Suddenly, there's less reason to delay because there's a global pandemic and people are dying.
Speaker 2:And at the moment you get any sense of freedom, people are going to go yeah, let's do that. Going back to that thing about comparing ourselves to animals I'm sure you've heard this on the science channel that the kids watch. But chickens can do delayed gratification.
Speaker 1:I did not know this if you've not heard.
Speaker 2:They were watching it on.
Speaker 1:Please enlighten me.
Speaker 2:So chickens, if they believe that there is a better meal coming their way at a slightly later point in time, they can decide not to eat a meal that's in front of them at that point. And the weirdest thing was is that my dad's chicken, whilst the girls were listening and watching this program, was bumbling around in the kitchen Because we stayed at my dad's, yeah, last weekend, and so she was in bumbling around and I'd put some food down for her. I said some leftovers from the night before and she came in. She gave it a pack, she looked at it and went, because she kind of went, hmm, and then I maybe and I hadn't even really thought about it at this point put some rice and put something next to the fire, because he had a raging stove going. It was really lovely. She went and tucked herself up against the bars of the fire guard and just helped herself to this bowl of a cup of rice that I'd put out. Wow, no, pop a dom, don't want pop a dom, I want rice.
Speaker 1:Now that what I'm getting for this is that the chicken's smart, the no children they do. They don't do like gratification. It's like I want it and I want it now.
Speaker 2:That's true the same better later.
Speaker 1:I don't give a shit, I'll have that as well. I'm not waiting, I'm having all of it.
Speaker 2:Spoil little brats? No, they're not, but yeah. So just going back to that sort of pure animal instinct, you know we think, we think we're so big and we're so clever. Actually, chickens can hold on for longer for a basic need than some humans can.
Speaker 1:For that one, yeah, and I'd say sex is not a basic need, it's a complex need. Just to bring it back to the thing about COVID driving all this, but, yeah, there was reasons for a lot of people getting into it all at the same time, and we kind of explore the reasons. What I now feel right or wrongly is of that cohort of people which is I kind of I need to do more graphs and put them on the Instagram account, don't I? There's going to be just more graphs on Instagram. I'm just flowcharts because it's the only way I can do this.
Speaker 1:But you can imagine like there's a steady amount of people like imagine like a bar graph for a second, and every year, a few people are going to be like oh, I'm just going to do a little bit of a graph, and a few people are going to be like, oh, I'm just doing this for a second and every year a few. Whatever the number is, I'll just say it's x. Every year during the community, in some way, there's a net migration and it ends up being the number of x and a few of them joined 2021. What I feel is now happening is people have did the turn the water to try to out and they've gone. That was fun but you know real life carries on and it's Not satisfying, is too much work. Whatever it is and if feel like there was a simple dropping out the normal the normal like heartbeat of people joining and leaving the community is the same.
Speaker 1:Hmm you see on the chat group, people are going. I'm dropping out for a bit. I'm coming in for a bit. I'm in a relationship when, busy with work, life happens. People. It's not a. You become Polly or CNN or decide you're a swing or and that's it. You know you're tagged for life. People can opt in and opt out, but I just feel is a. There is a part of that cohort of 2020 and they are now starting to drop out because they've Been it long enough to go. I've taken that box.
Speaker 2:I might come back, but for now I'm going to like get on with things that they have deemed more important to them, which is completely valid and I think we were having this conversation earlier today which is, the more and more we go through this, the more and more I don't feel the need to keep up with anybody, like I'm starting to starting to really find my people. Yep, you know, and that I'm going back was to the delayed gratification piece. You know, I thought earlier in the year that there was going to be someone that I could potentially have a Female-female relationship was with, but I recognized very early on that that wasn't going to be the case and therefore I just went okay, that's not the case and I didn't Chase it. We wanted different things. It was very obvious, yeah, very quickly, without really much being said.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad that I Recognized it and I on boarded that information and now I'm in a position where there is potentially that on the cards again. But it's right, I know that I've waited and it's clicking for all the right reasons. Values align, interests align. Does she laugh at you jokes? I mean, I am bloody funny, to be fair, I Think.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask the group they think they're funny.
Speaker 2:They don't care if I'm funny. That's true. We can ask our number one fan.
Speaker 1:Huh.
Speaker 2:Huh, um, but what was I going with that? Yeah, so I don't feel the need to keep up, but also because of that, like I Is, I've just feel like it's part of who I am, but it's not Like the whole sum of me. So therefore, if people find out and go well, that's a weird life choice. Well, it's a life choice. I also choose to play football. I also choose to have children. I also choose to live in this part of the world. I also choose to be a working mother.
Speaker 1:I also choose to marry Hunter of all. People say you know.
Speaker 2:But they're all just choices. Yeah, totally, everybody's informed, everybody's okay. Mm-hmm, it's a choice, yeah.
Speaker 1:It is not the sum of you, it is a part of you. Yeah, and I. I'm a very weird segue. I had a very similar conversation with your dad earlier on about treating people as individuals instead of being like here is a label and we'll just apply that label to a bunch of people and then we'll tether with the same brush and assume they're all the same.
Speaker 2:Which is actually. I would like to go back in caviar. I said that chickens have the ability for delayed gratification, as if every chicken on the face of the planet has that ability. There are definitely chickens that probably don't that sorry, there are definitely chickens, I probably don't. There will be chickens out there that don't have the ability for delayed gratification, statistically you're probably right.
Speaker 1:We'll probably never know, who knows?
Speaker 2:I've seen it in guinea pigs. They definitely don't know. But yeah, so, but same thing like all humans are not the same, or chickens are not the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and because we're all Individual, special snowflakes every one of us, but there is that there was. So, in a similar vein, I Am very happy with my setup that we talked to us earlier on today. I'm gonna what's up, here you go. This is, this is a strange one. We had a connection request via wax and that's just what we're into, and you and I said like a, like a, just an internal chat about how, what is our setup nowadays? Because, of course, it's changed its morph to over time and we've got our poly partners. We've kind of got all I'm gonna just like it's not a good label or swinging friends, and there's a little group of us that we all like. Well, we have our, we have a what's up group. Lady v's part of it now it's a. Yeah, I know it's all downhill from here, but you know, you and I've got a poly partners. We've got all swinging friends, let's say, and then there is the club party thing. So we've got like three different.
Speaker 1:Tranches yeah, thanks, and for, for how we interact with this lifestyle in the community, and I Don't want to lose any of those, but I don't need to change any of those, and If someone else turns up that I'm really into, hey, so it might happen, but I'm not looking for it. I'm fine with what I've got, because a Time is a thing, sleep is a thing, and so you can't do infinite stuff.
Speaker 2:I think you mean a. It's really great what you've got. B.
Speaker 3:What I've got is great yeah you, you don't be greedy.
Speaker 1:you can't do everything, and there's nothing in what I've got that I would want to change, because it's great, so fine. You just ended up this like a stable state, don't you? No, that's got anything to do with covered.
Speaker 1:No, but it it's Partly how we started our journey, so it does actually yeah, begins about conversation with Elizabeth a few weeks ago, which is is there a life cycle for this? I think this is part of it. Is we should cover this in a future episode about Like when, when you first get into it oh, you're updating Charlie, yes, but when you first get into it, you feel like you, you need to do everything and try everything and do everybody. Pokemon, polyamory that was the next episode.
Speaker 2:Just forget you it's not the next episode, because I've got the episodes planned out until Christmas day. Uh no, until 14.
Speaker 1:New Year's Day. New Year's Day fun, it's so much. The future will be doing episodes called Pokemon polyamory. This is not the karaoke podcast. No, no, no, no, not at all.
Speaker 2:Turn around.
Speaker 1:I'm just musing your microphone for now because, honestly, you're a train wreck and you shouldn't be like, if you can hear on the background, I'm just scoopy, this is not good radio. Um right, so so we? But people get into the lifestyle and they try and do everything, everybody, everywhere, simultaneously, and then you either get burnt out or you just get tired or don't stop thinking.
Speaker 2:Become blind to the others that are coming on the journey With you, and I think we've definitely seen that yeah, was that in in other people who have decided to enter the lifestyle and Certain parties. We're going to get really, really, really into it and the other person can't necessarily keep up with them, but hey, they want it anyway.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's, that's a, that's a very Obviously. And then there's the, the other two exit ramps for this is either people go this isn't for me and they check out, or they find their people and Just Pause with their people. That's where we are now. We've got our people and Not saying it's not going to change over time because, like I say, there is this constant Movement in the community. You meet people, people, people, circumstances change People either time out, age out, lifestyle out, whatever, work out in a way that means that they can't just like do it anymore or work out in a way that they, like I was saying to you earlier, they hold on to certain aspects of it, like I say I think I've said before, I think we'll time out of the parties and All of that side of things at some point yeah, when it starts getting weird.
Speaker 2:Those of you who connect with people who are young enough to be your daughter and then ask them what they're into.
Speaker 1:We had a story really what about someone who was at a party and they were like 10 years older than me and they tried to, like, hook up with someone in their 20s and it's like that that Feels a little bit on the edge of. Some people are into it. That's fine, I get that, but the where they did it wasn't the right part of the community for that. If you, if you specialist, go to the specialist place. That's what I would say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, what was I saying? Sorry, age out parties, yeah, age out parties, but the relationship side of things and the strong friendship side of things. Why would that change? Exactly Like it's the way that I see it. That's how I see it too. Amazingly because, we agree on something, hey, but it would be like going, you know, oh, my best mate. Well, I've got older now. Bye. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed going to public with you when we were 20, but now, um, in the mid 40s, and I don't want to go to the public anymore. I mean, there's some people, that is fair, but but it's not because of their ages, because some of them are dickheads, um, so you know there is a bit of that, but yeah no, the friends are fine, the relationships are fine, parties is who know. It's. A completely other subject is as you get older, do you start finding people in your age category more attractive than you did when you were younger and you didn't think they were attractive? I always wonder is like, is 70 year old me gonna be like really into 70?
Speaker 2:year old me.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm gonna be 60 but yeah, but yeah, 70 year old women though, who right now, I wouldn't like Consider, and I'm certainly like I don't know, it's Maybe, maybe there's again, maybe there's a party venue there's.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've Subtring to me ultimately, we don't know, that's I'm I'm guessing that that's what will happen. Who knows? Who knows?
Speaker 1:Also, as much as the people think. We're like experienced, and we've been doing it for three and a half years.
Speaker 2:It's only because we talk about it, people think that we're experienced yeah it's all, it's all made up, it's all bullshit Well. Not me, but there is a high like we are winging it. We've got nothing to compare it to other than the experiences We've had over the past three and a half years. Yeah that's our learning curve and, like you said, you know things Like my episode yesterday once upon a time would have gone on for weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Certainly days and actually took hours, yeah. And then earlier this week there was another Circumstance which would have been like a used would be a colossal Term oil, term oil thing, yeah, and actually it was dealt with in minutes. Again, you sort of the more you do something, the better you get at handling it, and this is what I like about this, is it actually? Puts you in circumstances you don't normally get into, have to deal with them, and I genuinely think that it makes you a better person not you, everyone, no.
Speaker 2:But you can't foresee Some consequences to some actions that we this week Asked a client to pay us more money, so that was the betham switch. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:But they were originally paying a different company a lot less money and then we've come along, provided a lot more value, but they already see themselves as paying a lot more money, so why would they then expect to pay even more money, regardless of how good they think they've been saying that we are and all the great things that we're doing, and they keep piling more and more towards us as well, like we need help with this. We need help with this, we need help with this. And the team came to me I'd already been thinking it, but they called it out and said we think this is a problem. And I said well, I think I agree and we made the decision to go to the client and open up the commercials conversation. They have now gone and given us 30 days notice off the back of that conversation, which one of the Parties within the situation is absolutely devastated because they were the person who was really banging the drug for the situation and they honestly did not foresee this happening in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:And, and you know, I sat back and I listened and I took on a lot of everybody's feelings around it today and just kind of let them kind of Work it out and get angry and get upset and do all of that. And I just said, look, doing the right thing doesn't always feel good. Quite often, doing the right thing feels Pretty terrible. But if you had your time again, would you have still done it? Yes, there you go them. And that's the cruel, the most test.
Speaker 1:Can you circle that back to kovat?
Speaker 2:Well, if, we'd had our time again, would we have still done it? The age old question because of the way we got into this.
Speaker 1:I would not not do it, but I'd like to have done it differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if and again oh my god, this is such a long episode but this week's just been bonkers. But Someone asked me earlier Did I know that DH was a DH?
Speaker 2:And I said to her I remember Meeting him for the first time. As clear as I can see the room around me right now, he walked in in the sharpest suit Tattoos you could just see the tattoos poking out. Really nice haircut, obviously my age, you know, just you, the most attractive man. And literally the words that went through me, through my head at that point, was the Taylor Swift song. I knew you will trouble when you walked in. Yeah, and I knew at that very moment he was trouble, and yet I let my gut be ignored.
Speaker 1:I don't think it was your gut.
Speaker 2:Whatever yeah.
Speaker 1:But I remember because he, if not that day, very quickly started flirting with you and you because he made like a few months later.
Speaker 2:Made it in advance. I think it was weeks but probably was.
Speaker 1:And you came back from work and told me it's like this guy's made a pass me. I want you to know, but also I don't. He's dangerous, but I like him. I think you should meet him. That's how he and I became friends. Yeah, this is going to work overall ground. I get that.
Speaker 2:No, because I don't think we ever Probably not that part.
Speaker 1:No, to be fair, no.
Speaker 2:How they, how did, like that. I mean, looking back on it seems like the most ridiculous conversation and that was before covid.
Speaker 1:That's how you met him in your job at the time and then you were on. Sorry, this is this is. This is important for context. What I'm about to explain now, excuse me, sounds strange, but it's important. So you were working in this place, where he also worked. Then you went on mat leave and then you were due to come back. The company had been working forward to administration and he'd left his, but he let his job and he'd started his own company and he wanted you to work for him because we were all friends and you got on well and you started working for him the Friday before lockdown, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was literally the week, because we all got together on the Friday, then I had a week in the office and then we all had to work from home from that following Monday, which is my birthday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so and then it was so during lockdown one, trying to get all the company off the ground and the rest of it, and then we're seeing each other. And then, as soon as lockdown one ended, there was meetings and drinks and meals and flirting and it all just got a little bit like frantic and it ended up being the phone call yeah, hunter, and the car with butcher, and we're going to share your wife tonight. And that was how it started. So would I want it to go that way? I would have liked to be. I don't think he was. Again, with all these things, something triggers it and in most cases, again, this is anecdotal, but I say in most cases, it's a situation, it's not a couple. I'm using the use case of a couple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not everyone's use case, but let's just say you're a couple You're not like over breakfast, you know, second cup of tea over the conversation going. So sex club tonight? Not really how it goes. I mean, for some people it is, but most people is something else happens. It's like you you've had a shared conversation about a hot friend and then they've come round and there's been drinks and talk, a bit of flirty, and you've tested the waters and the waters were thoroughly tested, and then you go like, let's do it. That's kind of a version of what we had, but it wasn't. You know, there's always like some sort of triggering event and he was a triggering event and covid was triggering event for many others Exactly.
Speaker 2:So yeah, would I change it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I wouldn't stop it from happening. You said something, though sorry just to close the thought on this, though which you said, something which is both it was lovely for you to hear it which is that you still mourn our relationship from before we got into this. Yeah, and I do too, because what we had was lovely. It could have carried on perfectly fine, and it didn't carry on as perfectly fine. I think what you and I are is very, very adaptable to a range of situations, so it's fine. We make pretty much anything work, and I think we would have made not doing this work as well, to be honest, but there's a bit of me that thinks back to previous versions of me and, by the way, I don't mean like in ancient history, I'm not like being weird, but you know when I've been in various other relationships of the times of my life and I look back and go, oh yeah, this has always been a bit of me, I just didn't know how to do it. Which again?
Speaker 1:and I don't do it. A lot of people say that as well, and I'm really sorry that this is going on so long, but I hope it is actually interesting.
Speaker 2:But we were saying only earlier that our capacity to deal with big, heavy things which really rattle some people, since entering this way of mode of operation, so to speak, and opening ourselves up to risk and doing things a bit different just makes other things seem so much more manageable. So we are considering moving areas at the moment and you know people have seen that the house on the market. There's a big for sale sign outside, you know the state agents and some promotional work, and people are suddenly going. Is that your house? People in the local area, is that your house? What are you moving to? Don't know, because I'm sold my house yet. But how can you not know? Well, I don't know, until I've sold my house there's really no point in like imagining this plan Beyond that, because I have an idea of what I'd like to do. But until I know what money I've got to do it with and what time frames, etc. Like boss, what's the point?
Speaker 1:so calm down, we're doing all research for own benefit, but for everyone else's sake. It's like nothing's nothing's, so nothing's happened yet.
Speaker 2:But we've also got to make it obvious to the rest of the world that we're doing it, otherwise no one's going to know that we are trying to sell our house. So you have to put a stake in the ground, literally outside the front door, and go this is what we're doing. But then everyone like not everyone sorry, but some people find it so fatalistic. So One of my closest friends text me saying I assume you've told another friend, because they've texted me tonight saying oh my god, I can't believe they're moving out of the area. I'm like, but I'm not though am I? Because I've not chosen that yet, like I've not sold the house. So I get it though.
Speaker 1:But you know, people are wedded to certain areas. I mean you, with the best of the world. You're someone who is still living what? Less than six miles away from where you grew up. I have been trying to get out of here for a long time.
Speaker 2:You've been doing a rubbish job of it, because you keep getting in the way I am no longer in the way I am on board with moving house.
Speaker 1:Apparently, we may not be moving house. I'm confused. Well, it's only if someone buys a place, though there is that prerequisite?
Speaker 2:That is what the prerequisite. So right now I am not moving out of the area, but someone planning to. That's what she said she is, but it's like it's happening tomorrow. Yeah, oh my god, I can't believe they're moving out of the area. Oh my god, I can't believe they're moving out of the area, but it's new information though.
Speaker 1:We've had a lot of time to warm up to this idea, but for everyone else it's new.
Speaker 2:True, but I feel like that term I can't believe. People move out of the area, their local area, all the time.
Speaker 1:But not us, and we're special because we are important.
Speaker 2:But is it really that drastic?
Speaker 1:I still don't think it's got to do with Covid.
Speaker 2:It's just again like this has just pushed so many thought processes on how people view things and why they do what they do. Why I'm kind of going off on these tangents.
Speaker 1:I will find you the research about how little people use their conscious mind to make decisions.
Speaker 2:And goes back to the triggering event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, trigger, it's cause and effect. It's almost Newtonian in the way that it works. Every action has an equal opposite reaction. It's not equal and opposite, but every action has a reaction. You do the sum of those and, based on a lot of. We've talked about the levers in the brain. Now imagine the levers in your brain versus the levers in society, the economy, the politics, the community, all the various communities, including the school community, and the levers for the kids. And you, like a certain amount of maths goes through that. You go hmm, interest rates are going up, mortgages going up, suddenly, living in this house and your dad's being a bit difficult, and maybe there's other, maybe be nicer, different. Sometimes it changes as good as the rest. Somewhere else will work. And you go ping, the maths says now's the right time to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, survey says ding ding, ding, ding. Yeah, okay, I feel like, with my probably about 15 different tangents that I've had on this topic tonight, but just gonna start five new podcasts. It's probably time to wrap up.
Speaker 1:Probably is. We will put a poll on Instagram. Which is what is the ideal length for an episode? I wouldn't know what people, I don't know what the people think, but in the meantime, Are we really going to do that? Yeah, I think we should. Okay, feedback is a gift. Cool, You're the social media expert. You may happen.
Speaker 2:Alright, whatever Right, but other than that, thank you for bearing with us on what is probably our longest episode to date.
Speaker 1:No, but close, but close, almost rambly episodes, statistically speaking.
Speaker 2:Correlation, not causation. Keep us. You better win on Sunday. I better because I've got someone to come to watch.
Speaker 1:Have you? You've got a special guest flying in.
Speaker 2:Well, no, they're not flying in for me, but here we go. Keep us and your protection in your pocket and away from Covid. Ciao Bye. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you.