Episode 8
[Theme plays]
ZACK: Hello Mr. & Mrs. Autism and all the ships at sea! You’re listening to Stim4Stim, the relationship podcast by and for autistic people! Who’s here with me this evening?
CHARLIE: Oh boy, we got a fuckin’ zoo! So, Paris is here, Mr. Bird is here, and my name is Charlie Stern. Hello!
ZACK: Hey Charlie! And we also have our first-ever double bill of guests this evening, a couple that we’re extremely excited about, and if they wanna go ahead and introduce themselves and where we might know them from…
KRISTIN: Hi! My name is Kristin Chirico, and I used to be on Buzzfeed on the show called Ladylike, and now I’m on a show called The Kitchen and Jorn Show with my friend Jen! And a person who is also sometimes on that show is my lovely wife…
BRIE: Hi, I’m Brie! You might know me from judging cooking segments on The Kitchen and Jorn Show, or GitHub contributions!
ZACK: Hell yeah.
KRISTIN: [laughs] Either or. [continues laughing]
CHARLIE: So, we wanted to do this episode because we are huge bummers all the time.
[Kristin laughs]
CHARLIE: We’re always talking about grief, and we’re always talking about COVID, and the police, and everything that’s going wrong in the world, and we just wanted to hang out.
[The rest laugh, overlapping Charlie]
CHARLIE: We just wanted to have some fuckin’ laughs! So we have our question from last time that we want to circle back to, and then we have a new question!
[The rest make noises of agreement]
CHARLIE: So, Zack, do you want to read a little bit of our last week’s question?
ZACK: Sure, this is the disclosure one, yeah?
CHARLIE: Yes!
ZACK: Okay. And, as ever, we’re abridging a little for time and clarity. Our listener says:
“I’m getting back out there. I’m having trouble weighing the pros and cons of being up front about having an official diagnosis vs. just describing my traits to avoid the stigma and assumptions. I’m a cis bi woman, 30 years old, I’m dorky and have a nice STEM job, I live in Charlotte, NC. I seem to attract a lot of guys with an idea of having a “quirky nerd girl”. It’s caused problems with me being able to relate to guys, and I’m so shy when talking to girls, who all seem to be more confident, and, I dunno… self-assured. I literally had one guy say I was his “reward for being such a good boy” who was overlooked all his life unlike02:58 * a Felicia Day. Those guys don’t seem put off by disclosure, but I also don’t know if they respect me enough to care. On the other hand, when I date less dorky guys, they find me sweet, smart, and way too passionate about “random things” (my special interests) and if I disclose, they kinda get a weird ableism thing going on. I feel like damaged goods, when my differences actually make me a great scientist and many other things. So I either lean in to describing how I’m weird and I love how I am in hopes of finding someone who makes me happy for that, or I disclose and I get a variety of responses but am03:29 * infantilized, taken less seriously, or dismissed as an acceptable partner before they even know me is my biggest worry.”
ZACK: So yeah, we, uh…
KRISTIN: I have thoughts on this. [laughs]
ZACK & BRIE: Yeah!
CHARLIE: Yes, tell us your thoughts!
KRISTIN: I have many of them! So, first of all, we should probably disclose: I am not neurotypical, but I do not–I have ADHD. So Brie and I are a couple who have different neuroatypical…03:59 *
BRIE: Yeah, I’ve only recently come to really accept that I’m on the autism spectrum, but Kristin can tell you that I’ve definitely been displaying those traits for the last 8 years.
KRISTIN [stuttering]: I typically — and not through any any short of choice — I think it… okay, so I have thoughts on this question. [laughs]
ZACK: Mhm!
CHARLIE: Yes! [giggles]
KRISTIN: Okay, so here are my thoughts. I think that you don’t owe anyone disclosure of anything about you. You know, like, this isn’t a subpoena. [laughs] You don’t have to tell people what’s going on with you about all things.
[Overlapping chatter]04:42 *
BRIE: Yeah, you don’t need to come with a credit rating–you know, allow someone to do a credit check on you.
KRISTIN: Yeah! Also, second of all, “reward for being such a good boy” is one of the worst things–
[Zack laughs heartily]
BRIE: Absolutely disgusting.
KRISTIN: It’s gnarly.
ZACK: Whoever said that calls his dad his “papá” like a…
[Kristin and Charlie laugh]
KRISTIN [mocking]: “Papá, please!”
BRIE [mocking]: “I’ve been ever so good!”
[Everyone laughs]
KRISTIN: Horrible. So–it’s awful. But yeah, I think that you don’t owe anyone an explanation for why you are the way you are. However, there will reach a point in a relationship, probably when you think about moving in with someone…
BRIE: Meeting their parents…
KRISTIN: …meeting their parents, something like that, where you have to ask yourself “why would I wanna move in with someone who I don’t feel comfortable telling this to?” So it’s less of a “you owe them an explanation” and more of thinking about it in terms of “do I want to advance a relationship with someone who I don’t trust with this information?” I would think of it less in terms of “I don’t wanna scare them off!” and more like “I wanna make sure I can trust this person, so I’m gonna give them the information.” Second thing is — and this is just coming from my perspective, and, granted, I am a person who is hypersensitive and hyper-aware, and I process emotional data all the time and I’m sucking it in like [imitates repetitive sucking noise] so this is just how I am — but like, I feel like it might just come up organically. Like, there might be some sort of conflict or something that comes up where it’s helpful to kind of explain the context of why you feel the way that you do. And so, you know, that’s also a good time to bring it up, but I think that it shouldn’t scare–[laughing] it shouldn’t scare people off.
BRIE: In either case, it’s less about you owing something to the other person, and much more about building a strong relationship that’s going to last. And if you find someone that you feel like you’re building a relationship and you feel like there’s strength in the relationship and you feel like there’s mutual trust in the relationship, then that kind of disclosure is only something that’s going to decrease that amount of trust.
KRISTIN: Yes, exactly, exactly. So yeah, I think that when you find that you trust them with other things about yourself, this feels like the time to talk about it. But like, you don’t owe it to anyone, and no one can get mad at you for not… [laughs] you know, you’re not like a car. You don’t have to pull up a Carfax report, you’re a human being. We all are entitled to tell people about ourselves when we feel comfortable.
BRIE 07:51 *: Mhm!
CHARLIE: Well, I have a question.
KRISTIN: Mhm?
CHARLIE: Are y’all Jewish?
BRIE: No.
KRISTIN: No. [laughs]
BRIE: No, I’m the kind of Italian that people sometimes mistake for Jewish, like Jason Biggs.
[Kristin laughs heartily]
CHARLIE: So, the thing is, when Jews enter a room, they announce what medications they’re on, you know?
[Kristin and Brie giggle]
CHARLIE: When you meet a Jew, they’re gonna tell you everything that’s wrong with them. So that’s why, on the last episode, I was kind of like “people notice something is wrong with me, so I’m just gonna tell them what’s up.” But I also agree that you don’t owe anyone, and I can’t imagine, in casual dating for second, third dates, you really have to disclose why you’re bad at conflict, for example. Cause hopefully, there’s no conflict! Or, you just never talk to them again if there is.
KRISTIN: [guffaws] I mean, I feel like that’s easy! Like, I think that you kind of 08:52 * bring up something interesting, which is that I think that when, if someone notices “hey, there are things…” — I’m trying to find what it is 09:04 * to explain this well — I think that you’re correct in that sometimes people will notice, and I think that if (for whatever reason) a conflict comes up, that might be a good way to be like “by the way, this is happening! Boop ba-doop boop boop!” 09:19 * And if anything, it might bring you closer, because it might be like “oh, I didn’t know that thing about you, and now I have more information about you, and because I have more information about you, I feel like A) you trust me, so I feel closer to you, it’s a stronger bond, you trust me with this information,” honestly, I sometimes feel like a disclosure like this can be a gem. It’s like “oh, you’re trusting me with this special thing of yours that you may not necessarily trust with anyone, and that makes me feel closer to you.”
BRIE: Yeah, definitely.
ZACK: Yeah. It’s fairly early in our relationship, around where we were starting to get serious, that Rachel just sort of apropos of nothing said to me, “I want you to know I’m terrified of roller coasters, but you’re someone I would go on a roller coaster with.” And it felt like the same kind of thing…
BRIE: Awww!
KRISTIN [laughing]: That's really cute!
BRIE: That is adorable!
CHARLIE: That's adorable, yeah.
ZACK: Well, we've sort of used that as a metaphor for leaps that we're willing to take with the other 10:23 * ever since then.
KRISTIN: That's sweet.
ZACK: And I mean, I think that's gonna be a common feature of most relationships that are getting serious. Just expressing in whatever form the willingness to roll the dice like that.
KRISTIN: Well, Zack, can I ask you, when you did you and Rachel talk about it?
ZACK: She knew before we started dating. In fact, we met through our college chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, and I only learned recently that a lot of the other members were, like, vaguely uncomfortable with me, and she had interceded with me to say "he's not creepy, he's on the spectrum." She basically saved me from an intervention, for all intents and purposes! So she knew, but I don't think that that is necessarily the same thing as knowing how it will affect a relationship. So I felt like there was, like, a separate stage of disclosure to her, because if you're telling someone... it'll affect your relationship with a romantic partner in different ways than it'll affect your relationship with someone that you are just friendly with.
KRISTIN: Oh, yes, absolutely.
CHARLIE: Uh, I think Brie keeps trying to speak, I wanna give her an opportunity...
ZACK: Oh, I'm sorry.
BRIE: Oh, no.
KRISTIN: No, go ahead!
BRIE: Sorry, I'm just very expressive with my face! (We're on a Zoom call, for folks that are just listening.) But I just wanna echo what folks are saying. I mean, Kristin was really upfront really early on with her ADHD, but like, that was just cause Kristin's very upfront with everything.
[Kristin laughs]
BRIE: Um...12:24 *
KRISTIN: Yes, go ahead. [continues laughing]
BRIE: But, again, I've only come to kind of a self-Dx of being on the spectrum relatively recently. Like, a lot of that was just through working with Kristin and interacting with Kristin, and I think finally accepting that and making that a part of my identity really helped her to kind of understand me. So, again, as you build a relationship and as you are building togetherness, it can very much bring you closer. And if it doesn't, then the other person is an ableist fuck, and you don't need to worry about them!
ZACK: Yeah.
KRISTIN: I think that's true. To touch on something you said: I feel like it gives the partner who is not on the spectrum a kind of a framework of understanding you a little bit better, cause, like, I know that I'm someone who really appreciates... I don't know if "rules" is the right–13:39 *
BRIE: You like–you like knowing the frameworks. You like knowing the specifications.
KRISTIN: I like knowing the specifications of someone that I'm dealing with. I don't necessarily like dealing with people who I can't predict and/or understand, and so I think that understanding you kind of required me to know what the specifications were, and I think that helped me a great deal. And so, I think that that honestly–it's funny that, Zack, you would say that Rachel saved you from an intervention...
[Zack chortles]
KRISTIN: ...cause I can see that that, like, totally tracks. [chuckling] 14:18 Like a thing where it's like "hey everyone, we don't need to be too ridiculous, we can just calm down, because actually what's going on is this!" [chuckles]
BRIE: Yeah.
KRISTIN: Yeah.
ZACK: For sure.
CHARLIE: Yeah, what would the two of you, being married, say to yourselves when you were younger and just dating around?
BRIE: Well, I never really had a "dating around" period. I kinda hopped from monogamous long-term relationship to monogamous long-term relationship...
KRISTIN [overlapping]: Yeah, you're a serial monogamist. [laughs]
CHARLIE: Okay, yeah.
BRIE: But I would say—and, you know, this is somewhat germane to the first part of their question—you obviously wanna find someone who shares interest with you, and who has that overlap in interest, but it doesn't need to be 100%! Like, you're gonna have things that are gonna be your own, and that's important, and they're gonna have things that are their own, and that's important. As long as you guys share something and enjoy sharing those things together, then it doesn't need to be total overlap. Ask Kristin; you can be the big nerd who plays D&D every week, but still watch baseball with your partner.
KRISTIN: Yeah, I think that's actually something that's come up with us! Cause in my mind, I was always just like "we have nothing in common!" cause it's, like, you have many special interests that you just know a lot of things about.
[Brie agrees]
KRISTIN: And it kind of didn't really occur to me until relatively recently that it's, like, we actually do have a lot in common, you just like a lot of things.
BRIE [laughing]: Yeah.
KRISTIN: And so, because you like a lot of things, it's not really possible for me to overlap with all those things!
ZACK: Honestly, people want the Cliff's Notes of being on the spectrum a lot, and one of the things I point them to a lot is the line that 16:31 * the community has: "I think I just like liking things."
CHARLIE: Yeah!
BRIE: Oh my gosh, yes. Yes.
CHARLIE: Yeah. And I love introducing someone to a thing that I like, and I also like being lectured at. Like, I just want you to tell me about the 1930's Red Sox, and just tell me what was going on with them. I love not zoning out, but reaching this zen when someone is talking at me for 10 minutes. I love that so much.
BRIE: Absolutely.
KRISTIN: That's really, incredibly, honestly illuminating to hear, because, like, Brie loves–you love talking about the things that you like. And that is place, actually, where our neuroatypicalness–they kind of come in conflict with each other, because you're someone who likes to talk about your interests, and I'm someone who's got, like... about 90 seconds. [laughs] I've got 90 good seconds, and then it's like "♫ I gotta do something else, cause I can't take it! ♫" [laughs]
ZACK: That's so interesting, because Rachel and I have the same neuroatypicality configuration as the two o' yous. 17:59 *
KRISTIN: Really?
ZACK: Yeah, yeah! But I do feel like (maybe because of my influence) she infodumps a lot more over the course of our relationship. Like, she's very much on a tabletop kick lately, and I feel like, obviously, being into that sort of lends itself to infodumping. And so there's sort of some common ground to be found, at least in terms of communication style, if not necessarily specific subject matter.
KRISTIN: Oh, that's really funny.
CHARLIE: When there are rules to explain to someone, I find that back-and-forth very soothing. So, I came up with a lot of punks who also invented a lot of games, and so the incredulousness of me explaining one of these games to someone and then them asking questions because the rules don't make sense—I love shit like that.
[Kristin and Brie laugh] 19:09 *
KRISTIN: That's funny, because that's, like, my nightmare.
[Kristin, Brie, and Charlie laugh]
KRISTIN: 19:16 * If you have to listen to, like, 10 minutes of someone explaining to you how to play a game, it's like oh, I'm gonna retain. I'm gonna tell you the name of the game at the end of it, maybe. [laughs]
ZACK: See, this is why Calvin is both an autistic and an ADHD icon, because of Calvinball.
KRISTIN [laughing]: Wait, what is Calvinball?
ZACK: Calvinball is this game that he and Hobbes made up where the only rule is that you make up the rules as you go along.
KRISTIN: Yeah, that's–[laughs heartily] that's funny.
CHARLIE: I will say that I don't have any patience for tabletop games. I would absolutely play something like kickball, or stickball, or one of our old ones, Danger Crag 20:04 *, or Ankle Snap, but I don't understand Magic: The Gathering, and I'm probably never going to try.
[Kristin laughs; Zack mumbles] 20:15 *
KRISTIN: I live with someone who understands that game intimately. [laughs]
CHARLIE: Yeah, I have these friends who are partners and have kids, so I'm over there a lot in not-COVID times. And all of the adults sit around and drink coffee and do Magic, and I am just... like, I have so much exposure to Magic: The Gathering and it'll never sink in. I just will never understand it, I will never play it, I think it's great when my friend gets to sell valuable cards and fund his other projects, but yeah. I'm never going to do the thing.
[Theme plays]
CHARLIE: So, I actually—during our intermission just now—I had to unmatch someone on Hinge.
ZACK: Oh god...
KRISTIN [gasping]: Why?!
CHARLIE: So, he said "heeeeyyyyy", "suuuuuup"–
[The rest chuckle]
BRIE: Oh god.
CHARLIE: –in different messages, like three different messages: "heeeeyyyyy", "suuuuuup", "what are you up to, lady?"
[Brie chortles]
KRISTIN: Nooooooo!
CHARLIE: And he's, like–he's in his thirties, he's actively in his thirties.
[Microphone-breaking cackles ensue from Brie and Kristin]
CHARLIE: So I just–I'm not ever going to... [laughs] I'm not gonna, like, argue with these men about gendering me correctly, I'm just gonna unmatch.
ZACK: Hell yeah.
CHARLIE: That's the new me, where I just don't fight with these weird dudes named Sergei.
[The rest chortle]
ZACK: I wish our listeners could see the, like, amazing physical shoulder work that Charlie is doing when they do their impression of this guy too. But, uh...
[The rest laugh]
CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah. His name isn't Sergei. Another guy who I unmatched is named Sergei, but they're all named Sergei.
ZACK: It's a composite character.
[The rest agree]
CHARLIE: They all have sunglasses and bucket hats.
BRIE: Oh, very cool.
ZACK: The Sergei Cinematic Universe.
[The rest laugh]
CHARLIE: Yeah.
KRISTIN [under breath]: That's horrible.
ZACK: So, do we want to read this more recent question?
KRISTIN: Yeah!
CHARLIE: Yes, go ahead. [chuckles]
ZACK: Cool!
"Hi Zack and Charlie! First of all, I adore your podcast, thank you for taking on such a wonderful project, y'all make great content."
ZACK: Thank you!
"I (she/they, 22) recently realized that I'm in love with one of my close friends (he/him, 30). Honestly, I believe I'm in love with him for almost 2 years now, but I didn't really come to terms with it until recently because I previously identified as a lesbian. I've identified as a lesbian for years, but there's no doubt I'm head-over-heels in love with this man. I'm 8 years younger than him, and as far as he knows I'm gay, so I don't know if he's ever considered me in a romantic light. We share many mutual friends and have had a quite special friendship, so I don't wanna mess up the dynamic we have. We're at fairly different points in our lives: I still live with my parents due to my disabilities, whereas he's been on his own for years. Both neurodivergent, but I am impacted far more by my autism and other disabilities than he is. That said, my feelings for him are strong—like, wedding Pinterest board strong—and I don't know how to deal with the fact that we might work out well as partners one day, but we probably won't work right now. I've also never been in a long-term relationship before, and this is the first time I've fallen hard for someone, as usually I'm attracted to practically no one. So, I'm not sure exactly what to do with these feelings. Do you have any advice?"
[Silence]
KRISTIN: ...I do.
[Everyone laughs]
KRISTIN: I have advice.
ZACK: Hell yeah.
KRISTIN: So, several things are being pinged for me right here. So, they talk about how they're worried about how they previously identified as a lesbian, and so it's kind of like this is sort of new and novel. The thing about sexuality—and I think one thing that no one tells you about bisexuality—is that you can go through periods where you are attracted to maybe just one gender, or maybe just two genders, and then another gender might be like [makes noise of disapproval], and then you can flip-flop, and then it's like, "what?" [chuckles] So, like, people kind of think that it's sort of all the time—the pie is divided in different ways—but it can actually be like a pendulum swinging back and forth. So it's obviously–you don't have to change the way you identify, but it's okay to open yourself up to the fact that you might be a little more fluid than you previously thought. The second thing is that Brie and I were talking about this... I think this is good advice in general: never tell someone, cold, that you're in love with them, and here's why. There's a chance they might be in love with you, and if so, then it worked out perfect! But there's a better chance that they may have just never considered you romantically before, so if you come at them with a big "I'm in love with you" bomb, they might be like "AAAAH! Too much!" Whereas if you approach them with a "I think I might have some feelings for you", it allows them to kind of dip their toe in the water and be like "perhaps I would like to swim here!" [laughs]
ZACK: Yeah, yeah! You know, very few of our understandings as children of human relationships really bear the test of time, but the idea of "do you like someone?"—I think that's a fairly useful concept, honestly, and I wish that we carried it more into adulthood; in so many words, at least.
BRIE: Mhm. Yeah, and you're definitely gonna have more times where you like someone but aren't really sure, and approach them with "hey, do you like me back?" You know, that's kind of an awkward conversation but that's gonna be more useful than, like... it's not gonna be Marius and Cosette realizing that they're deeply in love with each other after a single glance in the market, you know?
ZACK: Mhm, yeah, absolutely.
[Kristin laughs]
CHARLIE: Yeah, and I think making a wedding Pinterest board is going to scare anyone off, because...
KRISTIN [laughing]: Gonna go delete all my wedding Pinterest boards, then!
[Brie and Kristin laugh]
KRISTIN: Sorry, go ahead.
CHARLIE: Well, I wanna break down what the appeal of a wedding is to a young woman especially. So, not only is it being surrounded by everyone you love on a certain day and being praised by them and being loudly appreciated by them, but you also get to dress up, and you kind of get to be in drag and perform, and you like one person a whole, whole lot, or you love a person a whole, whole lot, and you are also legally bound to them. And obviously, the aesthetics of weddings are basically time-honored, and everyone at every time has loved weddings, because they're pretty, and they're a big deal, and you get to perform. So on the one hand, if you are growing up, or you're a young person, it totally makes sense to envision what your perfect day would look like. You know, that's very common for people. But, you know, yeah, never come at someone with "I'm in love with you," and definitely never come at them with "here's what you're gonna wear on our wedding day."
[Brie chortles]
KRISTIN (giggling): Oh yeah! I mean, definitely don't tell...28:36 * you don't tell people about the Pinterest boards. You just have the Pinterest boards.
[Zack giggles]
BRIE: Oh yeah, this is not to say you shouldn't have a Pinterest board.
ZACK: I mean, I always feel like I'm being interrograted, cause Rachel and I have had this conversation where she says, "did you feel like you could marry me the first time we met?" And I'm just kind of like "...no? That... that's..."
[Everyone bursts out laughing]
ZACK: "That's a weird way to think about someone you're just meeting! I mean, I liked your hair, but..."
[Brie and Kristin laugh]
CHARLIE: That's harsh! I think anybody would be offended by that. I am sorry.
[Overlapping chatter]
BRIE: I mean, every time I meet someone I'm like "okay, name, pronouns, whether or not I'm going to marry them."
[Laughter]
BRIE: That's the rubric that I run through in my head, and it's served me quite well so far.
KRISTIN: Yeah! I mean, I feel like you said "no" most of the time.
BRIE: Mhm, yeah, most of the time!
[Kristin giggles]
BRIE: I guess a couple of times, and, you know, it worked out once! Which is, you know, a decent batting average.
ZACK: Yeah!
KRISTIN: I think it's also—in this question—I think it's also maybe important to maybe at least slightly address the age gap here.
BRIE: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Yes, absolutely.
ZACK: Mhm.
KRISTIN: And the thing about age gaps is, obviously, no two people are the same, and not every situation is the same, and something that's bad in one situation is not... you know, the nuance that comes with this conversation. But I think it's important to kind of keep in mind (at least for your own sense of self) that, like, this might be a relationship that this person might be reluctant to get into just because of that age gap. And that is to say it may not be a reflection on you, and it may not be a reflection on your importance in his life; it may be a reflection of the fact that he might feel uncomfortable with that big of an age gap, romantically.
BRIE: Especially when it sounds like they had not been in long-term relationships before.
KRISTIN: Right.
BRIE: You know, being someone's first long-time relationship when you're more experienced than them, when you're more independent than them, when you're older than them is hard, I imagine.
KRISTIN: Yeah.
CHARLIE: I wanted to say: I would be cautious especially if he was, like, way, way into instantly.
[Brie and Kristin agree in unison]
CHARLIE: Just because of the power dynamic, because this person is a multiply disabled person with not a lot of experience who is much younger than this man...
KRISTIN: Yes, yes.
CHARLIE: ...you know, I'm always worrying about our listeners and the people who write in just in terms of predation.
[Brie and Kristin agree]
CHARLIE: Because people who come to us are the less experienced people, and the people who don't understand boundaries because a lot of them are very young. So, I would say any man in his thirties who is jumping into a relationship with you when you're 22 and not asking questions and not having a game plan, not having those conversations of "how are we gonna be careful about this?" Like, if he's just like "sure! Let's fuck!" I don't think that's great.
BRIE: Yeah, that's a big red flag.
KRISTIN: Yeah, I would agree with that.
BRIE: He needs to show that he's going to respect where you're coming from, and be at–you get to set the speed here. Like, you're the person who's coming into this relationship at the other end of the power dynamic, but that means that you get to set what you're comfortable with, and he should acknowledge that and conform his expectations and all of that to what you're comfortable with.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
ZACK: Sure.
KRISTIN: Yeah, I would be concerned about making sure that you don't get into a you-say-"jump"-I-say-"how high?" situation, and that's a good kind of barometer for whether or not this is an exploitative relationship, which, if I'm gonna be honest—8 years, and it's starting at 22—that makes me feel uncomfortable, but I'm trying to, like... [laughs] I don't wanna color this too much with my own personal experiences, but that personally makes me feel a little bit like "ah, I don't know..."
BRIE [overlapping]: What happened to those 8 years?
KRISTIN: A lot happens in those 8 years. It's a... [Zack overlaps] oh, go ahead.
ZACK: No, that's okay! I was just gonna say, I think that something that probably a lot of people who are unsure about themselves—relationship-wise in general, but autistic people in particular—need to be steered away from is the idea that you deserve exactly what you can get and no more, and you just need to immediately be satisfied once you get something or anything.
CHARLIE: Yeah. The other side of that exact same coin—the other side of the coin of settling for what you can get and not striving above is you have this heightened ideal of what marriage is, and that the person who marries you, who deigns to marry you, is going to save you.
KRISTIN: Yes.
BRIE: Mhm. Yeah, that would be the other [thing to look] for 34:37 * in this relationship. Cause, like, let's say that our listener here, they talk to this man, and they agree to start a slow romant–you know, everything we've been saying. It's going to go at their speed, it's gonna be respectful, all of that—you need to still be prepared for the fact that you have built up this relationship as something that it probably can't ever be.
[Charlie and Kristin agree]
BRIE: You have built up this relationship as a very idealized thing, and real people in real relationships are flawed, and they're going to have conflict, and they're going to have hard times, and you're going to need to work through them. And you can't feel like, once that starts happening, it's because you're a failure, or... it might be that this is the wrong person for you, it might be that this is just something that happens in all relationships, and you're gonna need to kinda figure that out as you go, but you can't go into it being like "okay, this is it, this is going to be perfect." Because it's not!
ZACK: I hope you'll indulge me a little, can I read a quote by my favorite crime thriller writer, just because that's sort of how my autism manifests itself?
CHARLIE: Yeah!
BRIE: Yeah, please!
KRISTIN [laughing]: Awesome!
ZACK: This is from Mystic River by Dennis Lehane:
“Life isn't happily ever after... It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves that burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But you roll up your sleeves and work—at everything—because that's what growing older is.”
KRISTIN [wistfully]: Yeah...
BRIE: Yeah...
KRISTIN: Yeah, it's true. I dunno–I guess I can tell a personal story. So, when I was 22, I dated my 34-year-old boss, which is... different situation. [chuckles] But at the time, I remember being like "oh my god, I have snagged someone so much older, and I am sophisticated! And I have nailed it!"
[Brie laughs]
KRISTIN: And honestly, when I turned 34, I kinda looked at that situation and I was like "what was a 34 year old man doing with me? Like, why...?"
BRIE: With his employee, also.
CHARLIE: Yes.
KRISTIN: With his employee, I know, so messed up. Really messed up. So yeah, more messed up than this. And I think that, like... you wanna make sure that you're always on an even keel with people, and that someone doesn't have a power advantage over you, and more importantly that they're not using that power advantage to get what they want out of you.
CHARLIE: Mhm. And I do wanna say, for our disabled people listening, it is okay if you need a partner who is also your caretaker.
KRISTIN: Oh, for sure!
CHARLIE: There is nothing manipulative about you needing that, even if larger society and messaging may tell you that you're being selfish or asking too much. So, it's perfectly fine if this older person with maybe more financial resources wants to commit to you in that way. But that is a lot of responsibility that this older person could really take advantage of and fuck you over with. So, I... oh, I don't know if I would advise it. I think there are so many things here that are just so precarious, and if you are in the more vulnerable position, I don't know if you also want to be vulnerable into other intersections as well, compared to this other person.
BRIE: Right. For sure.
KRISTIN: I completely agree with that.
ZACK: Mhm. Absolutely. And just for the record, we're not saying "this person that you've been friends with for however long is a bad person." Cause we understand how these bonds form, too, but these are still things to keep in mind. I think that with a lot of leaps like this, when you take them, you should consider "is this the most likely scenario? No. Should I be emotionally prepared for it to be the outcome? Yes."
CHARLIE: Yeah. I don't know if I wanna bring this up... no, I will. So, my old perception of having grown up in an abusive household and being disabled (including physically), I really did want to get saved, especially with someone with more financial resources. And I think the easiest example to explain this to someone would be G. Rose Blanchard—I'm not gonna say her first name, just because it is a racial slur to some people—the sort of relationship she had with Nicholas, who came and murdered her mother who was her abuser. You know, that was absolutely a situation where he saved her. But, at the same time, that fixation on one person who will save you is not going to work out. And obviously, that was really fucking unhealthy, the two of them, and it did open her up to being raped by him. Especially–god, especially when you need physical help, like I can't go to a museum unless I'm with someone who is pushing me in a wheelchair, just because it is so difficult to stand, walk, stand, and have that kind of endurance—so, you know, it is so appealing to think of someone who is legally obligated to do that for the rest of our lives. And also, when I was not in the greatest living situations, it would be like "oh, I wanna find someone with money who is committed to me who will take care of me forever and ever and ever." And just tonally—I'm inferring this from our submitter, just because of their inexperience—I think if they did have more experience and especially meeting a lot of people, I think I would be less worried about them, but I am a little worried about them.
KRISTIN: I agree with you. I think that that–yeah. [to Brie] Sorry, go ahead.
BRIE: I was just gonna say, you always have to be careful with how much power over your [audio cuts out] 42:37 *. That's what a relationship is, is you're giving someone else some power over you to some degree, but you've gotta be sure that it is a person who's not going to abuse that power, and that you're not just giving them all of it, that you're not just giving them the nuclear codes.
CHARLIE: Yeah. Yeah, and if you're the most vulnerable person, circling back, you should be able to set the terms.
BRIE: Absolutely.
ZACK: I was just gonna say, it's definitely not my intention to be the one who's like "no, completely let your guard down, go for it" either.
CHARLIE: Oh, love is special! It is very intoxicating, and that's all we can say. It's great to be enthusiastic about someone, and have someone be enthusiastic about you, it's wonderful.
[Various noises of agreement]
KRISTIN: Yeah, I would say I... I think, Charlie, you're exactly right when you're kind of reading in between the lines in this letter, that there might be a desire to be saved, and I think that that's something that I relate to extraordinarily deeply. And especially because it might be what draws you to someone who is much older than you, because you look at a person who is maybe similar to you in some ways but is much older than you, and lives on their own, and maybe has things that you might want, or represents some things that you might want. Like, I think it's easy to kind of look at that person for what they represent as well as who they are. And I think it's really important to kind of try and separate those two things as much as possible.
CHARLIE: Yeah. I wanna hear, Zack, your perspective on the idea of marriage "saving you" just because—hi, Rachel!—because you've been in this relationship that started when the two of you were so young, and you're probably gonna stay together forever!
ZACK: Sure, sure, yes. I know it's fairly unhealthy and unrealistic to think of anything saving you in that sense, but I do think that that stability was extremely important for me as I did a lot of things that were out of my comfort zone. Like, I had lived in my hometown all my life until I moved up north with Rachel, and that's how I was able to start my actually career and go outside my comfort zone in terms of being out in the world. It sounds so useless to say that it was what actually worked for me but it wouldn't necessarily work for everybody, but I think that maybe it goes back to the roller coaster thing. Like, you find someone who—this isn't going to be every possible partner—but you find someone who is willing to hold your hand and take leaps with you, and there's not that sort of power imbalance. 46:05 * I think that that can really be something akin to being saved, honestly. I'm nearly 31–I am 31 years old, I'm nearly 32 years old. I'm far too old to be using terminology like "ride-or-die", but I really think that if you find your ride-or-die, it can be... not even like a mechanism for saving you, but a way for finding a sense of stability that can feel like there is–like you can handle all sorts of, like, external issues... and I'm rambling, I'm sorry.
CHARLIE: Do you think it's fair to say that we should all be our first ride-or-dies, and then look for another?
ZACK: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that you will be far less likely to settle for less when you don't deserve that if you have this sense of your own value before you look for someone to... not even save you, but provide that stability.
KRISTIN: Brie, I feel like you're very similar. When you talk about marriage and what you like about marriage, I feel like you would have given a nearly identical to that.
BRIE: Oh, yeah, absolutely! It's about having someone who you can trust with yourself, you can trust with your authentic self. You know, in some ways—I'm just gonna talk about my experience coming out as trans—in some ways, it was made harder by the fact that I was in a relationship because I... [audio cuts out] ...just affecting me, it was affecting someone else. But at the same time, I don't know if I would have come to that understanding about myself outside of a good and healthy relationship like we had.
ZACK: I was gonna say, this was one of the big things that spurred us to start this podcast, was our mutual distaste for the Netflix series Love on the Spectrum, and one of the things that we heard someone say about it was that there's this... the show is all about training people to avoid talking about trains on a date rather than finding someone who wants to hear you talk about trains.
KRISTIN: Yes, which I think is such a big difference!
ZACK: Mhm.
CHARLIE: And Love on the Spectrum, and the way we have been treated as a podcast team, there is this marriage goal for people... you know, for non-disabled people or sometimes disabled people that they're projecting onto other disabled people. Like, Zack has won because he's married.
ZACK: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Yeah. And that's very much the "Love on the Spectrum Model", is that you have to find someone who you can trick into being married, and then you win with that love, achieving that love.
[Theme plays]
CHARLIE: So, a lot of that is rooted in this perception that autistic people are perpetual children, and that we can't consent and we don't have sexual desires. So Love on the Spectrum is so completely sexless, and these people are placed in this paternalistic gaze, and their family members are interviewed about their romantic lives, which is so fucking mortifying, and that wouldn't happen to other people on a dating show. We wouldn't have this mother saying "oh, he's a 32-year-old virgin," or something like that.
ZACK: Mhm.
CHARLIE: And because we are not seen as full adults, the graduation into adulthood is this marriage. And marriage is a very interesting cultural marker, because when you are married and you get pregnant, that's fine. But when you are unmarried and you get pregnant, you had sex! That is, like...
[Kristin giggles]
ZACK: Yeah. Illegal.
CHARLIE: It's so weird. It's, like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. You're supposed to not think about "all of these people wanna fuck right now." But, then they have the overnight suite, and they get to fuck everyone. But we're supposed to pretend that this isn't a perverted polyamorous disaster.
[Kristin laughs wholeheartedly]
CHARLIE: So, you know, tying it all back, tying it all back. We started this project because we want to prove that we're people. It's so weird that we have to prove that we're people, that as adults, as autistic adults, we are adults. And, to counter Love on the Spectrum, our unofficial motto is "autistic people fuck."
[The rest giggle]
ZACK: Yup.
BRIE: Yeah, no. There is that infantilization that goes on, and it's... something similar happens, I feel like, in terms of finding someone who will marry you, with almost the unspoken "trick someone into marrying you"...
[Everyone immediately agrees]
BRIE: ...kind of happens when people talk about fat people dating.
KRISTIN [overlapping]: Yeah, I was gonna say that.
CHARLIE [overlapping]: Yes, I was about to say that. Yeah.
BRIE: Kristin can talk to that, yeah.
KRISTIN: Yeah, I was gonna say, it's exactly the same thing. With fat people, it's the idea of [mocking] "if you got married to a thin person, and they consented to it, it's just, like, 'yeah, look what I did!'" It's like getting a merit badge in Scouts, basically. It's like, "I got the merit badge! Now you can't get mad at me for being fat, because I got this badge, okay?" And I think there's this sense that, like, it's so tied to your self-worth, and it's so tied to whether or not you are a "successful adult", and whether or not it's okay for you to be yourself. Because if you can't get this merit badge, then maybe you need to change until you can.
[The rest agree]
KRISTIN: And that's... Brie, I think about this a lot in terms of kind of how—and obviously, we love your family, [valley girl accent] we love your familyyy, they're really greeeat—but like...
CHARLIE: But?
BRIE [dejectedly]: Yeah... most of them.
KRISTIN: [laughs wholeheartedly] Love that. I think about how, when you were a teenager, one thing that you talked to me about is that your parents wanted you to come out of your room because you were kind of always on the computer, and then when you wouldn't come out of your room–first of all, they took away your computer cord, and you figured out that you could use your breathing treatment cord as a computer cord, and then once they realized that you'd done that, they took away your door.
BRIE [under breath]: Oh my god...
KRISTIN [laughing]: And so, it was like you weren't allowed to have a door, because this is how you kind of related to the world, and just kind of how you felt safest and most comfortable and thrived the best, because you were not able to participate in the "social unit" the way that it was prescribed. You didn't get to have a door. Which, like... I dunno, it strikes me as really messed up, cause that's the crime you committed! The crime you committed was you were not capable of socializing with the unit in a way that was acceptable. It wasn't that you were doing drugs or had bad grades... that was what you did. I dunno. Seems messed up. [laughs]
ZACK: Yeah!
BRIE: That's a little sus.
ZACK: Absolutely.
CHARLIE: Yeah, everything in compulsive heterosexuality is transactional. And we're not supposed to point out that we are all reduced to currency in that way.
KRISTIN: Yes.
ZACK: Mhm.
KRISTIN: Yes.
ZACK: You know, I was thinking about this a lot when Beverly Cleary died last week; that's part of why I think she resonates with so many kids, is the whole premise behind Ramona is she's this kid who notices all these nonsensical, hypocritical things the adults do and gets in trouble for noticing them.
KRISTIN: Yeah. [laughs]
CHARLIE: And that's a very autistic thing, because we were talking about A. J. about "do we send thank-yous after we get off the phone with someone—a business colleague—are we expected to send a thank you note to their thank-you when they thank you after getting off the phone with you?" And, you know, we don't have problems with being polite, we have problems when we have to follow rules that don't make sense to us.
ZACK: Yeah.
BRIE: Mhm.
ZACK: Or, at the very least, rules that have some kind of logic behind them, but the person imposing them on us isn't bothering to explain that logic to us, they're just saying "you do it because it's what you're supposed to do."
BRIE: Mhm.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
BRIE: Because it's just how it's been done.
ZACK: Mhm.
KRISTIN: That's funny.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
KRISTIN: I think, actually, it's funny that you should point that out because I was trying to think, "what is the logic behind this?" Cause I sent those emails where I thank people, and I'm like, "well, why do I do that, though? That doesn't make any sense!" I guess it's to... [sighs] I guess it's to, like, reassure someone that I did enjoy talking to them, even though in the moment it might've been uncomfortable for me to reassure–I don't–like,
I can't even explain it. [laughs] That doesn't make sense to me.
ZACK: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Well, I understand the temptation.
KRISTIN: Yeah...
CHARLIE: I really do understand the temptation. Like, when I'm hanging out with a friend and then they drop me off, and then I get back up to my apartment and I sit down, and I'm like, "wait, do they still like me?" And then I have to wait...
[The rest laugh]
ZACK: Oh my god, yeah.
CHARLIE: I have to wait to send them, like, a meme, or a link or something. You know, just so they don't know that I've been sitting in the same spot thinking, "are we still cool?"
BRIE: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Like, I have to wait for time to pass and then be like, "hey, here's a job that I think you should apply for!" You know? But on dates, actually, that's the opposite of what you should do. Once you get home from a date, you're supposed to be like, "hey, that was awesome! See you again next week?" Right?
ZACK: Mhm.
KRISTIN & BRIE: Mhm, yeah.
[Kristin laughs]
ZACK: And especially now—I guess there's light at the end of the tunnel now—but for the past several months, when the next in-person interaction has been absolutely not guaranteed, and it's like, "goodbye, I guess?"
CHARLIE: "See you never?"
ZACK: Uh-huh.
[Kristin laughs]
BRIE: Yeah.
CHARLIE: "Have a good life?"
[Kristin and Brie continue laughing, various noises of agreement from everyone]
BRIE: You could definitely fall into it. And a lot of these norms are just self-repeating, and you could just get into a k-hole of just wanting to... [to Kristin] Sorry, go ahead.
KRISTIN: To kind of bring it back to marriage, and talking about how it is sort of an end goal—Brie, I think about often how you're like a very nesty person. You've always been this way, this is not a function of any changes with your transition. You've just kind of always been a person who likes to have–likes to buy gadgets for the home, and likes to make sure that the home has the things that the home needs, and likes to cook things in the home, and likes to make drinks for–you're just very nesty. Like, you just enjoy that aspect. And I think that... marriage for you kind of fulfills a very–it's someone for you to nest at, if that makes sense.
BRIE: Yes, yes!
KRISTIN [laughs]: Cause, like, otherwise it's like, "who will I do my nesting at?"
[Brie and Kristin laugh]
KRISTIN: "I can't nest at myself!"
ZACK: I mean, early in our relationship when we realized we were getting serious and weren't sure if there was a next step—when Rachel would first start actually thinking about marriage as a possibility, she would basically try to get me to ask about it by just muttering to herself "damn my nesting instincts" loud enough that she knew I was going to ask what she was talking about.
[The rest laugh]
ZACK: So, I mean, I don't think it's that uncommon.
CHARLIE [laughing]: I don't think passive-aggressively muttering under your breath for a response is necessarily what we want to teach.
[Brie and Kristin laugh]
ZACK: Oh, it wasn't passive-aggressive! It wasn't under her breath, either. It was, like, full conversational tone because she knows...
CHARLIE [overlapping]: Stage-whisper-shouting at you?
[Brie and Kristin laugh]
ZACK: Yeah, cause she knows that that's how I understand that there's something she wants to talk about.
CHARLIE: Okay!
KRISTIN [laughing wholeheartedly]: Funny. It's also funny—Brie, I feel like you... 1:01:26 * that was actually a major conflict in our relationship, because, Brie, I feel like you were kinda like "all right, time to get married!" I wanna say it was, like... 6 months into our relationship?
BRIE: Something like that, yeah.
KRISTIN: 6 months into it, you were just kinda like "all right! I did it!"
BRIE: It was not too long after we moved in together, I was just like "oh, we're getting married."
KRISTIN: Yeah, and you weren't pushy about it, and you weren't insistent about, you were just kinda like...
BRIE [overlapping]: No, I just accepted it as a given.
KRISTIN: You were just like "I've made the choice, the choice has been made, now I just wait for you."
BRIE: Yeah, yeah!
KRISTIN [laughing]: And I think it's very interesting, cause for me I was like "do I wanna get...? I don't know! Like... [makes noise of indecision] I'm gonna hem and haw about my feelings!" And you were just kinda like "this is pretty easy. I've decided that you will be my nest person, and now I'm gonna move on to the next problem." And so, it was always very interesting to me that it was like a very matter-of-fact choice for me, and it wasn't something that you didn't spend a lot of time... you were very sure of your choice.
BRIE: I get analysis paralysis about so many things in my life, but just–that wasn’t one of them.
ZACK: I love that. I love that description.
KRISTIN [laughing]: Yeah. Yeah, that one’s not one of them.
CHARLIE: Yeah, that’s a great description.
KRISTIN: Mhm. You get analysis paralysis about things that do not matter, really. [laughs]
BRIE: Or things that have a very obvious answer.
[The rest laugh]
BRIE: “Should I leave my current job for a better job that’s going to pay me more? I don’t know, let me worry about this for a week!“
KRISTIN: Oh, that’s a thing that matters! I’m talking about things where you’re just like “do we use the small plates or the big plates?” Or like, things that truly are of not as much consequence as you would think.
BRIE: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
[Kristin laughs]
ZACK: I know that everybody is sick of hearing about how “The Good Place changed my life” but it just makes me think of the flashback to Chidi as a child talking about how he’s freezing up trying to figure out whether to pick the one girl in the class for his team, because it might seem like he’s patronizing her by only picking her because she’s a girl.
[Kristin laughs]
ZACK: And he’s got, like, this extensive analysis of the pros and cons of making that one decision.
KRISTIN [laughing]: Yes, that’s…
BRIE: Yes, absolutely.
KRISTIN: That… I mean, as someone who is plagued by this—by indecisiveness— it was always very interesting to me that you were not… this was not something that really rattled you, I think. And I think it’s because marriage, for you, provides a framework for moving through the world that I think you thrive best under. That’s something that I don’t think I even realized about you until relatively recently.
BRIE: Relatively recently, yeah.
KRISTIN: Yeah. You’re just kind of our person for whom it’s like, “All right! My nest is good. Now I can do other stuff!” [laughs] and when you’re nest isn’t good, you’re just like “can’t talk right now! Nest is bad!”
[Brie and Kristen laugh wholeheartedly]
KRISTIN: It is very interesting, how do you view marriage very differently than I do.
BRIE: Yeah. But, you know, still works. 1:04:54*
CHARLIE: I can’t even record the podcast if my apartment isn’t clean, because if “nest is bad“, I can’t focus. I can’t focus on other stuff I need to do.
KRISTIN: [laughs] Oh, that’s fascinating that y’all actually kind of identify with that concept as well!
CHARLIE: Yeah.
BRIE: Mhm.
[Kristin laughs]
ZACK: Again, especially this past year, you gotta be happy with your nest, cause it’s all you got, pretty much.
BRIE: Well, yeah. [laughs]
CHARLIE: Yeah, I actually only took seriously making improvements in my apartment just, like, this month, because I left town for the first time in a year. And then I was dreading coming back because my bed sucked, so I got back and I immediately replaced my bed, because I was like… obviously I wanna come back and I want to be with my birds, and I want to not be traveling anymore, but I hate my bed in my apartment, so I don’t wanna go back to my apartment. So, the thing cutting through the we’re-a-year-into-pandemic sadness—you know, the raincloud 1:06:19*—was me replacing all of my furniture. So, all of my furniture is different than a month ago, because I saw outside of the nest from outside of the nest that my nest was bad.
[Kristin laughs]
BRIE: Yeah, I mean, we got a similar thing going on with our couch. [laughs]
KRISTIN: Yeah, the nest is really bad right now. [continues laughing]
BRIE: It’s not great.
CHARLIE: What’s wrong with the couch?
BRIE: Oh, it’s just a piece of crap. We got it from furniture store redacted...
[Zack and Kristin laugh]
BRIE: …it fell apart, just instantly, cause we got this not long ago, it was less than a year ago.
Kristen: I mean, I feel like not all couches were meant to be the only piece of furniture that you use for an entire calendar year.
[Various fits of laughter from all]
CHARLIE: Yes.
BRIE: That’s true, but especially this one wasn’t.
ZACK [under breath]: Load bearing couch…
KRISTIN: Yeah, it’s like, “tired of looking at bad chair. Now to go to good chair.”
CHARLIE [laughing]: Yeah.
BRIE: Yes.
KRISTIN: But the problem’s, like, bad chair and good chair are the same chair.
CHARLIE: Yes.
BRIE: Yeah.
[Laughter]
BRIE: But, like... yeah, we definitely overused the couch, but...
KRISTIN [overlapping]: Yeah, it's also shitty to begin with...
BRIE: It was also crooked–it was also shitty just to begin with.
KRISTIN: Remember that episode of The Simpsons where, like, Ned Flanders' house blows down, and then they remake his house, but it's super...
[Various overlapping noises of agreement]
KRISTIN: That couch is like if they remade a couch after the couch blew down. Yeah, the couch cushions don't reach each other. Like, the couch cushions are too small for the couch, there's just spaces where the couch–it's crazy. It's insane. Also, I feel like it was meant to be sat on... I wanna say 8 times. Cause on the 9th time we sat on it, it was just like, "I'm a pancake!"
BRIE: It went from brand new to piece of garbage in, like, a week.
KRISTIN: Oh, seriously, a week! Like, didn't we just buy this fucking couch? Terrible. Anyway, that's our hyperfixation for right now.
[Theme plays]
ZACK: And for our final segment, what we are going to put to our panel, I guess, for the lack of a better word... mhm. "What do you feel is your trademark item of clothing or accessory?" Like a cartoon character, or whatever.
BRIE: All right, so mine... pre-transition, it would've been just a plaid shirt.
KRISTIN: Yeah, yeah.
BRIE: Because, you know, I was very in the "hey, it's a uniform and I don't have to think about it, and I don't have to think about how unhappy these clothes make me." I would say post-, it's either my glasses—cause I've got these cute cat ear–cat eye glasses. Cat ear glasses are nothing.
[Kristin and Zack laugh]
BRIE: Or, I also have this purse that's like a little kitty but there are little things that flap up to keep the... thing down. But there are little paws that cover its little eyes.
[Giggling]
KRISTIN [overlapping]: Yeah, the clasp to hold the purse closed are two little eyes. The two little paws cover the eyes.
BRIE [overlapping]: It's pretty adorable. Yeah, there it is.
ZACK [overlapping]: Oh my god, that's amazing!
KRISTIN: They're so cuuute! I would say, if you were to draw me as a cartoon character during the pandemic, I'm wearing... like, a full-body romper in some bright color, and my yellow Crocs. So, like, I'm basically dressed like a 6-year-old. [laughs]
[Brie snickers]
ZACK: Amazing.
KRISTIN: I'm just like, "let me find the thing that's the easiest to walk in and the hardest to pee in."
[The rest laugh heartily]
BRIE: Which is weird, cause you do one of those things way more than you do the other.
[Everyone laughs]
KRISTIN: Rude. Rude and accurate, but thank you.
BRIE: Yeah, yeah.
[Everyone continues laughing]
ZACK: So I have this—it's the medal of St. Francis de Sales, who's the patron saint of journalism. It was a gift from my brother and I guess, the other one is the t-shirt I'm wearing now, it says "I heard you paint houses", which was a gift from Rachel.
BRIE: Nice.
KRISTIN: Awww.
ZACK: So, it's sort of the two sides of Zack, which is like a sort of weird aesthetic Catholicism that does not necessarily follow in terms of dogma and movie quotes.
[Brie and Kristin laugh]
CHARLIE: I think the uniting thread between you and I is, like, weirdly religious goths.
[Zack and Kristin make noises of agreement]
CHARLIE: Yeah, because mine... I just wanna describe my whole aesthetic, because all of these things are kind of quintessential. So, obviously, my huge leather jacket, which has fringes all over it. Like, it is very gay cowboy, but also very goth, and especially when I'm wearing all black. So, I will say that my outfit today is my cartoon character outfit. So, very dark Purple Rain tank top, short shorts (obviously black), black compression leggings—I always have to wear compression leggings if I'm doing things and standing upright—cheetah print Doc Marten loafers, and... black safety mask, and sometimes a black-brimmed hat. So it's, like, very slutty, but also very modest in a way. So, frum (F-R-U-M) is, you know, Jewish modest, maybe sometimes Hasidic. So, I'm not Hasidic, but I describe my aesthetic as frum cowboy.
ZACK: Mm. That's amazing.
KRISTIN: Yeah!
CHARLIE: That's kind of what all that is. And, you know, you can sub in a fanny pack, a knife, my set of keys that are also leather-fringed (my keys are fringed)... but yeah, yeah. Someone drawing me—especially if I was in the cartoon Recess—someone drawing me when I walk up, they would have wacky music, but also a lot of jangling.
[The rest burst into laughter]
CHARLIE: There's a lot of jangling things happening with my every outfit.
KRISTIN: You're very percussive.
ZACK: I'm so glad this was our back-up question, cause it's the perfect one for Charlie specifically.
[The rest laugh]
CHARLIE: Yes, I am a cartoon, and I try to minimize that. I try to not be a manic pixie dream person, and I don't watch anime, because I don't want to feel called out...
[Overlapping laughter]
CHARLIE: But I also used to play accordion, and that's just too much.
[Everyone laughs]
BRIE: The quirk levels are off the charts.
CHARLIE: Yeah, I can't do that. I also had an undercut, a half-shave, and I had to grow that out, because you have to reel it in. You really have to...
[Overlapping laughter]
KRISTIN: You have to edit.
ZACK: Oh my god.
CHARLIE: Fortunately, my birds can hear me when I'm on the porch or unlocking the front door downstairs and coming up the stairs, because they know that whatever jangling is coming their way, that's gonna be me.
BRIE: Well, that's useful!
KRISTIN: Yeah, totally!
ZACK: Hell yeah, hell yeah.
CHARLIE: Yeah, I hear them screaming when I open the first door, so that's useful.
[Silence]
CHARLIE: Yeah, well, thank you both for coming on the pod!
ZACK: Yeah!
BRIE: Yeah, thank you so much for having us!
KRISTIN: Yeah, thank you for having us!
ZACK: Of course!
CHARLIE: Tell us your Twitter handles and your Instagram handles!
ZACK: Yeah!
BRIE: On both, I'm @BrieHubble, Brie is B-R-I-E like the cheese, and like the telescope.
[Brief moment of silent confusion, followed by realization]
KRISTIN [laughing]: Oh, yeah, I was like...
CHARLIE: I thought "Brie Telescope" and I was like...
[Everyone laughs]
KRISTIN: At Twitter, I am @lolacoaster, it's L-O-L a coaster. And then, on Instagram, I am @itskristinchirico, cause @kristinchirico was taken—I don't know by who, but like...
[Laughter]
CHARLIE: Clearly, Kristin Chirico...1:15:25*
KRISTIN [indignantly]: ...someone took my name!
[The rest burst out in laughter]
KRISTIN: So, I had to add an "its". (It's) fine.
CHARLIE: Yeah. Or "realkristinchirico"... "kristinchiricoofficial"...
[Everyone laughs]
KRISTIN: I can't... I mean, can you...?
BRIE: Remember when our president had "real" in his Twitter handle?
ZACK: Oh my god. [laughs]
KRISTIN: Yeah. [laughs]
CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah. It's a really boomer thing to do.
KRISTIN: It is very, yeah.
ZACK: One of my favorite John Mulaney jokes was, "if he's such a great deal-maker, how did he miss out on just @donaldtrump?"
[The rest laugh]
CHARLIE: You can buy it from people! I don't think he wanted to buy...
KRISTIN: Spend the money, yeah.
ZACK: Yeah, yeah.
BRIE: Yeah, that's not his M.O., is paying people for stuff, no.
ZACK: No, no.
CHARLIE: Mr. Deals!
[Laughter]
ZACK: President Deals.
KRISTIN: Uh-huh. R.I.P.
ZACK: Yeah, thank you both so much for coming, this was great.
KRISTIN: Yeah, thank you guys! It’s awesome.
BRIE: Yeah no, I really enjoyed myself.
ZACK: Yeah, and thanks so much to our listeners, we hope that, you know, two episodes in as many weeks is not something that you're gonna get used to, because...
CHARLIE: We're unreliable.
ZACK: Yeah, yeah! You get what you pay for.
[The rest laugh]
ZACK: And a reminder that you can become a Patron for this podcast at patreon.com/stim4stim, S-T-I-M-4-S-T-I-M.
[Theme plays]
ALYSSA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Stim4Stim, the relationship podcast for and by autistic people. Special thanks to our guests, Kristin Chirico and Brie Hubble. If you like what you heard, consider becoming a Patron. You can find our Patreon at www.patreon.com/stim4stim. Our hosts are Zack Budryk and Charlie Stern. I am Alyssa Huntley, the editor, and our transcriptions are done by Stacy Fatemi.
