“I love you… Don’t make a big deal about it.”
In which the Throbbers discuss relationships portrayed in the media. The good, the Schitts, the Addams Family. Basically, we are #RelationshipGoals and no others need apply.
Relationship Show Notes
We are the most professional of podcasters and unfortunately we are missing Maisie this week. And since we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic and we are a sex podcast… we decided to discuss coupledom in media! Fictional is better than non-fictional.
Kelly begins by mentioning a few very functional fictional couples that she loves:
We agree that Hal is the Supreme version of Bryan Cranston, sorry Walter White.
Kelly doesn’t normally like traditional sitcom couples because the man usually sucks and the wife just goes along with it. Hal and Louis seem to genuinely care for each other and work together. They are so functional…
Kelly’s favorite episode is when they are fighting because of a new baby and they decide they need to fix it so they decide to write lists about what they love about each other. Which would totally work IRL to help a couple. Who would have thought that putting work in would help a relationship!
Sissel’s favorite episode is the kielbasa eating contest block party episode:
Hal and Lois always stand by each other and it’s the most wholesome thing.
Hannah remembers how Gomez and Morticia are a very functional and supportive couple. (We’re all talking about the 90s movie, as a heads up. Cause Anjelica Houston and Christina Ricci are amazing.)
Side note: Kelly was recently telling her coworkers that Addam’s Family Values is the best Thanksgiving movie.
Bad Relationship Examples
The fat idiot husband and the thin meek wife… is a bad dynamic and Hannah can’t stand watching them. She also hates miscommunication in shows/movies, it makes her so uncomfy.
Maisie previously told us that she does not want her parents relationship because the lack of communication is so frustrating. (It’s a common theme that we’re annoyed with our family’s lack of communication.) We’ve all had to act as the mediator to force communication that should be happening to happen. And we are in a unique position in that all of our parents are still married and have been our whole live. It’s a bit of an oddity.
Lucy points out that her parents got married very young and their communication has improved over the years, but it REALLY improved after their kids left for college. Gina agrees that her parents got significantly closer and happier after the kids left.
Sissel says that kids inherently breed conflict, and so it’s hard to be civil and approachable with your significant other. Post-kids, you also just have more time to devote to prioritizing your relationship. Just don’t have kids, everyone!
Hannah is just confused that her parents aren’t bored without kids around. They have no hobbies!
Hannah didn’t even know that her dad was married prior to her mother until high school. It was a green card marriage and he told her he never told her because “she never asked.” (Makes sense.)
Gina thinks her grandparents might have wondered if her parents were a green card marriage. But it’s pretty clear by now they aren’t. UNLESS it started as a green card marriage and they eventually fell in love! Which would make a great romance novel, and we’re already writing it.
We have, as usual, gotten off track, so back to fictional relationships:
Relationship Troupes
Sissels favorite relationship trope is definitely “stuck together” in its various iterations. And boy, are there a lot of tropes to choose from:
We divert down a list of very stupid but entertaining Christmas Rom Coms.
More Movies!
(We discuss our love for Rose McIver: Sissel also recommends more Rose McIver in Woke!)
TV Relationship Commentary
Speaking of Rose McIver, all of her iZombie Relationships would all have been very functional if the other person didn’t die or something.
Lucy points out that the end of Buffy has some really quality communication between the characters in the last season of the show. Cultivating expectations and communicating them clearly is what Lucy really values.
Right before the pandemic, Gina fell very hard and very fast. It was a very hard relationship and she often doesn’t like the version of herself when she’s in love. Her own relationship goal is to work on communicating better with people she loves.
Spinning off Gina’s point, Lucy tells the story of her roommates ex contacting the roommate and not being forthright about why she was contacting her. Gina’s ex, on the other hand, was very forthright about communicating with her “as the world ended” (aka as the pandemic began), checking in and seeing if she was okay. Which Gina appreciated.
Sissel’s own history of communication in love is embarrassing, because, with her current partner, she got drunk and whispered “I think I probably love you” one night. The Throbbers do not endorse this communication style (but it is hilarious). A couple months later he responded with “I love you, don’t make a deal about it”. They are awkward and stupidly compatible though. The Throbbers really just needed to roast Sissel’s love life for a bit.
Sissel definitely internalized the romance portrayed in movies. See: all Mary-Kate and Ashley movies! All the men are just unrealistically devoted to the Olsen Twins.
Friendships
Sissel doesn’t want a relationship where her friendship with the Throbbers is ever compromised.
Lucy brings up the show Younger which frequently prioritizes friendships over romantic relationships and that’s extremely appealing to her. Your life shouldn’t be about just one person. Sissel agrees.
Gina finds it very hard to want to care about someone else’s problems on top of sleeping with them: It’s too much emotion for her. Basically, she’s experienced two kinds of love: Functional, we’re-a-team love, and heady, whirlwind, often destructive love.
Sissel doesn’t see the two kinds as compatible (psychology research agrees with her), but Kelly points out that one can lead to the other but they don’t generally exist at the same time.
Musing on the Female Protagonist
In the rom com movies the woman has only one friend (maybe even a rival) and there is ALWAYS communication issues! We understand that it’s for the ~drama~, but it’s still pretty annoying.
Kelly also talks about how with many TV shows, as soon as two characters get into a couple, they both regress and become shittier and uninteresting. (Examples: Bones, Friends, Cheers, et cetera.)
Shows that don’t do that (SPOILERS!!!) are:
We mention Happiest Season, which at the time of recording had recently come out, as an example of NON functional couples:
No Relationship Goals
Hannah doesn’t really have any relationship goals because she wants to make her own relationship that works for her and whoever she finds to create one with. She thinks it’s really problematic how some of the way media and social media portray relationships miss the mundanity of a real relationship.
Kelly wanted to take some time to look into real life couples, but it’s very difficult to know how much of the relationship you actually get to see. You only get to see what they let you.
Sissel thinks the #RelationshipGoals on other people’s photos just adds more pressure on a relationship, and doesn’t help the relationship.
Lucy points out that Anna Faris found it really hard when people were saying similar “relationship goals” things about her and Chris Pratt when, actually, they were having lots of relationship problems. It seems common, especially for Hollywood couples, to want to hold them to an unrealistic standard.
Real Life Couples We Like
One of couples Kelly sees at her work is an older couple that have had such a wealth of experience and they are so weird that it’s just nice how easy they seem together.
She also loves Percy and Mary Shelly…. (It was a weird relationship. But maybe not “goals.” Kelly mostly just likes it for the ~aesthetic~. Jaclynn wants to mention how fucked up it actually was: Check out Romantic Outlaws and see why!
Friendship Goals over Relationship Goals
Sissel definitely connects to friendships in shows way more often than the romantic characters. Part of this has to do with Sissel always connecting with best friend characters. But great examples are the shows You’re the Worst and House.
Fleabag is NOT Relationship Goals (Unless it is???)
One recurring bit in Fleabag’s second season (spoilers, duh) is that Hot Priest is the only person who notices when Fleabag breaks the fourth wall and talks to the camera. He asks on a couple occasions where she goes when she’s doing that. THAT, Gina says, is what she wants. Someone who knows her well enough to know when she’s gone somewhere else.
The Horrifying Ordeal of Being Known
Being Known in a relationship is what we all want…but it’s also scary.
We discuss how we all have that in our friendships to some extent. We’ve known each other long enough to pick up on our tics and moods.
And Sissel, in both friendships and other relationships, has no problem with commitment. What’s scary is being vulnerable (see: drunkenly whispering “I love you”.)
Gina says the commitment itself is also scary.
Kelly says what she’s most scared of in a relationship is being with someone who doesn’t understand her. Lucy says that it takes time to truly show yourself in a relationship, but that our generation tends to be better at not settling for someone who doesn’t understand us.
Sissel has been in a relationship for four years and still struggles with going through a nighttime routine on her own time when her partner is around.
It Takes Time
We mildly berate Gina and Sissel for always being late. Lucy has managed Gina in the past by lying to her about what time an event is happening so she’ll actually be on time.
We discuss how sometimes the actual “liking someone” takes time in a relationship–Lucy wouldn’t have asked out her previous partner, but grew to be attracted to him after he showed interest in her.
We go over our hangups with dating–the good news is, we all seem to be aware of our problems. So if nothing else, we’ve got good relationships with ourselves, whee.
And we know each other. We are INTERDEPENDENT, not codependent, damn it.
[We take this sidebar to applaud Sissel for doing like 90% of the work on this multi-year group project of a podcast and shame Lucie (the cat) for doing NO work.]
We hope the skills we’ve learned with each other can be applied to our relationships.
Back to Couples
Bones and Booth suck as a couple. Wait, who are Bones and Booth again?
We discuss just how many spoilers we’ve had during this episode and how we’ve only done intermittent spoiler warnings. Whatever, a lot of the things we mentioned are very old. Go watch Buffy. If you don’t know Spike and Buffy got together, what are you doing.
Lucy talks about her grandparents as couple goals: They’re not perfect, but they work together. Lucy just wants the acceptance they have for each other.
All in all, we just want someone who likes us and who wants to hang out with us!
Except for Gina, who wants someone to spend quality time just on her body. Just work on her for hours like a difficult jigsaw puzzle. (This segment gets weird.)
If you want to learn more about the first time the Throbbers felt love… Listen to Ep 6 – Negatory, Ghost Rider!
And on that note, it’s time to end with a heartwarming Hannah haiku!
But first, more importantly, we discuss what Hannah on our Zoom screen looks most like right now:
Is it Boohbah?
Is it Gru?
Or even Boohbah characters HUMANIZED? (No)
We’ll leave it up to your imagination.
(For the record, we’d rather have a functional fictional relationship with Gru.)
Thank You For Listening!
We are all able-bodied, cisgendered white women. We know our background and experiences only cover a percentage of those around us which is why we want to supplement this with guest speakers, research, and you. If you have opinions and experiences you’d like to share we would love to hear it! If, however, you just want to spew hate at us then we can’t stop you but instead we invite you to suck our collective clitorises. Hater. This podcast also contains mature sexual themes and swearing. No, clitoris isn’t a swear word.
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