440: Happy Valentine's Bidet

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Welcome to a very special Love It or Leave It episode. As you listen to this, me and the Pod Save America crew, we're on our two-week Australia New Zealand tour, but we didn't want to didgeridoo you all dirty by leaving you with nothing to listen to, so I'm sitting here with two of my favorite flat whites for a bit of mailbag. Mailbag. Forbid a mailbag. Great. What are our names? That's right. It's Hallie Kiefer. Hi. And Sarah Lazarus. Hello. Love It or Leave It is only one podcast. And with the amount of news we are trying to cover, we can't get to it all. So for today's episode, we wanted to take you through some of our favorite stories that we didn't feel like we gave enough attention to on the show before we get to some interesting questions and topics from Friends of the Pod in the Discord around Valentine's Day, because this show is coming on Valentine's Day. Yeah. How romantic. How romantic. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Galentine's Day. Just missed it. Galentine's Day. I do celebrate Galentine's Day with the gals. It's important. Do you believe that Galentine's Day is a conspiracy against men by corporations trying to convince women that they don't need a relationship to be happy? I don't think the corporations, If that's what they're doing, they don't need to. The corporations do not need to have to put money behind that. I think it's from an episode of Parks and Rec. It's not the corporations at all. I guess hypothetically NBC could be behind it. It says Big Amy Poehler. Yeah. Oh, that's where it's from? Galentine's Day? Yeah. I didn't know that. They go to get pancakes? I don't have any friends that are girls. Wow, hurtful. But to be fair, you don't have any friends that are boys either. I have friendly colleagues. Some friendly colleagues, that's for sure. And that's true. You don't have any friends. You don't have any friends of either gender. So it's fair. That's right. But first, the news. All right, here's a story I want to talk about, all right? When Zoran Mamdani, you know him, became mayor of New York. Love him. He mentioned that he wanted to update Gracie Mansion to have bidets. Obsessed. Bidets. And this caused a little bit of a mini controversy about bidets. And he then did a sit-down interview more recently with ABC News 7. That's the local affiliate, ABC7, that I used to watch growing up. And when he elaborated, he said he was looking to add water guns on the side of the toilet. Kind of a cheap addition, like a $25 addition to make the toilets have bidet-like features. One thing that we will change is we will be installing a few bidets into Gracie Mansion. That's an aspirational hope. We'll see if we can actually get it done. The only other thing I'll tell you is that I was asked if we would make any changes. I just mentioned that, you know, we might install a few bidets in Gracie Mansion. You know, like a $25 water gun that you hook on the side of a toilet. And we actually got a lot of bidet companies who reached out to us to offer their help in installation. I'm sure they do. We're fine. Well, the economy could help you. Yes, we're not in the pocket of big bidets. So it's like, no, no, no, don't worry, I want terrible bidets. Right, right. And I appreciate that he's- No, no, don't worry. Don't worry. They'll be the worst bidets. They're not going to work at all. They're going to be on the market. So, yeah. It'll be worse than not having a bidet. Yeah, two bidets. I do think that's like there's a, it's a, so there's many styles of bidets. There's the kind of full on- Yeah, lay about for us. There's the full on bidet to the side of the toilet. Yes. I learned through my research that that word means pony because you pony, because the way you sit on it. Oh, interesting. Okay. because you sit on it kind of like a saddle where you wash out your horse. We've all used the bathroom on top of a horse. We've all sat on ponies, yeah. Right, we've all sat on ponies. Sarah's a horse girl. Then there's the Toto Japanese style. Right, like the full toilet. The full toilet. That's what I want for them. Then there's the kind of basin. There's the basin style where there's a kind of a water to the side of the toilet that you can use to pour. I don't know if that's fair. And then this is the water gun style that I kind of associate with that style as well. But there's also the things you can add to toilets. You can just add a small attachment to the toilet to turn your toilet into a bidet. And I hope that Zoran Mamdani, as he is on so many issues, is sort of providing an opening to imagine a better future in which America finally and fully embraces the fact that dry toilet paper is perhaps not the best way to go about. dealing with the grossest thing that we deal with on a daily basis. You know what I mean? Depending on where, there's a lot of variables. And so it's nice to have something else to help you with it. I will say, and maybe this was a concern in the Gracie Mansion as a historical building, that I've seen at least two TikToks where people talk about installing a bidet to the toilet in their apartment and basically breaking all the plumbing in the building. Because it turns out there was something, there's some setup where you cannot do that. They did not ask remission. And then they, of course, have to explain, I did break all the toilets. Yes, I'm so sorry. So that'd be a great first mayoral scandal. You break all of New York City's plumbing. Trump said the Epsom files and it's like we're mad at him because he got the bidets are either too nice or too cheap. Yeah, just right. You got to get just right bidet. I have a feeling that anyone who's actually mad at him about this might have started mad about this already. Actually, Rudy Giuliani's daughter, Caroline Rose, commented that in according to the Times that she would have done it myself if she had known about bidets when she lived there. It does not surprise me that Rudy Giuliani was not ahead of his time. I think he would reject it. I think he would not be able to engage with a bidet. Yeah, it's sort of gay somehow. It would be gay. I wonder when Rudy Giuliani's daughter first found out about bidets. Was this how she found out what a bidet is? I installed, when I was renting, I installed one of those additional, like kind of a bring your own bidet. A BYO bidet. A BYO bidet to the top of the toilet. it so transformed my experience of being alive on earth. Great. That I became obsessed with giving them as gifts. And it is an intimate gift. But we're all shitting. Because you get, exactly. We are all shitting. But you do have to ask people what kind of toilet they have. Because I didn't understand this, Bill, that basically like some toilets are the kind of round kind. and then some are kind of go more out. Round. There's sort of like, there's like the round bowl and then there's kind of the ovular kind of longer bowl, a long bowl and the short bowl, depending on your toilet. And so you have to kind of know what kind of toilet your friend or family member has before you buy them this as a gift. So it takes the element of surprise. So you have to text them and say- You could just be asking me that. And the thing about it is when you ask somebody what kind of toilet they have, they don't know. Like right now, do you know if you have a long toilet or a short toilet? If you asked me what kind of toilet I had, I'd say, please don't talk to me outside of work. And also, no, I have no idea. I also would not assume it's to get me a gift. I just, it's just a question you have. Hey, tell me about, Sarah, tell me about your toilet. I want to know about your toilet. You guys talked to, you love it about the toilet situation. Hey, I mean to ask you guys, what kind of toilet do you have at home? I drew all the different kinds of toilets. Just point. I took all the work out of it for you. Round, pointy, backwards. Backwards? Hole in the ground? Hole above the ground? Hole in the roof? Horse? Just attach to the ceiling? I will say this is maybe when I get a bidet. I do not have one. However, I do live in like one of those like 100-year-old L.A. bungalows where our pipes are constantly breaking. And I know if I got one, it would break. And then all my neighbors, they would know. It was like, look, I don't do much plumbing. It was intense in setting up the thing. And I thought I had maybe done it wrong. But then, oh boy, I got it right. In my building, my neighbors, we share a bathroom wall. And they had a clog in their sink. And so they had a plumber come to snake it and the snake came up through my sink. Oh, no. That's a frightening thing. That's where I live. Did you have – because when the snake comes up through the wrong pipe, it's like you want to tell the snake. Yeah. But you can't tell the snake. It doesn't know. You have to find the person at the other side. I mean I guess like given that there is a person on the other side, it's not a great option. But you could just grab it and try to send a message through it. Sure. I don't think you do that gesture very many times. Did you do that? Did you grab the snake? No. I texted my landlord. Texted your landlord? But that's got to go to the landlord. He's responsive. Oh, he was responsive. And then it has to get to the plumber, whoever's doing the snaking. Yeah. It's a dangerous time when the snake's in your apartment. For a second, did you see it and think that it might actually be a real snake? No. Okay. Well, phew. I could tell it was metal. A metal snake? Sort of making metallic sounds. Well, good. I'm glad. Anyway, good for Mayor Zoran Mamdani for encouraging people to embrace what a lot of the rest of the world had figured out a long time ago, which is you should get it a little bit wet. Yeah. You know, when trying to deal with the thing we all do. Get a little wet. And maybe we got to talk about it. We're doing it right now. Maybe we got to talk about it. I think we're doing the right thing. Because the adoption rate is still very low here in the U.S. Get one for the office. We should get one for the office. Just one, though. Just one. And it's in the conference room. All right. And that is Zoran Ramdani. And of the days. We did it. I'm excited about the next topic. Yeah. I would like to talk about the Trump administration's new mascot, Coley. Who we learned about from a Doug Burgum tweet last month. If we could see the photo of that tweet. So this is Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who posted this, obviously, AI-generated photo of himself. With Coley, who is an adorable lump of coal wearing mining gear, I guess. It's so funny. And his tweet says, mine may be mine. POTUS made it a top priority for Interior to unleash beautiful, clean coal. And OSMRE is leading the charge. Learn more about how OSMRE is advancing POTUS's American energy dominance agenda from their new spokesperson, Coley. This is wild. It's sort of like the M&Ms where it's like our happiness will come from Coley's demise. Yes. Coley's excited to be incinerated to create power. And you want to fuck that Cole. Hmm. Oh, you mean the sexy green M&M? Yeah, I want to have sex with her. Coley feels too childlike. Yeah, Coley's a baby. Coley's not even wearing high heels. Right, yeah, I agree. One thing I learned. So this agency that they mentioned. I'm just going to. We got to keep. We got to move right past this. We can't keep talking about wanting to fuck Coley. So this agency is the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. It's a very obscure bureau that handles, like, regulating coal mines and cleaning up polluted old mining land. Coley has been, like, an inside joke at this bureau since 2018 when their social media manager created this photo of a lump of coal wearing googly eyes. And it has since had a few evolutions. But it's become this mascot at this bureau to sort of try to explain what they do because no one knows about them. And it has now been co-opted by the Trump administration to make us love coal. Yeah. Do you remember there was the Simpsons episode where he discovers his face is on a Japanese box. And it turns out it's the kind of spokes creature for some sort of behemoth conglomerate. So it was like a cleaning product and then a fishery. Yes, yes. And then it fused together to make Homer's head. Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of that. and also it is just a 30 Rock joke. We're kind of living in the kind of whatever consciousness of that show somehow. And I know this isn't the point of it but I do like the first Coley better where it looks like an actual piece of Coley. The first Coley was perfect. It's only gotten worse. Also the Coley that Doug Burgum tweeted looks different from the most recent Coley. Like that is just his AI version. It's not even real Coley. What's wrong with AI is you literally can't do the same one. Like it would require them to like take the image and then actually do something with it and they're like, eh, we're not going to do that. The other thing I want to note is that according to the Washingtonian, in-house animators also plan to bring Coley to life, making him dance ride around on trucks and potentially perform a signature song Wow that something to look forward to Yeah what a bleak time we living through Who do you think Coley should do the song with? Nicki Minaj, probably. Yes, 100%, yes. The line, the list of names is pretty short. You have Nicki Minaj, you could rock, but I think Nicki Minaj would be great. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So the coal mines for itself. this is a lump of coal wearing a headlamp and a vest. Sort of advocating for his kind to be burned in our cars. Right. Well, it's interesting because it's not, it's a piece of harvest. It's a lump of coal that's been removed from underground. And so what is Coley? So if you had a bigger chunk, is that one big Coley? But if you broke it in half, would it become two Coley? Multi-Coley. How many lumps before you have – how small does a lump have to be before it is a Coley? When did his consciousness emerge or her consciousness or their consciousness? Thank you. When did Coley's consciousness emerge? Does it emerge upon becoming a lump? I think it's when you put the eyes on. When they put the eyes on. Yeah. When they put the eyes on. And so that determines – whenever you put the eyes on, that's Coley. So when you're – so here what you're saying is there is coal. Yeah. And if Coley becomes sentient when the eyes are applied, What is the experience of Coley like? Because Coley has language. Coley has interests and desires. Are those surprising to Coley? What memories can Coley root its hopes in? Because it just came to be when the eyes were there. Yeah. I mean, it seems like there might be some kind of collective memory, a sense memory of being Cole. I think Coley can only feel shame. Coley seeks Coley's own death. I feel like Coley has a big smile on their face. What is it hiding, you know? What is he making up for? Yeah. A lot to think about with Coley. I like the second one, too. Why is Coley wearing Mickey Mouse-style gloves? I did find a quote from Junior Walk, who's an Appalachian activist, who documents the impact of the coal industry in West Virginia, who told The Guardian, as climate change plunges us deeper into the mass extinction event that we are all living through and more of my friends and neighbors get sick and die as a direct result of the activities in the coal industry, I will continue to be haunted by Coley's twisted grin and uncanny eyes. Kind of a downer, that guy. Wow. Yeah. Kind of not really embracing the Coley spirit. No, he's not into it. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. And that's Coley. Yay! Great. All right, let's pause it there and we'll be right back. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love it or leave it brought to you by Quince. A well-built wardrobe is about clothes that work together and hold up over time. It said pieces there, dear listener. 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The motherboard's fried. We're short-circuiting somewhere. And it's just sort of a breakdown of, well, her breakdown. And I would describe her as if Norma Desmond was a congresswoman. and it is interesting there's sort of like a you see it is like a white conservative woman's breakdown you know i mean i feel like we've had because they're like i don't think of like john fetterman you know i mean sort of had a similar article where it's like sort of like breaking down so there's not really a ton of surprises in here only the only surprise is things have gotten worse because like obviously she's had like last february 2025 which remember that was i mean like less than a month after trump took office it was flood the zone she went onto the floor of Congress to accuse her ex-fiancee of filming her, assaulting her. And he has since sued. But technically speaking, presumably, according to this profile, what she's using is like, technically because she's on the floor of Congress, she's actually immune from the defamation suit. Yeah, she can say whatever she wants on that. So she's very smart. And that's the other thing. It's like she's an incredibly smart person. It says that her intelligence is sort of spiraling out. And then in October of this last year, she had sort of a meltdown at an airport where It was mostly her berating people and sort of like accusing them of being terrible at their jobs at the airport. The police. She was using the police. Yes, both the TSA and police. She is, of course, trying to say that it didn't happen. There's video of it happening. And there's also a House Ethics Committee inquiry about her using her staff for her gubernatorial race in South Carolina where she is doing not very well. And I just want to read some of the staffing quotes. quotes. These are all anonymous. Again, there's something broken. Another quote, back then she came across as a breath of fresh air. And then I got into the office and after six months I was like, man, this is one of the worst people I've ever met. I'm going to move back to South Carolina. And the third staffer, the closer you get to her, the harder she messes up your brain. It's the classic story of never meet your heroes. And they sort of outline what she's done. And I think they're all exactly what you think. She had staffers running out to buy her liquor, clean her Airbnb, sort of do these tasks, sort of having a volatile workspace, flying into rages, threatening them, refusing to give them raises and stuff. And then we get to the thing that really just sat heavy on me, which, again, is not a surprise. But I just wanted to read this sort of more, maybe more the grim moments. Quote, she was obsessed with monitoring her reputation online in addition to reportedly having her staff create burner accounts to defend her. Mace allegedly instructed her staff to go on Reddit forums about, quote, the hottest women in Congress to boost her standing in the rankings and comment where needed. Mace was, quote, very adamant about getting the staffer to upvote any posts about the congresswoman and her attractiveness. That's like what you make us do. Right, exactly. Look, we joke. But obviously, Nancy, if you want to create burner accounts and have your own standing upvoted on various forums, that's just work you have to do at home in the night that no one can know about. Like, obviously, that's not something I could ask Hallie or Sarah to do. Not at this point. Yeah. Because I just, I don't think that they could stop themselves from telling people how funny it is because it's so funny. Yeah. So I don't try, I can't have them do that. So that's the kind of thing, hypothetically, I would have to do myself. I'd tell everyone in the world if you made us do that. That would have to be your 5 to 9 after 9 to 5. You would have to get home and then every night get on and just open 500 different laptops. Yeah, that's why I got these bags in a wrap. I'm just so tired from my second shift. What are you doing? And basically, I just want to talk about this because I feel like— I disagree. Tommy isn't my favorite. Lovett's my favorite. I want to marry Lovett. I don't want to kill him of the three. I think I just want to talk I just wanted the thing that really stuck out to me because also like she is someone who like is very smart like Trump where basically it's like she she basically had a quota for her staff to like get her on TV appearances every month she on January 6th had a quote we're talking to them where like she wanted to get punched in the face on camera to like get more attention and I'm like that's actually very smart in like a Trump sort of way and I think and I don't know this is sort of how I think about Chuck or Carlson it's like it seems like she was playing a character and now she has become the character. And I think for conservatives, like that is just sort of what has to happen. Like in order to double down, like she has become this like insane version of Nancy Mays, like the illusion of the performance, they've merged. And now she kind of, that's all she has. And what's interesting about her is that she actually has taken one good stand, which is she voted for the Epstein, the release of the Epstein files back in November. And that is probably why she's not going to get Trump's endorsement for the governor's race is that she has one shred of dignity or integrity left. And that is what you can't have when you are trying to court Trump. Yeah. The Vonnegut line is you are what you pretend to be. So you should be very careful about what you pretend to be. Yeah. It kind of dances around whether or not she has a DSM style mental illness you could look up in a book. Yeah. Or if she's just like, the Nancy Mays discourse is like, is she small c crazy? Like the way we say that women are crazy sometimes while also being a bad person? Or is there a kind of like whispered mental illness that they seem to be implying or suggesting or rumoring about all the time? And here's my here's my psychoanalysis of Nancy Mace, which is that this unfortunately we're at a point in society where I think being a powerful white conservative woman might as well look like a mental illness. Like she has achieved a level of power, but she doesn't actually have power in her own life. Again, the ex-fiance. She doesn't really have power like she can't really run herself as a candidate without Trump. and it's interesting because I feel like she is perhaps more than anyone in Congress and it continues to be now so insanely transphobic and to me that is like a point that a lot of white cis conservative women arrive at that I think is almost like it's the trans women specifically but trans people but like trans women specifically it's almost like they're the group that you perceive as a threat when in reality they're like one of the groups that like are the only people that have less power than you and I think like being in this powerful position but yet she can't actually control these things. It's almost like she relentlessly has to take out on Sarah McBride, which she is constantly saying horrible things about. She passed like the congressional bathroom that like Bill and was like, this is specifically about Sarah McBride. And so I think unfortunately it's like, I think it's like a lot of people like who are trying to describe like, why, why are my parents like this? Or like, there's like a conservative like behavior where it's like, she's become sort of like, just like separated from reality in a way that I think a lot of conservatives, it kind of just leads you down this path. I don't know what to do about it. Like, I don't know. It's just like interesting how all these things, but having someone try to like constantly defend her hotness seems like a very important point that I don't know. I don't think it's a mental illness in a traditional sense. I think it's like a cultural illness and she's sort of on the top of it and is still sort of trapped by all these limitations. Being a woman, probably, I mean, I believe it's something horrible has happened to her in her personal life. And now it's just sort of like exploding out on people around her. yeah sorry less fun than coley i i just i there's something about that really i don't know it was interesting yeah the other part of it too is like i can't remember what what those exact circumstances were but there was somebody who was actually working with them and they were really smart um but they just would like get in their own way all the time and uh it was in politics and i remember like somebody we all worked for at the time made a comment just almost an aside which is like people's insecurities will beat their intelligence every time. And I do think with someone like this too, there's like so much, there's a lot of whatever anxieties and, but ambition in there. And I do think like, yeah, she is a smart person, but she's not behaving like a smart person would. Like, obviously it is not in your interest as a political figure in South Carolina to berate the law enforcement that are escorting you to your gate because you got angry that they didn't know you were not in the car you said you'd be in. Like, it's a crazy thing to do. But she's clearly, like, sort of off kilter and kind of, like, losing touch with reality because you're a member of Congress and there's always a car waiting and a person waiting and a person who's, like, excited to kind of do your bidding. That's also brain-breaking to you for all these members of Congress. It's sort of like I always say, people always talk about, like, oh, if I was a billionaire, you would never see me again. I would just go live on an island. It's like, no, no, if you were a billionaire, you would go insane in the ways that you were insane now. imagine you now and maybe get a billion dollars. Unless you really resolve your stuff, you will end up doing what, now that it's all the same thing. Like, I don't think you're going to necessarily build an island like Epstein, but like something happens where you get to a level of power and money. If you don't deal with it, it comes out in whatever way looks like you. Something I think about a lot is what is the dollar amount that would make me go insane? It would have to, it's going to be a lot for you. But like, there is some, there's some, there's some dollar amount that is fine still and then like $5 more and it's over. What is that like? You go insane. It's interesting. I think you're right. Like there are a lot of billionaires or hyper wealthy people who do disappear. They're the people that inherited the money. The people that inherited the money often are very comfortable just being super rich and staying out of the spotlight. There are a lot of them. Some of them are in the Epstein files. Their wealth is more invisible. They stay, they're not on Twitter. They're not trying to be famous. They're enjoying their money on the places, on the islands that you can't go to unless you are super rich. To me, the ones we keep hearing about that are, it's whatever drove them to be so hyper ambitious, intense, cutthroat to become billionaires, not just to be smart, inventive, creative, very talented people, but to become to fight to get that amount of wealth Whatever made them like that the money doesn stop that part of their brain But now everything is taken care of for them They have no friction in their life. These are people that desperately want friction. Like look at Elon Musk. Like he has everything he could possibly want. He's eliminated all friction from his life. And so he becomes a fucking Twitter troll, white nationalist internet freak. Why? Because like that broken part of him. if things are still he doesn't feel safe and I do think like that's why you see these sort of people careening around and getting involved in politics and funding stupid fake universities in Austin and all the other things it's like there's that broken piece of them that led them to be so ambitious and they've got to put it somewhere yeah I also work on self-awareness in 2026 I feel like that's a good goal for everyone I think we should I think at this table our goal should be less self-awareness I think the three of us actually could just kind of drive forward with a little bit more obtuseness. I have to be 10% stupider in 2026. I'm too smart. I can't do it, you guys. Ah, damn it. Sorry. We'll be so happy surfing. All right. And Nancy Macy's article in The Intelligencer. Up next, we're going to get into your deepest, darkest Discord comments. But first, heads up, East Coast, Love It or Leave It is coming to Washington, D.C. on April 23rd. We're back at the Lincoln Theater. There are only two signs of spring in Washington, the cherry blossoms. and Love It or Leave It coming to town with a stacked lineup on America's number one late night political gay live comedy podcast. Also, Janine Pirro switching to Rosé. That's the other side of spring. Tickets are on sale now. Go to crooked.com slash events. I always love our DC shows. Some of my favorite shows when we come to town for this show now. It's a yearly event. We'll be right back. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love It or Leave It brought to you by Z-Biotics. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I don't really even bounce. so dead cat bounce. Yeah. I have to make a choice. You can either have a great night or a great next day. That is until I found pre-alcohol. C-Biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. 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Azer doet het. So, we can now listen to your podcast. with Shopify by your side. And we're back. All right, lovebirds. Now, Hallie is going to guide us through our romantic Valentine's Day Discord omakase with complimentary wine pairing. Wine pairing. And yes, that was wine with an H. Hallie, take it away. It's that time of year again. Time to fall in love with our Discord subscribers and their complicated, sweet, and somewhat bizarre love life. Girl, same. First up. Now, I'm going to tell this story, but to me, this is just an HR violation that Bill has found. Oh. We've sort of anonymized some of the details. I work in a factory that makes parts for a car brand. My senior team leader has been trying to hook up with another team member and sent her videos of him, you know. Anyway, once they did the deed, he ghosted her to get back with his ex. So this to me, I'm like, you have to tell someone about this. that seems to be that this person, who seems to be a senior team leader, I'm presuming jacking off to hook up with a coworker. Unfortunately, it worked, which, boy, I mean, we've all been down bad, but that's tough to read. And then he immediately ghosted her to get back with his ex. First of all, I just, I can't believe what the word you know is doing there. We don't know. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. That's a crazy flirt. We know. You think that's what it is? Why? You assume it's, you assume it's, How could it be? You guys all 12 years old? Where were you raised? Oh, it's videos. Oh, wait. It said are videos of him you know. It's an action. It's a verb. It's an action. What do you think it could be if it's on jerking off? Yeah, I mean, I went through the same thought process. I was like, what does that mean? And then I guess this is the only thing it could mean. Come on. Losing a bidet? I don't know. Well, okay, it worked. But also to me, the level of like heavy despair that must hang over this car brand factory. Like this is like, just imagine your friend telling you this. You're like, girl, what are you talking about? So, and the question that Bill's written is, what's the laziest flirt? It seems like he's doing quite a bit of activity in this flirt, so I don't know. I mean, that's a lot of things. It doesn't seem lazy. You need to set up a camera. Get the right angle. Get the lighting right. This is from Constant Cupcake. My husband worked at a school where the security guard had given multiple employees, including the principal, the clap. Wow. The clap, like it's the 50s. We're calling it the clap. The clap. Look, that's a security guard with a lot of wrists. That's cool. Imagine. That's cool. On patrol. I guess I just don't understand. And like, maybe again, I haven't, I haven't been out there in a minute, but like, you're having unprotected sex at work with the security guard? It's not very secure. We don't know if they had sex at the school. Well, no, that wasn't my point. The point is like, they've all retracted. What is clavidia? Chlamydia? Yeah. So you're all raw dogging one person at school. Well, you know, I guess God bless. I don't, I guess it wasn't really a question. All right, we'll go to the next one. Wait, we're not. well the questions were what's the laziest flirt you've ever done I'm not that has nothing to do with this does it count as ghosting if you see each other every day at work what do you guys think see my biggest question about this is why would that video work right I think that's why this is sad to me it's like because whoever received it is down they're like I guess like it's not a joyful moment where you receive that from your co-worker you say I don't have any other options call the police I have to call the police. This is not fun. This is just an HR violation. And I just want to say, because I would just like to say, as someone who very delicately and ethically and respectfully No! You already said ethically. approached even the possibility of dating someone that I work with. Mm hmm. OK. Where did you think I was going? We didn't know. We were horrified. You're both going to be at my fucking wedding. OK. And, you know, well, you know, you know, no. Yeah. But like this is not this is a bummer. This is a bummer. Discord. How I like this is inconceivable. What a swing to send that video is all I'm getting at. Well, I guess I can only imagine the workplace environment at this factory, which, again, I think you have to talk to the union about this situation. Yeah. Where's the UAW? Yeah, talk to your reps. Yeah, talk to your reps. Talk to your reps. Sean, get in here. All right, here we go. Here we go. Here's another comment. This is, all right, here we go. This comment from Anonymous. All right, shout out to Anonymous. I tried to hard launch my seven-year-long situationship. Now we're no contact, and I'm a 30-year-old woman who's never had a real boyfriend. help, I guess. I have great news. This is actually good because clearly you needed to be out of the situationship. So it's good. You made a decision. You said, can we presumably hard launch? I really want people to know that we're dating. This is a real relationship. This person not only dumped your ass, but you went no contact and it's good. 30. Don't worry. As someone over 40, you got plenty of time and I don't know what helped to give this person. Maybe you guys have ideas, But you're starting from a great place, which is you've ended this seven-year-long situation, and now you get to sort of look for something else. Yeah, I don't think you're a person until you're 30. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. Your 20s is a wash for everybody. You try to hard launch a situation ship. There's a lot of missing context inside of that slang, which is you don't hard launch situationships. You hard launch relationships after they stop being a situationship. You have a situationship. It becomes a relationship. Then you launch it either softly or hardly. Hardly? Weird how hardly doesn't mean hardly. Never thought about that before. Write it down, Will. But so it doesn't surprise me that that ended in a no-contact situation. I assume she means tried to make it official. Yeah. And my mind like a hard launch is like you posted about it to social maybe or perhaps issued some sort of ultimatum. Like maybe it's an event and it's like this is my boyfriend and that sort of caused this. And so I think, again, this might seem catastrophic right now. This is actually going to turn out to be the best thing that possibly could have happened. Because you did something, which I agree, you don't hard launch something unless you're already on the same page. This situationship, after damn near a decade, it wasn't going to ever get to the place of a real hard launch. Yeah, I have a lot of questions about what your friends were saying during this seven-year period. Was it the best you could get from this situation that you wanted to be a relationship for a longer period of time? Were you afraid to be alone? What was going on for seven years? Get out there. Get out there, you know? Dating after 30, I think, is also way better. I think, like, there's just, there's some level of maturity. And if you're not looking for a situationship, there's people who are not looking for that as well. But maybe take some time for yourself. This is from Bass Prefect. Can we at least get some validation for the aromantic and asexual of those of us who are happy to be single and are content with our friendship? This speaks to my larger premise about Valentine's Day, which is that all of February should be about Valentine's Day. And it should be a celebration of all different kinds of love. I know you say you're aromantic, but say love for our friends. And we could have sort of a Valentine's Day tree or there could be some sort of like different ceremonies. So I think these are definitely forms of love or a rejection of love in however you would describe it. So I will validate you in that. And also I do celebrate you because if you accept that you're aromantic and asexual, boy, that just sounds like a lot more free time. You just relax. That sounds nice. Yeah. I also, it's, what is the value? If you're happy in your circumstance, why do you need the validation? I think like if you, there's some sort of insecurity inside of this. if you need to be told that what you're doing is okay. And for that reason, we won't do it. Well, I do think the gross question has, I'm just sure I'd validate. I imagine there's a lot of pressure to be like, not only should you be coupled, but if you're someone for whom none of that makes any sense, it's this overwhelming feeling where you do need validation. So I'm happy to validate you. Yeah, you know what? You're right. I've thought about it, and I've received the underlying message of Sarah's joke, and I agree. You should be validated. You should feel validated. I guess it's just sort of also there are a lot of people that really are like want to be in couples and are not. And I don't I think sometimes that gets also like people are told that they're wrong. Yes. For having the feeling of being sad that they're single. And that's something to be comfortable with that. It's like maybe. Sure. But I don't think there's anything wrong with people who really want to be in relationships being upset they're not in one. Yeah. I think there is a level of dismissiveness whenever people try to describe their internal experience. And other people were like, don't worry about that. And it's like, but yet I am worrying about it. It's Valentine's Day and that's how I feel. Yeah, your feelings are valid, whatever they are. Yes. Yeah. All right, next up. That's right. Oh, here is a good one. Comment from Vanna White Trash. Great name. Real Valentine's Day issue. I'm seeing, finally, I'm seeing a nice man and we like each other a lot. And we're at that weird point where we're like, someone needs to drop the L bomb first, aka say I love you. How do I make him do it first? LOL. LOL. What do you guys think? I mean, the most important thing is to never be vulnerable and win at all costs. Did you guys say I love you first or did the other person? I did not say first. Would you have? Because I'm a winner. Great. Well, yeah, I would have if you hadn't. I honestly don't remember. but it was in part because like we had had a friendship where there was love but it wasn't that kind of love for a time so I don't really know it sort of was more of a smooth evolution because it wasn't like so you guys still haven't said it? haven't said it yeah that's what I'm saying you're going to say it on the altar? saying it on the altar for the first time love it I'm like I love spending time with you yeah yeah couch it yeah keep them on their toes yeah I think say it first babe say it first say it first say it first say it first literally say it first Say it. Say it. Say it. I want to do a different chance. Sorry, I'll go on board. Say it first. Hooray. Say it first. Say it first. Say it. Because here's the thing. Here's the thing. You say it first. It all falls apart. So you have the only reason to not say it first is if there's a possibility that saying it first turns what could be a relationship that will go the distance into one that won't. That's the only reason to not say it first. Because if you say it first and they're not ready yet, that's real information. But if the relationship continues and they ultimately say it, no problem. You felt weird, but you moved things along. You say it, they say it, we're doing great. You say it, they don't say it, they realize that you're feeling things they're not. It ends it where it should have already ended. You're kind of saving yourself some time. So you have to come up with a version in which you are on the path to a lifelong happiness. but you saying this too soon, even though this should be your person, blows it up somehow. And I just find that to be an unlikely circumstance. I just, if they're the right person, they're the right person. Right, exactly. It's, I think this question of when to say it sits heavy on everybody's soul. And I do think it's gendered. I think like as a woman, there is this idea that you should, the man should always say it first. Like the F. Lucane lyric. I only want him if he says it first to me. And I think that we in order to have real love you must take a risk And again it might blow up in your face but that why you got to do it on Valentine Day If anyone is saying I love you proposing I think it good to have like the really heavy stuff on Valentine Day because then it's like almost a day where you have to do this. And then he feels guilty because it's Valentine's Day, so he has to say it back. Yeah, that's another great option. Emotional manipulation. That's the other great option. That's how you do it. Get him to fake it till he makes it. All right, let's pause it there, and we'll be right back. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love or Leave It brought to you by Sundays for Dogs. Is your dog's food created to maximize your dog's quality of life or to extend the food's shelf life? Think about it. And while you do, let us tell you about Sundays. 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We love her. She's basically my boss comes in and out of any meeting anytime she wants. Pretty disrespectful, honestly, at most start times, end times, records. So that's why you want to have good food for your dog like Sundays for Dogs. So make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to Sundays for Dogs dot com slash love at 50 and get 50 percent off your first order or you can use code love at 50 at checkout. That's 50 percent off your first order at Sundays for Dogs dot com slash love at 50. SundaysForDogs.com slash LoveIt50 or use code LoveIt50 at checkout. and a valuable relationship. ASR does it. So, we can now listen to your podcast. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Okay, we're back. All right, great. Some questions about Lovett's relationship coming up next. I would love to know from Lovett, as someone who did the long term but also knew so quickly with Ari, how do you know that you're with the one? Also, that's for you, Lovett. Do you also think that you are with the one? I don't think I believe in the one as a concept. I think it's a little silly. I don't know if you have to believe in the one, but I think you can take the question as meaning how did you know you were with a one that could be the one. The one that you're going to spend perhaps not all of your life but for the foreseeable future together. Yeah. Again, I don't know if there's a particular moment so much as an accumulation of moments. That is a very good question. I have no idea. I will just say that sometimes we talk about relationships and what they are separate from how we are and how we're all changing. And I think that I was at a place in my life where it was possible for me to realize that this was the right person and to have that person be able to realize that I could be the person for them because of how I had changed and grown. And I think sometimes it's not about the one, like we were saying, it's more like, can two people be in the right places in their own lives and be who the other person needs? And that to me is a lot of what it's about. I feel like one good rule of thumb is one time we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and I had half a wheat gummy. And then we walked past these eels that were like sort of straight up, like vertical. Their heads were just pointed straight up, and I thought I was going to pass out, and I had to go outside and sit down. And then we were just there for two hours while I had a panic attack. And I was like, oh, this is the person that I want next to me while I'm too high at the aquarium. And I feel like if that's the person you want next to you when you're too high at the aquarium, that's a good start. Great. Love it. All right. This is a comment from Caden. I just got engaged. How long is too long to actually plan and go through anything with the wedding? The idea of planning anything makes me want to vomit, especially this year working in politics but I don't want to become an afterthought or a when we have time again never thing any advice here is helpful well I'll say this I've been engaged twice and I have some tips from both great lay it on us this is going to be kind of old fashioned ooh alright I'm going to have an old fashioned point of view if you're going to get engaged you should be planning a wedding and I know that there are reasons people get engaged long before Or maybe they have a long academic period ahead of them. There's financial reasons, whatever. I get that. But my view is if you are engaged, it is because you are engaged to be married. And you should at least have an understanding that the engagement period is about planning to get married. Because it's a liminal time. And I just think it's strange if you're not heading towards getting married. Otherwise, it's just not. It doesn't really mean anything. That's my very stodgy old school notion. And then my view of it is if you want to be engaged because you want to get married and just get to planning. Life is complicated. Life is going to be hard. There are going to be things that stand in the way of it. Find the time that you can do it the best way you can do it, the way you want to do it. Don't do it the way anyone tells you you have to do it and just do it. That can be a big wedding you're planning a year in advance. That could be a small courthouse wedding. That can be a party in your backyard. That could be a trip you go on with just your spouse. that could be calling your parents to tell them you just got married. And then your mother's like, what the fuck? Whatever it is for you, if you want to get engaged because you want to get married, so fucking get married. That's how I feel about it. I like that. I think that makes sense just because, well, you're not the only one planning a wedding at Crooked right now. And I feel like whenever I talk to anyone who is planning a wedding, they're like, I just got to get through all these decisions. It's almost like when you start, like then it's almost like you complete it. So it's like you're taking a step off a cliff that you don't know what's next. but then once you take the step you can keep going i don't know like land appears so just do it yeah the the advice i was given that i think is very good advice is a wedding is a beast that you and your partner are fighting together cute i think it's sweet it's how i said it sounds negative yeah i i will also say like you know i remember when i was like on that show survivor and i was feeling bad about it. And I was like, how could you possibly not try to enjoy every aspect of this, even when it doesn't go your way? You couldn't have chose this more. You couldn't have made this happen more. And so like we're planning a wedding right now and there are moments where it's not like tense, but it is like you're having a disagreement or there's a lot of decisions you have to make. And it's like making sure that even throughout the process, you're actually not having a bad time because you what the whole process should try to try to make it as pleasant as possible. But the other thing is when you get engaged and plan a wedding, you suddenly have all these kinds of conversations you don't normally have with your partner. It's like actually like a drill for life because you're like figuring out family dynamics and there's relationship dynamics. There's like taste questions. There's how you're going to interact with each other's families. There's like big decisions. There's money involved. Like it's like all those things. It's actually, I think, an interesting like kind of like dress rehearsal for life. I like that. So that part of it, too. Yeah, think about all the things you're about to learn about your partner. Maybe they'll be thrilling to you. Good luck, Caden. And then finally, we have a comment from Constant Cupcake. I honestly just want an update that Lovett is hard at work on the rom-com screenplay that we all deserve based loosely on his and Ari's relationship. And this discussion question from Bill. Do we have favorite Valentine's Day rom-coms? Are the best ones from the 90s? Are there any good ones in the new Netflix era? Are you guys rom-com people? I like rom-coms. Do you love a 90s rom-com? Yeah. Which ones? What are we? Julia Roberts across the board. Yeah, Notting Hill. Notting Hill. Honestly, I think mine, or one of mine at least, The Wedding Singer. People forget about it because it's a comedy. But Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, nobody does it like them. I think Notting Hill. Notting Hill to me is the number one. It's so charming. It's so funny. Every single relationship and moment pays off in the movie. like even the scenes that we're just meeting the like the comedic side characters everything that's happening with them comes back around at the end of the movie it shouldn't work it shouldn't work that julia roberts plays a movie star uh but it does and they're both so good in it and i always feel like um and then there's when harry met sally which is also obviously great and i know movie yeah there's a way in which like when harry met sally is like number one kind of i don't know it's like like the it's like number one new york jewish category and then notting hill is like number one british category and it's like depends on your mood i agree with that that's how i feel about it i remember we had rob reiner on love it or leave it it's obviously sad to think about uh but i i believe what he said when we asked him can men and women be friends he was like no not really and then and then it was like what do you think about people in these throuples he was like no he i believe he brought up polyamory like he was just like oh i could use this polyamory but it was it was just such a funny rob reiner way to approach it where he's just it's like i don't know just seems like a lot of work i also didn't realize that rob reiner changed the ending of when harry met sally after he met his wife what it was if what was it going to be it was that they would do not wind up together yeah he then he fell in the right choice yeah what a bummer of an ending that would have been. I know. And as for writing a romantic comedy, when am I working on it? When am I going to do a screenplay? I barely, I could barely finish a screenplay when I was a screenwriter. That was my job and I barely could finish the damn things. We'll see. We'll see what happens at the wedding. Maybe it'll be a lot of hijinks so you just fashion it into. Some kind of heist. Yeah, we're going to rob you. We're going to come to your wedding. We're going to rob you. Love it. Oh, a heist. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, me, Lazarus. a crack team just like it's like a floodlight comes on and we just see you're gonna freeze and your balaclava is like and you'll notice from our terrible posture that's the thing you won't be able to hide it I mean Sarah has good posture that's because his chair is uncomfortable don't drag Sarah into our god forsaken posture issues unfair to her before we go as always these days it's time for Love It or Leave It's Breakout New End segment second thoughts where we go back and talk about the things we regret from the very episode we're recording. Yes. One, look, I wasn't personally saying that I thought Coley was, you know, attractive. I was sort of implying. You did, though. Because I was comparing to the green M&M. Do you think Coley's more attractive than the green M&M? No, I don't. I don't. I don't. Okay, that's all I needed to hear. I don't. I don't. I believe it. I don't. One more thing about Coley. The name Coley, very first thought. It's like Towelie from South Park. Right. I think I like it because it's first thought. If they thought one second later, I'd say, what have you done? Yeah, you're right. Look at what they think of us. Look at what these Trump people think of this country. That they think that there's an odd. They think we're fucking morons. They think we're slobs and morons just waiting for a mascot like Coley to make coal seem just a little bit sweeter to us. They think of us. We are rubes to them. We are dumb fucking marks to them. All of them. Fuck them. God damn it. Fuck Coley. Any second thoughts for you, Sarah? I think I crushed it. I'm going to marry Lady Coley. If they do that, I'll marry Coley. That's good. Yeah. Coley's got money. We'll check in next year on Valentine's Day. Any second thoughts from you, Hallie, before we go? I nailed it. My fucking girl crushed this. And that is the end of our very special Valentine's Day episode. Love it or leave it. We'll be back quicker than a boomerangs toss. I hope you sluts have a beautiful Valentine's Day. And don't kiss. And don't. Oh, I don't. Yeah, lead in. He's got it. I don't even know how to make your mouth do it. And don't forget to kiss your Sheila's. That wasn't bad. And don't forget. And nope, that was better the first time. Don't forget to kiss your Sheila's. There we go. And don't forget to kiss your Sheila's. What were we chanting earlier? Say it first. Say it first. Say it first. It's loving, loving it. It's loving, loving it. If you're already scrolling endlessly, which we know you are, don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and all the other ones for original content, community events, and more. You can also find Love It or Leave It on YouTube for videos of your favorite segments and other YouTube-exclusive content. And if you want to type our praises or rip us a new one, consider dropping us a review. Finally, you can join Crooked's Friends of the Pod subscription community for ad-free Love It or Leave It and Pod Save America episodes, subscriber-exclusive pods, and more. Sign up at crooked.com slash friends. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer. Bill McGrath is our producer. And Kennedy Hill is our associate producer. Howie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus, Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, and Suba Agarwal are our writers. Jordan Cantor is our editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Schercher. Thanks to our designer, Sammy Koderna-Ries, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. 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