Laverne Cox: Stop Taking Crumbs from Men

0:02what is up daddy gang it is your founding father Alex Cooper with call her daddy laverne cox welcome to call her daddy hey daddy okay i have to ask because i'm obsessed hey daddy i'm obsessed with your outfit and every single time i see you on a carpet or on your instagram i'm like she knows how to dress thank you you've got a vision i still at 51 love to play dress up and I've been collecting vintage Mugler for the past five years like obsessively I have to my business manager like you need to stop um basically I've done about 15 years of collecting in five years probably so I need to stop it is giving as the TikTok kids would say cunt it's giving cunt it's giving cunt I love okay what I love about and so many things I love about Beyonce is that Beyonce through the Renaissance era has made cunt mainstream because cunt is a term as a trans woman cunt has been a part of my you know lexicon since I moved to New York so giving cunt but then when you go into mainstream context it's like people like for many years I was like people won't know what I'm talking about it will seem kind of like I'm being vulgar so I couldn't say cunt but like for lgbtq plus folks giving cunt is like you're giving it you're it's fish it's it's woman it's everything yes they try to make all like feminine parts feel so like oh you're such a pussy you're a weak bitch but cunt gives the same energy where it used to have such a negative connotation i fucking love that we can now be like we're serving cunts these are the contributions of queer LGBTQ plus people trans people because in my in the trans community pussy has always been fabulous if you're giving pussy it's giving if it's giving pussy you're you are you're lovely you're gorgeous she's pussy right like next time someone calls you a pussy there's a song from the 90s girl I see this when you're old you know there's a song called she's giving pussy she's giving cunt she's giving pussy giving cunt I need that song when I walk into the studio every fucking day, Laverne.

2:22What's it called? Serving pussy, serving. Cut, pussy, cut, pussy, cut, pussy. Cut, pussy, cut, pussy, cut, pussy. I don't know who sings out to look it up, but if you just YouTube it. That needs to be our anthem today. I know all the girls watching this are like, thank you, Laverne. Because like anytime someone says something, I feel like a lot of times to a woman, we can always relate. It's like they're trying to put us down. They're trying to make us feel small. And now we're like, pussy, cunt, bitch. Fuck off. And this is the sisterhood we can have, like from trans women to non-trans women.

2:55There is a celebration, for me, there's a celebration of the feminine, of womanhood. And for a while I resisted my femininity, but when I started to embrace it, I felt such power in it. It's wonderful.

3:26so you grew up in the deep south in alabama mobile alabama mobile alabama you have a twin brother i do i need to ask like what is the best part of having a twin there's a lot of things that i love my brother immensely but having someone who's literally been there my entire life we We shared a womb together, which is a little creepy. But when my mom, my mom and I are really cool right now, but my mom was emotionally abusive when we were growing up because she was emotionally abused when she was a kid. So I'll say something and I'm like, it was a month or whatever. And I'm like, and she's like, no, it was just a few days.

4:06And I'm like, no, it was a month. And I remember it as a month and I'm pretty sure I'm right. and I'm like and I call my brother and I'm like it was a month right he's like yeah it was a month so like the best thing about having a twin brother at this point is that there was someone else who was there who can confirm that I'm not crazy and that I'm not misremembering right because I think that like sometimes not that my mother's intentionally trying to gaslight me I think a lot of it is that she I think if she remembered some of the things she did and said she might not be able to live with herself and I say that with the utmost love and respect from my mom we've worked through all of that and I can't believe we have and we're such in such a great place but I think telling the truth about it is really important and what I understand now as an adult as a person who's been in therapy for 24 years now is that my mother did the best that she could with what she had.

5:08And she actually did an incredible job considering. My grandfather was raised on a plantation in the context of sharecropping. If we've seen The Color Purple or Watch 13th, we know that even after emancipation in the United States, black people once incarcerated could be sold back into indentured servitude. So slavery in so many ways did not end if you were incarcerated. So my great, great, so my great grandfather ended up in jail. The long, crazy story. And so basically it was slavery 2.0. So they were still beating, you know, the black folks. It was an extremely abusive situation. My grandfather was terribly abusive to my grandmother and to his children.

5:52Horrible, like horrible, horrible, horrible. But then he was abused on the plantation. That's what he knew. So it's like, I mean, yes, my mother was emotionally abusive, but she put herself through college. She put herself, she has a master's degree. She was a teacher. She raised two brilliant children by herself. She owns her home that is paid off. She's retired now with a pension and, you know, she's set herself up. So this is incredible. This is incredible. My mother's incredible. I appreciate you sharing all of that because you're so right. Like a lot of us can just at face value describe what we experienced and we have to start to peel back the layers to understand why our parents are the way that they are.

6:36And obviously we've progressed so much as a society, still so much fucking work to do. But to be able to look at the previous generations and understand what they were going through. We're just taking time. So much. It's taken time. I needed years, particularly when I really got into therapy, late 20s, into my 30s. I went through years of just being angry at her. And I needed to be angry. And I needed to get that out. I think that's normal, right? Yeah, I think so. Because I hadn't dealt with, I didn't have the tools to deal with the trauma of my childhood. I was bullied at school. I was chasing home from school every day.

7:13And then I came home and my mom would be like, why aren't you fighting back? Why are they bullying you? Like, it's just like, so there was no sense of safety that I had anywhere. And I escaped through my imagination and I escaped with dancing and being a straight A student, being a nerd, basically, was my escape. And so I'm grateful for all of it. but like it took me a minute to be able to like do some of that healing work start to get into the intergenerational piece and come to that place of forgiveness and understanding and and even just like understanding now that there's just certain things my mom won't get and that's okay it's it's fine I meet her where I'm meeting her where she is you're right you don't have to take away from the fact that like what you the abuse you endured happened it happened it was real but when you understand more of the backstory because again each generation does get a little bit better it does help you but first i agree when you went to therapy first you're just fucking pissed because you have to heal yourself yeah you can't have empathy for your mother yet once you get to a better place of actually understanding like i mean let's talk about it for a second, you saying you were bullied.

8:33Like that completely shapes a child at that age. And you talking about being chased off of the bus. Like what were they specifically bullying you for? I mean, because I was a really feminine kid. It's so funny. Before I even knew what sissy and the F word were, I was being called them. So like my first interactions with kids in preschool, like I'm three, four, five years old and I'm in daycare or whatever. and the kids are calling me sissy they're calling me the f-word and it's just like where do three year olds and five year olds learn this and so I just was like what is this you know and I learned that it wasn't a good thing and it was there was so much shame around it too because my mom didn't know how to handle it and she her whole thing was like why aren't you fighting her whole thing was like you fight the bullies and I just was not there was something I was not a fighter I'm a lover not a fighter.

9:30And I, even as a five-year-old, six-year-old, seven-year-old, I felt I was above duking it out in the schoolyard with other kids. It felt, it felt beneath me. And that, and that was another thing. The kids also thought I was better, I thought I was better than them. And I, I talked white and all, I mean, it was a lot of stuff being a black kid from a working class background. It was that I was very femme. So I was bullied because of that. I was bullied because I taught proper thought I was um I they said I thought I was white um and just just everything honestly just wanting to sort of be more I don't know I just I think because the circumstances in the world around me were so not it yeah and I understood that early on I lived in my imagination and when I discovered television I was like there is there's other stuff out there when I when I I discovered the library and books and reading.

10:26There were other things out there for me. And I lived in those other worlds. I lived in the world that I saw on fame on television. I was like, I'm going to New York. I'm going to an art school. I'm going to dance on Broadway. I'm going to be an actor. That was like, there is a world out there. And so I lived there. I lived in that world because what was going on around me wasn't, was too traumatizing. and I disassociated. So the disassociation was a way of coping. The escaping into fantasy and dancing all the time was a way of coping. I learned not to even talk about it because when my mother would find out, she would blame me and my brother.

11:06Why are they bullying you? And so it was like my fault. And so I wouldn't tell her about it. But then I remember this one time, it was probably sixth or seventh grade. We had gotten off the bus and we had to start running. And then the kids caught up with us. And I remember there were kids in bands Like it's so tragic. It's like the band kids are like beating you up. But they had the drumsticks and they were like beating us with the drumsticks. And so we were getting beaten up like really, you know, it wasn't cute. And some parents saw it and called the school. And then the school called my mother.

11:39And so my mother then was mad because I didn't tell her about it. And then she was mad that we didn't fight back. And it just was a whole, I was, it was always my fault. and so it was something I learned not to talk about and I remember this time in high school like I said it and then I remember crying and then just kind of like cleaning it up really quickly and so it wasn't till years later that I think I what when I was in therapy when I was able to like say this all these things happened to me and it wasn't cool and it was painful because there was no I didn't have any tools to deal with like the trauma of like never feeling safe anywhere because I think in a way obviously dissociating is a way to survive like there's just no you can't in that moment do anything other than like like you said like go to a different world in your head watch television find ways to escape which breaks my heart because as a child really the peer dynamics are just so fucking important to like our formative years of like understanding like how to treat people and how you can interact with people and the fact that you're running off of the bus and you're being scared shitless like I'm gonna get the shit even when I did have a friend you know in middle school there was I had one friend and then eventually I remember him sort of turning on me and calling me the f-word and calling me a sissy and then I so I learned early on not to trust people too and my freshman year at the Alabama School of Fine Arts oh oh oh a kid that I thought was my friend my freshman year I had never said I said I only said I said for the first time in therapy.

13:13Oh God. Just literally like a month ago, I finally said what he said to me in therapy. Wow. I'm sorry. I'm crying. I still can't say it out loud. I can, I can't, I can't, but he called me a racial slur that was so like, oh, and then there were gestures involved. And it was just like,

13:37it was it was another it was another betrayal so i learned very early on not to trust people

13:45um and that sucked it's funny that i'm 51 years old and i still can't say it out loud it's just so horrible um and i'm yeah maybe eventually when you say that too laverne when you think about that like first of all I'm so sorry like I genuinely cannot imagine as you're saying that I'm so sorry what you dealt with and I'm trying to think like what comes up for you when you're when you are explaining this like when you're what do you feel when you're like I can't say it I feel like um that's a good question um there's like there's a humiliation attached to do it because he did it in front of a group of people and he was like kind of showing off for them i think it was that we had sort of been friends and i was the black kid and i was also the like really femme kid so i wasn't it wasn't cool and i was a freshman and so to distance himself from me he like he called me a monkey um

14:55And he did like, he made eight noises when he did it. And.

15:09Wow. It was, it's so funny because I had been called everything by freshman year in high school. I've been called it. Let's just see it. We're F word. I had been called all these things. It was the first time I had been called something racialized. And it was so dehumanizing. And it was someone I thought I could trust. And so it was like the betrayal of it. I still haven't. And I get really, really angry when I see things. I remember it was humiliating. It was degrading and dehumanizing. There was a betrayal attached because I thought this person was my friend. I just want to jump out of my skin right now.

16:01It's so funny. And I've dealt with a lot of trauma. I dealt with a lot of stuff. And this was just, it's still like, yeah, this is the first time I've said it in public. Hey, yay. Um, but, um, I have to say what I, what I'm grateful for though, is that for better or worse, I have had my guard up most of my life. I learned when it's safe to let it down and who it's safe to let it down with. and part of why I love being an actor is that that is hopefully with the right director in the right context I can let my guard down and be vulnerable and share these things even in a podcast context hopefully this can be of service by sharing it with people and that is the gift of sharing things like this that hope to hopefully be of service but it made me I don't let people in easily and honest and quite honestly, it has served me so well in my life that I'm not, when I arrived in New York and all sorts of things, and you know, there were some things that happened that, you know, weren't great.

17:16Um, moving to New York for sure. But I kept a lot of, I was, I was, I learned to be very protective of myself and not to let a lot of people in and then becoming famous and dealing with like the Hollywood, all the Hollywood stuff and all the fakery and all that stuff. There is a, I have, and I think being famous later too also helps, but like I haven't succumbed to a lot of things and I don't let people in easily and I keep my circle very, very small. And I'm grateful that the people I do have in my life who are my real friends, I can be vulnerable with and I can let my guard down with. But I think that's, that's been a really good thing, believe it or not.

17:57I think eventually I had to learn to let my guard down be vulnerable because that's you know part of life part of being an actor being an artist but it's also served me very well i was gonna say i think you are damn fucking right for not trusting and opening up and i think from your childhood to then what you're explaining happening to you in college it's like why the fuck would you trust anyone and i think it's so disgusting and disturbing how this still is present today like how have we not progressed enough as a fucking society where there are still a nazi march a few days ago it's fucking mind blowing but i'm just so sorry because it makes me tear up listening to you i'm like the fuck is wrong with people.

18:54I loved that you wanted to do some fun dating stuff. I love talking about dating because I have, I was talking to a girlfriend and she just started therapy and she's, you know, trying to date and I realized like how much work I've done around on myself around dating and I have a lot to say that's very useful okay I'm I love this in my humble opinion here she comes I'm 51 years old I started internet dating in 2000 so I've been online dating dating apps for 20 over 20 years give us the tips all the girls that are like okay Laverne but I met the love of my life on Tinder. And it is possible. It is tricky though.

19:37And what I've learned, I think the biggest piece about dating apps, but dating in general, what I just said to my girlfriend is like, she just came out of a really rough relationship. He was emotionally abusive. He was a gaslighter. And so she's in therapy to try to heal from that. I'm a huge advocate of making a list of all the qualities that you want in a partner, getting really specific. I've done this multiple times getting specific and learning from the last relationship all the things that didn't work then okay he was emotionally abusive okay I want someone who's kind I want someone who's loving I want someone who's working on themselves I have a height requirement sometimes that works out sometimes it doesn't um all the things you know all the things that I that I've listed it's really funny everything the current boyfriend does meet the height requirement the previous one did not but I went for it anyway I was open um so making a list and then everything on that list, are you that person?

20:34Are you, do you meet all of your requirements? If these are the things you want in a partner, they need to be the things that you have in yourself. Because what I learned dating on, being on dating apps on and off for years, getting in a relationship, breaking up, getting back on the apps, learning from that relationship, processing it with the therapist is that after a certain point I was vibrating on a different level and the fuck boys they couldn't hear the frequency I was on a level but I was vibrating so high that the fuck boys couldn't hear the frequency and this it's it's a beautiful thing and what I mean by that is that like I there's just certain things that became unacceptable in those first few messages I mean when I was on when I was on dating apps so I was I've been on tinder hinge was I only met one guy on Hinge.

21:24Hinge was never the app for me. Hinge I did OkCupid I met a boyfriend there. Tinder two different boyfriends. Raya was a total bust for me. Such a shit show. Hinge and then there's trans-specific dating apps. I've been on that. I was on J-Date for six months because I was for a minute I was I lived in New York most of my adult life. I was dating a lot of Jewish men like for whatever reason they were just I literally years ago I was on Chelsea and And I said, I'm America's premier black transgender shiksa goddess. I was dating a Jewish man at the time. But for whatever reason, I was just Jewish men.

22:02I was finding myself dating a lot of Jewish men. Part of it's being in New York. I don't know what was going on. But for like a good 10 years, like every guy seemed to be Jewish. I don't know what was going on. Anyway, but like. We love that. I like. I'm happy Shabbos. I got to do. I finally, after all these years, I got to do Shabbat dinners with. Um, with two exes ago, I did Hanukkah, you know, you know, we did something, you know, we did. We love it. Okay. Need your opinion on this. So someone goes on a date and this is what happens on the first date. Tell me if you would go on a second date with this person.

22:36Okay. Okay. He, on the first date admits he's cheated before, but he'll never do it again. I would need more information. I would ask him why he cheated. Has he done work around why he's cheated? what's different about the dude that cheated and who he is now? How did he feel after he cheated? And did how he feel change the behavior? I need more information. I would need more information. And then I think that would, you know, people tell you who they are. If you cheated, I've cheated before in the past, but I have not cheated on my current boyfriend and I would never, but I have worked on myself and I've learned from it.

23:19And there were things missing in the relationship. so there were a lot of reasons why I cheated right and I thought thought about it and I did the work around it so I would need more information I agree I think that's a really great answer too because listen to everyone listening like if you have cheated in the past I don't believe in the once a cheater always a cheat it's just such a immature statement people grow people can change and again you need more information so have they grown and have they changed exactly unfortunately I wish people worked on themselves but a lot of people don't oh you'll be able to tell the minute you ask like your first question why'd you cheat you'll they'll show the true colors most men would be like i don't know like i just okay bye if he's like this is what happened this will if if you can tell they care and they've grown yes but more information but still that's useful information okay he's a 10 but his friends absolutely suck how do you handle that's rough it did i think it depends on how much his friends are in his life i you know I had my Jewish ex.

24:17He was in his late 30s, and all his friends were married with kids, and they were all lovely people. But I remember hanging out with them New Year's Eve, and all of them were talking about their kids. And that's the tricky thing about being 51. A lot of women who I love, who are amazing in my age group, who I would have great friendships with, they have kids. They're married. And it's like kids are a whole thing. so friends aren't it just depends on the dynamic it depends on the dynamic how close are his friends but friends aren't everything because i love my ex's friends uh so true and he's not in the picture and he's out of the picture yeah okay he gets way too drunk on the first date that's a red that's a major red flag that's probably that's a deal breaker um i didn't listen to those signs when I, the alcoholic, abusive alcoholic I dated for four years, he was really drunk and he was mean to the cab driver.

25:13I think those kinds of mean to cab drivers, mean to service people I worked in restaurants for 19 years, those are deal breakers. Great. Absolutely don't put up with that. Okay, he's hot, but has horrible style. I would see him again. I honestly, I, fuck that. I mean, how does he look naked? I'm like, I yeah I'm like my boyfriend my boyfriend like he you know he doesn't care about my boyfriend he looks good in anything right so he but he's not a fashionista but a girl like when he's making me breakfast shortlist I could give a fuck about his style I completely agree also it's like you can help a little bit if you really get in there but like insanely superficial it is I think it's really superficial and it's like you are that's some immature shit I agree who gives a fuck if they're a good person and also like again if he's hot like who cares and he you know you don't like a sweater you want to make him if you i don't even i'm not even into giving a guy a makeover like i like some women are like fixer i don't believe in fixer-uppers either right like you don't need to change out his closet like if if again let him be him yeah and honestly maybe it's a good thing that he doesn't spend too much time on his style like there can be one person in the relationship okay clearly i spend enough time in a closet for like six or seven people and your bank account does too bitch I know okay extremely into PDA on the first date it depends it did I mean it has to be it's at this stage when I in his in my history when there's a lot of PDA on the first date it's not gonna go anywhere usually and it just feels like a boundary thing like if he's hot enough and I'm into it maybe like when I was younger maybe not now yeah I would go with it but like I wouldn't necessarily think that that was a guy and I might if it was fun and good I might go out with him again but I might not I would keep my options open I agree it's like that's a great answer it's like if the vibes match it yes like sometimes you go on a date you're like holy fuck that was electric like the vibes are flowing great but I think like for a first date like if it's already going so fast so physical like if that's what you're looking for I guess I think what my experience is when it gets hot and heavy really quickly it fizzles just as quickly that has been my experience and it just it's really borne out over the years take I'm 51 I've dated often and a lot and when it's hot and heavy from the jump it fizzles out quickly that's been my experience amen when I was single I was like I dated this I've dated this guy before I met my current boyfriend and I was like I met him on the first date he was so like into me but he was like pulling out the chair and opening the door and I I was like whoa this is probably a mom this the treatment is cute it's this I'm feeling this but we probably got a mom because this is it's he's just is it was too much little under a month he showed his full crazy and it was it was done but it was fun it was fun while it was a fun like three and a half weeks yeah like a little life thrill being clear about that it's fine like I was like okay I can do this for three and you know for a month and get it's for me it's about the treatment and this is what I say to my girlfriends it's like you have to get used to being treated well we really do because so often we'll find ourselves out there with men giving us for many many years I took crumbs and acted and treated them like a six course meal.

28:55I would take crumbs from a man and make that a six course meal. And this is what we must stop doing. We must get used to abundance. And I mean, you're laughing, but girl, how many of us have done that? No, me, everyone in this room, we're like, fuck. And so we have to get used to being treated well and loved on. And it's not about money. It's about care. And that looks different. I mean, honestly, like, just like, babe, do you want coffee? Do you want some coffee this morning? Can I make you some breakfast? Can I rub your feet? Bitch, girl, like, girl, please. Yes. Just care. You're so right. It's like, we get little crumbs.

29:36And what's so bad is if you get used to little crumbs, then when they give you, like, a little bit more, you get hopeful and you're like, oh, my God. It's like, you shouldn't be scrounging around. Like, it should be consistent. And I think consistency is the key to knowing. Consistency is so crucial because that really separates the keepers from the non-keepers because most of them are not going to be consistent. So really check for that. I think that's one of the big things when you start dating someone, when you get to that phase, how consistent are they? Do they show up? Are they booking the next date?

30:07Do you even want another date? And so much of it is how they show up in their work too. So much of it is like, if they're not organized in their work and their lives, they're not able to be organized with you. Yeah, that's a good point. When I was on the app, literally it was auto saved in my phone. This is for me. So my profile would say in the first paragraph by itself, I'm a proud transgender woman. Because as a trans woman, guys don't read profiles. Even when it's in bold, all caps, a sentence as a paragraph, I'm a proud transgender woman. They still didn't read. So my first sentence, it was literally auto saved in my phone.

30:42It was, you know, when they would finish the sentence for you. Did you read in my profile that I'm transgender? So that was like the first thing when I would ever match with the guy. Did you read in my profile that I'm transgender? That was the first sentence out of my mouth, out of my, that I would text. And then like either they did or they didn't. Sometimes they were like, oh, I did. They were cool with it. Sometimes they weren't. And then have you dated a transgender woman before? That was always the second question. And then I remember writing in my Tinder profile said, I have high hopes and no expectations.

31:12I'm open to a relationship but I'm not necessarily looking for one and unfortunately I feel like for women we have to put that in our profiles I feel like guys freak out on a whole I don't want to generalize but most guys freak out if you say you're looking for a relationship if you say you're dating and you're open it's a little less pressure I agree there are guys who are actively looking for a relationship who wouldn't be scared by that but statistically most men will be afraid of that so i always recommend that women don't put that they're looking for a relationship that they're open to one if they meet the right person but they're just seeing what's out there i think that's a better way to message it too because it's like you don't want a relationship with anyone you want it with the right person so yes you're open to things and if the relationship presents itself with the right person yes but you're not just gonna go fucking date joe schmo because he was like a good date and you just get more you get you know ideally you still you know there's a screening process after that but then you just get more traffic to screen and then so then ideally you want to get off the apps too you don't want to message endlessly i literally like there is a guy that i met on like i was on yahoo chat like in like 2006 or something and chatted with this guy we never met literally like last year he texted me out of the blue no he texted me out of the blue last year hey what's going on still have never met him you if you if you are texting for longer than a month if you're busy like now that I'm busy it's so tricky but when I before I was famous and I had a little more time I tried to when I was single I would try to go on you know three or four dates a month just to practice sitting across from someone and making small talk.

33:04And if you meet someone on a dating app, the first meeting is not a date. It is a screening. I suggest never doing dinner. I think coffee or drink is the way to go. If you can put a time limit on it, it's great. I have 45. Oh, I'm really busy at 45 minutes or even half an hour. So you can go if it's not going well. And don't be afraid to end it. In my experience, Guys stand trans girls up a lot. Probably stand, I don't know about non-trans women. They stood up a lot. But like I got stood up a lot. So I would not leave my house until they were there. Text me when you arrive. You're like, oh, I'm here.

33:37Where are you? I'm two minutes away. And I was, but I hadn't left my house yet. Because I'm not sitting around waiting at a bar for you to stand me up. This is the wonderful thing about it being a drink or a coffee. You can peace out. If it's not going well, if the chemistry's off, whatever. if it is going well oh my god I'm let me just move my meeting you know right if it's going well let me move my meeting because I'm because I'm just having so much fun but then you can get the f out so true okay you're so right I think ladies we like linger too long and like I have personally been on dates where I'm like I'm in fucking pain right now leave just leave save your fucking time because what happens is we don't want you to get burnt out by dating speed date like you're so right you don't have to go to a dinner just quickly test out and then if it's like super quick and you still want to see him again then see him again but i just feel like we have to protect our energy because what i hate is when the girls get like so depleted and they're like i can't keep fucking doing this and it's and it's depleting and it's a it's annoying and that's and that's in the even the process of getting to the date has to have an efficiency as well ultimately you want my um my most recent ex um but the ex you know the ex before the guy i'm currently dating he was like what can we meet he was trying to get off the app and that was i was busy i wasn't sure he was short it was so funny because i the first message i was like have you need to read i'm trans he's like yes have you dated a trans woman before he's like no i haven't but that's usually where you know i've matched with other trans women before and they're not usually into that and i'm like honestly i'm fine that you haven't dated a trans woman before the height is an issue for me he was five eight.

35:15I'm an honest lady. You're like, you're too short, bitch. And then he said something really funny. I don't remember what it was. And I was like, well, short men do try harder. And they do. This has been my experience. And he was so charming and respectful over the course of like a week. I was like, I'll give this dude a chance. And so much of it is about the treatment. And so for me, I had to shift my shift in dating after what I learned. Because for a long time, I was dating men. I was dating investment bankers I was dating stockbrokers and and real estate guys because it's New York and there's like a plethora of them and after a while I found I was not being treated well by those men that there was um it just wasn't the energy was off and I just was like and I ultimately what I realized is I had a thing for assholes I had a thing for men who treated me badly because that they were a reflection of how I felt about myself.

36:11And so I was consistently choosing men who would reject or abuse me, who would treat me horribly. I dated an alcoholic who was emotionally abusive for four years from 2001 to 2005. And that was a reflection of how I felt about myself. One of the most important things I can say about dating is getting therapy and then getting a group of people. What I just said to my girlfriend is getting getting a friend group getting a therapist getting someone who can reflect back to you how beautiful amazing and powerful you are and you can start practicing being in an intimate relationship with friends maybe repair self as family if they're you know that kind of family but then you get used to being seen being vulnerable being intimate and having the beauty of who you are reflected back to you yeah so that is what you get used to instead of the other stuff like the gaslighting the abusive stuff and then that is what I had um someone in in a group therapy situation tell me I'm gonna you don't even know how amazing you are I was um I was I was struggling in a time in my life you don't know how amazing you are I'm gonna love you until you learn how to love yourself and they did and I and I had people who saw me and saw the beauty in me that I didn't see in myself and we have to learn to surround ourselves with that those kinds of people so that we get used to it because when the intimate relationship emerges when it's time to be in a relationship and to show up and be vulnerable and intimate that shit's scary that shit is really scary and if you have not practiced that if you don't know how to do that that's like weird I remember with my ex he was so available and so cool and I just it freaked me the fuck out I was like what is this you know and you have to get used to it and friends are a great way to do it relationships are too you hopefully will pick people who help you who see you and understand and treat you as the queen that you are.