Talia Mar, YUNGBLUD,⁩ & Jordan Stephens on Love & Dating | We’re Talking: Love Stories

0:28This week, we're talking love. we talk about a boy all right so you were how old when you met your first boyfriend my husband was my first boyfriend so 20 there you go yeah so then what turns it all around when you met Simon I don't know but it was just different like I pointed him out to my friends across the festival okay which i've never done before like they all looked to me and they're like all right what's okay why don't you go talk to him then babe because this is this is new for you and i was like absolutely not i'm not gonna go and speak to a boy no can we even back up a little because this has never happened to you no so this is big yeah this is big so you're at a festival yeah you spot him yeah and when you see what's the feeling that comes over you when you see him um I just was excited I was like he's cute I like him I just I want him oh that one um yeah I don't know it was just like a I just had a positive feeling and I was like I just really want to talk to him like he looks cool he looks interesting like and then later on maybe an hour later a friend of mine came over and went oh my god like hey like bumped into us let me introduce you to my friends and pointed over to the group and I was like you're friends with the boy you're friends with the boy um so introduced us and I just remember thinking I I'm really struggling to make eye contact I was literally like looking like this it's like hey you're right yeah I'm I'm good how are you I was like oh my god it's all of the masking suddenly was just like I'd lost any ability to do it um and yeah we then spent the rest of the festival together like as a group and what about the emotion made you want to go forward because sometimes when people experience these things for the first time they retreat oh no i was the opposite i suddenly turned into this like very confident persistent human being okay i think i was just so shocked that i was capable of feeling this that I was like this has to mean something um and so I followed him on Twitter okay and made like a tweet that was clearly he would know was about him but no one else would know okay what was the tweet it was something like it was no it was the day after it was something like oh I was meant to wear these shoes today but someone last night told me it wasn't a good idea and now I'm regretting it so it was he would know literally no one else in the world would know okay so all right can i get into the mind of talia oh again strategic yes i'm gonna say you are plotting this this out yeah so you probably even plotted to follow him at a certain time yes yeah 100 okay so what was two what was the right time so well in my head i was like well i know he had like i don't know three million followers or something at the time i had 100 000 okay and so i was like well if i follow him he's not gonna see it so i have to wait until like middle of the day when there's like he's not asleep followed tweeted immediately yeah so he gets the notification on both yeah yeah immediate follow back and response and i was like i'm in i've done it oh man you're og out here oh gee man so immediate so what was the response the response was like it He sent it to me in my DMs and was like, oh, are we blaming me for this or something like that?

4:16Like he clearly knew the truth was about him. He took the bait. He did. He took the bait. He did. All right. Yeah. Okay. So he took the bait. So now what's the next move? So now this is when I suddenly became this confident human being that I'd never been before. And I essentially was like, I think I was the one that said, like, are you going to take my number? when are we gonna go out or something like that it was like when you're gonna teach me fifa i think i said something like that like so cringe also no interest in learning fifa whatsoever um and it kind of we just spoke from every day from that moment on we spoke every single day every day every single day all right yeah can i ask this too this is this is very important i'm tracking this this is an internal study yeah okay your first date yeah was where i don't know if you class it as a date okay but we'll go for it yeah first time that you saw each other after the festival yeah so we had a mutual friend's birthday that he was like why don't you come to ours before i'll pick you up from the station and we can go together to this party okay and i was like okay let's do it yeah do you know what part of me thought it was it genuinely what was it as in like that i was like this is this is i found him i'm like i found him this is the one this is the this is end game from day one from day one because i'd not experienced it before i remember i came home and i said to my mom i was like i've met a boy and she her jaw hit the floor she literally was like what have you just said to me like there's no way these words are coming out you're out if you'd have told me to bet one way or the other i'd have probably bet on it that you knew yeah he was the one yeah all right so here's the million pound question yes all right how long did you anticipate you would be together that day that first day versus how long did you end up staying together oh that's a good question i thought we'd just go to the party and i'd go home okay because one I didn't want to give any impressions that anything was going to happen because I was big no no but I stayed over and it wasn't it wasn't anything like that I was literally like this next to him in fully clothed like oh my god it's terrifying like please this is not why I'm here I just don't want to leave um but yeah we we spoke the whole party and then the whole until the next day until i think i think we went to sleep at 8 a.m so you were with each so you thought you would be together for a few hours yeah you were with each other for a day plus yeah all right talia this you've i got scared for a second i thought you were gonna break my study you have supported a study that i've been doing just personally where a hundred percent of couples who have met the person they think is going to be their partner and then end up in a committed relationship marriage etc they completely entirely break the rules on that first day together entirely my wife and i did it too we thought we'd be together for a few hours it was a day plus and the reason why is because of what you said is that i just don't want to leave your side yeah we don't have to do anything i just so adore being with you that i don't want to be with anyone else cute okay love that but this is this is what you're saying interesting yeah yeah that's literally what happened i thought it'd just be a party i'll go home so so so there you are together laying there like literally like a sardine terrified like just so you know nothing is happening can we explore this a little bit yeah because i would imagine you've not had sex no okay so here you are first time with a boy you like yeah at his place yeah in his bed i know this is why i kept my clothes on fully and i i i don't think i told him at this point okay i hadn't said that i was well not that i wasn't interested but i hadn't even alluded to the fact that i might not have had sex before so i was just laying there literally like just i want this to be clear on top of the covers on top of course you have to stay on top on top of the covers yes trousers long sleeve t-shirt like literally i am making it so clear that nothing is happening because i was just not terrified but i was like i don't want to leave he clearly is fine with me staying like it also made sense like it was late i was tired not that like we chatted until like 8 a.m like i said yeah but yeah no i was like absolutely not i'm not doing that right now no but he respected that yeah yeah yeah it wasn't even a question wasn't even a question all right so what was it about simon in those first few interactions those first few days that led you to truly fall in love with him

9:27I never talk about this kind of thing um there was something about the way that he was my little quirks that people would laugh at me for were coming out and I had absolutely no control about it but I also didn't mind um and at no point did he make me feel weird or like I was different and if if he did it was in a good way it was like i love the fact that you do that or like it was the little thing that people picked on me for that he was like i think it's funny i like it oh so would you say that you felt safe with him yeah oh yeah immediately yeah and like especially being 20 him not trying to physically pursue me immediately when he could tell i was a bit closed off was really nice because i'd never experienced that every single boy i'd ever spoken to was always immediately on that and i was like oh please leave me alone okay okay i think this is very insightful because there's so many people who wonder am i with a good one right and how do i distinguish yeah if they're if they're a good one or not yeah right and from what i hear you saying what saman did is one is he showed you respect consistently it wasn't on off respect yeah no no He made you feel safe.

10:45Yeah. And he affirmed you. You know, that's what I hear. Yeah, exactly. I think with the respect as well, I could tell it wasn't forced. He wasn't trying to respect me. He just was respecting me. Because I think there is also a difference. Like, sometimes I can see people fighting their almost like inner demons. Yes. There was none of that. It was just like, okay, well, if you don't want to do that, cool. We try and do that. Like, it's not even a second thought. Gotcha. Let me ask you something. When was the last time you really thought about how you love? Not who, but how. Most of us don't. We're moving fast, doing life, hoping love just shows up and sticks.

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12:28Youngblood. Can we talk about love? Yeah, we can talk about love. Yeah. You've had some, I'll say, notable girlfriends. I have. Yeah. but I'd love to talk about your identity yeah at what point did you feel like you were firm in your identity and sexuality I think really when I came to London I came to London at 15 and I think I had loads of questions I had loads of like I went on loads of adventures with me I really felt about like whatever it is I'm into it but I couldn't really no one really got that up north I was like what or then I was almost forced to be like well what are you right what are you I'm like I'm a viber you know I mean like whatever you are like if I like you then I might fancy you or I might have sex with you like if we vibe out together that's the way I see things I love human beings I love human beings I'm like, whatever it is, I'm down if it's a vibe.

13:40Right. And this year has been such a strange thing for me because it's the first time that probably the biggest love of my life I've taken space from and I've asked for space. Last year, I was really having problems with myself. And it was all a me problem. And I think, um, I think I, uh, her name's Jessie Jo, basically. Probably no, Jessie Jo Stark. She's probably the most incredible person I've ever met. And she's my best friend. And I feel so lucky to be in her orbit because I got to talk this through with her. And she understood. And she needed a moment. And we talk every Sunday. and I mean ultimately I think in my life all roads lead to her because I love her, I never loved anything like I love her I love her as I don't know, I love her as everything I love her as as if I'd love you know what I'm saying, water I need it, you know and I think I'd never experienced love like it because when you can be that honest with another human being even in times when we're not technically together right i was like she's just insane so right here where you sit right here where i sit you're still in love with her yeah so why not be with her i think at this moment in time i needed to build up

15:29a fundamental basis of a personality. I was a shell, so I didn't know what I could love. But do you fear? Yes. That when you're ready to go back, she may no longer be available? I think that's the risk that I take. But we talk every Sunday, and I look forward to every Sunday, and I get coffee out of a tea. we have coffee out of a tea cup it's our thing okay and um we communicate okay it's complicated but it's our story and i love her yeah you know what's interesting about everything i got you know i mean yeah it's like i i think that we live in a society that likes to have a definition for everything categorically agree with you like the thing about it is right we went to Coachella together, right?

16:23Coachella's not my favourite place in the world. I'm a Donny boy if I go to England, you know what I mean? It's not really my vibe that. She's a Cali girl from Malibu and she loves it. And I was so distracted by trying to go from place to place or meet person to person or network or do whatever that I wanted to do it on my own. I'm like, why do I not want to do it with her? And now I look back and I was like, I should have just held her hand, man. because the memories I remember from that weekend were getting ice cream, walking through the site with her. Yes. Chilling out in the pool with her.

16:59It was all her. Yes. Everything's her. Yes. But I've got to get myself right. I think that's, it's so easy to be like, it is easy to be like, well, you love her, so be together. I'm like, nah, the timing was, we've got to figure the timing out, but I ain't letting her, you know what I mean? But as long as you're communicating through it, that's our thing. It is. That's our thing. And that might be like, my mum and dad met at 15. Oh, wow. And now they're still together. And they've had the most, again, turbulent, crazy domestically violent probably 20s to 30s. But now they're 55 and they've never been teenagers.

17:40Wow. They've figured it out. And I don't know what's going to happen. But I will love that girl until I die. Right. and if that ends up like we like i would love it for one day to have loads of kids with her and vibe out and do all the like whatever the fairy tale thing is but if that doesn't happen that doesn't happen but that's why i got tattooed on my arm i was like look at that she's there she's always always there and people like are you not scared if you don't if you don't get back together i'm like nah man she's on my skin she's in the same way that she's inked into my heart you have to love yourself in order to love another fun like and i didn't yeah do you today do you love yourself today i think i love myself yeah a lot more i think i i battle with a lot but i've learned again i needed space to process it and i think kind of what's what i think to give her a little bit of credit with jesse joe right i really think she needed a moment to to kind of bask in her power a little bit i don't know i can't speak for her but i think like she's always been kind of like part of the Cromarts family or Youngblood's girlfriend or someone's friend when she is fucking awesome right I see exactly what you're saying yeah I mean and you know and what you're saying I don't think is so unorthodox if you think about the whole notion of you put the oxygen mask on yourself first yeah or you put it on the the person next to you completely so in a relationship what that truly means is that yes you need to have a sense of self-worth high enough self-esteem you need to be enacting self-love first.

19:09And kind of the fundamentals of being a rock star get placed upon you. And can you be a rock star in a relationship? Right. And then if you're a rock star, you need to either, you're either not in a relationship or you need to be with another rock star. Yeah, it's like, it's like what is, it's like these, again, these boundaries are placed upon you and you're kind of like, how do I deal with this?

19:43Jordan. All right, so then let's get to then Jade. Yes. Because Jade doesn't, she doesn't fit that situation. No. So how is it that you and Jade come together? I had all this spare time. I'm in lockdown. And I was like, oh, man, I fucking love Little Mix. This is like, I've always loved Little Mix as a group. and I had this memory of a friend of mine being like oh you'd really get along with Jade so I just like texted him and was like dude is Jade single like is this a vibe like what can we yeah and then me and Jade started talking and I was wait wait wait give me some more details so you text your friend so yeah so the story is I text my friend I said I knew that Jade was single actually and I said like can you pitch me to Jade I said can I put any that's what I said you said pitch me pitch me and he just like he like screenshot that and just send that to jake yeah and then and then but then i get this i get this uh i get this dm out of the blue because obviously she's in lockdown doing fucking right okay how now how long how much time has gone by i can't remember a couple of days oh oh she gave it a couple days in lockdown there's nothing to do oh oh okay maybe not then i don't know i actually can't remember the time i can't of the time but like i just remember like getting this dm you know and she's a superstar you know obviously i've done well but like and actually oddly we'd almost made a song about seven years before but a whole other story i'd never met her and she popped in and she went what's your pitch then like straight just that yeah what's your pitch yeah what's your pitch show me and so i was like hilarious firstly hilarious and then so i made this powerpoint presentation which was awful like I meant to make it bad.

21:25That's my sense of humour. You made a PowerPoint presentation. I made a PowerPoint straight off the bat. I was like, cool, give me a minute. So I went in and I basically wrote, there's one page that was like reasons to like me. And I was like, I've got five mates that I could definitely have more. My dog loves me. She obviously was kind of funny. So we start talking and I'm chatting to my mates. I'm chatting to one of the little mates. But then I was like, oh, this is a viable. I said to my boy, yeah, I'll see how it goes. you know i wait till the restrictions get lifted i'm a little yeah but then i do a couple of these zoom dates and i was just like looked at this list and i was like oh like she's all these things like what am i gonna do here all right i'll meet up with her in person and i'll know and then we had this date can i ask before you even got to the date yeah what was on the list well do i say uh you know i can't remember the list exactly but there were some important factors one was actually uh humor which everyone would say it wasn't like this was separate to what i'd already experienced it was just like a conscious focusing on it okay so like humor was massive fun funny dancing was really important to me i know this is bizarre but like dancing because i'd started to visualize my future with and that being such an important element of it you know moments you know that you know you'll know this with your wife you know you go away there's music and then you want someone you could dance with and it's good that is here right yeah exactly it did also help that jade herself is mixed race just because i hadn't had the ability to connect with a person in my immediate romantic space that had also had that that complex lived experience now i don't this isn't to say again that this is that everyone should just mate with people who have this shed you know but for me specifically with my history of dating that was massive for me you know for to meet her her mom her mom's black her mom is yemeni egyptian you know she's half arabic and half geordie's got a wonderful father um jimmy who's like yeah geordie i don't know what that is anglo-saxon but like but but she had had that complexity she was she was raised in south shields in a little town where i mean now in london she would be seen as as light-skinned in geordie land they were fucking right signing off on her yearbook saying like good luck selling camels this kind of shit real racist shit wow so like so she had that understanding of just like the confusion of of of of that and i and i felt that is you know it's just another value that we share it's just another lived experience that we share experience yeah and so um yeah so so so all of that kind of amounted to me ringing my mate and being like well this is a bit fucked in it because i fancy her she has all the qualities that i've deemed important for for me to have a loving relationship i'm definitely ready because i'd had a mature certainly the rekindling was a mature relationship i understood boundaries i had you know everything was in place yeah you're ready so i said to him what am i gonna like keep her at arm's length shag around and then hope that she's still like nah i was like fuck it and now we're almost you know five years so jade really hasn't seen a version of me that existed before that had at times insurmountable intimacy issues she's never seen it and it was it was a joke early on with my close guy mate like immediate circle that that she just doesn't has no idea that there was a time where even cuddling in bed would lead to me basically vibrating like i would be so anxious i'd be so triggered by the concept of like or somebody one day used to hate would be like someone asked me do you love me be like what the fuck are you talking about like we're in a relationship is that enough is that not enough right i mean this is before i've listened to six hour fucking audiobooks about safety questions and attachment theory and yes i understand that in that moment is it really much of a compromise for me to just tell the person and assure them that it's not them asking it's the child i get it yes i get it now but it's what's so interesting is i thought about that i thought now in my relationship jade tells me she loves me all the time and i fucking love it it's like it's like just the it's the most the best comfort food but with no health risks it's no it's you know i mean no sugar it's just no yeah oh and i'm just like and i just felt so grateful when i was just i think i was just about to leave somewhere and she was away already and she just sent me a text i love you for no reason and i was just like fucking i felt so grateful and this is a lot of the reason paul why i speak about men and young boys because i i never knew i could feel like this i never knew that there's a safety in somebody with such a she's so willing to just express it and i i listen I've been party to that.

26:20I've made sure this is years of trust that's been built up and I get that now. And now I'm understanding partnership more and communication. And now the things that used to stress me out about like communication, they don't even exist anymore because we just trust each other. If I fall asleep, I forget to say goodnight. I love you, which I like doing. She's not going to be annoyed. She's going to assume I fell asleep because we trust, you know? So there's those things that have shifted. But I used to think I used to have this ardent view, you know, I tell you I love you sparingly because then it has more value I bet you hear this all the time absolutely like absolutely when I say I love you that's that the world the time will stop cars will pause right you will feel it and you cannot demand this of me you can't say do you love me right I used to think that whereas I've moved away from this idea that love needs to be something that's short on supply like what the fuck like I want to tell Jade I love her all the time i want her to tell me she loves me all the time because it's just great it is like it's just great it is what was your first date with jade where was it on zoom oh that's true sorry in person physical it was in greenwich park yeah it was in greenwich park and yeah i just wanted to see if i liked that i just wanted to see what the vibe was and we were both nervous and it was difficult because there were like restrictions at the time it was just out the just the one side of lockdown so but we were there for eight hours for eight hours yeah how long did you plan to be there before but this is important yeah this is important so when there was nothing else going on there's nothing but but you but i'm sure you weren't thinking you would be there for eight hours right i had i you know what i really had no expectations i didn't want to fold into the immediate experience of lust and desire, that chemical high, which leads to the failing of 70, 80 % of relationships because eventually the chemical stops and you're like, who the fuck is this person?

28:19I don't even like them. Get out of my life. Three months and most relationships end. I was painfully aware that I'd experienced that four times in my life. Four times, you know, convinced this person would be, so when I knew I liked her, I said respectfully, I'm not going to say I love you, the first time until i am not high high on oxytocin yeah yeah yeah true you're so you're not in the state of limerence chemical dude it's it's the whole thing of like we will surf over red flags in those initial stages because we just want to fucking yeah yeah we got this person yep yep and so i knew that was coming so i said so i was literally using all of my energy i was offsetting my opinion of Jade on my best friends for a start.

29:07So I was relaying everything to them and I got them to meet her as quick as possible. Well, you're doing it all right. Dude, you're doing it all right. Because I didn't want to fuck up. It doesn't matter whether you're going to the cinema, a party or a restaurant. One thing is always true when it comes to first dates. If the date goes on way past the agreed time slot, then you're probably on to a good thing.

29:36Thank you.