Show Transcript

CHRIS GETHARD:

Today’s episode of Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People is sponsored by Mailchimp. Guess what – guess who I used to be. I used to be a young man just trying to find a way to tell my story to the world. Know what I did? I signed up for Mailchimp, this is very true, before they were ever a sponsor of this show. And I said – because I said, because I did, I always have these cult fan base and no way to get to them. And all of a sudden everybody signed up, they all came to me and now I can send my biggest fans these boutique emails. It’s a very, very cool thing that Mailchimp does. They’ve got gorgeous predesigned templates, you can code your own, it’s easy, a lot easier than the phrase “code your own sounds,” show you how to send, when to send, why people open an email or delete it. They’ll help you find people, help you grow your business. I can say that personally because it worked for me. Mailchimp helps you tell your story effectively and find people who care about it. More at Mailchimp.com.

Support for today’s show comes from Squarespace, whether you're starting a new business or launching a creative project, count on Squarespace to help you create an eye-catching and professional website that stands out from the rest. With Squarespace’s beautifully designed templates and customizable features you’ll have everything you need, be it a landing page, gallery, blog – you’ve got everything you need to make your next move into a reality. Start your free trial today at Squarespace.com. Enter offer code CG, like me, Chris Gethard.. You get 10% off your first purchase. That’s Squarespace.com – offer code CG. You even get a free domain.

[music]

Hello to all my nervous laughers out there – it’s Beautiful Anonymous. One hour, one phone call, no names, no holds barred.

[music: I’d rather go one on one….I think it’ll be more fun…and I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know me….]

Hello everybody. Chris Gethard here. A little shell shocked. I’ll explain why in just a second. Before I do, I want to say thanks to everybody who enjoyed last week’s episode. Fugitive Father, we all heard about that. It’s funny, I thought everybody was going to react hard to the stuff about, about that guy’s, his dad’s illegal activities, and that got so much – I noticed in the Facebook so many people actually talking about the stuff we talked about regarding higher education, which was really cool to – a bunch of people on the Facebook, and someone who was the parent of a kid who’s kind of struggling to find their place in school and a lot of people giving advice about that. Seems like that whole topic actually – I didn’t realize how much of an issue that is. You're spending all this money sending your school to school. Kid’s depressed. But you don’t want him to drop out of school. A lot of discussion about that side of it. Happy to see it go in that direction. Didn’t see it coming, now...

This week’s call, just recorded it moments ago. Immediately we all hung up and we were like what do we even do. Do we even – what do we do. I had the instinct of, do we put it out. And here’s what I realized it is. You're going to hear a call – I say it in the course of the call – by far the most angry I’ve ever been in the course of the call and you guys know, I don’t, I don’t, we’ll put out anything man. We put out anything. And this one we’re here, like what do we do. Um, this is a person who went through some stuff that no kid should go through. It’s a person who you’ll hear my opinion. I sort of bring up, is there maybe a little, still a little bit of denial going on or whether we need to reconcile some of this stuff. I bring those things up – I try to get all those opinions on record. Ultimately I think I want to put this one out because um, first of all, to hear the perspective of someone who is inside a situation like this is rare, and eye-opening, but, but most of all my guess is that there might be some other people out there who are in situations like this or surrounding situations like this, on the periphery of them, and I hope that by hearing this maybe it could make people feel a little less alone, or feel like maybe things will be a little more okay. You’ll see what I mean. I don’t’ want to say too much more than that. I want everybody to make their own decisions, but you’ll hear my reactions on this one are pretty hard and firm, if not extreme. So this call’s a little head-spinning. It’s a tough one in many ways. So let’s get into it. Usually, almost every episode I say ‘enjoy the call.’ I think – I don’t want to say that with this one, so I’ll just say – here is a call you can listen to. [phone ringing] OPERATOR: Thank you for calling Beautiful Anonymous. A beeping noise will indicate when you are on the show with the host. [beep] FEMALE VOICE: Hello. Is this Chris? CHRIS: Yeah. Hi. CALLER: Hey Chris how are you? CHRIS: I’m doing pretty good I gotta say. Feeling okay today. Went to the gym, got the adrenalin up, you know, those endorphins. Feeling good. CALLER: (laughing) That’s awesome, that’s the opposite of me. I was like just about to lay down and take a nap and then I saw you were filming and I like “oh, I should call.” CHRIS: I don’t want to interrupt a nap. CALLER: I was listening to music. I was listening to the music and I was like [inaudible phrase] fall asleep with your scary intro music that have. CHRIS: yeah, people have said the intro music is weird and somewhat terrifying. But here’s an announcement. Jared has figured out how to switch it so I’m going to curate a playlist, and I’m going to replace that any day now. CALLER: (laughing). CHRIS: Any day now. CALLER: Something happy and upbeat would be good. CHRIS: Thank you so much for the suggestion. What if it was all super-dark? What if I made it like worse, really dark (chuckling). That’s like black metal, like those metal bands from northern Europe, they sing about burning down churches. Like what is that? What if I replace the intro music and then I was like yeah, you guys shouldn’t have complained. You didn’t even know how good you had it back then. CALLER: (laughing) You’re definitely setting a tone for the show I feel like. You, you know, you get people in this very pensive mood so… CHRIS: I’ve never heard the hold music CALLER: … it’s intense CHRIS: I have no idea what it sounds like. CALLER: Really? It’s, I don’t know, it sounded kind of Chopin-esque. It was some sort of piano – I don’t’ know, it’s just creepy. CHRIS: Yeah, Jared just typed: it’s weird atonal piano music. (laughing) CALLER: (laughing) Exactly. Exactly. That’s precisely what it is. CHRIS: Okay. So what about you? What’s up? CALLER: Oh man. Well I was just – what is up? I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m waking up from my half nap. I have been thinking about something for the past week that I’ve been talking with a couple of my friends about. And maybe if you want to give me advice on this situation, or talk with me about it. CHRIS: That sounds good. CALLER: Basically (laughing) – so, basically when I was about 15 years old I had an inappropriate relationship with a former teacher of mine CHRIS: Whoa. CALLER: (laughing) This is something that like I actually – it’s interesting to talk about now because I really don’t think about it a lot. Like I don’t feel that it’s traumatized me in any way. I feel like I have a very good life, I have a pretty happy, fulfilled, wonderful life, and I don’t’ like – I don’t know, a lot of people I feel like who talk about this stuff feel very traumatized by it, and I actually don’t think it affected me in a, in a really adverse way. But, but I have not thought about it a lot over the past 10 years because I’ve been out of contact with this person, and I ran into this teacher last week at Starbucks. CHRIS: Wow. What if that was all just a clever way to have like grassroots Starbucks advertising, what if that was all secret Starbucks advertising (both laughing), [inaudible] landing on Starbucks. So I need you to – I mean where do you want to start. Do you want to tell me how this relationship developed or do you wants to tell me what this current day encounter was like? I want to hear both. CALLER: Sure. I guess I could tell you how it developed. So he was one of my middle school teachers. He was an incredibly popular teacher, won the Teacher of the Year kind of people. I, I guess he was always my favorite teacher and I wouldn’t say that I had like a crush on him per se, but I always really admired him. He was you know one of those teachers that I’d love to go and hang out in his classroom after school. Really just loved his class, thought he was hilarious. Really looked up to him I guess as more of a mentor than anything else. And, and he kind of took me under his wing. I guess he – you know, I was teacher’s pet. He – it’s interesting because I didn’t really – looking – I guess maybe that’s something that is interesting for me now, because looking back, I see some of the ways in which maybe some of the contact we had even when I was his student was slightly inappropriate, but I didn’t necessarily see it that way at the time. Like I remember when I did really bad on a, a math exam he bought me a book, and gives me a book the next day to comfort me about it. Or he, you now, he would message me on like AOL Instant Messenger after school. CHRIS: Oh boy. CALLER: .. .and we would talk about (laughs) – I know, it’s just so inappropriate now but at the time I just kind of brushed it aside, right? And you know, my parents – my parents actually discovered that we were talking on AOL and my dad almost went in to talk to the principal at the time, because I remember he noticed something that he had said to me of the effect of “you looked really pretty today, or that was a nice dress today”, something fairly innocuous but still slightly inappropriate. CHRIS: Yeah. Very inappropriate. CALLER: And my god… CHRIS: .. a teacher, AOL, telling a kid you had a pretty dress. Okay, so your dad sees these messages… CALLER: Right, so my dad sees these messages and he was irate and he wanted to go in and, and speak with him. And I begged him not to. And my mom actually ended up asking him not to as well because I think my mom was also under his charm, knowing what a positive influence he had been in my life in so many ways and, and you know she didn’t’ want to cause trouble for me and she believed me when I was saying that, you know, it’s completely innocuous and he doesn’t mean anything by it, etc. etc. So he didn’t do anything about it at the time, and neither did my mom and…. [simultaneous talking] CHRIS: Did you tell the teacher, did the teacher know. Were you like hey, my dad’s mad at you? Cool out? CALLER: (laughing) No. CHRIS: Did he know? CALLER: I didn’t say anything about it because I think at that point nothing was going on besides you know us speaking outside of school and him showering me with affection and, and you know saying that – I guess you know being kind of a mentor figure and an important person in my life, that he wasn’t overtly – that’s as far as his compliments would go. You know, he wasn’t, he wasn’t flirting with me or nothing inappropriate was going on besides that. CHRIS: Okay. CALLER: .. the conversations. (laughs) So, and I guess at the time I was mostly going through sort of a hard time with my family. My family moved around a lot. My mom deals with some chemical sensitivity stuff and she’s never really happy staying in one place so we moved. I was always in the same, same school district, but it was kind of like the richest homeless girl you’ve ever met, you know? Like my mom would like all of a sudden decide that we had to go live in a hotel because there was mold in our basement kind of thing. So he might have been one of those mentors like providing some sort of stability to me and being someone that I could go and vent to about how crazy my family was. And I think my mom appreciated him being kind of a rock for me, and that was maybe one of the reasons that she didn’t want to confront him either. So anyway – yeah, so we just, you know, he was a really good teacher to me that year. And then I contin- I was probably about 12, 13 at that time – and then I stayed in touch with him when I started high school. And I would come back after school and help him grade papers. Just our friendship continued essentially. And trying to think when it turned – I guess I had lent him – it was like the summer before my sophomore year, so I was 15, and I had lent him a book that he invited me to drop by his apartment and pick up. And that was the first time that he kissed me. I just ran up to the apartment to grab this book and then I was on my way to the airport actually, I was leaving on some sort of school trip to Europe. And then from there on began this really – more of an emotional relationship than anything else. It wasn’t – I never slept with him. It was more just you know, maybe some like intense make out sessions, probably like TMI (laughs). But you know, a lot of, a lot of – kind of like an emotional affair I guess is how I’d describe it. A lot of late night chats and emotional conversations and slightly inappropriate physical advances. CHRIS: So you said it never, it never, it never became like full on sexual but you were just, you were making out. I just want to, I just want to be clear. I think that’s what you said, right? CALLER: Yeah. Yeah, that’s correct. I mean, there was a little bit of heavy petting, but there was nothing explicitly or full on sexual. CHRIS: Wow. I got a lot of opinions. CALLER: (laughs) I’m sure you do. CHRIS: How long did it go on for? CALLER: And so that las- it lasted a year and a half. CHRIS: A year and a half you were making out with this teacher. CALLER: A year and a half, yeah, and I ended up cutting it off when I was – I was midway through my junior year of high school. And I – I mean like had I wanted it to go further sexually it definitely would have. Fortunately for me, I was a huge goody goody two shoes in high school. You know, I was going to wait until marriage to have sex, I didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs. I was a very kind of good girl and I was also very strict and goody goody two shoes when it came to my boundaries, so… so he respected that and he was very good about respecting my boundaries and everything was completely consensual. But yeah, for a year and a half I made out with my teacher. CHRIS: Wow. Wow. And then what happened when you saw him – I want to just hear all the facts and then we’re going to –me and you, we’re going to get into it. We’re going to get into it, obviously. So what happened when you ran into him at Starbucks. And had you been – did you keep in touch with this guy even after you cut it off or did it … CALLER: So yeah, I guess I should finish like how it ended. So I cut it off when I was, you know, 16 which was halfway through my junior year, and then my senior year after everything was over, my mom ended up reading my diary and finding out everything that happened. I thought I was being super discreet about it but I wrote about everything in this like big black journal that was labeled (beeped out) my diary. CHRIS: We’ll bleep that out… CALLER: Sorry… CHRIS: No, that’s okay, that’s okay. We’re getting into it, we’re feeling really loose here. Jared is noting the time code so we can bleep out a name that as inadvertently said. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: So your mom, your mom finds it. Does she lose her mind? CALLER: She, oh she, she – yeah. She was incredibly upset on so many levels. I mean first of all she and my dad felt terrible for not better protecting me, for not noticing the warning signs earlier, for not going in and talking to him as soon as my dad had discovered those conversations. She was also really upset with me. She felt like she didn’t know what she could trust anymore – because I was a very, I was a good kid, but I – in order to keep this affair going, I lied a lot, you know? It’d be like 10 o’clock and I would say I have to run to Safeway to pick up cookie dough to make cookies for school tomorrow, when in fact I was going to go meet him in a parking lot and make out in his car for a half an hour kind of thing. So she didn’t know if she could trust me and was really upset with me for lying to her and was really upset with him for abusing her trust and my trust. And she, she wanted me to go forward to the school and basically say what had happened and turn him in and encourage him to get counseling or get him to stop teaching. She didn’t necessarily want him to go to jail or anything like that but she wanted him you know out of the school system. And so I – at the time I was really resistant to doing that because, because I cared a lot about him and because he was also married and I worried, I worried about him losing his job and worried about him ruining his marriage. CHRIS: (sighing deeply) Okay. Sorry. I’ve been sitting on every reaction I have so we can get the facts out, but that one, that one – okay that’s pushing me past a bit of a tipping point. So okay, he’s married? CALLER: Yeah. CHRIS: Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay. CALLER: (laughing) So I, but anyway I did end up, I did end up actually cooperating with the, the school about it. I wasn’t going to and then what ended up convincing me was my dad you know took me out one night – and my dad is like the most, really sweet man but like so stoic and not very emotional and he just broke down crying and was really apologetic for not being there more as a father and you know, saw it all as his fault and you know was convinced that there would probably be other girls in my situation and, and so I – and you know, I ended up convincing myself that it was the best thing to go ahead and turn this guy in. So I, I cooperated with the, the, you know, the internal school investigation. And ended up recording a phone call with him as evidence of what was going on because they needed conc- I guess I had deleted all my conversations and they needed like concrete evidence that something had happened. And, and so the guy ended up, he ended up losing his job, his teaching job. But he went on to do other things and you know, had a career after that. And I loosely kept up – loosely kept up over the years with, you know, what he’d been up to on LinkedIn and different social networks. And right after I had turned him in and the whole thing came crashing down I had felt really terrible about it and I had written him a note, a sort of long apology letter about how I was so sorry and how I hope he understood. And he had responded that, basically saying, you know, don’t worry about it. I really care about you and I always will, but we can’t speak for a number of years according, you know, according to my lawyer, for statutory limits and everything. So that was the last that I had, that was the last contact that I had had with him before I saw him at Starbucks. CHRIS: Wow. So can I give you my opinion and then we’ll pick up with what happened at Starbucks. Because I just want this (on) right here because I’ve been biting my tongue. CALLER: Sure, sure, sure (laughing). Go for it. CHRIS: I fucking hate this guy. I hate him so much I’m not even going to apologize to my mom on that one because she’s nodding in agreement. I hate this guy. He was an abuser and he manipulated you and I’m glad you’re not traumatized by it, but you're so lucky that you're not. You're so lucky that you're not. Because this guy sounds like a fucking creep. What a creep. That’s my opinion. I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what. Like you know, I make most of my, most of my career is as a standup comic, which I don’t know – I think a lot of people who listen to the podcast only know me through this. I tour a lot… CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: .. I do a lot of college shows and it’s, it’s so interesting because I’m 36 years old and I go to colleges. And I love ‘em, I love ‘em and like you know being around like you know these college students that like have something to say and are like these motivated people, it’s like really inspiring to be around that energy and the way they express their appreciation for art. It’s like the coolest thing. But there are like some comics who are like, oh, college gigs, I’m going to go like sleep with a college girl. And that’s at the age of 36 it’s like unfathomable to me. It’s unfathomable to me. Let alone someone, I mean just age wise, I’m just like, like the idea that a grownup would flirt with a 13 year old. The fact that he – like, oh god I’m getting’ mad, you can hear it.. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: … you're well adjusted about this, you're so well adjusted and I, the last thing I want to do is like put any “here’s how you SHOULD be reacting.” But it’s what's I’m reacting … Do you look back… CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: ..do you look back – because I hear you saying that you know you moved around a lot and you were, you were a little foundationless as a kid. Do you feel like he targeted you? Like as soon as I hear that I’m like it sounds like he targeted you. CALLER: Yeah. I think, yeah, in a way for sure. I mean, I think that, I think what, what’s tricky about these situations is – l like when you're 15, I mean yeah, it’s troubling looking back as seeing the friendship that started so close as early as 13 when I was a student of his – but I think there’s some sort of like gray area for me in my mind where I’m like okay, well, pedophilia is you know, like young prepubescent children. But then like when you're 15, 16 there are girls that physically I think you know could be walking down the street and a 30 year old guy could think that they’re very attractive. But it is kind of, like what you're saying. Once you start TALKING to that person – like I know now that I’m, now I’m in my thirties and now when I was around young 20s somethings, or teens it’s true that - you know you can see someone and think oh, they’re an attractive person and then they open their mouth and you're like okay, they’re sooooo much younger and so less mature. So, I don’t know, I guess I’ve dealt with a lot of cognitive dissonance around that, and like well the attraction thing’s understandable, and then I like to think that I – sorry, I’m kind of rambling – but … CHRIS: No, please… CALLER: … but I like to think that I was – I was always a really good student and, and I think where that, where he was really effective is just being very flattering in how talented I was and how smart I was and how – and so on the one hand he was like this kind of incredible mentor in a way, right? Like – I know it sounds completely fucked up. But like he was one of those people in my adolescence who was always there believing in me and telling me how much of a wonderful person I was and how I was going to go off into the world and do anything I wanted to do and how you know, what a wonderful writer I was, how talented and, and when you get those kind of compliments, yeah, it it feels manipulative and in the same way, in like a kind of weird fucked up way, like it was also helpful to me at that time. I think I got a lot of self confidence from his reinforcement. And I think that I almost didn’t find it weird that he liked me so much because I also saw myself as a talented young woman. And, and I know that sounds weird but, and so I think that in my – I think in a way in my head for this past decade how I’ve been able to reconcile what happened was by saying that like I WAS this really mature for my age, beautiful talented girl and I was like an exception to some rule and it’s a little odd but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that an older man would fall so hard for me. Because it was really like he was in love- like – and maybe he was lying about it but like the, the impression or the way the relationship played out was more like a romantic relationship than it was like a I don’t’ know, I’ve read some memoirs of people who’ve had these teacher/student relationships and they’re so explicitly sexual and like obviously – and it was never like that. So...

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CHRIS: So everybody go ahead and take a deep breath. Very warranted. I’m sure everyone has their reactions building and mounting. I know I do. But warranted. Let’s everybody just cool out for a second. We’ve got so many advertisers to help us bring the show to you for free. And I want you to listen to the products the services that they have to offer you. Use those promo codes, helps the show. We’ll be back with one of the most intense calls in the history of Beautiful Anonymous.

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CHRIS: I very much believe that everybody should take care of themselves. Everybody could take a little bit better care of themselves and taking care of mental health it’s no exception. I’m a very big, very public advocate of that idea. That’s why today’s sponsor, Talk Space, the online therapy company makes it easy to connect with an experienced licensed therapist, hand picked just for you for as little as $32 a week. Using Talk Space, you can send your therapist text messages, audio, video messages, whenever you want you do a live video chat. This is a very modern, very easy. There’s a lot of barriers of entry when it comes to therapy. Talk Space is really providing a new version of it that I think a lot of people might be super comfortable with. If you need to vent about work, family get through something that’s been on your mind, no problem. Your therapist is really to help. Sign up, learn more, go to Talkspace.com/beautiful – special offer for our listeners, use the coupon code, Beautiful. You get $30 off your first month. Show your support for this podcast. That’s code Beautiful, talkspace.com/beautiful. Talk Space is therapy for how we live today.

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Thank you to all you advertisers out there you really do make the show happen, now let’s get back to the phone call.

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29:00 CALLER: …. But people have these like teacher/student relationships and they start explicitly sexual and like obviously [inaudible] and it was never like that, so… CHRIS: And that’s great, and that’s great, and I’m – a couple of things I’m going to say. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I haven’t studied this stuff. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: I’ve got an American Studies degree from Rutgers University, a mid-level state school. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just going to tell me my gut reaction. Even – like – you were there, okay? You were in it. You're allowed to react however you want. I just feel like I have some responsibility to draw a line in the sand and say, even hearing you say like, you know, you were mature and you were talented and I could see how somebody could fall for it, there’s a part of me that needs to step in and say, again – you were there. If the specifics of this are some miracle where there was love involved, great. But I would say the counter side of that is the idea – you said before that you would like sneak out of the house and tell your parents you were going to buy cookie dough. And this guy knows you're doing that and he’s making out with a 15 year old kid and he knows that kid just told their parents ‘I left the house to get cookie dough’ that’s, that’s warped. That’s really warped and it makes, it makes me want to put my fist through a wall, honestly. It makes me like want to cry my eyes out, the idea that a kid would say “I’m going to buy cookie dough” and then this fucking married dude who apparently is attracted to kids and put himself in an environment to be around them could do that – it’s – again, to me, I wasn’t there, to me there’s no excuse and there’s no world in which it’s okay. CALLER: Sure, sure. CHRIS: And I’ll say this too. There’s a part of me that arguably thinks it’s weirder that you just made out, there’s something so weird about that. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: For some reason that’s so weird, because – for some reason that bugs me, I don’t know if anyone else listening would be thinking that, but that bugs me out even more. And the idea – and the idea that you said it was almost like an emotional relationship – in what – I’m just trying to think of ANY world in which, as a man in my 30s, I have to assume this guy was in, you know, if he’s a teacher he’s at least in his mid twenties, you can assume probably a little older. How old was he when all this is happening? CALLER: He was mid-thirties. CHRIS: A guy – a guy my age !! – having any sort of emotional connection with a 15 year old girl is – he knows it’s wrong. He knows it’s wrong, and you don’t have to know it’s wrong. [Chris gets angrily out of chair, is further away from mic] And you're – you're, you're saying now oh I can see, I can see maybe… and it’s great that it didn’t traumatize you but I would also say just a big hefty fuck that guy. He knew what he was doing.. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: … he knew it wasn’t okay, he knew it wasn’t okay. And it’s not okay. And I’m glad you can laugh about it now, but I just – I can’t, I can’t pretend that I don’t hate this guy and that for any specifics you have about what it was like being there with him and what it really felt like, there’s just no way I can, I can convince myself of that. So I’m going to let you know that I’m very angry for the rest of this call. CALLER: (laughing) … [simultaneous talking] happier about the making out was… CHRIS: Say it, say it… what was it? CALLER: (laughing) I mean, there were like, we would have like sexually explicit like AIM conversations. CHRIS: Ohhhh, ohhhhh CALLER: .. you know, AIM sex [inaudible] (laughing) CHRIS: And for anybody – I assume everybody knows, AIM was like a, kind of, I think G chat has kind of replaced it. That’s probably the closest analogy of like, and texting, texting has also kind of – so, or WhatsApp, right? CALLER: Right. CHRIS: So you're basically, what would be – I'm modern terms it would be called sexting with this guy who’s in his 30s and who’s married. CALLER: Exactly. Um hmm. Right. CHRIS: So he’s telling you all these things, he’s telling you all these things he wants to do and then you're getting over there and making out and then you’re saying hey no, we gotta stop and then, and then he’s going with that, thank god. CALLER: Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Oh, fuck this guy. Did he have to register as a sex offender when all this went down? CALLER: No, so he didn’t. CHRIS: Oh, son of a bitch, I hope this motherfucker gets hit by lightning. I hope this guy, I hope this guy walks under a construction site and a crane topples over, that mother- I got no stomach for this guy. This guy’s a bad person. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: And… you can laugh all you want, I’m glad it didn’t traumatize you… uh uh, uh uh. I hope, I hope … CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: .. .this guy should be registered. CALLER: That was partly my – well I think that was partly, I think maybe that’s part of what you know what I’m sort of thinking about this week is like was that the correct decision because I didn’t, you know, I cooperated with the school system and told them what was going on but I decided not to press charges further than that or get him on any sort of registered list. And I was very – I turned him in but I was also very protective of him. And had I gone a little further I think he would have ended up on a sex registry. So – I don’t know. CHRIS: Can I ask – here’s a, here’s a question that is a loaded question but I want to know the answer. Do you know if he still works with kids? CALLER: Um, he does not work with kids, but I know that he coaches his, so yeah, he has daughters and he coaches one of his daughter’s sports teams. But it’s much younger, much, much younger. So I’m kind of like 90% I think it’s okay, I hope. CHRIS: Does his wife, his wife must know everything that went down. CALLER: That’s what I assume. That’s what I assume. But I think he ended up getting off pretty easy. I learned through, I learned recently that the principal that was actually responsible for firing him or charged with firing him is close family friends with his family. So I don’t know how much, how much information ended up being divulged or, or what's that situation was. CHRIS: So it was like Catholic church style. It was Catholic church style, handled behind closed doors. CALLER: Yeah, exactly (laughing) Precisely. Precisely. Yeah. CHRIS: Okay. CALLER: So yeah. I mean that was the last, that was the last contact that I had with him, you know, over a decade ago. And, and the other day you know, I know he lives in the same general area, so I’ve always – for years I’ve just been kind of preparing myself for this moment that I would run into him again. I’m like it’s inevitable that I’m going to run into him again. You know, I have like mutual friends, we’ll be like ohhhh I saw Mr. so and so at Walmart the other day. So I’ve known that he’s still around and I kind of figured that this would happen one day. And yeah, Starbucks (laughs). So I, I just walked into the Starbucks on a weekend morning and I, it was crazy full and I was, you know, going there to get some work done and had my laptop with me and I was like looking around at the different tables to figure out what table I could snag, and I’m staring like absent-mindedly over at the booth in the corner and I’m, I see this like father and his two daughters, two daughters sipping lemonade and like oh, well they’re probably going to leave soon, I can, I can swipe that booth. And just staring at him for a minute, and then I realized that it was my, that it was my former teacher. CHRIS: Did you say anything? CALLER: I, well, my impulse was to go up and say hi, because I’m awkward like that, I just love awkward situations. I don’t know why. I’m just really curious about people and enjoy awkward situations, but I also, I thought that – I don’t know, like I said I haven’t felt very traumatized by it over the past few years and I kind of wanted him to know that you know we were like we’re cool at the end of the day, I guess. And you know that I wish him well. And so my impulse was to go and say hi, but because he was with his daughters I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to bother him. But I wanted to let him know that he could come say hi to me if he wanted, and I didn’t know if he had seen me so I was going to order just like a black coffee but I changed my coffee to a mocha so they would have to yell my name out in the Starbucks to try to get his attention. (laughs) But he left before, before they called my coffee out and he didn’t turn around, so… so it was, you know, I didn’t say hi to him there but then I ended up shooting him a note on one of his social media profiles, [inaudible] like hey, I think that was you at Starbucks. I don’t’ know if you saw me but like, you know, I didn’t want to bother you and I won’t bother you now but just wanted to let you know that you know it’s good to see you're well and I wish you the best. And he ended up responding to that, and he ended up popping back over to Starbucks in the hour that followed to say hello. CHRIS: He came back. CALLER: He came back. CHRIS: Alone, alone, without his daughters. CALLER: Right, right. CHRIS: So what does he say? CALLER: So he only had like 5 minutes, and he just kind of talked at me for the five minutes. And he, he said that I’ve been entirely too kind and too gracious and that – it was so surreal. You know, it was one of those moments that are so surreal that like you, you kind of are sitting there knowing that it’s happening but not capturing everything that’s being said to you. So I don’t remember exactly even the words that came out of his mouth but something to the effect of like, one of his church sermons recently being about turning the other cheek to your enemy and he’s like I feel like that’s what you’ve been doing the past 10 years. And it’s really kind of you and he’d also followed some of what I’d been up to professionally over the past 10 years and said you should be really proud of yourself and you’ve turned out to be such a wonderful young woman and and he then told me about his kids, about his daughters, about his professional life, what he’s been up to and then he was, he was like I’d love to talk more and I’d love to grab lunch. CHRIS: Are you kidding me. CALLER: ….sometime if you're free. CHRIS: Did you go to lunch with him? CALLER: No. I got lunch with him, yeah. CHRIS: Is this real? Is this real? CALLER: (laughing) This is real. This is real, I promise you, this is real. CHRIS: What happened on this lunch. Like a date. You go on a date with this fucking guy? CALLER: Kind of. So, so, so seeing him at Starbucks was actually really nice because I felt like I really appreciated what he said and I felt that he kind of acknowledged that what he did was kind of weird and that I had been very kind to him or whatnot and so I thought that we were going to – I accepted the lunch because I thought that he wanted to talk more in depth about that. So then it was almost the surreal lunch because it was like just talking to me as if I were another former student, like it was very catch-up, like what are you up to, like giving me career advice. Just talking to me about like everything except for the elephant in the room kind of thing. CHRIS: So it never came up. CALLER: No. It never came up. But then he – so then he kept messaging me afterwards. And so this is, this is like the current dilemma I’m in is that he’s been messaging me like almost constantly since we caught up and since we saw each other. CHRIS: Is he still married, is the guy still married? CALLER: He’s still married, yeah. CHRIS: I hate this guy so much. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: I’m going to ask you honestly, all sense of entertainment and any sense of this – and you know, this podcast is not even comedy. It hasn’t been for a while. But, but any sense of entertainment aside, have you ever spoken to a professional about this situation? CALLER: No. Not about this one in particular. CHRIS: So you have seen someone but this never came up? CALLER: No, I went to see a therapist for like 5 sessions once after a really bad breakup. CHRIS: Because I’m just going to be totally honest with you, and this one is breaking my heart, I’m just going to be totally honest with you and say, this is a married guy, he took advantage of you once. He’s trying to snare you back into it, I don’t know you, I don’t know him, just based on what you told me just the fact that he would, he would – what’s going on here. And you’ve been laughing the whole time, I’m going to be honest and say that you're laughing at a lot of times where I think anyone who’s hearing you laughing would say, no that’s a fucked up thing and you seem to laugh to cover up the fucked up side of it. And I gotta say.. CALLER: (laughs) CHRIS: … I just gotta put that on record. I just gotta put that on record as somebody who, who cares about people and who’s listening hard is that this is, this is not okay. And this guy, this guy… CALLER: Sure.. CHRIS: And is the messaging starting to get explicit again? CALLER: (laughing) No, the messaging is not explicit. So he, so this is what – this is what's so weird for me, is I guess I’m realizing that a lot of the reason that I’ve felt very forgiving and loving towards him over these past years is that that forgiveness has very much been like predicated on the idea that he felt really bad about it, that he’s regretted it, that it was a really difficult period in his life and he’s like you know had to go through a lot of, through a lot of stuff and suffered kind of consequences from it. So that’s the image that I built up in my mind. You know, like I didn’t have contact with this guy for over a decade and I kind of pictured him going to marital counseling, losing his job, maybe going to therapy about that, doing a lot of introspection, feeling really bad. And so I guess during that lunch I was expecting him to say something to the extent that was going to develop on what he said to me at Starbucks, you know, something to the extent of, you know, I cared a lot about you but I was inappropriate and I’m sorry for, for you know, whatever I did. And so I do really feel like I dodged a bullet in a lot of ways but it doesn’t mean that it was okay to, okay to shoot the gun kind of, you know? CHRIS: Yeah. Thank god, thank god it never progressed further than it did, huh. Thank god. But it still doesn’t mean what happened was okay. I think would you agree, right? Like if that went further and if you lost your virginity to this guy, it would really be bad. CALLER: Oh, 100%. CHRIS: I do have to say.. CALLER: yeah… CHRIS: … the fact that he’s messaging again, he’s falling back into it and I just want – who knows. Who knows. The fact that this guy is coaching kids, this guy is around kids, this guy’s demonstrating no remorse, he’s trying to snare you back in on some level. What is going on? What is going on? CALLER: So he – what did he – so in one of his messages – he messaged me like pretty constantly and he messaged me the other night I was like, you know, just getting out of happy hour and going over to a friend’s house and I’d had a few glasses of wine and just was still didn’t know how to react to what he was saying and so I just sort of brushed it off, but I feel like I need to come back to it or – I really just blocked him out entirely and I’m trying to figure out how to react to it. CHRIS: You went and got a glass of wine together is that what you said? CALLER: No, no, no, no. He was messaging me and I’m receiving his messages after happy hour and having a few glasses of wine.. CHRIS: Okay, okay. CALLER: (laughs) and he said something to the effect of like it’s really nice to have your voice back in my life and I’m like, likewise. And I shouldn’t have even said “likewise” but I’m must at this point where I’m just going to, just brush him off nicely and like move on with my life kind of thing. And he says something to the effect of, or I said I wasn’t sure that you would want me back in your life and he goes, me too. And then he goes, you know, I was never angry or disappointed in you, purely sympathetic. CHRIS: What the fuck does THAT mean? Sympathetic.

47:18 [Tape machine stop/rewind sound / Music starts]

CHRIS: Okay, you guys just heard some actual rage starting to bubble to my surface. (music) I’m getting very angry. You know what doesn’t make me angry? Oh, I gotta find a segue, it’s advertisers. I need a segue to it some way to it guys, we got advertisers, they got all sorts of things. They support the show, they make it happen and very genuinely I appreciate it. Let’s hear what they have to offer.

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Some people, they still don’t get podcasts. I’ve seen a lot of feedback online, a lot of people that Beautiful Anonymous is one of the first podcasts they’ve ever listened to and one of the only ones. Podcasts are a very, very special thing. People don’t always understand how to listen, well look, you can change that. You think of a friend, a family member, anybody you care about, what podcast would they be into. There’s so many out there, cover such a broad range – there’s something for them. Right? Whether it’s something you think is funny or informative or gripping, you gotta tell them about it. We want everybody to know how great podcasts are so all this month we’re asking you to spread the word, either in real life or on social media, about your favorite shows. Get out there. And not just this show. All the shows participating in this. Look for ways to spread word on things you love. Podcasts in general, we’re trying to raise awareness. And if your friends don’t know how to listen to podcasts, show them how, or send them to trypodcasts.org Tell us what show you recommended with the hashtag #trypod (not tripod like a camera) – Trypod. Try to let people know how amazing podcasts are and get word out there. Trypodcasts.org. Make it happen. Let’s all get together spread word.

[Tape machine sounds / music starts] 50:02

CHRIS: Let’s go ahead. Let’s wrap up. This phone call, the rage returns. –

[Tape machine sounds / music ends]

CHRIS: What the fuck does THAT mean? Sympathetic. CALLER: (laughing) That was my reaction. So (laughing) so I don’t know, maybe it’s fucked up but like up until he said that, I had felt so forgiving and like generous and ki- I felt like I had not been terribly scarred by it. It was fucked up but I think I was probably the only one. It was what it was. I’m living my life, I’m happy. You’re seem like you're doing well. Let’s go on our separate paths. We’re all good. But then he’s messaging me and saying things like that? [simultaneous talking] CHRIS: yeah, as if he… CALLER: … [inaudible phrase] CHRIS: yeah, as if he did YOU some sort of favor, as if he was so understanding to you. Meanwhile. … What is it – even going back to the beginning, like – what book, what book did you lend this grownup, that you had to go back to his house and get it? Do you remember what the book was? CALLER: It was (laughing) it was actually not a – so it was a, it was less of a book than a school project that we had to compile and he wanted to use mine as an example for his class. So I had like, you know, I kept my project and I had lent it back to him and he had used it for the school year and then was giving it back to me. CHRIS: And he brought it to his home. How weird. He couldn’t just keep it in school. He brought it to his home where you’d have to come get it. Oh, how, how weird. Because I tell you, I know a lot of teachers in my life, I grew up with a lot of people who became teachers and they’re all super psyched and want to bring that shit home with them all the time. All the – I’m being sarcastic. Nobody does that. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: Nobody’s like oh, I love this, I love this 13 year old schoolwork so much that I’m going to bring it home so I can fucking soak in it at home. Everybody I know who teaches hates it and prays for their breaks. They love affecting kids and they want to do the right thing, and then when that summer comes the last thing they’re doing is saying oh, I’m going to bring this 13 year old’s school project with me because I just can’t let it go. This guy is a bad guy. CALLER: (laughing) Totally normal.

CHRIS: Oh god. You doing okay now though you're feeling better now? Doing okay? CALLER: I’m fine, like, I know, I’m doing - I’m just really in this weird space with this, because running into him again is all pretty recent. And I’m just in this weird space like how do I – I’m just debating how I extract myself from this now. Like do I explain myself. Do just block him, do I have an in person conversation do I say like hey, a lot of my forgiveness was predicated on the fact that you felt bad but clearly you don’t. Like I’m just sort of in this place where I’m debating what if anything I say to him and how I gently step away from the situation. CHRIS: So it’s good. You want out. That’s good, that’s good. No more lunches. And I hope I’m, I hope I’m not coming off as – I really hope I’m coming off, not coming off as judgmental, I really hope I’m not. The only person I’m judging in this is him. I promise, I promise. And I hope I haven’t come off as judgmental towards you at any point. CALLER: No not at all. It’s completely normal to me. I mean I think that’s been the weird part about being confronted with this again you know more than a decade after the fact is now I AM an adult and so now I view this situation differently than I did back at 15. Yeah, I’m trying not to judge my situation. CHRIS: Yeah. Did you go to public school? What kind of school did you go to? CALLER: Yeah it was a public school. CHRIS: And they’re not required to report that shit? They’re not required to put him on a list? This whole thing… CALLER: Um.. CHRIS: ..this whole thing seems like – like a, like a nightmare of how the system works sometimes. CALLER: Yeah, I know. It really does. I, I don’t’ know. Honestly I think he was going to keep his job for a little while after the whole thing came out. It was towards like the end of the school year when I was graduating and he was still on the roll to start for the next year and a family friend of ours happened to be someone that my mom confided in and she also worked at the same school and I believe SHE was the one who ended up going into the principal’s office when she saw that he was still teaching and was like, I know what happened this is really fucked up, he needs to be fired I cannot work with him again. So I believe he was let go pretty quietly. CHRIS: Son of a bitch. I don’t like it. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: I don’t’ like it. CALLER: I know. I know. It’s so – CHRIS: I don’t like that he just got to move on and now 10 years later he’s saying to you I was really sympathetic actually – oh, like he’s going to pat YOU on the head… he’s going to pat YOU on the head.. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: …. This fucking guy. CALLER: That’s the thing. That’s not the – and it’s like, yeah, that’s just like what has been turning my world upside down this past week is I’ve just, I don’t know, I just – I was, I kind of regret letting him back into my life. Curiosity got the cat. I was so curious to see where he was at and what he was up to and, and - I don’t know. It was a mistake because I think I liked the image that I had of him in my head much better than like the reality of the person that I had in front of me now. CHRIS: Well yeah because I would imagine he loses his job, you assume his life goes… you assume that he’s going to suffer a little bit. You assume that his wife found out. You assume that he’s never going to be allowed to do certain things and be around certain people again and now you're finding to 10 years later, that might not be the case. He effectively may have gotten away with this. CALLER: yeah, exactly. CHRIS: That sucks. That sucks. CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. (laughing) I mean, I don’t’ know, I like honestly I feel fine for myself but it is these little questions of like should I have tried to get him on some sort of sex offender registry or should he be coaching children in any capacity? I don’t know. CHRIS: Yeah. Because … CALLER: I like to think that now that you know, whatever, it’s been I mean he is older now and the kids that he’s working with are even younger so I would hope that it’s like a completely different context, but… CHRIS: Yeah, but I’m sure it brings up that thought. I’m sure seeing that he can just fucking chill out at Starbucks is bringing up a lot of thoughts of like holy shit, wait, what? What? CALLER: Yeah. Yeah, it’s weird. And I’m a very forgiving person, like I never want to I never wish harm on anybody and I WANT him to be happy and I want him to – yeah, I want him to be okay, but I just want him also to realize – I guess I just want him to realize what he did. CHRIS: And are you – like what’s your… CALLER: ..realize that it was... CHRIS: What’s your life like now? How’s your, are you – like, what are the basics? CALLER: My life is awesome. I love my life. CHRIS: That’s good. That’s great. CALLER: I don’t’ know, I’m trying to figure out what I can say without giving away too many – I don’t know I feel like I probably shouldn’t talk about it because it would give away too many details. But … CHRIS: That’s fair. CALLER: … but my life is good. CHRIS: That’s cool. I think the obvious question is has – do you feel like your relationships have been affected moving forward because as a kid, some pretty, some pretty specific stuff happened? CALLER: Yeah. You know what’s funny is I’ve never had an American boyfriend since. I’ve always dated foreign men. CHRIS: Wow. Didn’t see that answer coming. CALLER: (laughing) I think it’s partly running away from that (laughing) CHRIS: (laughing) So you may have, you may have subconsciously written off trust in the entire nation. CALLER: I have (laughing), I have. I’ve spent a lot of time in Europe. Yeah. I don’t know. There’s something – yeah, there’s still something about American – it’s funny, like most of the American men who’ve approached or hit on me have been married men. Yeah. I don’t know. I sort of – yeah – I don’t’ know if it’s related but I think that I’ve run away from all that. But I’ve had lots of good relationships, healthy relationships, with foreign nationalists. CHRIS: Wow. Okay. So you're feeling good about your life, you don’t want to get too specific. Sounds like you do something cool that he congratulated you on and you can’t get specific because it could give you away. That sounds cool. CALLER: Yeah. Pretty much. CHRIS: So you’re a world traveler with a good career, everything turned out okay. And thank god for that. Because I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what I think we’ve done about 50 of these things – I don’t know if I’ve ever been angrier during the course of a call than I was during your call. CALLER: (laughing) I’m sorry to get your blood pressure going. CHRIS: No, you don’t have to apologize for anything. I will tell you, there’s – because it’s, I am, I’m like an artist and I’m a pretty sensitive guy but every once in awhile I’ll hear something and it will just be a reminder that I am a north Jersey dude at the end of the day (chuckling) and my instinct is to find this guy and break his jaw. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: ..that’s my instinct is find out who this man is and break his jaw. CALLER: I totally get that. I totally understand that. And it’s funny because if I were sitting in your seat I would feel the exact same way. It’s interesting – like I feel like sometimes we’re able to accept things for ourselves that we won’t accept for other people. And I feel like if this had happened to my best friend I would be completely outraged but honestly I feel okay personally. CHRIS: Well can I ask you the hardest question. Can I ask you the hardest question. CALLER: Yeah. CHRIS: Because you said … CALLER: ..of course. CHRIS: .. you just said, you know, there’s things that we feel okay about happening to ourselves that we’d be livid if they happened to other people. What are you going to do that you find out this guy, if it WAS a pattern. You know? What happens then? CALLER: Ooh. If I found out it was a pattern I think I would be much more – well that’s the question, is what would I do now. But I mean, I would be inspired to take action in some way, shape or form. I would probably immediately get him, get him off any sort of organization that had to do with children. If there were some sort of case against him I would certainly speak. I would do that in defense of someone else. Which maybe sounds a little fucked up, because I’m like if I’m the only one it was okay. But I do – if I am and if I was the only one I do feel like, you know, it’s not worth ruining his life over. CHRIS: Yeah. Because it is interesting, like you said yeah, because you did say like you’ve kind of spent all this time assuming he learned his lesson in a big way and only in the past recent times has that been called into question. So it is one of those things where like if he learned his lesson ultimately I’m fine let’s walk away. But I’m sure that thought’s crossed your mind before of just praying like oh god, this guy, this guy… CALLER: Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, exactly. And I, I don’t know, I do, yeah, I’m like 90% convinced that I was the only one, there’s like 10% doubt in my mind. But it was so emotional that it did feel more like a – that means obviously that he can be sexually or emotionally attracted to women of that age, you know, so…. There could have been someone after me, why not. But I don’t know (laughs). Yeah, I, I hope that there was no one else. I think there was no one else. And if I were to find out something to the contrary then I would defend that girl. But hopefully that’s not the case. CHRIS: yeah I hope so too, I hope so too. Well, so like I said, hope that – although he has two daughters, so I don’t’ want to wish ill on a family, but in a vacuum I wish that a boulder would roll off a cliff – maybe since he has two daughters I don’t wish death upon him, but I wish real serious bad things. I don’t wish death on anybody, I don’t want to make jokes about that. But … ooh god, ooh god. I live in New York, I live in New York – I get on the subway and there’s high school kids even – god forbid you gotta go on a subway between 2:30 and 3:30 in New York City when a high school lets out. There’s never a part of me that looks up and is like “yowza” look at THAT girl. Never. You look, like you look – like any time I’m on a subway car with high school kids, here’s what I’m thinking: time to fucking switch cars cuz I don’t want to hear these kids yelling (laughing) all the time, because I’m getting old. Kids! Kids! Kids, man, and this guy went to school on how to work with kids. And in some world – here’s what I can do. Here’s what I can do. Cuz I can stress out with you and I can stress out about you. But here’s another thing I can do is in some fucking world this guy every hears this I want you to know that I’m, that, that, that I’m not the one you put in the middle of it and I’m not the one you confused and you're a fucking bad person deep down. I hope he hears that. I’m allowed to say that. I wasn’t there. You – you can have all the emotional reactions but I’m allowed to say it. I hope this guy hears it, I hope this guy hears it and I hope he knows he really did wrong. Hope he knows he did wrong. CALLER: Thank you, thank you. yeah, it’s really – I feel like these cases are more and more in the news though, too. Right? Like in – there’s, I don’t’ know where I’m going with that (laughing) but I feel like, I feel like I hear about this stuff more and more – of an inappropriate teacher/student relationship brought about by more communication on social media and.. CHRIS: .. .yeah.. F:… and girls maybe acting more mature than their age and, or guys. Yeah, I don’t’ know. I mean – CHRIS: What was that famous one, too. Who was that lady? What was the lady’s name who – we gotta look this up. Who was the one that actually worked out for like 30 years? Was it – I wanna – there’s a name popping into my head. I’m just going to – if it’s okay I’m just going to – was that her name? CALLER: I don’t know. CHRIS: Wait, hold on, I don’t want to say the wrong name. Oh yeah, Mary Kay Letourneau, right? That was the one, yeah. She dated that kid.. CALLER: No. I haven’t heard of that one. CHRIS: yeah. She dated a kid and he was really young and then I think it actually worked out. Like I think they had kids and stuff. Like I think that one also turned out kind of okay. Mary Kay Letourneau. But I still can’t get behind that one. CALLER: (laughing) Well the current, you know, the front runner for the French presidential election right now, he is married to his high school English teacher I think, who he met when he was 14. CHRIS: Did they get together when he was 14? CALLER: (laughing) Yes. CHRIS: Nooooo. Oh god. Oh god. CALLER: I believe so, yeah, you have to Google that to fact check. They got together when he was pretty young. CHRIS: Oh gosh. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: It’s not okay. CALLER: But that’s France, so you know, that’s a different context CHRIS: Well – there’s a million easy jokes about France wrapped up in that that one and I’m just going to walk in the other direction, because I don’t know. We gotta lot of French – I don’t know if we got a lot of French listeners, but if we do, bon jour, and I’m not making easy jokes at your expense. Au Revoir. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: I really, I don’t know. I gotta say, I gotta say – I don’t want to put in on you, I don’t want to assume anything but you always laugh when I’m talking about the most fucked up shit, and it makes me feel like … CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: … there’s other unresolved stuff there and I hope you resolve it. I hope you resolve it. CALLER: I’m a very giggly person, I laugh way too much. CHRIS: But you have to admit, when you listen back to this you're going to be like, every time, every time it got real intense, you burst out laughing. And I get – but who, I mean that’s my whole thing. I feel like my whole life is, all I’ve ever learned from my parents, every bad thing – you learn to fucking laugh. Like you have to you have to. So in a sense I think that’s very good. CALLER: You HAVE to. I would have never been able to survive if I hadn’t learned how to laugh. CHRIS: Was this guy your first kiss? CALLER: Oh yeah. CHRIS: Was he your first kiss? CALLER: No. CHRIS: Oh thank god. Oh good. CALLER: No thank god. I had a first kiss a couple months prior to him, and I was very grateful for that. CHRIS: how old was that guy? CALLER: My first kiss? CHRIS: Yeah. I’m a little bit, (both laughing) – I’m hoping – like yeah, yeah, he was older. CALLER: (laughing) No, no, no. I was 14 and he was 17. CHRIS: Alright. Even THAT’S weird. CALLER: (laughing) You know what he did to me? He told me. How much time do we have? CHRIS: A minute and 20 seconds. CALLER: Oh, okay. So my first kiss was 17 but then he told me that he couldn’t date me because he was part of a gang and my life might be in danger if we were to go out. CHRIS: You’re kidding me! I once made out with a girl in New York City and she called me the next day and said she had an ex in the Mafia and he would kill me. I had the same thing! CALLER: Oh no! No! What the hell! What [inaudible] is that? CHRIS: We both made out with gangland murderers. No, that girl wasn’t a murderer. I’ve always wanted to ask that girl. Like I remember she said I think she texted me, she’s like hey, I really like you but I, I don’t think I can see you, I have an ex in the Mafia and he’ll, he might hurt you. And I just wrote back, you know what I wrote back? CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: I said, I said I must be a very bad kisser. CALLER: (laughing) CHRIS: I said I must be a very bad kisser if you're making up this… CALLER: [inaudible] my ex boyfriend. CHRIS: Maybe – who knows. Who knows! Alright. We got 20 seconds left. I’m going to go take a couple deep breaths, walk around the block cuz this one got me mad. CALLER: (laughing) I will let you do that. Thank you for listening. CHRIS: Of course. Do other people in your life get really mad or am I the only one who gets mad when I hear about this? CALLER: No, other people in my life get very, very mad. I let everybody else get mad for me. CHRIS: That’s nice.

[bell rings]

CALLER: That’s very nice, that’s (kind of selfish??)

(music) CHRIS: Caller, that one made my head spin. Thank you for sharing your story. I hope my reactions didn’t weird you out in any way. I was very, very nervous about coming on as judgmental or any way – I just found myself getting very upset at the circumstances you describe. So that was an intense one. We go there sometimes we go there. We go there and I hope I help everybody out there learned a little listening to it, or has their opinions in order and that’s that. Thank you caller for calling. Thank you to Jared and Harry in particular. Jared O’Connell, Harry Nelson in the booth this week. That was a – there’s a lot of eye contact between me and the guys in the booth this week. Oh. Alright, thank you to the Reverend John De Lore to Gretta Cohn, to Shellshag for the intro music thank you Shellshag, I love you Shellshag. You want to know more about me, ChrisGeth.com, get all my dates when I go out on the road and if you like Beautiful Anonymous please do rate, review, subscribe on iTunes. It genuinely helps so, so much. Thanks so much. Thanks a lot. See you next time.

[Tape machine sounds]

1:11:00

Today’s show was sponsored by talkspace, the online therapy company that believes that therapy should be affordable, confidential and convenient. Talkspace therapists can help put you on the path to a happier life. I am a big advocate of therapy. I think this is well known about me, so please do find the therapy that works for you and talkspace is the modern version of that. For a special offer for our listeners, visit talkspace.com/beautiful. Again, that is talkspace.com/beautiful.

CHRIS: Next time on Beautiful Anonymous it’s our one year anniversary show and we’re hearing from an old friend. It’s the return of the original Ron Paul’s Baby.

[tape machine sounds]

It feels like, when you run into somebody you used to date, it feels like that. How’s it going. We haven’t talked at all, but you know, like, to share something here. You know, this podcast has completely changed MY life. It’s completely changed so many aspects of my life and so much of that is cuz of you. CALLER: Mm hmm. CHRIS: So thank you for that. CALLER: Oh, you're welcome. I’m glad. CHRIS: It’s become like the actual foundation of my life. CALLER: I’m glad I could give you a hit podcast.. CHRIS: (laughing) Yeah. Thanks for that. CALLER: You’ve got an HBO special coming up, right? CHRIS: I don’t know how much you had to do with that one, but… That’s next time on Beautiful Anonymous. [music ends] [music starts] SCOTT AUKERMAN: Hey Paul. PAUL F TOMPKINS: Hey Scott.

SCOTT: Have you ever heard of trypod? PAUL: What are you talking about? SCOTT: Whoa, whoa whoa. Okay. I came on a little hot on that. Yeah, I apologize. This is a big podcast awareness campaign happening throughout March. PAUL: Now I know about podcasts but I know doing a podcast myself. I know a lot of people they don’t know what they are. SCOTT: They don’t even know what it is. So what want people to do is to share your favorite podcast. It doesn’t have to be ours. In fact I would hate it if you shared mine.

PAUL: You know what? I forbid you to share mine. SCOTT: Exactly. SCOTT: Let’s say you know someone in your life who would probably enjoy a podcast if only they’d try it. You could recommend a podcast you think that person would like. A lot of people listen to podcasts when they’re working out. It takes their mind off of it. Or while they’re working, it takes their mind off of it.

PAUL: While they’re doing laundry.

SCOTT: While they’re driving.

PAUL: Some people like to watch that video of a fox decomposing and listen to a podcast at the same time.

SCOTT: If you're one of these people then you must know someone like that who would really enjoy podcasts but they still don’t really understand what they are or why they’re special.

PAUL: You could tell your friends how easy it is to listen to podcasts. There’s maybe two steps to it. If that. SCOTT: Or send them to trypodcasts.org PAUL: I didn’t know there was a website. Why are we even talking about this. SCOTT: They should just be going to the website. Why are they listening to us. PAUL: We should just send people to the website ! SCOTT: Tell us what show you recommended with the hashtag trypod – trypod. And you're a daisy if you do.

[music] This has been an earwolf production executive produced by Scott Auckerman, Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson. For more information and content visit earwolf.com.