The very first episode of “Wait, Is This a Date?” is officially out wherever you listen to podcasts! Join the one and only Christina Tucker and me as we play a deeply personal game of Fuck, U-Haul, Ghost and discuss our main topic of the week: Believe People Are Into You.

We laugh! We cry! We learn about ourselves! (Okay we don’t cry because we’re both earth signs with emotional walls, but we do have feelings.)

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SHOW NOTES

+ Christina mentions that she slid into my DMs about this Ocean’s 11 live read.

+ But we realized she actually slid into my DMs much earlier in response to this insta story of mine:

+ Here are some more fun screenshots from that first convo:

+ And here’s when I asked for her phone number:

+We recorded this episode awhile ago and I would like to officially answer my first FUG with fuck Jinkx, U-Haul with Symone, and ghost Carmen. (Sorry, Carmen, I love you.)

+The music video for Texas’ “In Demand” with Alan Rickman that was formative for Christina.

+A fun sample of Catherine Zeta Jones’ contemporary Instagram presence. Okay here’s another.

+The quote I reference from Detransition, Baby:
“Jen was obviously a true transsexual. Amy had never met a trans girl in person, and her fascination with Jen bordered on painful. Look at her. She looks like a girl. She sounds like a girl. More than that, Amy thought, she wanted something from Jen. Something like sexual attraction, but shaded differently. Something closer to the thrill she felt when a celebrity passed by. Of a nameless wanting in the direction of that celebrity. The abstract beckoning that celebrities exude. The gravitational pull of their fame that tugged at Amy so that she felt anxious to be close, to be seen, and to be valued. To feel those celebrity eyes move without friction across the smooth surface of a clamoring fandom, then suddenly catch upon her, stop dead, and return her gaze. That moment of mutual recognition, that’s the only way to have your existence stamped valid, to transcend the anonymity of mere fan, of inconsequential gawker. Jen’s was a noncelebrity celebrity that Amy could feel. A pull that maybe only she would feel. Amy kept turning to see where in the store Jen was.”

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Christina: It was bantery and it’s because you and I both find banter to be, if not the hottest thing — well, no, we just find it to be the hottest thing.

Drew: Yes 100%.

Christina: I think we just find it to be the hottest thing. And I think because we got along so well, we naturally fell into a lot of banter, which for us, again, translates into hot, cool, dating, flirting vibes.

Theme song plays

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: Hi, I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to, Wait, Is This A Date?

Christina: An Autostraddle podcast, dedicated to the question: wait, is this date?

Drew: Is it?

Christina: Well, maybe it’s actually our job to figure that out and tell the audience?

Drew: Cool. It’s early. We’ll see how we feel at the end.

Christina: Early days, yeah.

Drew: Cool.

Christina: Do we want to tell the people who we are or do we want to just kind of leave them in the questionable mud?

Drew: I can go first.

Christina: Yeah. Tell me who you are. I’d love to know.

Drew: Yeah. My name is Drew Gregory, I’m a writer and filmmaker and gay and trans, not necessarily in that order. I’ve written for Autostraddle since fall of 2018. I write a lot about movies and TV, and also a lot about dating, specifically dating as a trans woman in lesbian community. And also most of the movies I write are about trans lesbians, so a real through line there. Oh, and if it wasn’t clear, I love dating. And more than that, I love talking about dating.

Christina: It’s one of my favorite things about you, how much you simply love to date and talk about it and do all of that. What I’m going to call nonsense, just generally.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: I’m Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle. I’ve been there since 2019. I am a podcaster and writer, I have appeared on various podcasts. I co-host a podcast called Unfriendly Black Hotties about intersection of race and higher ed and pop culture. I am kind of just on the internet, like a loud internet queer is how I would often describe myself. I, unlike Drew, hate dating and thus our podcast was born, I would say. Would you say Drew?

Drew: Yeah. I think that’s been a pretty steady thing throughout our friendship is that it is one of my favorite topics and one of your least favorite topics. I think there are a lot of ways we’re very similar, but that is the way we are very not similar. We also, we can give this context but, we didn’t really know each other before the pandemic. So you were hired at Autostraddle fall of 2019, as you said, and I knew of you because of that. But then like the first week of the pandemic, for some reason we started talking in the DMs. I don’t remember which of us slid into whose DMs. Do you remember?

Christina: I want to say, I slid into your DMs because you were doing that table read of Ocean’s 11. And I was like, “Is Ocean’s 11 the best movie ever made? Discuss.” And we were both like, “Yeah, it actually is.” And then kind of from there we really ran.

Drew: Yeah. And then we just were messaging a bunch. And then somehow, well, at some point I got your phone number, and then very quickly into having your phone number we started sending voice memos instead of text messages.

Drew, in voice memo: So I’m just going to tell you the feelings that I have, and then you can go from there and respond to me, not respond to me, whatever. This is me being direct and clear.

Drew: And that was sort of our friendship for the year was us just for periods of time, like all day, sending very long voice memos back and forth, which we would always joke was like a podcast. And then sometime earlier this year I was very stoned and sent you a voice memo that was like, “what if we actually had a podcast?” And the next morning, unlike, I think, any other time I sent you a high voice memo, you were like, “that’s actually a great idea.”

Christina: Yeah. Most of the time, because Drew and I live on opposite coasts, I go to sleep and I wake up to like one or two voice memos from Drew, sometimes high, sometimes not. And usually I listen to them as I’m coming out of a slumber. And I say, “That’s my friend Drew. She’s having an experience that I didn’t experience because I’m over here asleep.” And then I kind of just move on with my day, respond when I feel like it, if it’s necessary. Sometimes they’re just, “this is a thing I was thinking about.” But this one, I said, “No, that that friend of mine is onto something. She’s got a real idea happening and we should be doing this.” And now here we are. I’m really excited though. I think it’s going to be great. I think we’re really fun. I think we’re fun to talk to. And I think us talking about dating is going to be at least very interesting for people to listen to.

Drew: I would say so. I have a little bit of an ego on me. I’m a Leo rising and a Capricorn sun, so. But I do often think like, you’ll send me a voice memo and this isn’t even about me, it’s not about my ego. It’s about just thinking you’re great. And being like, “Oh my God, this is great. And I wish other people were hearing this very funny thing Christina was saying.” And now you all can!

Christina: Well, I’m also a Leo rising. So that really works out well. We know each other very well, but you, lovely listeners, do not know us. So we’re going to do a little icebreaker so you can get to know us, get to know our vibe, get to know, I guess what we’re into dating wise, so you can listen to this podcast and be informed about our taste. Is that correct?

Drew: That feels really accurate. I like the idea that a game of, “Fuck, U-Haul, Ghost” is going to be that revealing for our listeners. But you know what? I think it will. I think who you want to fuck and U-Haul and ghost with are very telling. I think.

Christina: Yeah, I think so too.

Drew: I could start.

Christina: I think you’re going to start.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Yeah. You’re actually going to start because you dropped a little hint the other day to me that you were cackling with delight as you were putting these together. So I want to see what you’ve done, ma’am.

Drew: I just was like, wow, I really know Christina so well. Oh, the other thing people should know is we’ve never met.

Christina: Oh, right.!

Drew: In person.

Christina: Yeah, no, we live on opposite coasts and I don’t know if you know, but we’ve been living on a damn, Paul Blart mall cop, so we don’t, we haven’t met.

Drew: And yet, I know you so well. So the first one that I want to start with is like real basic. Like I’m thinking years long, Christina’s love when we met and Christina’s love now. So your three options are Allison Janney.

Allison Janney: Who’s my little man. You my little man? That’s my sixth husband right there. The best of them.

Drew: Michelle Gomez.

Michelle Gomez: I’m Missy. Welcome to heaven.

Drew: And Jennifer Aniston.

Jennifer Aniston: Hi Brad. You know how cute? I always thought you were.

Christina: This is a challenge. Actually, it’s not that hard. I’m going to have to ghost Jen. I love Jen. I think her work is incredible. We are both bottoms and there’s not much that would happen there. And I think that’s great. I think that’s beautiful, but that’s just not going to be what is going to happen. Obviously, fuck, it’s going to have to be Michelle Gomez. She’s a tiny Scottish lunatic. Her birth chart is nuts. Lot of Scorpio in there, a lot of Sag. That’s going to be a fun time. Day to day, I’m a tourist. That’s not going to work out for us. So we’re going to have one just fun night, maybe a weekend, who can say, I don’t know what the parameters of this fuck are. But it’ll be fun and then she’ll go off and do whatever she does. And baby Alice and I are going to just absolutely U-Haul, just U-Haul away. We’re going to have a great time. I do know that our birth charts are pretty compatible and I think that’s nice. So I thought that was going to be hard and it was actually very easy and maybe…

Drew: Great. I love that. The fact that you could bring in certain evidence about these people, I think is really beautiful, and I’m really happy for you and Alison, that it’s in the stars.

Christina: Thank you. Thanks so much. For you, I wanted to hit three things that I know you love. So first we’re doing a drag race edition.

Drew: Great.

Christina: We’re doing Symone.

Symone: Don’t let the smooth face fool you baby.

Christina: We’re saying Jinkx.

Jinkx: I am Seattle’s premier Jewish narcoleptic drag queen.

Christina: And we’re saying, Carmen Carrera.

Carmen: Raja’s getting naked. I’m like, this is going to be hot because Carmen is nudity and we’re going to throw down right now.

Drew: Ooh. Okay. See, I’m very bad at hypothetical games because I think through them for hours. We don’t have hours, so I’m going to try to do this really well. I think I have to ghost Carmen.

Christina: I think you do too. That was my thought. But—

Drew: I hate to do that.

Christina: You hate to see it.

Drew: I’m really torn between, I don’t know. Okay, so I do know that Symone’s also a Capricorn, Jinkx is a Virgo. I’ve actually never dated another Capricorn or a Virgo. I think, okay. It’s as if the stakes are as high as I’m actually going to U-Haul with this person.

Christina: No. It’s like, you’re going to walk out of your apartment and see these people on the street being like, “Well, we heard what you picked.” I know that’s what’s happening in your head right now.

Drew: I think that I’m going to fuck Symone and U-Haul with Jinkx. And my reasoning behind that is that I think that based on where they’re at in their lives, I think Symone is, based on this current season of drag race, is still working through some things and maybe isn’t ready for that level of a relationship, which is so mean for me to say, but I feel like Jinkx is already, I think just got engaged. So in my view, if she’s ready to get engaged, so.

Christina: I love that you’re bringing this real life energy into it as if me publicly calling Jennifer Anderson a bottom is like, science fact.

Drew: You could also flip that though and say that I should U-Haul with Symone. I actually don’t know if Symone’s single, but Jinkx isn’t available for a committed relationship. Anyways, these are my thoughts. Should we move on?

Christina: Yeah. This is actually a really good thing for the listeners to know. This is the level that Drew’s going to take everything we discuss. So just get yourself prepared for that. She’s ready. I’m ready. Here we go.

Drew: Okay. So next I wanted to do a male edition because something that is fun is that I know that despite you identifying as a lesbian, there is a certain type of man that you are drawn to.

Christina: Yeah, it’s bad.

Drew: So the three options are, Roy on Ted Lasso as played by Brett Goldstein.

Roy: Jesus, Mary, and fuck face Joseph, eyes on the man you’re marking, come on!

Drew: Corey Ellison on The Morning Show as played by Billy Crudup.

Corey: If he wants to fire me, he’ll fucking fire me. I don’t need this job. The only reason I’m doing it is because it’s fun. I’m very, very good at it. And it’s easier to get laid when you’re employed.

Drew: And Alan Rickman in the Texas music video, “In Demand,” which is a very specific thing I know about Christina, that she loves that music video and loves Alan Rickman in it.

Christina: I am… honestly, this is so much harder than the first one. I’m starting to feel like I have to do a very Drew-level, in-depth, deep dive. I got to reorganize myself. Okay. Okay. So the thing is, Alan Rickman is dead, so I do feel like I have to ghost on him, unfortunately, because he ghosted on me first — as much as that music video was formative for my sexuality, we will include a link in our show notes to that music video, it’s deeply important, everyone watch it. There’s a moment at a gas station, anyway. He is a ghost. So I will in turn ghost him. Now, Roy and Corey, this is tough. Corey does not have a lot of sexual energy to me as played by Billy on The Morning Show. He’s just kind of like a chaos demon, and that’s fun, but I don’t know, sex wise, if anything’s happening there for him. It doesn’t really seem like something that’s on his radar ever. So I might be tempted to marry Corey and have a night of passion with Roy Kent, and then move on. Leave him to Keeley as he deserves, and go on with Cory where he’s running a network of some sort. Yeah. I think that’s the answer. I think it’s ghost Alan Rickman, who, to be clear, ghosted me first. Fuck Corey Ellison. Nope. Wait, was that a Freudian slip? Tough to say. No, it wasn’t. I just forgot. Fuck Roy Kent. Marry Cory Ellison. Wow. I’m sweating. That was hard. That was really hard. Alright. For you, of course, I had to do an actor’s edition because of who you are as a person. So we’ve got Lola Rodriguez.

Lola Rodriguez: [Speaking in Spanish]

Christina: Indya Moore.

Indya Moore: It’s more tricky to exist than it is to walk in this dress.

Christina: And Jamie Clayton.

Jamie Clayton: Oh, come on. Girls must love that wall that you’ve built. But seriously, I’m stoked that you’re here. I wish the whole bar was filled with girls like us.

Drew: Wow. Okay.

Christina: Because it turns out, I know you too, friend.

Drew: I really love the commitment to trans actors, also.

Christina: Yeah, dog. Again, I say I know you.

Drew: Okay. It’s so funny when it’s queer actors, trans actors, where I’m like, “I’m going to meet you at a party someday and I’m going to regret whatever I say about you on the internet.” I am going to ghost Jamie because she’s straight.

Christina: Fair enough.

Drew: And as much as I love… I don’t fall for cis straight girls, but I do fall for trans straight girls. And I think that is my right as a gay trans girl.

Christina: Yeah. It is.

Drew: But I’m still going to ghost Jamie because I think it’s just healthier for me to not try to do that. I think I’m going to fuck Lola Rodriguez because I don’t actually know if… I don’t know how much English she speaks and I do not speak Spanish. So I think that… I mean, if we U-Hauled, I think we would learn and that could be really great.

Christina: They say immersive language learning is kind of the best way to do it.

Drew: Exactly. But I think I’m going to fuck Lola Rodriguez and I’m going to U-Haul with Indya Moore. I also feel like I know more about Indya’s personality from their social media presence. And so I just think that based on that, I’m like, “Okay, yeah.” I actually don’t really know what their sexuality is, but I feel like… We’ll see. Well, I don’t know the sexuality of most people who are into me and most of them don’t know their sexuality so that’s part of the fun.

Christina: And that is something we will explore on this here podcast.

Drew: Amazing. Okay. Last one. This is a Catherine Zeta-Jones edition.

Christina: Oh boy.

Drew: So first Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago.

Catherine Zeta-Jones: [Singing] Come on babe, why don’t we paint the town?

Christina: Sure.

Drew: Second, Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment.

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Hey! This is entrapment!

Man in scene: What?

Catherine Zeta-Jones: I said, this is called entrapment!

Drew: And three, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ contemporary Instagram presence.

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Well, hello everybody. This is Catherine Zeta-Jones and I am so excited to be sharing with you that I shall be launching my very own talk shop live channel.

Christina: Who boy. Who boy. This is… Whew. Okay. So this is a challenge for a couple of reasons. One, because they’re all Catherine. Two, because Catherine as Velma in Chicago was what some would call the root of my existence, though, upon looking back further, it seems like there were more that I just didn’t quite clock at the time. But that one was a big one that even I noticed something gay about my reaction to this. Part of me wants to pick the most chaotic thing and say, I’m going to marry the contemporary Instagram brand because it is so baffling and chaotic to me and I just kind of want to observe it on a closer level. I just want to see it in real life and just be like, “What is going on here as you’re doing this reel in your closet set to Madonna’s ‘Vogue?’ What’s happening?” But then also a large part of me thinks I would be exhausted by that, so, something to think about. But on the other hand, Entrapment Catherine is constantly entrapping people and I’m not strong enough to be set up into some sort of world of crime. As much as I would like to pretend I am, I’m a laptop guy. I’m trying to hack into the mainframe. That’s all I’m trying to do. I can’t be… She’s climbing stuff. That’s tiring. So I think we’re going to go for fuck Entrapment Catherine. We’re going to have to, unfortunately, ghost current Instagram presence. And U-Haul the classic Velma, even though that U-Haul really could turn out poorly for me because she is a murderer.

Drew: That’s true. I don’t think you’ll have it coming though.

Christina: I don’t think I will either, but I don’t know. I’m not her blood sister and she killed that bitch so who’s to say?

Drew: That’s true. Does she have any more sisters? As long as you don’t fuck them, you might be in the clear.

Christina: But that also could be a fun turn of events for me. All right. Your final one.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: I went Twitter edition.

Drew: Oh no.

Christina: Okay. I went with our current mutual friend, Harron Walker.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Jennifer Espinoza and Jen Richards.

Drew: Wow. I’m turning bright red. There’s a line in Detransition, Baby, the character is sort of newly out or exploring and sees a trans woman who’s further along and is like, “Oh my God.” And Torrey describes it like seeing a celebrity. And I think that line is really accurate. And I also think that it doesn’t really go away as you continue to…

Christina: Trans out?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: What is the phrase for that? Is there a word for that?

Drew: When you’re not transitioning anymore, you’re just trans. And you feel like you’re still transitioning because life is long and complicated. Oh my God. I can’t. I’ve also met two of these people.

Christina: I know.

Drew: And one of them I know on the internet.

Christina: You’re not going to do any of these things to these people, but I did pick them because I knew it would send you into a logical tailspin.

Drew: Okay. I’m going to go… I’m going to…

Christina: I also just want to see if my predictions are correct. I’m excited.

Drew: That’s so interesting. So part of me wants to cheat and be like, “Well, Jen Richards is married. And if I ghosted her, she wouldn’t care.” So that is maybe what I’m going to say.

Christina: Fine.

Drew: At the same time, Jen’s an Aquarius and I do have a history with Aquariuses.

Christina: You do.

Drew: Hmm. I think I’m going to fuck Jennifer Espinoza and marry Harron.

Christina: Yeah. That is basically what I thought.

Drew: Really? Okay.

Christina: I knew that you were going to ghost Jen. I knew that was going to happen.

Drew: Because I could use that she’s married as an excuse?

Christina: Yeah. I was like, yep, there’s an easy way for Drew to talk herself out of that one. That’s going to be fine. And then I was like, “I think…” Yeah. No. Great.

Drew: I love Jen so much, though.

Christina: I know you do.

Drew: I think she’s just an incredible person and…

Christina: And aren’t you glad we changed it from kill to ghost?

Drew: Yeah. I wouldn’t be able to kill any of them. That would have been… Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. It is wild though that I am saying that because Harron’s the only one of the three of them I haven’t met in person, so not to be such a lesbian and be like, “Oh, I’d U-Haul with the person who I have not met.” But we also haven’t met. And also the person who I’m sort of long distance dating right now, I haven’t met. So you know what? It’s just what we’re doing as a people.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, it is the most lesbian option for you to pick the person who’s on the opposite coast.

Drew: That is also a very good point.

Christina: Good job.

Drew: It also makes it so it’s not real and that makes it easier for me.

Christina: You know what else makes it so it’s not real? That we did it for a podcast that we just made up right now.

Drew: Wait. It’s not legally binding?

Christina: No.

Drew: I do think all three might ghost me. I could see that happening.

Christina: Well… And baby, that’s community. That’s just what community looks like, on a close-up level.

Drew: I feel like if I was trying to date all three of them, I could see worlds where they would ghost me. And I would be honored to be ghosted by any one of them.

Christina: That would be a great story you could tell at parties, when parties are a thing again.

Drew: Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I will say things on podcasts, but I would never admit to that at a party, only on a podcast for a lot of people to listen to would I ever be vulnerable.

Christina: You know what, listeners? Stay tuned for other things that Drew will say on podcasts and not in person at parties. That’s a new recurring segment we just discovered.

Drew: Oh, God. Wow. Moving on. So today’s main topic is “believe that people are into you.”

Christina: My reaction to that is to make a face and just sigh for a long time. Just a long sigh.

Drew: Yes. And we thought it would be fun for this first episode to have a topic where we can use ourselves as, I would say, slightly mortifying test subjects.

Christina: Yeah. I think test subjects is the right descriptor. And I think slightly mortifying is incredibly correct as well.

Drew: Yeah. So I think the best place to maybe start is to give a little background, which is that… So when Christina slid into my DMs and we started talking, I was like, “Oh, cool. This person slid in my DMs”. And we started… I would say flirting. Would you say flirting?

Christina: Now? Yes. I think I have to. I’ve learned some things.

Drew: No, no, no. You absolutely don’t have to. I would say that regardless of intent, when we were first talking, it was friendly, but… Here’s the thing. It’s that it wasn’t flirting in the sense of we weren’t being graphically sexual with one another, but it was…

Christina: It was bantery and it’s because both of… You and I both find banter to be, if not the hottest thing, the… Well, no. We just find it to be the hottest thing. I think we just find it to be the hottest thing. And I think because we got along so well, we naturally fell into a lot of banter, which for us again, translates into hot, cool, dating, flirting vibes.

Drew: Yeah. And it was a pandemic. So I was like, “There’s nothing here. Nothing can happen, especially this is early months of pandemic.” With each passing week, it became more and more clear that maybe we’re going to be in this for… I don’t know. Six months, a year, more than a year. Yes, that is what it ended up being as some of you may know. But I just was like, “Cool. It’s fun to flirt. It’s fun to have a new friend.” And then at a certain point, you referred to me as your friend and also talked a lot about how you exclusively are into people who are 45 and above. And I am not 45 and above. I am actually 27, which is younger than you. So I was like, “Oh, cool. We’re just friends”. And that was sort of where I was living for a while for basically summer of 2020.

Christina: Yeah. That tracks.

Drew: Because you were certainly also living there.

Christina: I was in my own world actually… Far separate. Which we’ll get to when you’re done.

Drew: So I had agreed to watch every episode of The Morning Show with you.

Christina: You did.

Drew: And we embarked on that journey together.

Christina: We did.

Drew: And I thought it was going to be like, “Oh, we’ll do that over a period of months.” And instead we just watched it in a week. And we FaceTimed every night for a week. And we also… When you FaceTime watch something with friends, you don’t usually just hit play and not talk. We literally were basically on FaceTime with each other for a week straight. And then it ended and you were like, “So, do you want to watch a movie this weekend?” And I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “We just spent a week together. Okay.” And I was like… And so then… And that whole time… I live in my friend’s backhouse and I would come into the main house and my friends would be like, “How’s your girlfriend doing?” And I was like, “No, we’re just friends.” And then by day three, I was like, “I don’t know if we’re just friends. I don’t know what’s happening here.” And also you were starting to open up to me in certain ways where I felt like some of your emotional walls were coming down and we were sort of talking about dating. And I was learning things about you. And I was like, “Huh.” And some of my previous feelings started to come back. And I was like, “I think this might be a thing.” And then you got sick so we didn’t watch a movie together that weekend. And then you started a new job. And you sort of disappeared a little bit. And I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “I think maybe Christina got freaked out or something and so maybe… I don’t know.” I was like, “She certainly doesn’t want to date me. I don’t know if she wants to be my friend.” And the person who I am was like, “Okay. I’m just not going to text Christina for a week and see if she texts me.”. And you didn’t and I was like, okay, cool. So, experiment proven. Like we don’t, we’re not … for most people, I would not think that not talking for a week would mean that we’re not friends, but it just — we went from talking every day to that.

Christina: Every day, all day. I cannot express enough.

Drew: And I don’t do … I think even a not pandemic, that never would have happened because I’m a pretty independent person. I have shit to do, I just like, yeah. But yeah. And so then I was like, okay. And then you texted me the morning after I was like, well, experiment proven. And you were like, Hey, I think your exact words were, “remember when I had a friend Drew, like what happened to her?” And I was like, “what happened, what? You didn’t reach out to me!” Like, oh, excuse me. And so then I think I was sort of like I’m, even in a pandemic, even though there was nothing that could come of it, I like to be direct. I don’t like to have, I don’t know, are we friends? Are we dating, whatever? I find myself in that situation a lot, but I really like to pull myself out of that situation because I just would prefer to know things because I don’t care. I shouldn’t say I don’t care, but I—

Christina: No, I love that energy. “I don’t care!”

Drew: No, when I have a connection with someone, I’m like, oh, if it’s romantic, great. If it’s friendship, great. If I meet someone and I want them in my life, which doesn’t happen that often, I don’t really care what the configuration of that relationship is. But I just like to know. And so we started talking about dating.

Christina, in voice memo: I never think about a romantic, I really rarely think about a romantic element, in getting to know people. Rarely does romance come to mind for me, which is interesting.

Drew, in voice memo: I don’t date people who aren’t my friends. I mean, I sometimes date people before they’re my friends.

Christina, in voice memo: What I do with friends is be emotionally vulnerable and honest with them. What I do with people who I’m dating is not that. At least not typically. Then again, it is a pandemic. So.

Drew: Yes. And I also was talking about, yeah, I don’t have great friend sex boundaries. And you had said that you were monogamous and that you never hooked up with friends.

Christina, in voice memo: For me, the difference between dating someone I am friendly with, or like acquaintances with, and dating someone who I’m like super close friends with and talk every day, that’s a different vibe. And I’ve never dated someone I was super close friends with. I’ve only ever dated people who were acquaintances or had mutual friends, but we didn’t talk every day. And like, maybe I had their phone number, maybe I didn’t. But we had a basis of knowing each other casually, I think, in a less intense friendship way. I think I get intense in friendship contexts that I don’t think about as romantic.

Drew: And so I was like, got it, message received. And I was like, I don’t need to be any more clear. Once again, I’m like, Christina does not want to date me, and that is fine. And then you sent me a voice memo after I said where I stood on those things, and you were like, well. And then you went on to describe the non-monogamous relationship you were in, that sounded like you thrived in it way more than a lot of people I know who actually identify as non-monogamous. And then you also were like, I like to have a base of friendship before all my relationships. I was like, that’s literally the opposite of what you said. So I was like, what are you … I was like, this was the most confusing voice memo from ever. I also recorded it, brought it into the house and was playing it for my roommates. And I was like, what is this? What is happening with this person? And then I was like, I was so confused. And then you just disappeared for some hours. And I was like, this person has these emotional walls, and maybe we’re going to start dating, but also we’re not because I had a whole dramatic episode of The L Word in my brain happening, and meanwhile, you had no idea.

Christina: I don’t often say — well I do often say, head empty, no thoughts, but I truly was head empty, no thoughts, just going about my day, I think I had a couple of glasses of wine, I saw that I had a voice memo from you, but my housemates and I were going to watch something. And I was like, I’ll listen to that later. We’re watching TV. We’re just finger guns, having a time doodling around. And then I listened to this voice memo from Drew that starts like,

Drew, in voice memo: You are my friend regardless of anything else, but yeah I have definitely— even if there were times where I was like Christina is not interested in me and that’s totally cool. But if you potentially are I don’t know you could share that. Or you could not share it. I have now said my piece.

Christina: About what? Like, it’s Wednesday. It was some day. I don’t know what day exactly it was. It doesn’t matter. It was just like a day. I thought we were just having a day of conversations, a very regular Drew and Christina day of conversations because Christina, this whole time was just like, I work with a cool person who lives in LA and I want to talk to her, so now we’re friends. Like that was as far as my little brain went and that’s as far as my little brain kind of ever goes, which is what we discovered as I listened to your voice memo, as I listened to your, some would call it a manifesto. I believe it is almost—

Drew: Manifesto?

Christina: It’s almost seven minutes long, Drew.

Drew: It was the length of a manifesto, but I don’t think there was anything manifesto-ish about it.

Christina: I don’t know. I think starting a seven minute long voice memo with, “I’m going to say my piece” has manifesto energy.

Christina, in voice memo: Thank you for saying your piece. Also, six minutes and 54 seconds. Honestly, rather impressive for you to get that out in that amount of time.

Drew: Okay. I will accept that. I think I just wanted to be like, I had faith that like, whatever conversation, however the conversation went, like we would still be friends, which is a really cool thing to be able to say about someone who, again, we have never met in person. But I just was tired of the uncertainty,

Drew, in voice memo: Part of me is like we clearly get along so well and if there is a mutual attraction part of me is like yeah you don’t think about dating because you have all these walls up but maybe you should put some of those walls down? Question mark? Because like what if this could be really great in that way also? I don’t know! I don’t know if this even matters because we’re not flying to each other. So I don’t know. Yeah okay I’m going to send this because I’m officially at five minutes.

Drew: I was at least under the assumption that you had, even if you had zero interest in me in that way, I assumed you knew, because I constantly talk about how I have bad friend boundaries and how I don’t … I’ve literally, the things that I’m saying right now about how if I meet someone and I like them, I don’t really care where things go with it. Like, I had said that. So the thought that you had never considered the possibility that I felt that way about you blows me away. And also I said this in one of the voice memos where I’m like, if you enjoy being horny on the internet, but you actively don’t want to be dating, and you actively don’t want that, and you’re not thinking that way, then that’s so fine. And I will drop this, but I just was like, but it confuses me if that’s not the case and if you are someone who ultimately wants to be dating, be in a relationship, that there was no part of your brain that thought that this person was into you in that way.

Christina: Yeah. And that I think was really an eye opening moment for me. And we should say, it’s been, this conversation occurred in December.

Drew: Which is also nuts though, because I feel like when I realized that was December and not August, I really thought it was August. Like I thought it was like—

Christina: I thought it was August too. I thought it was at least September, maybe September. But who knows what time. Again, time is a flat circle, it’s been a year. We don’t know. We don’t know anything. We’ve been friends for a year. We’ve never met in person. We’ve talk every day. There’s a lot of stuff happening. Yeah. That was really the moment where I had to kind of step back and think like, hmm, what is your deal, self? For you to have felt so confused, like you were — the genuine bafflement in your voice when you were like,” I don’t understand how you could hear a person say those things and think that simply none of them applied to you. Like what is going on in your brain?” I was like,” oh, oh no. What is going on in my brain?”

Christina, in voice memo: And to that I say, that’s just because no one ever thinks that about me? And not in a boohoo girl who doesn’t get to the ball way. But just my experience in my life has been that like everybody sees me as their friend and not necessarily as a romantic partner. Pretty much ever. So I think in order to keep myself from feeling let down I just assume that no one is ever interested in me in that way because for a lot of my life no one really was.

Christina: That seems like a bummer. Like, that seems like something that I should talk to someone about in some sort of professional context. Like what’s going on in there, self with regard to your insecurity and self worth? Like maybe that’s something you should check in on.

Drew: I’m just curious where that took you, because again, there are multiple paths. Because I’ve certainly gone through periods of time where I have been surprised that people are interested in me because of whatever insecurities or whatever views of myself. And I’ve had to work through that. And look, it still comes up for me sometimes. I think sometimes I’ll end up in the wrong things because I will be drawn to people who are very outwardly flirtatious. Whereas a lot of the people who are outwardly flirtatious are outward flirts, and the people who are actually interested in me in a real way, maybe aren’t being so forward. But when they’re not being so forward, I have my own doubts about them being into me. And so I would be more inclined to think someone who actually is not interested in me in a real way, but just like, that’s their energy. I’m quicker to be like, oh, this person might be interested in me. And that has led me to a lot of negative experiences. And I think like that’s something that I’m working on, being like, if I feel a way about a person, I should actually tell them if I feel any sort of energy, even if it’s not very overt, very obvious. And in a way that’s respectful and not creepy, but just being clear, and taking that risk, and, and taking that risk of rejection, and et cetera, et cetera. The question is, I guess, that I have for you is like, do you feel like in these months of reflection, do you feel like it is coming from that self-worth place of thinking, I don’t even know… like, I don’t know. Or is it that it is not a priority for you? That like, if you end up finding someone, great, you have very specific ideas of what you’re looking for. And when you find that, like it’s going to click and it’s going to work and whatever. Because those are both very valid options. And there’s a world where there’s nothing wrong with you. We just function differently and we just have different things, whatever. So like, I don’t know if you’ve come to any conclusions as far as where you’re at with those things.

Christina: I don’t think I’ve come to any conclusions for a couple of reasons. One, yeah, I think this is really fun and a fun, funny conversation for our first episode, because I don’t think either of us, neither of us are wrong. It was just very fascinating to see how two people with totally different context, bringing their experience to the same experience and like what they take away from it is very interesting to me. Unfortunately, I think some could say I did not learn my lesson because a similar situation did happen to me again with a different friend. So it seems I still have some work to do on that front. And I still don’t know what that front is, because again, it was still a friend, getting to know a friend who we had mutual friends, hanging out, having conversation. And again, when they brought up the, “Are we dating. Should we date?” I said, “What?” And was just as genuinely shocked and confused as I was when you brought it up.

Drew: But you didn’t want to date either of us, so maybe it’s fine. You know what I mean?

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: The question is like, are there people who are not actresses in their fifties, who you do want to date?

Christina: Well, and you know I had a history of dating, not a great history, but I did do it pre-pandemic. I do think a combination of pandemic time, really increasing the energy of my brand being actresses over 50, running me over online. I do think somewhere, those wires kind of got a little crossed. And now that we are approaching a summer wherein people are going to be out in the world, and more people are vaccinated, I’m like, oh no. Do I know how to date anymore? Will I be able to do that in the future? I genuinely don’t know, because it has been like a year and a half since I’ve even considered it. And I am not sure that I’ll be able to do so in the real world. And I think we’re probably going to learn, you’re going to learn along with us, listeners, as I attempt, as I see what happens to me in the world. But so far, not great. So far, CT not nailing it.

Drew: I mean, I’m really excited. I’m really hoping throughout this podcast, you start just dating like crazy, and maybe like I settle down. Who knows what could happen? I am curious, my next question: so, I was like saying how, the way that I usually am aware that people are into me is like, they’re very overt in their flirting, which can sometimes be inaccurate and an inaccurate assessment. I’m curious when you’ve dated in the past, pre-pandemic, what scenarios led you to believe that those people were into you? Were they very direct with you? Like what did that look like?

Christina: Yeah. Either it was someone I had met on some sort of app geared towards dating, very clear and direct. And in the handful of times that it wasn’t, it was like acquaintances who had always felt flirty, and then were very direct with me in person and usually ended up with some sort of making out/sex/something occurring. So, that was always pretty … Maybe I just can’t figure out how to grok it in not-person anymore. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me. But I also just think that there was a long period of my early 20s where I was like, “Oh, I’m going to date. I’m going to have a relationship,” where it just never happened, just never hit. And a lot of that was in my early 20s, I was dating a lot of cis men, which was a choice some people make. And some people like it and I didn’t at all. So that was partially confusing to my brain, to my young brain, to be doing this thing that I was like, “Oh, this is how this goes,” and not liking it and being like, “I don’t understand why this doesn’t work.” Yeah. But I don’t know. I was just never the person who got approached in that way really.

Drew: That you know of.

Christina: That I know of, I guess. And yeah, in retrospect, shit, maybe it was happening every day of my life and I didn’t notice it. Who can say.

Drew: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m just trying to think, because pretty much all of my friends who weren’t in relationships when I became friends with them, I became friends with because we started off either dating or I wanted to date them or they wanted to date me. And I’m realizing that maybe that is not good or just this idea that during a pandemic, someone DM-ing me for friendship was just … didn’t cross my mind, which is maybe fucked up in its own way, that I didn’t even consider that I was like, “Oh, I’m really getting along with this person.” It wasn’t that I thought, “Oh, we can’t be friends,” because again, I’ve met close friends on Tinder, and I haven’t met any relationships on Tinder. So I really do think that part of blurring those lines isn’t even fucking my friends who are established, though I have done that. But it’s more about, oh, I will meet someone and be like, “Oh my God, this person is so cool. I’m in love with them.” And then I will start talking to them and it will usually pivot to friendship because of circumstance, because of what I’m looking for or what they’re looking for, whatever, but that it usually does start with that. And I am like, “Hmm, why is that the only way that I can make friends?”

Christina: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know about that. I don’t actually have the answer to that, as the person who approaches it from the exact opposite energy. I don’t know that I have the answer that you’re looking for on that one, friendo.

Drew: Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah.

Christina: We might find it. We might find it in these months, these upcoming months and weeks.

Drew: I hope so. I also think it’s, again, there’s no judgment here in any direction. I think all of these different ways of moving through the world … I do think again, I think there are these things we can work on, right? Maybe some of the past experiences I have with friendships that are negative — when I say past, I mean go into some elementary school trauma, that has made it so I’m quicker to date than to form friendships. And then, because I am a person who wants to have friends, a lot of those friendships are born from that dating, and that working on the ability to just make friends and not attach dating to it could be something that I work on. And maybe you do need to accept the fact that everyone who meets you is in love with you. And maybe that’s just a thing you need to work on a little bit. But I also think that even as we explore those things, work on those things, those baselines of how we move through the world, one’s not better than the other. One has a lot more internal drama in one’s brain, as the person with that brain. But also, most of the time that we were getting to know each other over the, whatever, six months before, or eight months, whatever it was before we had the conversation where everything came out into the open, I wasn’t thinking about you and our relationship in this strict way. I was really excited to become friends. And that was always … but also part of the fun for me was being like, “Oh, flirting. Oh, this is a thing. This could maybe be a thing. And who knows when the world opens up.” And I think part of it is that I do just find it fun. And I do, I find that I like dating. I really think that.

Christina: I think that is a large part of it. You just genuinely enjoy doing it.

Drew: I think I am a little bit of a romantic, even though anyone who identifies as a romantic is insufferable. But I’m a little insufferable. And I just, I really, I think it’s just all the … I mean, I don’t know. It’s interesting though, because I was going to say it’s all the movies and TV shows and books. But you also have that, but you don’t carry that into your day-to-day life.

Christina: No. I keep that very separate. I love to see it. I simply love to see it and I love to read it. And then in my real life, I say, “Well, that’s not for me. So I’m not doing that.”

Drew: And I’m constantly, constantly trying to recreate it. So, and along the way though, making so many friends and not having that many relationships. So I love that for me.

Christina: It is funny that we have the same outcome, despite our drastically different approaches.

Drew: And that’s beautiful. Okay. So another thing that we have in common, another two things is that I think it’s pretty clear already from all of this conversation is we both love pop culture and we also both have a lot of crushes. And so we thought it’d be fun to, at the end of every episode, share who our crushes of the week are. Christina, do you want to go first?

Christina: Yes, I do. I again have rewatched the program Ted Lasso, because I got another friend into it and then I accidentally rewatched it again this week. And I would like to say that my crush of the week is Hannah Waddingham, a giant British woman who I love very much. She’s very beautiful. Her face is very severe and she’s an excellent singer. Thank you, Hannah, for living on this planet with us.

Hannah Waddingham: Your casual misogyny for one. I know it’s a big word. Ask one of your daughters what it means. Or perhaps it’s your performance, having led this team through yet another remarkably average season. Or maybe it’s because you insist on wearing those tiny shorts that are forcing me to see one of your testicles.

Christina: Drew, do you have a crush?

Drew: Yeah, that was the least surprising crush that you could say, and I love that. My crush of the week is … Okay. So I actually, despite loving ’90s movies, I had never seen Empire Records and my roommate very much encouraged me to and we watched it together. And look, Chicago, the film, was also a very formative movie for me, but I also was very drawn to Catherine Zeta Jones. That was who was the focus of that. Also, I just want to point out that I’ve brought Catherine Zeta Jones twice. You’ve really done a number on me. Anyways, but watching Empire Records, I was like, “Oh my God, Renée Zellweger is so hot.”

Renée Zellweger: I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. I can tell you what color and what kind.

Man in scene: All right. Alright. What am I wearing now?

Renée Zellweger: Jockeys, navy blue. Am I right?

Man in scene: I don’t know.

Renée Zellweger: Well, why don’t you check it out and you let me know.

Drew: And I was just like … she just was this person who has been in my life for so long, and I always knew it was hot. I’m not saying anything that inventive, but I was just like, “Wow.” So Renée Zellweger in Empire Records is definitely my crush of the week.

Christina: Mm. That’s chef’s kiss. I love it. I love a classic ’90s crush. We love to see that. Oh, we love to see it.

Drew: Okay, cool. And so just one last thing, the question we ask ourselves every week, Christina … Wait, was this a date?

Christina: No, Drew. It wasn’t.

Drew: Cool. No, I just wanted to check. It’s cool. So it’s fine. I just wanted to double-check, be clear.

Christina: She loves to be direct.

Drew: Yeah. And I love to move forward with that in mind. And I did have a good time though.

Christina: I had a lovely time.

Drew: So what’s it called when you have a good time, but it’s not a date?

Christina: Friendship.

Drew: Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. I’ll write that down.

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This a Date? You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @WaitIsThisaDate, and you can also email us at [email protected].

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Maanya Dhar, and this podcast was edited, produced, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me online @c_gracet on twitter.com, the website, and you can find me on Instagram @Christina_gracet.

Drew: And you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @draw_Gregory. And you can find Autostraddle on all social medias @autostraddle.

Christina: And go visit autostraddle.com, because it’s the reason we’re all here today.

Drew: Thank you all so much and, you know, see you next week.

Christina: Yeah. We’ll absolutely see you next week. And we can’t wait.

Drew: Yeah. And maybe next week … maybe next week will be a date.

Christina: Hey, maybe it will be. Wilder things have happened.

Drew: Except you know what? I also think it’s important to clarify to the listener that if you ask someone if something’s a date or not, we probably should take that as a moving forward that I don’t think every time you see someone you should … That’s not really direct communication as much as it is not really respecting someone’s boundaries. And we do like boundaries here at Wait, Is This a Date?

Christina: The gayest thing about this podcast is that the outro is a boundary.

Christina, in voice memo: I think my instinct is if I like a person and I want them in my life, I know the best way for me to keep them in my life is to make them a friend.

Drew, in voice memo: I’m just so glad that we’ve become such close friends. And if out of quarantine, that’s what happened, is that I made this amazing new friend who I love dearly and I’m just delighted to talk to you always, what a gift.

Christina, in voice memo: Dammit. I had a thought and it went away. It was, honestly, probably really brilliant.

Drew, in voice memo: Yeah. Okay. This is actually the end. Good morning.