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March 18, 2021 - The Matt Walsh Show
11:09
More Relationship Advice For The Reddit Crowd

Matt Walsh dives back into the Reddit relationship advice column to deliver more (unsolicited) advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So today, we're going to go back to the Reddit Relationship Forum and answer some more questions from some more hopelessly clueless people looking for relationship guidance on Reddit.
And look, you guys know I'm coming at this from the perspective of a married man 10 years in, four kids.
So, you know, I think I'm I think I'm pretty realistic, if nothing else.
My advice may not be comforting, may not be polite.
It may not be correct, but I'm going to give it to you straight.
So let's take a look.
First question.
I feel like my girlfriend is cheating on me and messaging other guys on Instagram.
Does anyone know how I can get into her account since she doesn't give me her phone and changes the topic every time?
By the way, there are no periods or any punctuation at all in that whole question.
Anyway, is your girlfriend cheating on you?
Probably.
Yeah, she probably is.
I mean, chances are pretty good.
Look, it's not her responsibility to hand her phone over to you in the first place.
She's not your child.
But if you're noticing some weird secrecy around phones and messaging and that sort of thing, 99% chance that it's exactly what you think it is.
I hate to tell you.
So this is one where I would say probably best to break up.
Probably heading that way anyway, regardless of the cheating, or the potential cheating, so I would simply break up.
Okay, next question.
So I've been on three dates with this girl, and we're really clicking, and I really like her, and she just agreed to a fourth date tomorrow, and it's been about less than two weeks since we started talking.
Point is, every now and then she goes off for a good few hours, and I don't know, I'm in all sorts of stress.
I don't want to say anything to her about it because I don't want to overwhelm or seem needy, but I need to be able to healthily deal with this.
And I just instantly run through scenarios that she's not into me or so-and-so.
Are some people just not into texting?
I don't know.
Do I just need to chill the F out?
Listen, there's nothing more repulsive to a woman than neediness in a man.
That is the most repulsive trait, is to be needy.
So you are being repulsive in the eyes of this woman.
Well, the problem is that phones and text messaging and all of that stuff just ignites this kind of neediness in people.
So I'm not really blaming you for this.
And everyone is like this to a certain extent at this point.
Not just in relationships.
The very fact that the other person has their phone on them at all times means that you feel like, and not just you, but universally, you feel like you're entitled to their attention all the time because they have on them the means by which you can get their attention, right?
But you aren't.
I mean, you can't just barge in on someone at all hours of the day, relentlessly, whenever you feel like it, and expect that they'll drop everything they're doing and respond to you.
It's insane.
But it's an insanity that, I mean, you're in good company, because like most of the country, this is how they operate.
If they send a text message, they expect an immediate response.
You know, I frequently get text messages, and I don't respond to them for days.
I treat text messages like they're letters, and I'm living on the frontier.
In 1835, and the mail comes by horseback every four months.
I give myself that kind of time to respond to a text message.
That's what I do.
You know why?
Because I don't owe you a response.
I don't owe you my attention.
I'm doing something.
I'm in the middle of something.
Leave me alone.
Or maybe I'm in the middle of nothing.
Maybe I'm literally just sitting on a chair, staring at a wall.
And you send me a text message.
You know what I'm still going to do?
I'm going to look at my phone and just put it down and not respond.
Because I don't feel like talking right now.
If I felt like talking, I'd be texting you.
You see?
Look, the point is this girl doesn't exist simply to respond to you.
If you want that, go ask for a date from Siri, OK?
See if Alexa is still single.
You want a human being?
Then let them live a life apart from your constant surveillance.
Get a grip.
But yeah, she might be cheating on you too.
That's also possible.
All right.
This says, my boyfriend and I are compatible, but not soulmates.
Not sure what to do.
When we first met, I knew he wasn't the one for me.
We have literally nothing in common.
He likes football, computers, staying home, quiet time movies.
I like adventuring, outdoors, art, exploring.
Okay, so when you first met, you knew he wasn't the one for you, but you started dating.
Got it.
Good, good, good plan.
When we go out and do anything together, it's never fun.
It's never spontaneous.
Okay, so let me stop again.
You met this guy, you knew he wasn't the one for you, you never once had fun with him, and yet you decided to date him.
Okay.
It's never anything we both like to do.
The only activity we can both agree on is watching TV.
We have differing senses of humor.
I can't remember the last time he's genuinely made me laugh.
Okay, let me stop again.
You met this guy, you knew he wasn't the one for you, you never had fun with him, he never made you laugh, yet you still dated him.
Okay.
I'm not saying he has no sense of humor.
He tells jokes that I can chuckle at, but I can never have that deep belly laugh.
I know I'm supposed to want to be with him, and I do.
I find it comforting to always have someone by your side at all times.
I love him with all my heart, but I know deep down that we will never be able to just get each other.
And I crave that so, so, so much.
When I see couples on social media or in real life sharing the same type of humor, looking completely at ease with each other, I feel deeply resentful.
I feel like that feeling of romantic bliss was taken from me.
It wasn't taken from you.
You chose a different path.
You chose not to pursue it.
Nothing was taken from you.
This is a choice that you made yourself.
Don't blame anybody else.
It's not this guy's fault for being how he is.
You knew how he was.
You know who he was, how he was.
You chose to date him.
So it sounds like you're just not into this guy and you weren't from the beginning.
So the answer is to break up, obviously.
You never should have been in the relationship to begin with.
And by the way, no, you don't love him with all your heart and soul.
This is a common theme that I read a lot on Reddit and I hear from people too.
Like, yeah, you know, I'm with this person and I don't get along with them.
I'm not into them.
I have no interest in them at all.
And I want to leave them, but I love them deeply.
No, no you don't.
I mean, you obviously don't.
That's not really what loving someone is all about.
Unless you mean in like the universal, empathetic sense of love in the same way that you, you know, love your neighbor type of thing.
But you don't love them in any way aside from that.
With that said, another point.
Of course he's not your soulmate.
Nobody is your soulmate.
You have no soulmate.
If by soulmate you mean somebody who you were destined to be with, somebody whose fate is tied to yours like it's written in the stars, okay?
That doesn't exist.
At all.
I'll tell you when you meet your soulmate.
At the altar.
In marriage.
Okay?
You become a soulmate when you say, I do.
And your souls at that point become bonded through that shared commitment.
That's when the soulmate, that's when you become someone's soulmate, is in marriage.
But not before that.
And this is a really important thing to realize.
You know why?
Because if you go on thinking that you're looking for that one individual person who the universe wants you to be with, Then what happens when you do meet somebody, and you marry them, and then after the marriage, you meet someone else, and you say, oh wait a second, no, this other dude is my soulmate.
Turns out, I married the wrong person.
That's when affairs happen.
Betrayal.
Heartbreak.
All because of this ridiculous Disney idea of soulmates.
There are no soulmates.
Pre-marriage.
The problem with this guy isn't that he isn't your soulmate.
It's that you don't like him at all.
And you never did.
And yet you dated him.
Nicely done.
This one says, we've been together for six years and throughout those I always put all my energy into this relationship.
He wouldn't initiate more than two minutes of chat per day on his own.
And if I tell him it bothers me that only I make sure our relationship consists of more than that, he gets angry with me.
I spent the past week trying to match up to his amount and it's been very distant and he seems to be okay with it.
I can't communicate with him about it because he gets very angry and I've tried many times over the last six years.
I don't know if it's a reasonable cause to break up though and after so long we're also supposed to move in together in a month.
I just know I've been really unhappy and I don't know what to do.
Moving in together is a terrible idea to do.
That's a terrible idea before marriage.
Don't do that.
If you're not married to someone, you don't need to be around them 24-7.
Trying to play fake marriage, to play house with someone is a bad idea.
It doesn't work out.
I wouldn't do that.
But in any case, as for your issue here, look, there's no use in trying to even the talking score with a guy.
As a woman, you are going to do almost all the talking.
Because you're the woman.
That's your job.
Men could go literally eight months at a stretch and never say a word to anyone if you let them.
I used to live alone before I got married and if I didn't have plans over the weekend, which I didn't most of the time, I could literally stay at home and go the whole weekend without saying a single word to anybody.
My wife could not do that.
The words accumulate in her brain, and if she doesn't let them out, if she doesn't open the valve and let them out, then her brain would explode.
So this is why I always thought, by the way, that Cast Away, the movie, got it wrong.
Because a man could easily live on a deserted island for three years with no social interaction and be fine.
It's a woman who would need to make friends with a volleyball.
And it would be like a tumultuous friendship, too.
You know, very hot and cold.
They'd have a falling out for a few weeks.
A lot of fights.
She'd start talking behind the volleyball's back to, like, the coconuts.
There'd be all kinds of complex social interactions and dynamics on the island, even though there's only one human there.
A man on the island would be fine.
He'd be rescued after three years, and the rescuer would run up on the island and say, hey, we found you.
We've been looking for you for three years.
And here we go, really?
It's been three years?
Did I just get here last week?
Um, finally!
This says, this is pretty weird and makes me feel bad, but I can't help it, and I'm concerned it highlights something underneath.
Basically, whenever my significant other gets me a present or recommends me a movie, things like that, I tend to dislike it immediately without giving it the benefit of the doubt.
Sometimes in very irrational ways, like say they get me a book I wanted to read or a present I was actually planning on buying myself, I'll be reading it or using the present and subconsciously looking for reasons to dislike it.
In a way, I know I wouldn't if I had gotten it myself.
As if it coming from the other person created a dark cloud in my brain or something.
I usually try to hide these feelings.
I just can't relax and enjoy the thing and judge it the way I would if I had bought it or chose it myself.
It happened in the past with other people like members of my family and friends, but much more intensely with my partner.
Has anyone experienced something similar?
It's a huge problem because it often gets in the way of us connecting or enjoying stuff together.
Yeah, this is called being a miserable, narcissistic person.
This would be my advice if I was your therapist and you were laying down on the couch and describing this.
I would just say, stop, stop, stop doing, stop being that.
It's bad.
Don't be that way.
That'll be a hundred dollars, please.
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