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July 11, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
41:59
HOW TO BE A BAD FRIEND! Stef and Izzy
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Okay, so this is, you've not had any exposure to this article before?
No. And it's going to be your live response to this article, which I found quite interesting.
Now, would you like to read it, or shall I? No, you read it, you're better.
I stumble over the words, because I read faster than I can talk.
Right. Alright.
A bride-to-be has sparked anger after she hit out at her maid of honor for failing to lose weight in time for the wedding.
Okay. Wait for it.
Alright. What's your initial feeling?
I need to know more about the story.
Because, like, if she asked, like, if she's like, hey, if, like, the, um, bride of honor, whatever it's called.
Maid of honor. Maid of honor. If she's like, hey, I'd like to be your maid of honor, if she reached out to the other woman or the other woman reached out, I don't really know how this stuff works too well, but if she's like, hey, I'd like you to be my maid of honor, but you've got to lose a bit of weight because I want the wedding photos to look really good and everyone's got to match.
That's a very lovely and positive and charitable way of looking at the story.
Oh, no, I know. Except for the fact that it's probably not like that.
But that's... That's your first thought.
That's what I assumed she would be like.
But the fact is, you know, if it's gotten onto an article, then it's not your average case of, hey, would you mind losing five, ten pounds?
The issue came to the fore this week on Mumsnet.
I guess that's a forum or something like that.
After a bride-to-be voiced anger at the fact that her maid of honor had failed to lose weight ahead of her wedding day.
It all started 18 months ago.
18 months. Okay.
When she went dress shopping with her bridesmaids, quote, We saw a bridesmaid's dress that we all absolutely adored, but it turned out that it only did it up to a size 16.
So you could only get the dress.
The maximum size they made was 16.
How big is 16?
It's big. Yeah?
It's big. I wish I could check my clothes and see what I wear.
Well, you're not overweight, right?
No, but I know, but I need to know in comparison.
Okay, hang on. Let's have a look here.
Let's have a quick look up, right?
Now, it's kind of odd.
They changed the dress sizes quite a bit so that people don't feel too overweight.
Okay, it's not actually that bad.
Is that 16?
Let's see here. They probably have it on the little thinner models.
That might be 16. Yeah, I'm surprised that...
It's not actually that bad.
It's not too bad. It's a bit chubby, kind of.
I think so. Let's put it this way.
It's the biggest they go to.
So maybe that's closer.
Yeah. Kind of like chubby.
I would say a little fat, not like a lot fat.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This says size 60.
But she's bigger than that, right?
This woman. Yes. Okay. So that's what we're looking at.
Okay. So my best friend, who is my maid of honor, is a bigger girl.
So it didn't seem like this was going to work, having these bridesmaids dresses, right?
Yeah, because they all have to be in matches.
I remember I was a flower girl for a wedding once.
I think I was like nine or something.
Wait, sorry. Overdosing on cute memories.
Okay. We went dress shopping and we all had to be either burgundy, orange, or red because it was a fall wedding.
And so I think all the bridesmaids wore the same dress.
Now, the maid of honor is allowed to be a little different.
We met friends at that wedding.
We've kept her since. So, according to the Post, the maid of honor, quote, off her own back and unprompted, encouraged them to get the dresses as, quote, she was going to lose weight for the wedding anyway.
Okay, so the bride says...
That's what I was suggesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the bride says, oh, we can't get these dresses because they only come to size 16, and she's north of size 16.
Now, I assume she's not so far above size 16 that she couldn't possibly lose the weight.
But she's got 18 months. You can lose a lot of weight in 18 months, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. Remember, I mean, that one week where I lost 10 pounds, just out of world power.
Yeah, just get a flu. Like, go call someone up.
Hey. Yeah, give me something horrible.
It was not world power.
It was because he got sick with a stomach bug.
Yes, but the willpower was to get the stomach poke.
Yeah, okay, sure it was. And now we know why I had a little chunk, a little wattle, so that I could feed my body when I couldn't eat.
You still have it. There we go.
That's just 55. All right.
So, though the bride said she did not need to do that, the friend insisted it was fine, so they bought them there and then.
Does that make sense? Yep.
Right, so give me the recap.
So, the maid of honour was like, no, it's okay, I'll lose the weight.
We can buy the dresses.
Just buy an extra, I'll have my weight down in time for it, right?
Yeah, she's insisting. It's not the bridesmaid who's saying, lose the weight.
No, the other lady's saying, no, let's go find another dress that we can accommodate for your size, right?
Because you're fat. Probably not saying it that way.
What a big girl, she said.
Yeah. And then the maid of honour was like, no, no, no, I promise I'll lose the weight.
I really got it. I can lose the weight.
Yeah, yeah. Buy these dresses...
Which only come up to a maximum of size 16.
Buy these dresses. I'll lose the weight.
I'll lose the weight. Okay. However, the bride claims that one year on, her friend has, quote, made almost no effort to try and get the weight off.
Though the bride has yet to raise it with her, she became angry during a girl's weekend away after it became quite obvious that her friend was now even.
Well, they probably went on like a weekend, right?
Yeah, yeah. So I assume maybe something at the beach or something, I don't know.
So she put on her bathing suit and you can see all the rolls of fat and stuff.
It's like, okay. The bride was especially concerned after noting that the maid of honor was not moderating her eating at all.
Maybe she like goes into the buffet with like an arm scoop or something.
No, hold on. When you go into a buffet, you eat, you stuff yourself so that you don't need to eat until dinner or the next day.
Or the next day, yeah, yeah. With just nine months to go until the wedding, the bride said she was becoming increasingly annoyed at the situation as she would likely have to pay for new dresses.
Now, that can be pretty expensive, right?
Depending on how many bridesmaids you have.
I was looking at these dresses the other day.
We were in a mall and I was thinking of like a casual something slightly more fancy than like t-shirt and shorts.
We were in a cheaper store, and it was like 200 bucks for a dress.
But you were in the designer section of the cheaper store.
Okay, but if she is having a nice wedding, she's probably not going to be looking at like $40 dresses.
Like, I mean... No. I guarantee these dresses are probably at least 200 bucks a piece.
Well, that's what I'm saying. She's got five bridesmaids.
Thousand, dad... Hang on.
Oh man, I can't get my shoes off here.
Oh! Put the shoes back on.
Yeah, please. I know the wedding, I was flower girl a lot.
She definitely had more. She had like seven or eight, I think.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so then we're starting to talk, you know, $1,400, $1,600.
Well, not even that. $200 for a dress, at least from what I've heard, is pretty cheap.
We were in another store. It wasn't designer.
It was for like prom night stuff.
$700, $800. Oh, those dresses.
Yeah. The prom dresses.
Yeah. Anything more than like...
50 for a dress, I'm not doing.
I know, I'm ridiculous that way, but...
Well, okay, so for women, though, it can be an investment, right?
It can, yeah. The better you look, the more attention you might get from a guy, maybe he's making a little bit more money, so...
Except I'm 13. Of course, no, I'm just saying that, but, you know, the fashions are not exactly aimed at 13 for the most part, right?
True, yeah. All right, so...
While the bride appeared angry at her maid of honor for failing to lose the necessary weight, for many commenting on social media, it was the bride who had stepped out of line by reacting in this way.
What? Oh yeah, those were all the people who were like, you know, all body types are perfect type of thing.
Yeah. So here's some of the comments.
You think she has chosen to be overweight?
The user called Sausage Pour Om, that means sausage for man, wrote, How would you feel if your, quote, friend did this to you, took you dress shopping with a load of skinnier people, and made you feel lesser because the only dresses they have are too small?
She probably felt she couldn't say no.
Okay, well then she's indirect, so she deserves it.
Like, I mean, if you, like, you can, like, and okay, totally her choice could be overweight.
Lose weight. I know it's hard.
I know it's hard. She may have been raised fat from fat parents, which is very unfortunate.
I feel like, sorry about that, right?
But like, you can lose weight.
You lost weight. You gained from it, you lost from it.
It's food in food ad. That's all it is.
So after I got married, I may have indulged a little bit.
And then I was like, oh, I've gained a little bit of weight, so you just lose it again.
And you just can't go back to the way you were.
As you age, remember this thing I was saying the other day, that one strawberry a day Yeah.
If you eat 10 calories extra a day, that's 3,650 calories a year.
That's an extra pound. So from the age of 20 to 70, you've just put on 50 pounds.
From a strawberry. From one extra strawberry or whatever, like 10 calories a day, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So let's see here. Stokie, meanwhile, highlighted the fact that...
I don't know who Stokie is.
Maybe some other user. Maid of Honor can wear a different dress to the bridesmaids, adding, you can't force someone to lose weight.
She's probably feeling pretty bad about it, I would think.
Okay, here's what you do.
I'm really sad today.
Why am I sad? You think over things, and when you get that feeling of, oh, that's embarrassing, or like, oh, I don't like that, or I should do something about that, right?
When you get that type of feeling, you think, this is probably what's making me sad.
Because I'm fat. And I made a commitment, but I'm not holding up to it now.
At least, if you're not going to lose weight, pay for new dresses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying, then what you do, you go to the gym, your closest gym, 10 minute, if you're in the city, probably, right?
10 minute drive, 5 minute walk.
Or just pick up some weights. Just pick up some, yeah, you go to the gym and you do some exercise.
No, no, sorry, what I mean is, like, I went to a sporting goods store and just picked up some weights.
Yeah. Because I didn't go to a gym.
Well, I think you need a little bit more than just weights if you're losing a lot of pounds.
So I'm just saying. To start, though.
Start, and then be like, okay, I'm feeling upset, so I'll keep remembering that I'm feeling upset, so I don't, like, next time I want to eat something, I'll be like, nope, this is going to make me upset, so stop.
One of the things I used to do in the business world is I'd have a walk and talk, right?
So if somebody wanted to have a meeting, I'd say, let's go for a walk and have a meeting, rather than just sit in the office, right?
Just little things like that can make a big difference.
Now, I can't quite figure out this username.
What is that? Fishcakes with too much coriander.
So Fishcakes with Too Much Coriander said, I do agree she should have bought them a little closer to the wedding, but like, come on, the woman made the commitment.
Everyone here has usernames that imply they're fat.
Fish cakes with too much coriander?
Sausage for men? Yeah, except for the other lady.
Yeah, yeah. Stokie. Yeah, Stokie.
I don't know. It sounds kind of like a...
Yeah, whatever. But...
That's a song, isn't it?
You do the oaky Stokie.
What? And you shake it all around.
Anyway. I don't know that song. All right.
So, elsewhere, Tiger Lilytail commented, It sounds like she had good intentions, but it just didn't happen.
It can be hard for people to lose weight.
Just have a backup plan, but don't mention it until nearer the day.
It's just a dress. Friendship is more important.
Not necessarily. If incidents keep happening like this, then your friendship is not very strong or good because your friend can't keep commitments.
So I disagree with all four of these comments.
Noho Hank added, you shouldn't have bought dresses that didn't fit.
Hardly your best friend if you didn't consider her.
They added, or he added, you have no right to be annoying with your friend for being fat and not moderating her eating.
That's a really crass comment, actually.
Uh, this username?
What is it? This means nothing.
Your poor friend, this means nothing, wrote, it's crap going shopping with people all being slimmer than you at the best of times.
She probably felt like she had to go along with this dress when everyone else said they liked them.
Would have been tough to say no.
Maybe she doesn't want to change or has other things going on?
Either way, there's tons of solutions with a sensitive chat, which isn't about her losing weight.
Okay. If she had other things going on, wouldn't you talk about that with your very best friend?
That's the thought, right? Like, if you're that important to be, like, the top woman at the wedding, aside from the bride, you've got to be pretty close.
According to a body image study, 51% of Americans say they feel pressured to have a certain body type.
For me, it's not having tentacles.
Okay. Oh, and wings.
Wings and tentacles.
Can you imagine? Like, then you could fly low over a buffet and just scoop up all the food.
Especially the squid.
Because then you'd be picking up the squid with tentacles.
And that would be cannibalism.
Oh yeah, that's a point. Okay, forget the wings.
Okay. Wait, that's even more.
I was going to say, yes, you should feel pressured, because it's not a certain...
Yes, it is a certain body weight, technically, but it's called being healthy.
Well, okay. Like, it'd be like saying, I feel pressured to be fat.
Like, I mean, that just sounds like it's...
Instead of... Sorry. I feel pressured to lose weight.
It's not certain body type.
It's losing weight and being healthy.
That's such a dumb way of putting it.
So for guys, it's narrow hip.
Narrow hips, lean legs, abs, and super broad shoulders.
They call it the viper. That's a bit of a weird...
Because it's like a... Yeah. And so broad shoulders are often associated with...
Bigger hips for men, right?
So having this narrow waist and these super broad shoulders is three hours a day in the gym, right?
And that's getting to single digit body fat, which is kind of what you need to have abs.
Yeah, actually, just kidding. So for men, there is that...
You know, tall, narrow hips, abs, broad shoulders, and so on.
There is that, you know... But some of that's just, like, how you're born.
Some of it is genetic, for sure. I'm definitely a bit of genetics, like, oh, you're going to be more chubby than, like, some women, and you're going to be more thin, like...
Yeah. But, like, it's not, like, obese.
It's, like, a little more chubby or a little more thin for genetics, at least.
Yeah, that's right. So, yet it's women who are suffering most in this concern, with 60% of females surveyed, saying they feel completely or...
Sorry. Or somewhat...
...pressure to have a particular body type compared with just 42% of males.
So, yeah, 18% more women feel that they feel completely or somewhat pressured to have a particular...
Well, they should. Like, I'm not saying be, like, model or gymnast, right?
Yeah. But just be thin.
Like, or not even, just not fat.
A little chubby's fine or whatever, right?
Just don't be, like, obese.
Or, like, where you can, like, you sit down, all the rules of fat just spill out type of thing.
I think, for me, it's always been the idea that if your weight interferes with you...
Doing sort of regular activities.
Yeah. Right? Like, if your weight is like, oh, I don't want to go swimming.
Or if your weight is like, I'm having trouble climbing the stairs.
Or I can't go play tennis.
Or I can't, you know, even riding a bike is a problem.
Like, if your weight has become to the point, like, you know, you don't have to be a model or anything.
But if it's interfering with just normal, sensible activities, then I think you kind of want to cut back.
I mean, sorry. Yeah, I was just going to say, like, if you feel really ashamed every time you put something, like, slightly skin tight on...
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
It's like, okay, yeah, you need to do something.
I mean, I've never quite...
So, as you said, there are some kids who are raised with a lot of fat and sugar and massive sympathies, right?
Also, if the mom is overweight when she's pregnant, the babies can be born with a more likely to end up...
But for adults, I've known a bunch of adults who, you know, gained weight and like doubled their weight.
Yeah. That's not good.
Yeah. I mean, I remember a friend of mine had a wife who was significantly overweight.
And, you know, once I saw a picture in their house and I was like, oh, who's that?
Oh, gosh. And it was on their wedding day.
She was like a buck ten, like 110 pounds.
Oh, wow. And then she ended up... Well, that's pulling the fat grenade, right?
Yeah, yeah. And so I think that I have trouble understanding that.
Like, you have clothes.
And if you don't fit into your clothes anymore...
You're losing clothes. Unless they're too big for you.
That's when it's good. Well, not always.
Not always, yeah. You're going to be underweight too, right?
So I just...
I don't understand. Like, if you've got to go out and buy more clothes and buy more clothes and then you've got to buy another belt and then, you know, like...
At some point, doesn't it?
Yeah, like when you're like, hey, wait, I'm three sizes up.
I'm chopping in the big section.
I've got to do something here, you know?
So, yeah, so I found it a little tough to understand how people can...
Like, I understand a little bit of creep, you know, like five pounds over 20 years.
You know, okay, that's all right. You know, I mean, your metabolism slows down when you get older.
Also, when you're younger, like, you can gain a few pounds, then lose a few pounds like that.
Like, it's much easier, I think, at least from what I've heard.
And then the people who gain so much weight that it becomes, like I remember reading a story many years ago about a guy who was a smoker, and he was a smoker from like 20 to 50 or whatever, right?
And he's talking to his doctor, and his doctor says, he says, I want to quit smoking.
He says, you know, hey, if you want to quit smoking, that's great.
I mean, the damage is pretty much done, but it won't, you know, it's not like it's, it won't get worse, right?
Like, but you're never going to be like somebody who never smoked.
And I think the same thing is true if people gain a lot of weight.
Then if they lose weight, then they have all these folds of skin hanging down, particularly if they're older.
And then they've got to get surgery for that.
Then they've got to start from that. And yeah, it's a real mess.
And plus a lot of money too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's funny because the environmentalists who care a lot about global warming and all of that, they rarely seem to get upset at people who are obviously eating too much and consuming nature's scarce resources.
Of course. I'll tell you a couple of thoughts I had about this article.
Tell me what you think. Yes. So, first of all, it's not about the weight.
No. So, this woman made a commitment to her friend, which is a very expensive commitment, which is, I will lose weight.
Let's get these dresses, right?
Now, she only had to get into a size 16.
So... She could even have been a little bigger than a size 16.
Size 16 is supposed to be, like, because some women are more fat around the stomach or the hips, so it's a little bigger.
So maybe size 17 she could fit into it.
She's not even... Well, see, here's the funny thing.
The less weight she has to lose, the more, in a sense, the worse off it is that she's not losing it.
Like, let's say she only needed to lose 20 pounds.
Maybe she's 220, she needed to get down to 200 to fit into her.
Yeah. So that's, you know, 10% of your weight.
It's not too bad to lose, right?
Yeah. So...
If she's really big, then she's making a really big commitment to lose.
If she's just got a little bit, it's not so bad.
But the issue to me is around the friendship.
Is someone a friend?
Okay, so planning a wedding is kind of stressful.
Yes. We watched that movie Father of the Bride.
Oh, that one. Yeah, that was funny.
So planning a wedding can be kind of stressful and a lot of the work falls onto the bridesmaid, not the groom.
Do you know why? Well, because the women are much more picky about it than the man.
Y-yes. The man is just like, eh, let's get married.
Whatever. He doesn't really- Sort by price, click top, go.
Yeah, well, okay, maybe bottom.
I don't know. Not top, but unless you mean, like, low to high.
Yeah, yeah. No, here's the thing.
Like, maybe this will change as I get older.
I'm perfectly content, like, having a very, like, cheap barbecue wedding.
Like, I don't really care what it is.
Just as long as we have fun and end up married in the end.
Like, I don't, like, honestly, having an expensive wedding would be much more, like, annoying or bothersome to me because I just, I'm one of those people.
I just don't spend money.
Like, big saver, I guess.
You are a big saver, and you've always been that way.
Even more so now, though. It used to be less.
Is it more now? Oh, yeah.
But you will spend...
There's a few things you will spend...
Ducks. Ducks, number one.
Number two... Any claw machine in the known universe.
Correct. Any claw machine.
Only if it's a candy one, though. Oh, that's true, right?
That's fair. I don't really care.
Well, you got along with the rubber ducky. Yes, because my friend and I, she's younger, but we both love ducks, and there was this claw machine for ducks, so we each won one, and then we swapped.
It's not actual ducks, though. No, no, no.
They were just a little... Rubber ducks.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so, I mean, I think for a lot of women, though, you know, they race on the princess thing, and they kind of want to be a star for the day.
And so they want the day to be all about them.
So this is their big day to be the center of attention, to be the most beautiful, to have everyone take photos, to feel like a movie star for a day, right?
I don't think that's your thing in particular.
I don't really care for that.
I honestly just want to have fun.
Like, I'll probably have a water balloon fight on my wedding.
I don't know. Water balloon fights are fun.
You know, that is...
That's actually a good idea.
Yeah, yeah. You get the slow motion cameras.
Yeah. Yeah.
We'll also encourage everyone to not waste, like, a thousand dollars on a dress you're never going to wear again.
You want to wear something that's going to just dry pretty quickly, right?
Yeah, like, maybe a skirt.
Like, wear something nicer, you can just change it into something cheaper.
I just, like, I'm just going to say one more thing about, like, spending money on the dresses.
Like, I personally am one of those people.
I can't tell if it's expensive or cheap.
I look at something, I'm like, oh, okay, that looks like a nice dress, maybe 50 bucks.
I look at the price of 300.
I'm like, okay. But, I don't know.
I don't see, like, okay, I don't care if it's 10% higher silk quality.
I don't care what the quality of the fabric is.
I just want a nice shape that complements my figure.
Like, that type of thing.
I don't know. The thing that drives me crazy is the more expensive the dress, the less you use it.
And also the uglier it is usually.
In most. I've just seen, in my opinion.
Just at least in my opinion.
Like a man's tuxedo, you can spend a couple of thousand bucks on a tuxedo and a lot of men will wear it twice a year.
Sorry, twice a decade or once every 20 years.
Twice a year, that's a lot. It used to be the case in the business world.
Everybody had suits and ties.
Now everyone's casual.
I was saying mom doesn't spend that much money on clothing.
But even, like, her more expensive dresses that she uses only on, like, I've seen her maybe wear them, like, twice in my life.
And those are the ones that cost the most.
Like, a cheap $10, $20 dress on sale, she's going to wear, like, every couple days.
Right, right, right. So, what I find interesting, really fascinating about this story is...
You've got, you make a commitment to your friend who's, nobody's talking about the quality of the friendship from the overweight woman, right?
So she's got a friend who's getting married.
They go 18 months ahead of time.
It's a big deal. It's a big plan.
You need to make your friend's life easier if your friend's getting married.
Yes. Right? So somebody asks you to be maid of honor or whatever it is, then one of the jobs of the maids of honor is to make, you know, take on some of the run around and set up the tasting for the cakes or whatever it is, right?
Right. Which is a really great thing about getting married, by the way.
Cake tasting is fantastic. Cake tasting?
I'm going to get, what's it called?
I'm getting fruit popsicles and smoothies.
Forget cakes. What do you need?
Oh, buttercream cake. You know that icing, the buttercream cake.
First of all, you need a fairly hefty carrot cake, just set to one side.
For who? You. That's right.
Solely you. It'll just be in a little private room back there.
No, here's what you need. You need to get a big red velvet cake.
Wait, wait. Hang on. Wait, wait.
Red velvet cake, right?
Oh, and feed it to your enemies. No, red velvet cake.
And then, before the children eat it, you tell them what it's made of.
And what is it made of? Right.
It's made of crickets. The red velvet cakes are made of crickets.
And then the kids won't want any, so there's more for the guy who's eating the carrot cake, whoever that might be.
Okay, this is why you are not going to be allowed in wedding planning.
Only me, no one else.
I will take it on. I will be your man of honor.
Oh, you know what you can do?
Ow, this is going to hurt, isn't it?
You can get all the tables and decorations set up, and I can do all the cake testing.
Yeah, right. I'm just happy to be there.
I'll just be happy to be there. Fair enough.
So, anyway, the maid of honor, she's got to go to the bridesmaid, and she's got to make her life easier.
Is this maid of honor making the bridesmaid life easier?
No, it's making it harder. So now she's got this multi-thousand dollar bill for these dresses, and her friend is not losing weight, but instead is gaining weight, is not moderating her eating, is not exercising.
Gotta buy it again. Well, so what the overweight friend should do, if she's a friend, is she should say, look, I'm not going to lose weight.
I'm really, really sorry.
Let me... Help you.
I'll wear a different dress.
I'll pay for the dress myself.
I'm so sorry. I made this commitment a year ago.
I'm not doing it.
I don't want you to be stressed out about this.
Let me handle it.
Yeah, I'll buy a new dress.
I'll make it look really similar.
It'll go really well.
If you want, I'll send you photos.
You tell me which one you like the most.
I'll wear that one. I'll buy it.
I don't care what the price is. That type of thing.
Yeah, so she should be making her friends like...
To me, the issue isn't the dress.
It isn't the weight or anything. It's the consideration for your friend.
Yeah. To say, I don't want you to be stressed out about the fact that I, as your maid of honor, cannot fit into the dress that everybody's wearing.
And I'm also not talking to you about it, and I'm not coming up with solutions.
I'm just letting it sit.
Yeah. And also, what's even more rude is that they go on a vacation and then she eats like a pig in front of her too.
Yes. And like it's probably just laughing and telling stories and stuff.
Having a grand old time without realizing, like does she even remember the commitment?
So many years ago I lent money to a friend and I don't really do that as much anymore.
this is the line from Hamlet, right?
Like neither a borrower nor a lender be, because if you lend money, you lose usually the money and the, to a friend in particular, you'll lose money.
You'll lose your French and your money.
And I lent money and the friend would, you know, come and hang out and never mentioned the money that he owed me.
Yeah.
Just tell me you're not paying it back for three months.
That's fine. Or just say, hey, I'm still really struggling.
Thank you again for lending, but I'll pay it back the moment I get money.
Any spare money goes to you.
I won't waste it on dumb things.
It's something I always used to nag.
And I think I've nagged you once or twice about this as well.
Like, if you make a commitment, like, do it or tell me you're not going to do it.
I used to have this in the business world all the time.
Somebody would be like, oh, I'll do X, Y, and Z, right?
And so, okay, that's off my table.
That's off my list. I'll let them do it.
And then I have to keep chasing them.
Oh, no, I'll get it done soon.
It's like, so either do it, or if you tell me you're not going to do it, Right?
Like if somebody...
If you desperately need cream for your dessert, you're doing a big cooking thing, and someone's coming home and says, oh, I'll pick up the cream, right?
Now, if they phone you and they say, oh my gosh, I got totally distracted, I can't get the cream, then you can go and get the cream yourself, and then you'll end up with the cream.
But if you just wait for them, and then they come and they didn't have the cream, and they didn't tell you they weren't getting the cream...
That's annoying. Then you've got no cream, right?
Also, I just like...
A while ago, someone asked me to do something for them, right?
And I was... I was working on it and I said, okay, yeah, in two days I'll have the next version of this, right?
And then I think it had come to two days and I hadn't done it and I'm just like, okay, what am I doing?
So I said, oh, sorry, I got busy, I got caught up, but I will have it tonight and I did have it tonight because I was like, okay, this is not good.
So, I just don't understand, like, do people not feel that I'm not doing it feeling, right?
Like, do they just sit there and, like, go on with their life and, like, be jollier?
Because, like, when I have a commitment, and sometimes I'll just completely forget, but when I remember, I'm like, oh, God.
Every now and then, like, once or twice a year, I will completely forget a listener call.
Now, normally I set it up with reminders, but for whatever reason, I just don't have my phone with me or something, and it just, it completely slips in my mind.
I'm like, I'm almost like, I will, if it's three in the morning, I will do it at your time.
I will reschedule whatever's the most convenient for you, a thousand and one apologies.
Like, I feel wretched about it, right?
Because there's a commitment that you make, and people are sitting there waiting, and they arrange their day and all of that.
It drives me crazy when people blank out on their commitments.
Now, again, every now and then it's going to happen to everyone at one time or another, but when it's a consistent kind of thing, and so this woman, she said, spend a couple of thousand dollars on these dresses.
On the, I'm going to lose the weight.
Yep. And the fact that she doesn't lose the weight is not the problem.
The fact that she isn't, like, trying to make up for it is the problem.
Well, she's not even acknowledging it.
No. She's just out there eating more and...
Gaining weight. Gaining weight and not talking about it with her friend.
That's the issue. And nobody seems to pick up on that.
And I'll tell you what I think is, what do you think is really going on for this overweight woman?
What do you think? Well, I think that the overweight woman is mad that her friend is getting married.
Right. Do you think? Yeah, no, I think you're right, because she probably can't find a guy.
So, you know, there's an old saying among women, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
What does that mean? That means you always get invited to your weddings.
All your friends get married, but you can never find the guy.
But you can't get...
We've seen some of these funny videos where the guy drops the ring or whatever, or he goes down on one knee, which is the traditional...
Yeah, and just ties a shoe.
But some of the ones we've seen where the women do get asked, I find they're quite moving, right?
Because this is a woman who's worth enough to a man that he says, I want you to be my...
My wife, my bride, the mother of my children, the rest of my life, this is what we're gonna do, right?
It's a beautiful compliment to a woman, right?
And you can see how, for the most part, the women are quite moved by it.
Now, occasionally, they just run away.
I think we saw one. It was in public.
I think she got really shy. It was in Times Square in New York or something.
I think she got really nervous.
Oh, yeah. That's a bit of a horse.
But everyone was watching. That's a horse hoof to the heart.
What I would do, if I was like...
Number one, these women who are in relationships and they don't want to get married to the guy...
I can understand if you're two months in.
But if you're like...
Okay, but if you're two months in and you're still like...
You don't know for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you still need to know more about him and like his past and stuff and whatever, right?
But if you're like six months, nine months, a year, whatever.
If some women's like two or three years.
Oh, yeah. And you're like still with him but you're like, I don't really want to get married.
Or I don't know yet.
Yeah, why are you still with him?
If you don't know he's the guy pretty early on...
It's the fantasy that you can live forever and you've got forever to make up mistakes and it's like, no, no, tick, tick, tick.
Well, here's the thing. Like...
I feel like if a guy proposes to a woman and they both kind of talked about marriage and they're like, yeah, I'm good with this type of thing, right?
There should be no reason for her to say no or run away or whatever, right?
Or at least not run away so fast that he can't tackle her.
Like, put her in a bag and get her to a church.
Sir. No, it shouldn't come as a total shock.
The man should not be like, oh gosh, I hope she says yes.
It shouldn't be that desperate. He should be maybe slightly nervous, like, oh, just in case.
But I don't know why women are with guys, or guys are with women, and they don't want to get married.
It's just like you're wasting time.
Yes, that is certainly true.
That is certainly true. So, yeah, it is kind of rough.
Now... The other thing that happens is sometimes, I think women have a lot of, they get a fair amount of jealousy or competitiveness.
Because for women, for a lot of women, they feel kind of helpless about it.
Because what they do is they say, well, I have to make myself attractive.
But then the guy's going to have to come up and ask me out.
The guy's going to have to propose to me.
Well, you can always, like the women can always ask the guy out.
I don't know why that's such a hard thing for a woman to do.
If you like a guy and you're reasonably sure that he seems friendly towards me, just be like, hey, I'm going to the movies tomorrow.
Do you want to come? I'm going with a few friends or something.
Do you want to join? That used to be one of my go-to things was to say, rather than, would you want to go out with me?
If I wasn't sure, then I'd say, some friends of mine and I do an X. Do you want to come?
And then it's a little bit less of a one-on-one date thing.
Yeah, and also, you invite your best friends, like the nicest ones, the coolest ones or whatever, so that she thinks, oh, your friend group is great.
Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, that's right.
So, probably a good guy.
So, yeah, the friend group is pretty important, too.
You can judge. There's an old saying, says a man is known by the company he keeps.
Yeah. Right? So you can judge someone, you know, as they show up with a bunch of, you know, doofus, long-haired, drug-smoking.
It's like, okay, bye. Yeah.
So... For women, they feel, and I remember talking to some women about this, they have some crush on some guy, and they'd be like...
You feel helpless about it, right?
You feel really helpless about it.
I don't know why it's so hard.
So I think for women, when they feel helpless that way, they see their friends getting married, and I think the overweight woman probably feels like, I'm not going to get married, or a man is not going to want to marry me.
Well, that's why you lose weight.
But it's not just the weight thing.
It's because if she's the kind of woman who...
Will make her bridesmaid best friend really stressed by not talking about a commitment she made for thousands of dollars, then she would not be a good marital partner.
Well, that's what I mean. You get therapy, you get some help or something, right?
Yeah, you figure out what's going on, right? And you lose weight, and you become a good marital partner.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't mean to say it's not that hard, but I mean, I'm sure it is, but you've got to get the right steps to do it.
I know women, I've raised in a particular way, so I think like this.
A lot of women don't. A lot of people don't.
But, I don't know, just look stuff up.
What do you think? Okay, I need mental health therapy.
That's the first thing you think of.
Well, you know, when I was a kid, I grew up in a fairly poor neighborhood.
And one of the things that's kind of true about poor neighborhoods is people have some pretty bad relationships as a whole.
And so, you know, I could hear people yelling at each other and things getting thrown from time to time.
And I just remember as a kid, I remember this really, one of my really clear early memories is like...
Why not just be nice?
Why not just be nice?
Why are you yelling at each other?
I mean, I don't yell at people.
No. And so, I guess it's the same thing with parenting, too.
It's like, well, why not just be nice?
It seems like a pretty simple solution to things.
Yeah, you're nice to adults because they can hit back.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't mean me.
In particular. No, but it's the same thing.
Just be nice. Just be nice.
Be nice to people you live with like they're waiters or strangers.
Because I always notice people would be nice to strangers and they're not nice to the people anyway.
We've talked about that before. But yeah, I think that's interesting because everyone's focused on, oh, you're forcing her to lose weight, which is not true.
The woman voluntarily said that she would lose weight.
If the other lady, like, can't you just lose the weight and was kind of impatient about it?
I could understand if you're more of a shy woman being pressured into it, kind of.
Yeah, yeah. But... If she's like the one, she was insisting.
That's 100%. Like, if the bride's name was like, oh, like, no, no, we're not doing it.
Are you sure? Like, this is what it was.
Yeah. And then the other lady was like, no, no, no, I insist.
Please, like, they're beautiful dresses.
I promise I'm going to lose the way.
Yeah, yeah. And then you don't.
Like, what are you doing? It's really tough.
And now the woman has a big mess.
So she's got a huge issue with her maid of honor, who's supposed to be her best friend and the woman who helps her, the person who helps her most in the wedding.
So now, instead of looking forward to her wedding, she's got a huge problem with her best friend, who's her maid of honor.
So this woman, I would say, is sabotaging the marriage.
She's sabotaging the wedding completely and turning a day of joy into months of stress and misery leading up to it.
Even the day of joy, you're going to look at her and be like, that dress doesn't fit, or that's the wrong color.
No, she can't get into it.
Well, not even that the dress doesn't fit.
I'm just going to say, even if she gets a different dress...
It's going to be like, it doesn't match.
It doesn't look as good that everyone was supposed to be together.
Like, even just glancing at her, it's going to be a little odd.
Well, the funny thing is, too, is that also, let's say that she gets a different dress.
Every time this woman looks at her maid of honor, she's going to remember the stress of this.
Every time she looks at the photos of her wedding, which, you know, people like to do after they get married.
Every time she's going to look at the photo of the wedding, she's going to look at this friend and say, oh, yeah, that's right.
She had to have a different dress because she didn't lose weight.
And it was a big conflict and a big problem.
Like, the whole day, It's got this shadow over it, and it's so unnecessary because all you have to do is say, look, I'm not losing the weight.
Let's not kid. I'm actually gained weight, so let me take care of this for you, and I'm really sorry.
But, you know, that's what a good friend would do, and it's just there's a big complicated sabotage element, I think, to this.
Now she's putting her best friend in an impossible situation.
And the fact that everyone's, at least the people we read, were all siding with the woman who's putting her best friend, the bride, in an impossible situation without saying, it's not about the weight, it's about how you treat your friend.
If you make a commitment, you keep the commitment, or you say, I'm not going to keep the commitment, and you take the consequences.
But you don't just pretend you didn't make a commitment, go sailing on, because that puts the entire burden on the other person.
And because it's about weight, too, it's really a difficult thing to talk about.
Especially nowadays.
Like, maybe 10, 15 years ago it wasn't, but now everyone's like, well, you're just, like, fat-phobic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you don't respect my body type, or I can't lose it, it's just how I look.
Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, people can lose weight.
That's just a fact. That's just a fact.
I mean, it is calories in, calories out.
I mean, for somebody to gain weight without eating many calories would be a violation of every law of physics and biology known to man.
It would be like a levitating...
They would be like a huge thing.
Like, they would be so popular.
They'd be like... Well, you would have to rewrite science from the ground up.
Yeah. Because that would be like getting more energy out of a machine than you put into it.
Yeah. Like, that would be me pedaling slowly on a bike machine and then being able to fly.
You'd have to rewrite physics from the ground up.
So, no... Everyone can lose weight.
Now, maybe there's a few people with a medical condition, blah, blah, blah, but I still think it comes down to...
You can't talk about the few people.
There's always exceptions for everything.
Yeah. I mean, that's like talking about there's a few people who get lung cancer without ever having smoked, but the vast majority of people who get...
It's like 1% compared to the people who smoke.
So, I think that you can lose weight, and the fact that the friend is choosing not to lose weight, but rather gaining it.
To me, that's the passive-aggressive, right?
That's like, I'm going in the opposite direction after...
And here's the thing, too. If the black maid is right, and her friend insisted on this, then her friend is creating this whole situation.
She's like, no, no, no. I will lose the weight.
I must get this dress.
And then it's like, okay.
And then you go along with it, and then you kind of get...
You kind of get betrayed by this.
And so setting up this kind of situation, not a quality friend.
So here's my question.
Let's say this was you, and you had a friend in this situation.
Take your time. No, literally say...
Think about it. Look, you're being passive aggressive.
You're not helping me.
I'm going through a lot of stress with this wedding and you're just adding more to it.
I'm sorry. I assume they tried to talk a bit about it or something, right?
I don't know that it... No, I think the reason why the woman is going to publish on this forum...
Oh, it's because she doesn't know what to do....is she really doesn't know what to do.
Because, you know, bringing up...
You haven't lost weight to a woman.
Or to a man, I suppose.
But particularly for a woman. Yeah.
It's really, you know, people are incredibly sensitive about weight.
Okay, well, if your friend is that sensitive, number one, bad friend.
But let's just say you didn't bring it up and just be like, look, come on, you're gaining weight, you're eating more, you're not even being sensitive about it.
You're not even being like, hey, I'm sorry I'm gaining so much weight.
You're not paying attention, so look, I'm sorry I'm dumping you.
You're not in the wedding. I'm finding a different bridesmaid.
Or maid of honor. And just block them on social media.
If they're sabotaging the wedding, too, then they may sabotage the marriage as well.
Yep. And that can be a real problem.
I certainly know that when I was going to get married, anybody who wasn't 150% on board with the happiness I had in getting married was not long for my relationships.
All right. Anything else you wanted to add?
No. But that was an interesting article.
I thought so, yeah. I thought so.
What's interesting is what's not talked about.
To me, that's always the most fascinating stuff.
And also, like, the replies in the comments.
Like, you know... Your friend is just overweight.
She doesn't like being overweight.
That's not the issue. The issue is the commitment and the honesty and the openness.
And having enough care for your friend to not make her stressed as a wedding approach.
Well, I'm not even going to talk about that because your average person isn't going to think about all that, right?
But at least don't be like, she feels bad about getting weight.
I'm sure she does feel bad about being fat.
Lose the weight. If you feel bad about something, prevent it.
Did you know that was a cure for feeling bad?
That's... Big brain.
You know what I mean? If you're upset about something, fix it.
If you're upset about your weight, lose it.
If I was upset about being bald, I'd get a chia pet and staple it to my head.
Or a hamster.
That's something you can't control, though, being bald.
Unless you shave your head, obviously.
No, you can control because you can...
Remember that you can get these... Okay, but that's kind of like...
It's surgery. But that's like surgery to remove fat.
Yeah, because you can get stomach stapling where they're half or a third the size of your stomach and then you can't eat that much.
But no, you can get surgery to take the hair from the back of your head and put it in the front.
I know. It looks really weird though.
I'm just saying about free average person doesn't do that.
Yeah, yeah. And bald is not a health issue and bald is not a bad thing at all.
In fact, for me, think of how much time it saved for me with 5,000 shows, a whole bunch of them on video that I've never had to really do my hair at all.
It's been fantastic. It saved me like a year of my life.
Yeah, mom spends probably a year every year doing her hair.
She's got a challenging mane for sure.
And you've got nice hanging hair.
None of this poofy stuff. Kind of.
It's like wavy, but it gets tangled really easily.
Does it? Yeah. Well, sometimes it's got to go like pour conditioner on it and stuff.
Is that right? Yeah. All right.
Well, thanks. Appreciate the chat. Thanks everyone for listening.
FreedomMaine.com forward slash donate to help out the show.
Have yourself a wonderful afternoon.
We'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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