11: Men, what’s wrong with you?
In episode 11 of her podcast, Jules wants to know what’s wrong with men? Bob Mortimer is “The One”. And why she doesn’t want to meet Katherine Ryan.
Transcript:
Episode 11: Men, what is wrong with you?
Jules O’Brian:[Music] Hello, this is Jules O’Brian with the “Avoid Excessive Cleavage” podcast. The podcast for anyone who wants to grow older gracefully or disgracefully
and the podcast that says “no” to unsolicited advice and inspirational quotes. Do you know what, I’m going to be honest before I even start? I know that I’m in a real ranty mood today because a couple of things have happened
that have just made me really, really cross. I’m trying to put it in the nicest way because I don’t want to piss people off, and that’s how I live my life.
So, you know, not expressing emotions exactly as I feel them, whether they’re happy or sad because I’m worried that when I’m really happy I get too over the top and that pisses people off and gets on their tits.
And when I’m feeling pissed off about something, if I genuinely say the way that I’m feeling about stuff, I worry that again, that’s just going to wind people up the wrong way and anyway,
I’m going to get on to that in a minute. Today’s inspirational quote is, “You can’t always have a good day,
but you can always face a bad day with a good attitude.” Right, first of all, I’m going to need a definition of a good day and I’m going to need a definition of a bad day
and I’m going to need a definition of a good attitude. Because facing a bad day with a good attitude, see, this is what gets me,
it just sort of suggests that even if you’re really feeling pissed off, feeling really low, feeling a bit depressed or something bad has happened in your life, oh, don’t let that annoy other people.
Keep it to yourself. Push the feelings down, stick a smile on your face and try not to think about throwing yourself in front of a train.
You know, I’m just tired of being told to not be too extreme in one way or another, whether that’s being happy, being sad. And those sorts of things can piss off, “Face a bad day with a good attitude.”
I’m sure it’s well-intentioned, I’m sure it is, but yeah, wrong day to see an inspirational quote like that. Where was that?
Hang on, let me tell you where I found that. Oh, that came from the “Power of Positivity”. There it is, they’re in Los Angeles, California. Of course, they fucking are.
So, what did I want to talk about? Why am I so pissed off today? Right, I am so pissed off today.
Because I want to say, “Men, what is wrong with you?” And I know, straight away, I can hear it, “Oh, God, she’s being horrible about men.”
That’s triggered a lot of people. Now, I also know a lot of men who will just hear me say that and just laugh and think, “Oh, bloody hell,
what's she going to go on about?” I like you. That’s brilliant.
You’re great. Because it’s the same as when I hear someone go, “Oh, bloody women,” I know they’re not talking about me personally.
What I want to talk about though is the amount of men who exist, that’s not the end of the sentence. The amount of men who exist on dating apps
and in life in general, sometimes, I’m going to be honest, who, oh God, there’s something really odd going on.
There’s like some sort of generic gene that they all share, I think. I've not been on dating apps now for a long time.
I’ve cut ties with them, taken myself out of the dating pool altogether, taken myself out of being somebody that tries to have a relationship.
But lots of different reasons. One, because I’m 52 now. I mean, I suppose the positive thing I’ve got going for me is
that if I did decide that I was looking for my forever person, yeah, forever is not that long, probably for me now, is it? You know, so there’s that.
Also, I know that I’m shit at relationships. I know I shouldn’t be in relationships. I'm no good at that.
I don't understand how they work. Romantic relationships. Friendship relationships.
Love those. I’m really good at those. And I keep saying to people that what I would really like,
if I did ever decide to get back into the romantic relationship thing, is that I want the sort of relationship that I’ve got with my best friends, who, you know, there’s nothing that I don’t feel like can talk about to them.
I can say anything. I can be brutally honest. I can be completely myself.
I can get drunk and irritating and over the top. And the people that I’ve kept in my life are the ones who I feel really safe doing that with. And they feel safe doing that with me as well.
And I think that’s really healthy, but I’ve never, ever, ever been in a relationship with a guy where, in a romantic relationship with a guy where I’ve been able to do that. I just, I know it sounds like a real cliché,
but you know, when you hear people go, “I’m marrying my best friend,” that must be so lovely. If it’s true, because again, that’s me being really, really cynical,
but I don’t know if I even believe that that’s the thing. Do people, honestly, find someone that they treat as their best friend, even though it’s a romantic relationship,
because I struggle to believe that you can, honestly, be yourself completely and tell them and say all the things that you want to say and be brutally honest. Like I say, I know, I’m no good at relationships.
I know. I’m jealous. I’m possessive.
I’m insecure. Oh, God, I’ve done awful things in relationships. In my last long-term relationship, I, oh, God, I sat down with the guy after we had a big argument about something that I don’t know,
I was responsible for being a jealous twat. And went through his Facebook and got him to delete any women that I thought were attractive. That’s, that’s so toxic. That’s so controlling. That’s so shit.
So I’m shit at relationships. Like I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t be allowed to do that. The thing is though, I’ve got the awareness, you know, and to be fair,
it’s taken me a long time to realise just how shit at them I am. I mean, don’t get me wrong. He had his flaws as well. But I’m, I’m very aware of mine, you know?
But there seems to be a lot of guys out there, and I’m sure there are women as well who are what I’m about to describe. But I don’t date women, so I don’t know, make your own fucking podcast if you want to moan about women,
and God knows, there’s already enough of that shit going on. I’m in such an angry mood, can you tell? I’m not being all nicey, nicey and I usually am on here. But yeah, it would be stupid of me to try and get into a relationship
because I know I’m no good at them for lots of different reasons. But there seems to be a lot of men on dating apps who aren’t aware that they’re stunted when it comes to being healthy in a romantic relationship with a woman.
Most of my single friends are on dating apps. Some of them are around the same age as me, some of them are younger. My closest friend, Helen, I’ve mentioned her on here before.
And a kind of a jokey, laughy way when I’ve talked about the amount of dick picks that she gets sent because it is ridiculous. I’ve talked before about penis fatigue, you know? Just, you know what, fellas, it’s lovely that you love your willy. That’s great.
I’m so pleased for you. Take a picture of it. Look at it yourself every now and again. Just, you know, if that’s what makes you happy. But I don’t think you quite realise, well maybe you do and you don’t care.
We get sent so many pictures of penises, they’re all pretty much of a muchness. And I’ve said this before.
Yes, some are bigger, some are smaller, some are longer, thinner, faster, shorter, whatever. But unless you’ve got one that’s double headed, I’m not interested in you sending a picture of it to me.
That aside, I don’t want to repeat myself because I have talked about how annoying it is. Just boring actually. That’s the right adjective. Boring to receive pictures of penises.
But my friend Helen and I now have a little game where, she’s like me, she’s my cat woman as well, she’s got three cats.
So she will, you know, send me the pictures that she will sometimes send to fellas. Yeah, well, what are you doing? And she’ll take a picture of one of the cats and go, oh, I’m just going up to bed with this one.
And we have a little game. How long will it be? How many minutes will it be before they send back a message that says something like,
“Haha, wrong pussy.” Right? Because they all do it. They all do it without exception.
When the time comes that she manages to send a picture of a cat to a man and he doesn’t come back with something that uses the word “pussy,” which, you know, is essentially obviously applying that he wants her to send in a picture of her vagina, not a cat,
then I might say, “You know what, this one might be worth pursuing.” But it’s so dull. It’s just so dull the conversations are the same.
Another friend of mine who I went to have a gorgeous weekend with last weekend, because I was gigging in, oh God, somewhere in North Yorkshire… Darlington, would that be right?
Anyway, is that right? My geography is so bad. I've just taken a gig in Cardigan because I just think, “Oh, well, I'm pretty central in the UK,
surely no where’s that far away.” It’s four fucking hours. But that’s okay. My daughter, one of my daughters lives in Wales.
So I’m going to go and stay with her afterwards. But she’s two hours away from Cardigan. It’ll be nice. I like Wales.
A beautiful part of the world. And what was I talking about? Helen, pussy. So this friend that I went to stay with, when I got there,
she got a little smile on her face because she’d been on a date with a guy that seemed quite sweet. It wasn’t this sort of mad sex-fuel thing. He seemed to be, like, normal, balanced.
I mean, I’ve reached a point where I’m like, oh, well, that’s a red flag because that’s obviously not real. And I’m right. I was right. I’ve been proven right today. So she’s got this gorgeous puppy, German wirehaired pointer puppy,
who I am completely in love with. That’s a sort of relationship I want to be in. I have to not speak too loudly because my dog Alfie will be able to hear me
and I don’t want him to think I’m going to leave him for a younger dog. So she went on this first date with this guy. She had to take the puppy with her and he loved the puppy.
He was fusing the puppy and whatever. So, you know, the signs were good. This man likes dogs. Then he tells her he’s got cats himself.
Oh my God. Okay, this is starting to look good. Perhaps he’s a normal human. He’s the same age as her.
And they were just swapping messages and she kept doing that thing, bless her, checking her phone, see if he'd message and he had. And he's one of these kind of, like, metal detectorist kinds of guys,
which is great. He also, like, brilliant, he’s got his own interests. And I was talking to her about how I’ve understood now that when you’re in a relationship with somebody,
they should be an addition to your life. And obviously vice versa, not the way that I’ve always had relationships, which is they’re the most important thing,
That’s all you’ve got to think about. You know, there’s a real co-dependency there. So I was like, “Oh, this sounds really good.
You've got your interest. He's got his interest. Maybe this could actually be something.” He's sending her pictures of what he was up to,
so it was actually really quite sweet. So he was off on this sort of dig looking for stuff. And she was saying always like a little mole, you know,
and pictures of sending pictures of himself just, you know, covered in mud because he was digging things. And, I mean, looking back at it now,
I’m thinking perhaps that was all a bit of a ruse and he was actually burying the bodies of the women he’d been killing or something.
I don’t know. But it all seemed lovely. He seemed nice, balanced, good guy.
She’s message me today to say, “He’s just block me.” No explanation, nothing. Everything was absolutely fine.
“He's just block me.” I said it at the start of this episode, and I’m going to say it again, men, what is wrong with you?
I don’t understand. I mean, even if, okay, so let’s say he had a little moment of “Oh, I’m a bit scared now, I wish I hadn’t started this.”
Or let’s say, at a moment of, “Actually, I’ve decided I just don’t fancy you.” Somebody ended a relationship with me like that once. They just sent me a message
and all it said was, “I don’t fancy you anymore.” And I’m not talking about years ago, I’m talking about seven or eight years ago, same man that told me that, we were out on a date,
and he reached across the table and took my hand and said, “Oh, you look beautiful tonight.” I said, “Oh, thank you.”
And he looked around the room and he went, “I bet 70% of the women in this room would wish they had a body like yours.” Now, let’s just break that down a minute.
70% I’ve spoken to friends about this, and my female friends and my gay male friends go, “Oh my God, so he looked around the room
and he decided that he found 30% of the women’s bodies in there more attractive than yours, and saw fit to tell you.” I tell my male friends that story, and they just go, “It’s more than half.”
“What?” We really are from different planets. We are men and women.
We are from different planets. It just doesn’t work. When I see couples in the supermarket of a weekend, and yes,
this is my fault for going to a supermarket on a weekend, but you know, sometimes you just have to. They just look so fucking miserable
and look so embittered. They look like they really don’t like one another and it’s so sad, because life is really, really short.
And I feel like lots of people stay together because of the mortgage, the kids, the financial arrangements. I just think it’s heart-breaking.
It’s not worth it. It’s really not worth it. And I promise this isn’t just me having a good old kicking of men. Like I say, I know that people in general can be arseholes
no matter what gender. But straight men on dating apps, it’s just not good.
I’ve decided recently that my ideal man is Bob Mortimer. Now, I think he’s only a little shorty, I’m not actually sure.
I don’t think he’s very tall, but he’s so funny, and clever, and odd, and he’s clearly got, you know, a pretty good moral compass.
I’m sure that, like all comedians, he’s a bit of a depressive, probably. But I’ve just finished reading the “Hotel Avocado”, and I also read “The Satsuma Complex”.
He’s just so funny, so silly, so lovely. I love his voice. And I’m just basically in love with Bob Mortimer.
I don’t know. I think he has got a wife, he's bound to have. He’s bound to have because he’s a lovely fella. And after everything I’ve said about myself anyway now,
even if he hasn’t, why the hell would anybody want to be with this nutcase? But yeah, that’s how I’m in love with him. And Jon Stewart.
I've seen some clips of Jon Stewart recently. I love his moral compass. I doesn’t take any shit and he wouldn’t let me delete women off his Facebook,
would he? I can’t believe I’ve confessed that. I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody that.
That’s alright though. Nobody listens to this anyway. Except for, you know, a couple of my very, very lovely friends. But my point is, and I don’t want Bob Mortimer,
who is obviously going to listen to this, to be offended when I say this, but if I saw Bob Mortimer, and if he wasn’t famous, but he was still Bob Mortimer,
and I saw him on a dating app, I wouldn’t click on him. I wouldn’t, which way is it? So I wouldn’t swipe the right way on him that you meant to swipe on when you like someone.
Because it says that, you know, he’s, I don’t know what he is, what is he, five foot seven or something? Basically dating apps don’t work for me because I don’t fancy people based on what they look like.
I mean, I can look at people and go, oh dear, I’m afraid I won’t want to sleep with you. I mean, certainly, you know, you can feel an attraction to somebody based on their physical looks, can’t you? But I’ve been out with people who are stunningly beautiful
and not found them remotely attractive because they’re boring or they’re just not particularly nice, but boring is, I think, boring and generic, is the worst thing for me that a person can be. It’s kind of like films.
I’ve talked about this before. My favourite genre of films is horror film. And I find that, bizarrely, I find them really comforting because there’s something, there’s something quite predictable about them.
You kind of know what’s coming, you know, let’s, we all know about the jump scares and familiar tropes in horror films. But I’ve watched some horror films that I, well, most horror films are so shockingly shit. I mean, they’re dreadful.
But I watch them and I will always watch the truth at the end unless they’re boring. And there’s not many horror films that are boring. Most of them are, even if they’re really bad, they’re still fun, silly,
they might not make you frightened, but they’ll make you laugh at how ridiculous some of the stuff in them is. Even when the special effects are really, really bad, they’re not boring, you know, and I’m applying the same role to men on dating apps and in life.
If I send you a picture of a cat and you come back with a joke about a pussy, Oh God, it’s that, like I say, it’s just that whole generic, boring, predictable, dull; oh, do anything, but don’t be boring.
Well, I say do anything. Now there’s going to be men, “Oh, but then you, you’ll moan when we hit you.” Yeah, maybe don’t do that.
I’m going to have to be more proactive when it comes to this podcast because I just do it when I feel like it or when I feel like I’ve got something worth saying. I’m sure people are listening to this thinking, “Yeah, you still haven’t got anything worth saying.” And that’s fine.
Oh God, I’ve gone the Rag ’n’ Bone man’s just go and past. Brilliant. I find that the problem with doing stand up comedy is that I obviously went into comedy because it’s something that I enjoy.
I love going to watch stand up. I enjoy being at the theatre or wherever these things might be held. I love laughing, you know?
And now that it’s something that unbelievably people pay me to do for a living, I can’t go because I’m always gigging whenever there are acts on that I want to go and see. So I really want to see the New York comedian, Erin Jackson. She’s brilliant.
I love the stuff that she puts on Instagram and her clips are great, but I can’t go and see her. She’s going to be over here. I think she’s playing Cardiff and she’s definitely part of the Women in Comedy Festival in Manchester, which I am also doing. But I can’t go and see her when she’s performing there — at a much bigger and more impressive venue than I am, I should say, —
because I’m gigging on the same night. That was part of the festival, but yeah, I can’t go and see her. I’m going to see Katherine Ryan on the 28th of this month because I adore her.
I kind of never want to meet her because I’m scared of, you know, that “Never meet your heroes” thing. I’ve had an experience like that this year already. And I would hate for that to happen with Katherine Ryan as well.
In my head, we meet, we become best friends, and she really likes me and she thinks I’m good at comedy and it’s just all very lovely. So I’ve had to turn down a couple of offers of work for that, which I don’t mind at all because I adore Katherine Ryan
but at the same time, you know, it’s my job. And obviously I need to be earning money because you know, mortgage to pay, mouths to feed, all of that sort of thing. So yeah, I’ve turned down work so that I can go and see her on the 28th.
I’m going to see her in Stoke because I couldn’t wait any longer. Her tour goes on throughout next year as well. And she’s coming to Birmingham, but I just, I wanted to go to the closest place I could possibly go and see her as soon as possible.
But yeah, I hope she appreciates the fact that I’ve turned down lots of work, lots of work. Like I think two gigs have been offered on that date, but I’ve turned them down. And I kind of, on the one hand, obviously my dream would be to gig with her at some point,
whether she was trying out new material somewhere or something and I, you know, happened to be on the same night maybe ‘Keep your heroes at arm's length.’ I don’t know.
Maybe, so, do I know anybody who knows her can say to me, she’s absolutely lovely and you should meet her and you'd like her and she’d like you. That’s more the thing, isn’t it? She would, she like me. That’s what I’m scared of.
I always try to do a little recommendation of somebody else’s podcast on my podcast. Now, I’ve already talked about this one, so it’s cheating a bit, but few weeks ago I, again, I was going on about my love of horror films. And I talked about my favourite horror podcast, which is called “Two Guys and a Chainsaw”.
And I was absolutely bigging them up because it is a fabulous podcast. And I love the two guys that run it. They’re so funny and lovely, Todd and Craig. And after I finished the podcast, I put it out there. I had one of my confident moments.
They don’t come very often, but I thought, oh, do you know what? I’m just going to send it to them. I’m just going to send it to them. “So look, I talk about you on my podcast. I just wanted you to hear it.”
So I did. And you know one of those things when you immediately regret pressing send afterwards. Oh no, God, what are they going to think? Anyway, I sent it to them and lo and behold, a few days later, I got a message saying, “Absolutely loved this.
“Thank you for saying such nice things. Would you like to come on our podcast? We really like your vibe, and review a film.” So I was like, oh, I was actually on a train to London at the time, it’s going to be a friend. And I saw this message pop up and I actually went on the train on my own, in front of a carriage full of people.
So God knows what they thought I was doing, but there we go. So yeah, so I did. And Sunday before last, I recorded a podcast with them. Oh, my God, I was in my absolute element. It was so cool. They’re just such lovely, lovely, funny guys.
It’s not out yet, but hopefully it will come out next week, I think. We reviewed the original version of “Speak No Evil”, which only came out a couple of years ago, but we did that one because the remake of it is coming out. Oh, it’s coming out today, I think. Is it today? I think it’s today. Yeah, Thursday with James McAvoy, who, oh, he’s another one quite like him as well. Well, I like him a lot.
Yeah, so the remake of Speak No Evil has come out. I’m not reading good things about it already, but the original version of it is so good. I mean, it’s weird. It’s really weird and it’s really dark. And as horror films go, it is quite, you know, it’s one of them. It’s certainly more at the end of the disturbing spectrum than it is of that. Oh, silly. We can laugh at this horror film.
It stays with you, you know, in fact, I’d watched it before, so it was my suggestion to watch this one. And they would, oh, yeah, great. Okay, thanks for choosing that. We don’t know it actually. And then I was like, oh, my God, they’re going to think I’m such a freak. They don’t know me. And I’ve just chosen this film that’s like, that’s really dark and weird and disturbing.
But they were, they said to me, “No, you know what, the things that we’ve watched, you’re absolutely fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Did that had the just the loveliest, loveliest time I drank wine was chatting to them and recording this podcast talking about a horror film. I mean, to be honest, if I could just do that all the time, I’d be the happiest person in the world. So yeah, what a lovely time.
So Two Guys and a Chainsaw, really, really good podcast. I was also recommended another podcast called “Radio Rental”. If you like, you creepy stories. The guy that recommended that to me is in a band called Gasoline and Matches. And I met him and his wife and the rest of the band at the Long Road Festival, which my wonderful friend Sarah took me to a couple of Saturdays ago.
It was such a good time. We just had a blast. Only went for the one day, even though it was on all over the weekend. Because on the Sunday, I was recording the podcast with the Chainsaw guys. So I was chatting to Steve from Gasoline and Matches. And again, superstar, they’re an awesome band.
You know, I love my country music. That’s another thing that, you know, it’s one of my, I was going to say guilty pleasures, but it’s just a pleasure. I love country music. Sarah, Sarah Riches, is a country singer and she is doing another one of her fabulous gigs at the Fox Low Arts Centre in Stoke tomorrow. So if you’re around for that, you should definitely go because it’s just such a good night whenever she does that.
So I was with her and met Gasoline and Matches. And he recommended Steve recommended this podcast, Radio Rental. And it’s more sort of, it sounds a bit weird when it first starts, but it’s all these sort of like spooky story, real life, spooky stories, things that have happened to people that, you know, slightly unexplainable or, you know, I got a lift with this person and they struck me as a bit odd and I managed to get out of the car, but then the following week I saw them on the news turns out they were some serial killer or other, you know.
Kind of creepy stories, the episodes aren’t very long at all, but I’m really enjoying that as well. It’s sort of just that little bit of almost a bit of a tales of the unexpected kind of thing, but they’re real stories. So yeah, the two podcasts, I would recommend Two Guys and a Chainsaw and Radio Rental. Thank you for listening. If you have, and I’ll see you again next time.
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