Transcript - Episode 18: Banging on the Door
Hey, It’s Me
EPISODE # 18
Hosts: Mike Sakasegawa and Rachel Zucker
Transcript by: Leigh Sugar
Transcripts formatted after those from Disability Visibility Project
Please note: transcripts are transcribed directly from recordings of live conversations; as a result, quotes and statements may be approximate and there may be unintended memory errors.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Hey, it's me. So, there's a lot of different things we could talk about today, but I think the thing that I kind of want to talk about the most is, I wanna talk about whether or not I'm being a good friend. You know, that I've been in a, a new relationship for the past four months, and that it has blossomed into something really wonderful and all-consuming. And I'm really happy about that. And I know you're happy for me too, but, but I can’t help wondering if I'm, if I'm neglecting some of my other relationships, in my art, or for this new one. I have a feeling you're gonna say no, but I think it's worth talking about. So, so, yeah. I think I'd like to talk about that.
I'll talk to you soon.
[Music]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You look good.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh, thank you. You're, you're just trying to get me to say you're a good friend [laughs].
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: No, I think that you actually do look good. You look more rested than you have in a while and your skin looks good.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, thank you. I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll tell you one really weird thing, which is that, I was driving back to New York, and Judah called me, because he and Josh were driving up to Boston to do some college revisiting, and, we waved as we passed each other on the Merit Parkway, which you don't know what that is, but, I've never had that experience before where I, where we, it was like, okay, five more seconds, four more seconds... and then we passed and waved [laughs]. I dunno why I told you that.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It's cute.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It's a nice thing, and it's a way of reconnecting, you and me. It's been a while since we've recorded, it hasn't been a while since we just talked, but it has been a while since we recorded. Let me, actually, let me, I'm gonna look actually. So, oh, the last time we recorded was on the 19th of last month, and it is now the 27th of this month.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Wow.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: So it's been a while. I think that kind of bears on what I wanted to talk about.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. A lot has happened in your life in the past month. A lot has happened in mine too, but, let's, let's start with you, and go to the question.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. I wanna start by saying that what I don't want for this conversation is for it to be about me feeling bad and you making me feel better, and specifically me asking you to make me feel better. That's not what I want. And I think that you probably already knew that, but I just wanted to make it clear. So since the last time we recorded, we have, we have referenced in our previous episodes, this new relationship that I'm in, and we've even said hi to her. By the way, I was texting with her this morning and she said to say hi to you.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Oh, nice.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And it's really great. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
RACHEL ZUCKER: That’s nice.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And, that is why I proposed to her, and that's why she said yes. And we had a beautiful commitment ceremony in Tokyo earlier this month, and things are going really great and, I know you've been really happy for me. I, you know, when I, I sent you photos of the ring that I got her, you were really overjoyed about that, and I think I sent you some photos of the ceremony, didn't I? Mm-hmm.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And you seemed really happy about that as well. Even right now, you, you've got, you got a smile on your face.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I mean, it's amazing. It's probably the best thing that's happened to me [laughs], you know? So yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: There is something I think that's, like, for example, a friend of mine, Sarah Hollowell is getting married this year and she's been talking about it a lot on social media and talking about the process of the wedding planning and everything. And then, and then part of it too, she's been, she's mentioned from time to time feeling a certain amount of anxiety about this thing where it's like the happiest thing in her life. And it's something she's just overjoyed about. But she feels kind of weird about being so publicly happy, when so much terrible shit is going on both globally and personally for a lot of the people she knows.
[4:57]
And I remember saying to her at the time when she said that the first time, the first time I saw her say that was, seeing this thing that is sort of just like an uncomplicated, joyful thing in the life of somebody who I care about, I mean, she and I aren't like super close friends, but we're certainly, we've been social media friendly for many years at this point. Seeing that, seeing her, her be happy, seeing just this thing that is like an unalloyed good thing that's happening for her, it makes me feel great, because it reminds me that no matter what else is going on in the world, that there are still good, wonderful things that are happening too. And so I know that's out there. I know that's a thing.
And so, you know, like when you say that it's a, that this has been a thing that's been a happy thing for you too, I, I fully believe you, you know, and I can hear it in your voice when you have left me messages.
It's been on my mind a little bit like, I remember a long time ago, I think this was on Planet Money at one point, they did a segment where they were, they were sort of having this ask me anything kind of segment with an economist. And it was not just about economics. It was like, how can I apply economic thinking to like, every aspect of life? And this person called in with a question. This person, this guy was talking about polyamory, and he was talking about how to sort of think about something like love from an economist's point of view, because in his experience that there just isn't like a, a finite amount of love that you can have. There's always more love, that when you bring more, more people you love into your life, the amount of love that you have that you can go around to people is… you don't run out of it. And loving one person doesn't take any love away from anything away from how much you love somebody else.
And the economist guy was saying, you know, in some ways that this is not really a question for an economist because economics is inherently the study of the allocation of scarce resources. But, that he pointed out that while there is perhaps no scarcity of love in those kinds of relationships, that what is a finite resource is the amount of time that you have. Everybody only has the same number of hours in a day. And while some of us can be awake a little longer than others, there's still physical limits to how much time you can spend with one person or another.
And, you know, I have this new relationship in my life that has very rapidly become the most important relationship of my entire life, like at any point in my life. And I'm so happy to get to have that in my life. It does kind of make me think a little bit about whether it's possible to have this kind of all-encompassing energy around a relationship, a romantic relationship, without having it affect your other relationships in your life. Whether that is perhaps like my children, or my other family members, or my friends.
I have felt that you and I have maintained a pretty good level of contact. And in part that's because our relationship has been so asynchronous from the beginning. I do think that perhaps I've been taking a little longer sometimes to listen to and respond to some of your messages. Then again, at the beginning of our friendship and our messaging back and forth, we didn't message all that often. You know, it could be weeks in between messages.
But even aside from just you and me, like I was thinking, for example, I have these, these friends who up until fairly recently lived in Minneapolis and, you know, I haven't, I, I've known them for 20 years. They actually met, and their relationship developed, on the web forum that I used to run. They recently moved to Toronto, and one of the things that they have been really great about is like when I've been kinda lonely, and especially when I've been in between relationships they, like, they invite me to do stuff. We, we, we might have, you know, remote cocktail hours, and just hang out or a thing that they've done is they've invited me to play some online video games with them. And that's been a lot of fun. And I haven't done that with them in probably five months. And it kind of makes me wonder, like, is like, I wonder if I'm being one of those people who like only shows up when I need something and, you know, am I flaking on people when I'm good. And I don't know, it's sort of a strange thing to think about, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Can I respond by giving a little bit of an update about, you know, where I am, and then I wanna respond to this question about our friendship, and then also enlarge it just in the similar way that you're doing.
So, yeah, I, again, the wheel of fortune has not turned for me. Some things are better than they were, but it's still really miserable. So just like, I'll try to be brief about it. Abram is in remission.
[10:00]
He's actually been in remission for a while, but he's home from the hospital after a stem cell transplant. The hospital stay was extraordinarily traumatizing and difficult and awful. And then the return home was even, it was worse than I ever could have expected. And in the past few weeks, I would say maybe three weeks, or less, I've been kind of surfacing out of this like, deep pit of terror and frozenness really. And you know, you know this, I've, I've actually been leaving you a lot of messages with a lot of crying and a lot of feelings are starting to come up for me as I kind of thaw a little bit. So my caregiving responsibilities are still quite high, until the end of May, beginning of June Abram is very severely immunocompromised and exhausted from cumulative chemo effects.
But I'm coming out into the world a little bit more and that's wonderful, but it's a very, very rocky transition for me, and I think relevant to our conversation is I've had some really tough conversations with two of my very close friends, but all of my friendships, they have changed and transformed, ours the least from my perspective. And I wanna talk about, yeah. And I wanna talk about why I think that might be, and then on top of it, you know, I, I'm not gonna say I've never been this lonely because I was more lonely when I was married, you know, toward the end of my marriage and so unhappy. But I am extremely isolated. And it's not that there's new information, for me about, you know, childhood trauma and, you know, my relationship with Josh and my relationship with these friends. But it's hitting me in a very different way right now, in a very intense way. My reactions are very, can, can feel very extreme to me. And yeah, it's a really, really, really hard time for me in a different way than a month ago was a really, really hard time for me.
So maybe we can talk about this on another episode, but I wanna mention it 'cause I think it's very relevant, which is I went to see an intimacy coach, and one of the things that's come up for me, something I already knew, but in a much more visceral, extreme way, is that my feelings about men, and my ways of interacting with men are pretty problematic for, for me, pretty intense. So I was thinking about this question, right? So, you know, are you a good friend to me right now? Have you been a good friend to me? Has there been a change, since you started this relationship and since it has become, you know, so wonderful primary and the short answer is no. Yes you have been a great friend. No, it has not changed in a bad way for me.
And I agree with you. Like, I know, you know that I've said that to you. I like that you're still asking. I think there's a lot to talk about, but I also know that it's good that you're asking, it's good that I'm, I'm reassuring you and being, and I'm being very honest with you, so I wanna move sort of beyond my gratitude and relief that we have, that the friendship has continued to be incredibly sustaining to me, and think about maybe some questions about why.
And so you already mentioned the asynchronicity of our conversations, which I think is a really, really big part of it. And I, I don't really wanna do too much falling into being like, the problems that I'm having in my other friendships… I don't wanna necessarily compare our friendship to my other friendships, but I can't not do that at all. I mean, it's just, it's, you know, I think it's important, and gender I think is an interesting part of this. And I wonder, How much of… it's becoming very clear to me that I have extremely different expectations of men than I do of women. So these two other friends, and it's not just these two friends, but the two friends that I've really had a lot of… conflict isn't exactly the right word, but they haven't shown up for me or participated in the past months of my life the way that I would have wanted them to, and the way that I expected them to, based on Who they are, the closeness, the length of the friendship, and common experiences, and probably gender.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Mm-hmm.
[15:10]
RACHEL ZUCKER: So, I think there's a lot that other people can learn, and that we can learn, about friendship, and like how to maintain a friendship when two people are in such different places. But I also feel like it's important to recognize that there are certain things that may make it easier for you and me, in addition to the fact that you're a great guy and a great friend. Do you know what I mean?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Mm-hmm.
RACHEL ZUCKER: So maybe I'll be concrete about just one of these things. Which is, because of the way our friendship started, because it was always asynchronous in the messages until we started occasionally talking on the phone, and then the podcast, of course, I think it's… the asynchronicity is not to be underestimated as like a structural element that has has enabled you to really support me and for my expectations to be reasonable for you if, if that makes sense.
And I also think, you know, you said to me in a message recently that you think that maybe part of the reason that I'm having a harder time with these other friends than I am with you is because I may tell you more, or I share more things with you in a certain way than I do with them. And I think that's really interesting. And I think it's because of the asynchronicity. I think that these two other friends of mine, because they love me, and because they are very sensitive thinking, feeling, people, women, they're both women, I think that when I start to cry, as I often do on the messages to you, there's a real urge to like, help me to stop, you know? To contain me, to like, redirect me, to comfort me, to show that they're listening and to step in.
But it's just sort of like when you're with someone in person and you, you're like, oh, don't cry, don't cry. You know, or, or give the person a tissue. They're not, of course, they're not saying don't cry, don't cry.But I, I stop. You know, or I peter out, or I wait for them to address something. Whereas with you, I'll, I'll sometimes leave you a 30-minute message that I, because you're not interrupting me 'cause you're not even on the phone, I will go into, I'll go to the bottom, you know, and it's because I trust you, but it's also because of the technology, and because you're not interrupting me, and you don't, you're not on the spot to, to respond in the moment.
And because of the history of our relationship, I haven't noticed the lag time. I don't pay attention to that. I, because of my relationship to my phone and WhatsApp, like, I also don't notice when you start listening or if you start and you stop or like, none of that stuff is hurting me or affecting me, because it's just not on my radar at all. Whereas, if I have a relationship like I do with these two other friends, where the relationship, we don't leave messages. It's primarily a phone relationship with one of them, and with the other very much phone and occasionally seeing each other in person. And yeah, it's a different feeling if I call and they don't pick up, or the texting back and forth is not working well. A lot of really misunderstandings and hurt feelings are coming from the texting, and you and I don't text that much. So I think that's one thing that's enabled us to stay strong, you know, together.
And the other is like so obvious, but again, not to be underestimated. Like I never had the expectation that you would fly across the country, and in any way participate in this situation in person. And because I never had that expectation, I wasn't disappointed. And so much of my disappointment and hurt feelings in my other friendships is tied to expectations. That's not all of it, but I think it's important for me to kind of put those two things up there.
And then the third one being like, I think is a really reasonable question, which is, do I have significantly lower expectations of you, aside from geography, aside from the technology, aside from all those things, because you're a man, and because anything you do that's even remotely nice, I'm just like, oh my God.
Because I have another friend, John Colton, who's like my only other close male friend. Well, that's not true. Alex Wright is, but I mean, John Colton can do almost nothing and it seems like overwhelmingly amazing to me and I, I'm a little embarrassed about that, but that's true.
[20:22]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. That last thing is something that I think it's always been a big factor in my life and in how I understand my relationships with kind of anybody, but especially with women. And that includes whether it's a friendship or a romantic relationship, or even something like a question of my relationship to audience, whether that is a podcast audience or to guests that I have on Keep the Channel Open, or audience members of my photography, though that audience has, you know, always been fairly small, I used to make a lot of photographs about my experience of fatherhood, and when I would talk about those images with audience members or reviewers, people often would give me a lot of credit -
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: For being sensitive, and being, and say, it's really so refreshing to hear a man talking about his children this way, and about his relationship with that, and about, you know, being nurturing and stuff like that. And I have always had very mixed feelings about that, because especially when I first started, almost all of the photographers who were very formative for me and who I became friends with and who became my role models were also, they were women who were making work about family, about their own families. And they would have to deal with all kinds of criticism for this, for saying that this work is too sentimental, this work is of no significance. This work has no edge to it. This work is not universal. Why would anybody care about this? This is not serious work. Which I know is something that also you have heard a lot.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm. Yep.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And my work was very similar to theirs, both in aesthetic and form, and also in what emotions I was trying to engage with, and especially at the beginning, I would say that my work was not as good as theirs, either technically or artistically. I'm not sure if it's as good as theirs now. I think I certainly have gotten better, but I got a lot of, I got a lot of credit from both men and women for things that they would not have necessarily extended to women doing similar work.
And it's a lot like, you know, when I would take my kids to the grocery store that like, little old ladies would stop me and be like, oh, it's so nice to see Dad out with the kids [laughs]. You know, that's, that's just nonsense. Right? And that's a little bit of a challenge for me personally because I actually think that I am an extraordinary parent regardless of my gender. I think that I am very good with my kids. I think that I am, that I take really good care of them, and I am very good at nurturing them and caring for them. And this is something that comes up in my romantic relationship as well. I think that I am a very good partner. I think that I am not just a good partner, like, as men go.I think that I am a very good partner, period.
And, at the same time, it's always very complicated to tease out, like how much of my partner's response to me is just in the comparison that like, men are so often such terrible partners.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, even things that to me seem like not that big a deal, and that the kinds of things that everyone would expect of a woman, you know, that they seem like such a big deal and maybe they shouldn't seem like such a big deal. And that's exactly the thing that you're talking about here as well.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. And let's just stay with that for a second because you're a really good caregiver, you know, and I'm sure that's not the only reason you're a good partner or a good parent, you know? And so am I. And so one of the things that's really interesting is, so my women friends are all like me, in their fifties. And I think one of the things that I was feeling this tremendous amount of solidarity and community with these women friends, was around that we were moving out of the caregiving stage of our lives, into a much more self-oriented stage where we were trying to think about like, who are we outside of these caregiving roles, outside of our marriages, outside of our parenting?
[24:57]
And, first of all, you have younger kids than most of my other friends, so you are not yet, you know, in that part of your life. But also, like, I think that's like a really important thing for women my age to be doing. But then when I fell into this like pit of need, of desperate need, of wanting, you know, and needing caregiving from these friends, and I think also expecting a kind of caregiving from them because they're moms, and we've been moms together alongside each other and I know what they're capable of, and I know that they know how, they're great moms, you know? And I know they know how to do this, but they, you know, it wasn't turned towards me.
Now I think they would say that they tried, that they're, try, they tried and they're trying. And so I, I wanna also, I know be very clear that like, it's a dynamic, and it's not just that you are responding really supportively to me. It's also that I am, for whatever reason, my needs and the way I'm expressing them to you, are also matching up in a way that works for you. And I think it wasn't, it's not really working so well, you know, for some of my other friends.
So I think that's also like a really important thing. And I wanted to say one other thing that you, when you were talking about yourself as a photographer and your reception as a photographer, I think that's another issue for me that's relevant, which is, some of my friends are writers, and some of my friends are, or artists, and some are not. And with some of the ones who are just, are not creatives… I don't really love that term, but let's just use it for right now.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Mm-hmm.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Sometimes that's been easier right now, and sometimes it's been harder, because my friends who are not creatives don't really understand the, the part of this trauma that has to do with my writing and my art making. Like it's not like another kind of job.
And I feel like you are a creative, but it's not the way you make your money. There's a sweet spot for me with you in the way that you have like a deep appreciation, understanding, and experience of art and art making, and a tremendous amount of respect for me as an art maker, but I'm not in competition with you.
So, you know, a few months ago I had this like, flare of jealousy about David Naimon, you know, like, and I, and it was very helpful to talk to you about this because I was like, what the, what the hell's going on here? Like all of a sudden, like, 'cause I'm also friends with David and I just, and this jealousy started bubbling up for me about a lot of my writer friends or artist friends, and that made it very complicated for people to support me.
Sometimes it made it easy because I would ask for something very specific, like teaching help, you know, from somebody. And when I asked for something very specific or one, one of my friends Laurel, we were really struggling to, you know, connect and figure out, and I finally said to her, I need you to remind me that I'm a writer, and that, that my writing is important. And every once in a while she would send me a text and it, and she, and when I said this to her at first, she was like, really? Does that, 'cause it seems like maybe that's like gonna be, if it's come across as insensitive, like, you know. And I was like, no, I really need that. And so every once in a while she will just send me a text out of the blue and she'll say, I'm just reminding you, you know that you are a writer. You might not be writing right now, but you will again. And it was a great thing for me to ask for. And she believed me because she's a writer and she's done it. And it's been, it's been very helpful.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Hmm.
RACHEL ZUCKER: So that, I think that's another thing that, like you and I, there's so many reasons that I haven't had these moments of jealousy for you. I mean, of course, you know, the idea that you fell in love and you know that it's reciprocated and, you know, that you have like this, I mean, it's incredible and yes, I, I want that for myself so deeply, but I'm also at a moment where like, I don't believe… you've, you have done a really beautiful job holding a belief for me that one day something like this could be possible for me. Right now, I do not believe that at all. I just, so it's, it's almost like friends of mine who are not writers and cannot understand what the hell my relationship is to writing.
[30:02]
It's almost like I feel like that about your relationship. I'm just like, it's like I've never had a relationship before. I mean, it's, it's not true, but like, I just, I don't even really feel jealousy because I'm just like, you’re like a martian, like [laughs].
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Laughs] I think in some ways maybe you haven't had a relationship before at least, you haven't had a fulfilling relationship before. You haven't had a relationship that truly met your needs before. Although at that, I think, I think in a lot of ways, most people don't. You know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm. The other thing is that I feel good about myself, about how I've responded to your relationship, and I think that's also been good for us. So like, I feel like, and not that you needed that much help, but there have been moments where, you know, like in the beginning when you were like, am I, am I getting too fast, too into this too quickly? And I was like, no, trust your heart man. You know, like, and I, I feel like I was, I mean, maybe I wasn't, you can tell me if I have let you down in some way in terms of this, but I, my own sense of myself…
MIKE SAKASEGAWA : You've been incredible.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah. And so that feels good. Like, I feel, not in a creepy, weird way, but I feel, I feel like part of this relationship, I don't, I don't feel like this relationship has like, taken you completely away from me, and I never hear from you ever again. That's not true. I feel like I've been so encouraging and enthusiastic and like, I, I kind of feel like I'm part of it. So it's nice.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It's, it's an interesting thing. She, I think in part because of the fact that we have such a public facing friendship through this podcast, I think she feels similarly.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, she's very interested in you and very, very taken with you by the way. She likes you a lot.
RACHEL ZUCKER: It's very reciprocated. I, every once in a while I think of books that I wanna suggest to her. It's like weird. Mm-hmm. You know, I've never met her, I've never talked to her on the phone. You, you refuse to have her on the podcast [laughs]. But yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. And who knows?
I wonder, here's a question for you. I'm wondering if there is some safety for me in you being in this relationship? And this comes back to my very complicated feelings about men, and I wonder, do you think that I have been a better or worse or different friend for you in the various stages of, you were married, you were getting divorced, you were in a relationship, you got, had a breakup, you were in another relationship, you had a breakup, and now you're in this relationship, which is very different, you know, from, from the other two post-marriage relationships you've had. So you, you've been single, you've been in a relationship, you've been in a recent breakup, and have you noticed any difference in the way I have responded to you across those different periods for you?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: No, I don't think so. And I think that the thing that has perhaps been weighing on me a little bit is that, something that I recognized is that you were really there for me when I was going through my divorce. And at that time you were, I mean, you got divorced about a year before I did.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I think that that is something that we really connected over, because you were still very much going through it at that point too. And in a lot of ways, both of us have continued to still be going through it with our exes.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I know you've been, you know, you've been one of the people who's been the most important for me to talk to about that whole process. And I know that the reverse is true as well.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: The thing that has been weighing on me a little bit is that when I was in, I have, I've had two serious relationships after my divorce before this one. And through those, like those never felt like they were taking up so much of my time and energy and focus that I felt like it was, like, that there was even any possibility that you might feel that they were taking me away from you.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And this one does, you know? And on the one hand, like, I think that's kind of like, I'm, I'm not ashamed of that, you know, there's like, there's nothing that I regret about that, but also like, it does make me think about this, as it is different.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: The, if anything has changed the way that you, I was gonna say, but I mean, the thing is is that like you've had so many things happen through that time as well. You went through a really major breakup.
[35:00]
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And of course, and you've had a lot of struggles with your ex, and you've had struggles with other friends, even before this. And of course, this time with Abram’s illness has been, I mean, it is I think, not an understatement to say that this is one of the most traumatic experiences of your life. It's like -
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yes. Absolutely. know?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Absolutely. You know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And it's bringing all the past traumas, it's opening all of the past traumas up. So it's almost like they're, it, they're sticking to this trauma in a, in a very bad way.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. But can I say something, just to go back a second ago, where you were saying that I've been holding, holding this little flame for you, this little candle of, of hope that you are going to be able to find a good relationship, that you are gonna be able to find the kind of love that you deserve, and that both of us really want for you.
I know that you've been going through a particularly difficult time in the last few weeks in ways that are not necessarily more difficult than what you were going through in the immediate trauma, the direct crisis of Abram's illness, but just in a very different way.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And the way that you described it, in your previous messages and even in this conversation, was that you're sort of surfacing out of it. And in the process of surfacing, it's been dragging up a lot of other things for you.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I think that you are probably right, like just now, you said that like, you don't think that you're in a place where you could have that kind of a relationship right now. And I think that's actually probably right.
But actually, my hope for you, and my certainty that this will happen for you eventually, is, has actually been amplified by the messages that you've been sending me the last couple of weeks. Because I am watching you come face to face with things that you have known for a long time. This is something that you described in one of your previous messages, that things that you had known intellectually, that now you are feeling in ways that you have never felt before. I cannot help but feel that as a kind of growth and healing, that while it is like, incredibly difficult and painful for you right now, I cannot help but think that it is ultimately going to be a good thing for you that will facilitate you finding the partner that you actually deserve and need. you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: I mean, I like that idea.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Laughs] The look on your face.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I mean, I feel like if there is a positive outcome in terms of my relationship capacity to this experience, I feel like it's maybe more likely that I'll just give up, you know, and not give up… that, that's, that's not a good way of saying it. You know, that I will decide to be alone in, in a more, I mean, I, I definitely agree that facing these things, I mean…
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Rachel - [sighs]
RACHEL ZUCKER: [Sighs] But I - you might,
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You might, I know you might decide, you might decide to be alone, right? But, here's the thing about you, is that you are, in many ways, one of the reasons why we can be such good friends is that we have a lot in common. And one of the things that we have in common is that we are both people who have a lot of love to give.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I really do. I really do. And I miss that as much as the, the getting of the love is very, I'm not that good at that [laughs]. The receiving of the love is very hard for me.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: That's definitely something that has been coming up for you a lot lately.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like there's that much being offered [laughs]. But what is being offered, I have a very hard time with and, you know, or, or, or asking for it or seeking it, and I'm just, I mean, I'm aware of the level of like desperation and I don't know, just seeing the way I go from being a person that I like being, like a centered person who sees myself with some objectivity or, or compassion to somebody who's just like, either cold or manipulative, or… I just turn into somebody not great, and I don't, I need to not, you know, we talked about this in a bunch of different ways. Like even a small thing, like how when I'm talking to somebody else on Commonplace, I start to match their speech pattern.
[40:00]
I start to, you know, kind of do this, this join-y thing, and we had lots of conversations like way back about whether I connect over similarity or difference with my guests? You know, I, there's something that I am not able to maintain a sense of myself in relationship with men. And then something is happening now as well in some of my relationships with women where I'm not able to maintain, I mean, I think I'm like, if this is an anxious attachment situation, right? Like I have a lot of trouble with staying separate in a, in a close relationship.
And I don't for some reason have that trouble with you. I mean, we, we've had our moments, we've had our moments on this podcast, but they're so… something about them, I, we've been able to work through them, and it has never felt to me that, that my identity is at stake in the moments like, you know, when we did the episode about my novel and it was, it was very complicated and it got all messy and, but I never felt like, who I am, and who I am to you, and who I am in the relationship was just like, I certainly never felt like I had to walk away.
I mean, this is what happened to me in my marriage, where I just became this like, really, I lost myself. And I feel it all the time. Like I'll just hand men my self-esteem. I can't maintain my, my power, I can't maintain, you know, and then I just turn against myself. So, you know, that's why I say like, maybe I'm gonna come to a more integrated place that makes me realize, like. I'm not cut out for this [laughs]. I dunno.
Or maybe not with men. I, I don't know. And I like, I can't even imagine having sex with someone. I remember it wasn't that long ago on the podcast where I was like, talking about sex. And now I'm like, that's, that's for, that's for, I don't have the big boy pants that are, I would need to put on to take them off and have sex with someone. Like I, I am like nowhere near that kinda level of, you know…
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. Probably right now you're not.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah. No one should date me [laughs]. Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: [Sighs]. I think that, I don't think it's a question of no one should date you. I think that maybe right now you shouldn't date anyone.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And that's a little bit of a different way of putting it. I think that, something that has, and I've told you this, I've told you this a number of times in a number of different venues. I think that you have actually an uncommon amount of self-awareness, and that even when you send me messages that later you text me and say, that was embarrassing, don't listen to it, or whatever, right?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: That even in those, that you are displaying a level of self-awareness, and sometimes that does come across as like kind of berating yourself, but even then I find, I, I always notice you catching yourself doing that, you know? I always notice this about, about you. You do always bring it back, you know, and there's something about, and this is something that I struggle with, it’s something that my, my partner has, has been sort of talking to me about a little bit that, you know, I, I put very high expectations on myself to always do the thing that I, that is like the enlightened, sensitive, perfect thing to do, right? To, that I, that I put a lot of pressure on myself to perfectly realize my Buddha nature, for example. You know, and you do that too.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, and I know that, that there's no way that you would tell me that it is necessary for me to always perfectly recognize my Buddha nature, you know? That is not something that you would want for me. And of course, it's easier to say that to somebody else than it is to say it to yourself, but I do think that you and I, I, I hope I've been consistent in communicating this to you. I think that you do a better job of that than almost anybody I've ever met. You know, like I think that it's, that you and my new partner are, are perhaps the, the two people that I think of as the best at that kind of thing. And the difference, the difference here, right?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Between what you are saying and what I am saying, right, is just that you are still, you have been and are still in a time of extremity, right?
Of course, that's gonna make it harder, you know, to be the kind of person that you want to be. But sometimes these things just come out right, and that's gotta be okay.
[45:08]
RACHEL ZUCKER: You know, I could have also, and maybe I should, but I think I know the answer, ask you, well, have I been able to remain a good friend to you during this, you know, crisis that I've been in? And I, I feel pretty certain, 'cause you've told me over and over again, which has been very important to me, that I have been there for you as well.
That's not the message that I'm getting from my other friends necessarily. And, you know, everybody is of course like trying to cut me some, a lot of slack, you know, and understanding and like if, if I, if I'm acting inappropriate right now, that's not shocking, or if I'm, but I'm certainly hearing that I am, I, I'm not hearing from everybody that I have remarkable self-awareness right now. I'm not hearing from everyone that I am a good friend. And I think, yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I think that, you know, maybe part of that does have to do with this asynchronicity thing because the fact that you can have the uninterrupted time to emote, for lack of a better word -
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yep.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Maybe gives you more opportunity to go all the way through the feeling and then be able to come out the other side of it.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And what I have noticed a lot, especially in the last week or so, I mean, it's not a new thing, but, but it just stood out to me because like within the past week, there have been two times that you have sent me a long message that then you sent me another, a follow-up text to say, don't listen to that one first. Right?
RACHL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And then in the second message, or at the end of the first message, you'll say, I didn't even ask about you. I didn't even ask about your trip to Disneyland. I didn't even ask about your time in Japan. I didn't even ask how it's going with you and your partner. Like, and my response to that has been, you don't have to do that. You know? You don't have to. I know you're interested, but like, I don't have an expectation that you're gonna do that.
This thing about expectation is a very interesting question. One of the other things that I actually have thought of as you were talking is that like I, because we've been talking about this the last couple of days, that the expectation that you have of these two particular friends that you're having a difficulty with right now, right, that's been understandably very difficult for you, and it makes sense to me why those would be the two relationships most at the top of your mind right now.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: At the same time, something that has, you've even mentioned this before, but there are other friends of yours who have shown up for you in ways that have been kind of shocking, at least to me, especially based on the way that you were talking about. I mean, some of these friends you've had for a long time and your relationship with them had at times been quite fraught. And those have been some of the people who have really shown up for you in ways that have really mattered to you. And I do also wonder like how much of that has to do with just who they are, right? Same thing with me, right? How much of it is just to do with who I am as an individual, but how much of it also has, may have to do with the fact that like, because of the strain in those relationships before, or the, the newness of them in some cases, how much of it is that you just didn't have that same expectation for them, and so you're able to, it's not necessarily that, I mean, they are showing up for you in ways, in material, physical ways that other people are not, but also that you're able to receive that differently because of the fact that maybe these weren't the people you were expecting to be the ones to show up for you. You know what I mean?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yes, absolutely. And circumstances also have a lot to do with it. And it's both about who a person is, what the history of the relationship is, what my expectations are, and then also circumstances. And I really think that can't be underestimated. So, you know, my therapist says all the time, like, people show up in different ways at different times. And you know, I've had some really tough times, like with my friend Arielle. You know, we kind of broke up one or two times along the way when one of us had a huge life change. And like, you know, when she opened her marriage, I, I was like, why would, did it have anything to do with me? I couldn't handle it honestly, for almost a year.
[50:00]
Like I, I felt threatened. I felt like all this stuff came up, you know, and the friendship was never the same. It's good, and it changed, and I can feel that these friendships that I'm struggling with now, they cannot go back to the way they were. They either have to, you know, grow and change. They really feel like marriages to me, you know, these friendships, like, you know, and I, and I can feel that with one of them in particular, I am right back in the role that I was in, in my marriage.
Let, let me, I, can I bring up one particular issue? Because I think it's very interesting and it has to do with communication styles, and I wonder how much of, first of all, I think there are some cultural issues at play that have to do with how comfortable people are with conflict, and how comfortable people are, you know, from their families of origin with privacy or with emotionality and with, you know, all of these kinds of things.
So, you know, one of the things that I thought I was doing a really good job at throughout this process was trying to match the right request with the right person. And I think I did do that often in the right way. But with these two friends, there was a mismatch. And I think that the thing that I'm, that is, that's really, really hard for me is, in one of these relationships, I am being told… I am feeling that I'm asking for too much and that I'm asking for inappropriate things and that I'm asking in the wrong way.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Hmm.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And that is something that I felt so strongly in my marriage. So, I wanted physical intimacy. I wanted non-physical intimacy. And you know, my ex-husband was so confused about what I meant by this, how to do it. And there was this, this very deep kind of story that even if he could figure out what I wanted, and even if he could give it to me, it would never be enough, because I was a person with just an endless, endless pit of need for lots of different reasons that had nothing to do with him.
And that was the story that became like a, a fixture in our marriage. And it was very, very damaging to me. And on the flip side, I was perpetually disappointed by him and angry. And I felt not just unloved, but unlovable, because, what was wrong with me that he wasn't giving me the love that I wanted? It must be because I didn't deserve it, because I was unlovable.
When I get into that with my friends, with my platonic friends, and I start to feel I'm asking for too much, you know, like one, one of my friends said to me, you know, I, I'm so, I’m impressed and amazed that you're, you're asking people for these things. Like, I would never be able to ask for these things. First of all, I don't think it's true. I think if you have a kid who gets diagnosed with metastatic cancer and you have to move suddenly and you have two other kids and you're in over your head, you're gonna fucking ask for whatever you need to fucking ask for. Like, you, you get over that shit. 'Cause I'm not a person -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You are a person who historically has had a really hard time asking for things.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's this not, this is, this was not easy. Um, this was necessity, you know, but, but what I hear in that is, again, I'm asking for too much. I'm asking for things that, you know, you can only expect your family to do these things. But I don't have a family in that way. I've always felt not, I've always felt, I have felt in the, since my divorce, I mean, this was happening before I got divorced, this is part of why I got divorced, was that, you know, like one time I went up to Maine and I opened the door and the house was full of wasps. Like entirely full of wasps. And I was totally freaked out. Had no idea what to do. I called Joan immediately. In any emergency, I would never call Josh. Why would I call Josh? You know? So already, even when I had, you know, a partner, my husband, who was supposedly the person that I would, you know, call on for help, that wasn't what was happening.
But since the divorce, I thought I had ovarian cancer and I was gonna die.
[54:56]
You know, I, I've already been through several rounds of having to come face to face with the fact that my friends are my family, right? So when I have a friend who I consider family, who basically gives me the message that the kinds of requests that I'm making of my friends are requests that you can only ask of your family, and I don't have that, that's fucking devastating to me, you know? And I don't think that that's actually what's going on. I think that there's a lot that's getting miscommunicated again in, in the way that I talk about things and like -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But at, at a time like this, and this is something that I keep saying to you in our messages. At a time like this, when you are under an extraordinary amount of stress, the kind of stress that most people will never experience in their entire lives, and you have not just one source of it either, that it is being compounded in so many different ways and that stress is causing you to, for example, not be able to sleep. That you are also not necessarily always able to feed yourself.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: That there are just physical resources that you are, that, that you are under-resourced right now. Right? And that when a person is tired and hungry and stressed and all of these other things that, Of course they just are not gonna be able to, like, this is just not how the human brain functions, right? That your prefrontal cortex does not operate in the same way when you are under-resourced in that way, and what you would want and need from someone who is close to you, and who knows these things about you and has every reason to know what your circumstance is, is for them to say, okay, maybe I don't love the way that Rachel is communicating with me right now, but look at what she's going through.
And that is something that I always try to tell you that like, you don't have to apologize for things like this because I can hear what's underneath it. You know? I know what you're going through. Like even if I've never experienced it,I see it. Right. And these are people who are physically closer to you. Many of them you've been friends with longer than me. So why wouldn't you have the expectation and the desire for them, and the need for them, to be able to provide that kind of understanding as well? You know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, something is happening where, I don't know whether it's their guilt that turns into anger towards me, you know? Or, or frustration with me? Like they're trying to figure out why we're not meeting, you know, why it's not working, why I'm disappointed? And I think then they, they're trying to figure that out, and somehow it's moving into this whole, like, I'm doing it wrong. And one of the things that you have consistently done, and you're not the only one, you know, and, and it's interesting because sometimes I get a text message from someone that I don't really, that I'm not that close to, you know, or that I don't have any expectation of like, material support or help or, you know, participation in that way. And they will communicate to me like, thank you for sharing what's really happening and for including me in this.
And sometimes, you know, somebody who I do ask something from, it will say like, thank you for asking me, you know, thank you for letting me participate. And you know, that's extremely sustaining for me. And sometimes even somebody will say no to something, but they'll say it in a way that is like, great job asking for this.
I'm really, I'm very grateful that you asked for this. And that's, you know, it's just such a trigger for me, this thing where I feel like, on top of being a person who has to ask for all these things, I mean, you know, my mother was a narcissist, like a true, selfish narcissist. And so anytime I feel that I am acting like her, I turn on myself and I just spiral into like a self-hatred, you know, terrible place.
So yeah, it's really a fucking trigger for me that this is happening, and I'm trying to move through it with these friends, you know, or to just take a pause, you know, leave the door open, take a pause.
[1:00:00]
Eventually the circumstances, you know, are gonna change for both of us. And maybe things, you know, we can be close again, maybe we can't, I don't know. But I think, you know, I keep wanting to like try to codify what's working in our relationship to kind of like bring it into my other relationships, or to, you know, almost like, I never do this, but like to offer listeners like, tips on how to be a good friend [laughs], you know, like I, it's so weird that I even think that, but I am because I, I do think that there's something very extraordinary about the way that we've managed to not just stay close, but to deepen the friendship. And I am learning so much in my relationship with you about how to be a good friend to other people too, and how to ask for things. And maybe also, you know, maybe in part like the difficulty that I'm having with some of my friends is a sign that I am not willing to kind of stay in something that feels really bad to me, to the same extent, like that, that actually is a kind of positive way of, of looking at, at the conflict and the, and the discomfort, you know, is to recognize like, I have more limits than I used to, and I'm, I'm really, I'm, I'm not getting so caught up in blame, like who's, who's doing what. I know I'm participating in the dynamic. I know that for sure, but I'm not, I'm just like, you know what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if this, if this relationship is just making everybody feel bad, let's take a step back, you know?
And if this relationship is, you know, like with ours, is making us feel good, can I be less shy about, can I lean into the intimacy? Can I lean into asking for more? When, if I want it, can I lean into the good stuff? You know? And I'm doing this with my friend Joan also, of just, I don't know, there's, there, I, I have some kind of hangup about like, I mean, I just said, why, but like, you know, I definitely keep like a ledger in my mind of like, am I, I, I always have to feel that I'm giving the other person more than they're giving me.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yep. That's what I feel like all the time too.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Right. And I'm trying to really move away from that, you know?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. Because ultimately your value is not in what you do for other people, it is just in who you are on your own terms, which is a terrible, terrible thing to, for somebody like you and for somebody like me, admitting something like that, it's not just difficult, it's exceptionally painful.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It's exceptionally painful to say, my value is not in what I can do for my friends or my loved ones. My value is that I am intrinsically valuable. And I think that the reason why it is so painful is that for whatever reason, our past relationships, whether those are family relationships or friendships or romantic relationships, are ones in which we were not valued for who we were. They are ones in which, at best, we were valued for what we could bring to the other person. And in a lot of cases, these, it's not unusual. Right? Something that I, I wonder 'cause I don't know these other friends of yours. But I wonder, 'cause there is a way in which, when you have solidarity with someone, and your experience resonates with theirs, that just feels very good. It feels very validating. And so it is easier to sort of reciprocate, because you already feel good about yourself, but that is because of the fact that you're getting something from that other person.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And then when, now when you are in a situation where they do not resonate with what you are going through, right? That, that means that it's, it can be harder for them to show up. This sort of transactional nature of so many relationships, it is not uncommon. But for people like you and me, who grew up in neglectful environments, always having to feel like we had to be the ones to do for other people and to do for ourselves, to admit that we are actually intrinsically valuable, would be to admit that these other people failed us, and this is something that I've learned, that I had never really had it had it explained to me in this way before, but that my partner has made very clear for me is that shame, which is something that you and I talk about all the time as being the central experience of our lives, that shame exists to protect us.
[1:05:02]
And that is not really a way that I had ever had anybody explain it to me before, but that shame protects us, because if we can be ashamed of ourselves, then it protects us from having to face these other realities that are too scary, right? To say that my parents were not good parents, that they failed me; to say that my spouse was not a good spouse, and they failed me. And also to say that like that, there's a shame in that of, of protecting you from saying like, maybe I shouldn't have even picked that person to start with.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, but you know, you, your value does not come from what you do for other people, and neither does mine. Right? Even though both of us are so oriented towards doing things for other people, you know, we derive so much meaning in our lives, and so much of a sense of our identity from what we do for other people. That's a really hard thing to let go of, to feel like you have to earn love from other people. You know? It is so difficult and so painful.
RACHEL ZUCKER: So I was just, on my ride home from, on my drive home from Maine, I often call my uncle, my mother's brother, and I hardly ever speak to him. But I, but sometimes on these long drives, I'll call him, and I was asking him some questions about my childhood. There's hardly anybody, you know, who really is left, who knew me as a kid, and he was… so my mother's father died of a heart attack when my uncle was 16 and my mother was, I think 24. And so this was her baby brother, and he would come and sometimes stay with my family. We lived in the Greenwich Village and he remembered, he was my first piano teacher. He was a professional musician. And, so he was probably in his early twenties at this point, or mid twenties. And he would stay with me in my bedroom, you know, just for a few days here and there, he, he went to Julliard and, you know, I had been talking about how a lot of stuff from my childhood is coming up, and it's not new information, but it's hitting me in very, you know, very powerfully.
And, then I feel like there's like something I'm trying to uncover or remember from my childhood, even though I don't think there is “a story.” I think it's the stories that I already know, you know, and I was talking to him about like, how many times my mom left me in a supermarket, or, you know, one time on an airplane, and how scary it was to be with my mom because she was so distracted and very scary like, she would lose her temper. She would yell. She, she didn't hit me, but she, it was very clear that she wanted to, you know, that she felt the urge to do that. And he just told me, he said, you know what? I've been thinking about this and I've been remembering…
so my mother had her office on the second floor of this brownstone, and it was a separate apartment and it had a door that locked and you had to go out into the common hallway and go up. And my mother would rehearse there, by herself and with others. And she would also write up there, and, she would lock the door. And my uncle was like, I just, I just remember, I was so astonished by this, but you know, you would go, when I was really little, I would go out and I would go into the, into the hallway and I would climb up the stairs and I would go and I would just bang on the door and beg her to let me in. You know?
And he was like, you had all of these reasons, and you had all these stories. And you would, you would be crying and you would be asking her like, please, you know, just open the door. I just wanna tell you one thing. I just wanna tell you one thing, you know, or I'm hungry, or you know, I need something. And she would just be like, go away. You know? She would not open the door.
[1:10:00]
And you know, I just, I mean, I remember this, but somehow hearing it from my uncle and knowing it like wasn't my imagination, and… I just was thinking about it as you were talking because I was thinking about, there's something about the asynchronicity of our messages where, you know, I'm trying so hard in my life to not be in that situation where I'm like banging on the door and, you know, for somebody that I love, for somebody that I need, and they just, I, they can hear me. They're telling me to go away. They will not come out, they will not open the door. They will not like, bring me back downstairs and give me the one thing and then like, I'll be back later. Like, there's no, no, she just wouldn't.
And there's a way in which like, it's, it's ironic or, or something. I don't know what the word to use is because you're not actually there, you know, when I'm leaving you the message. But I feel, I know, you know, after all this time, I know you will eventually listen to these messages and I know that you'll respond and I know that you're hearing me, and I never feel that I'm on the other side of this door, you know, and that you're there, but I can't reach you. And, you know, negotiating relationships with people is so hard because I'm, I am on some level, I am this little kid who's banging and banging on the door and I'm, I get hurt over and over again. You know, I'm like back in that situation somehow with a lot of people.
And I think that's, you know, it's just, you know, so much of my childhood, and so much of my marriage was of this kind of desperate attempt to be heard and seen and connect, and my uncle told me one other story, which was that there was a flood. My apartment was constantly flooding. There were all kinds of, you know, it was a very, very old building in Greenwich Village. And, whenever anything happened that was either emotionally complicated or overwhelming, my father would just leave. And he, my uncle was telling me that there was this one moment that he was there and there was a flood, and my dad opened his wallet, took out a huge wad of twenties, handed it to my mother and said, I can't deal with this. I'm going to the movies. Those were the two, those were the two options that I, you know, that I had as a kid.
So, yeah, I don't know. It's really interesting. There's something about our friendship and the way that it began and the way that it's continued and the, like, you're not hurting me in these ways that I'm so sensitive to. And I, and you know, I don't know how to have that with an in-person friend, or a person where, like, we talk on the phone, we don't leave messages, you know?
Because it is a lot of, I think it can be overwhelming, you know, to, to my friends that I talk to on the phone, to be faced with, in real time, somebody who's weeping and banging on the door, you know?
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah. Yeah. It does occur to me to wonder like if we, like if I lived in New York, you know, how that would make our friendship different, you know? It's always a question, like, this is the thing, like, how much of our dynamic is due to the circumstances of our geography and our gender and our technological interface, how much of it is just who you are and who I am?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know, I don't know if those things can be separated.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Well, they don't need to be separated. Right? And I think, you know, for me, I am so grateful for this friendship, you know, as it is. And I also, like I said before, I think, and I, I would encourage you to do the same if it, if it feels right to you, like, I'm trying to enjoy the friendship, count on the friendship, and also maybe practice some things that are very hard for me to do with other people with you, because it is safe.
And I mean, I think this whole podcast is an example of that for both of us. Right? You know? Here we took the chance to move this into real time and we're looking at each other, which is not always your preference. And we, we're taking a lot of emotional risks by doing this, and I think that's really good for us, you know?
[1:15:12]
And I think it's, yeah, I think, you know, I, I have to be careful not to say to my other friends, like, why can't you do this? Mike is a great friend [laughs]. You know, like, that's not nice [laughs]. You know, and again, like as we've said over and over again, like there are reasons why it might be easier for you to show up for me in certain ways. But I do think that I can use the friendship to do a better job being a good friend to other people, and also being a more demanding friend in a good way, you know? And a less, you know, take responsibility for the ways in which I am difficult. I'm not an easy person. And, also -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: What makes you say that?
RACHEL ZUCKER: You know, I can be mean, and I can be, I can use my intelligence to kind of… I hear myself sometimes where I'll, like, I'll be in an argument and then I'll change the terms of the argument as soon as the person is like getting somewhere, and I don't always know that I'm doing it. And you know, again, like this kind of desperation that I feel, I think fuels, it makes everything very intense. Like I'm much more intense than, than a lot of people are used to, or comfortable with. And, you know, I talk about things, I have a lot of like emotional intelligence, but I'm very, very sensitive. It's like, it's very easy to hurt my feelings. I think some of my friends feel that, you know, if they don't do it perfectly, I'm gonna be, you know, upset and disappointed, And then I'm gonna tell them because I'm, you know, I'm not afraid of confrontation. And a lot of people do not like that, believe me. Like, really don't like it.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I have never found it difficult to be your friend, no matter what has come up between the two of us. And as you pointed out earlier in this conversation, we have certainly had our moments of friction even on the podcast, right? The one that was about your novel, or the one that was about the telepathy tapes. Like we've had our moments of friction. I cannot recall thinking one time that it was difficult to be your friend.
I saw a thing on Facebook yesterday, and this is a little bit of a, you're gonna have to come with me on this journey.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I will.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: It was a little screenshot of a thing that was going around. It was about autism and, it was talking about how a lot of the behaviors that we associate with autism, are actually, they are behaviors that are associated with when autistic people, and particularly children, are in distress. And there were a lot of examples of things that they were talking about in this, but at the end of the post, what it said was, people with autistic children will talk to autistic adults and say, my child doesn't have meltdowns. Does that mean that my child is not autistic? And the autistic adult will say, no. It means that your child is happy.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hmm, hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And I wonder about this question of like, am I a difficult person? Because that is something that I say to people all the time. I say, I'm not easy to be around [laughs]. I know that I am like very unusual and very particular, and I have very particular needs. And it can be very challenging to be around me sometimes. And many people have expressed this to me, that it's like, that I am a difficult person.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: But. I know you don't think of me as a difficult person.
RACHEL ZUCKER: No.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And that is despite the fact that we have had difficulties, part of which, you know, that stemmed from exactly the same kinds of peculiarities about me that have caused other people to say that I am difficult, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Okay. I can, maybe this is not nice to say, but I am gonna say it, which is, I can imagine how it was difficult for your first wife to be married to you. Yeah. I can see that. I can imagine that, but I don't find you difficult, but I, but you know what I'm saying, like -
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Well, and this is, this is sort of what I'm getting at here, right? Yeah. Is that, so you're, you're saying, for example, you can be mean, right? You can be maybe, a little bit unfair in the way that you move the goalposts when you're arguing with someone.
[1:20:02]
I'm not hearing that as, like, you are a difficult person. What I'm hearing is that when you are not having your needs met in a relationship, that sometimes behaviors come out that maybe aren't exactly what you wanna be, and maybe they aren't exactly what the other person is gonna find pleasant, but these are not examples of... they're not examples of you being difficult. They're examples of you being in distress.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's really smart, and I think that's very, very difficult for my close female friends to tolerate. You know, at this point, Joan is like, you know, well, Rachel's having a meltdown again. You know, and she'll be like, I wish this wasn't so hard for you. It's kind of like where I got with Abram, that my therapist has really been helping me with, you know, because the flip side of having been a child who had the parents that I had, I'm so committed to my children never feeling the way I felt as a child, that I've gone too far in the other direction, you know? Too much. Too much. And so my therapist has been working with me, you know, now when, you know, one of my kids is, right now it's Abram, who's just, he, Abram and I are very similar in our sensitivity, and in the way we express emotion. We get flooded, we, you know, emote, and it's, it can be extreme, you know, just a lot of, of, of extreme emotion.
And I used to try to like, oh, fix it. You know, like, respond. How am I gonna respond, you know? And I'm, now, I'm trying to say like, I know, you know, and then I leave the room, which is very hard for me, and I think very hard for some of my close female friends to basically not join me in my distress, to not feel responsible for fixing my distress. And you can't really, in a healthy way, be a long-term friend of someone who has as much emotional distress as I do [laughs]. And I'm gonna say, for good reasons, and also because this is my temperament, if you don't have an ability to stay connected without getting enmeshed and without getting overly drawn in.
And I think you and I, we don't, you know, because of all the things we keep saying, like, you can't make my feelings go away, nor do you even ever try. And I don't, I can't make your feelings go away, nor do I try. And I think that that's a really good thing about both of us. But I also think it's, yeah, I don't know other, sometimes people, it's a good thing that they feel like they could do something about it, but it's, it just doesn't help at all. It doesn't help.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Yeah.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I have this difficulty with a lot of people. This, this inability to, to tolerate someone else's discomfort, sometimes even a stranger. You know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I'll say something on, I'll say something on social media and some like, random person who doesn't even follow me will be like, giving me advice. I'm like, why is me complaining about this something that is so intolerable to you that you need to try and fix it for me?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yep.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yep.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: I do kind of wonder, you know, something that I think about a lot is that, this came up because of the thing that you said where like, you're, you, you, you don't, you try not to say things to your friends, like, why can't you be more like Mike? [Laughs]. And I, and it, and there is a thing that where I, I kind of wonder, like, I, I wonder if [sighs], I, I'm, [laughs], there's no way for me to say something like this, maybe, you know where I'm going. I mean, there's no way for me to say something like this without just feeling like a complete asshole, right. Of saying like, maybe like, is me being a particularly good friend to you, making your other relationships suffer? But I think a different way of putting it, right, a different way of putting it, is that I think that, and this is something that my partner and I talk about, in both directions, right? That there is something about when you find yourself in a relationship that actually is safe, right? That actually is safe and nourishing and where the, where you can tell that the other person is actually trying to meet you where you are. You know, at least some of the time, you know, that what that ends up doing is, is that yes, it does highlight the ways that that doesn't happen in other relationships. Right? But I think more than that, what it does is it gives you a certain amount of space to realize what you actually need in a relationship, and to, I think this is something that you and I have talked about as well, that there are certain kinds of healing that, that really can't be done in an effective or at least in an efficient way by yourself.
[1:25:06]
RACHEL ZUCKER: Yeah.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: That you need to have some kind of, you need to do it in relationship or in community. And having, having a, a relationship, whether it's a romantic or friendship where it really is a safe thing, it can kind of highlight for you like, this is what I actually need. You know, even if it's not you're getting what you need from me, or I'm getting what it, what, what I need from you, that it allows you the space to think about what you need.
And that can be a little difficult in so far as it does highlight how you're not getting that in other relationships. But it also, I think, provides you the opportunity to say, okay, can I fix those relationships? Can I move those into a place where I am getting what I need? And if I can't, can I walk away from them in a way that's healthy?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: And also, in forming new relationships ,and going out and finding the people, or maybe not even people, maybe it's like the job, right? Or the, the community, or the house, you know, that I, that I need, to go out and find that in the world and start new, which I know when you're in middle age, the way that we are, right? Like that's not something that you wanna be doing at this point in your life, but maybe it's the thing that we need to do in our life, right?
And kind of bringing this back around to, are you gonna find a loving, romantic relationship? I feel like that there is an opportunity here like that, being able to see these things and see what you need, is the thing that ends up putting you in a place where you can attract that into your life, you know?
RACHEL ZUCKER: Mm-hmm [laughs]. Yeah [laughs]. Yeah, I just had so many funny thoughts, including, maybe I'll meet someone at the silent retreat [laughs]. Alright. You're a great friend. Thank you.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You're a great friend.
RACHEL ZUCKER: I'm glad, I'm really glad [laughs]. Let's, let's try to do this again sometime [laughs].
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Sounds good [laughs].
RACHEL ZUCKER: All right.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: All right.
[Music]
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: You've been listening to, Hey, It’s Me, with Rachel Zucker and Mike Sakasegawa.
RACHEL ZUCKER: Hey, It’s Me is a production of Rachel Zucker and Likewise Media.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: Editing on this episode is by Mike Sakasegawa. Music is by Podington Bear, and transcription help is by Leigh Sugar.
RACHEL ZUCKER: You can find more information about the show, including contact information and transcripts, at heyitsmepodcast.com.
MIKE SAKASEGAWA: If you'd like to hear more from us, you can find Rachel's other show, Commonplace, at Commonplace.today.
RACHEL ZUCKER: And you can find Mike's other show, Keep the Channel Open, at keepthechannelopen.com. Thanks for spending this time with us.
MIKE and RACHEL: Take care.