Problems with Asking for Access to Your Partner's Phone, Fleeting Physical Attraction + Unhinged Conversations

These monthly Provoked community Zoom calls are intellectual and emotional boosters. The last one was no exception. If you missed the live call, here is an attempted recap, with my prior article serving as an initial catalyst:

In Defense of Opposite‑Sex Friendships: Don’t Give Up Half the World as Friends

🎥 70-Minute Provoked Community Call Replay:
It was a full-on, no-filter, psychologically sharp therapy session disguised as a conversation with detours into bowel movements, Baywatch, and what it says about a person who gives close peeps bank account access.

Topics we tore into:

• Why opposite-sex friendships still freak people out (and how this is a cultural virus that might be changed by these 40+ comments - link)

• The “mating mindset” vs. the “ally mindset”and how to not activate the wrong one over iced tea (for related evolutionary science - link)

• Radical transparency: noble ideal or relationship napalm?

• Trust, phones, and the myth of “nothing to hide” (plus: why your texts would get you canceled without context)

• Attraction ≠ action: how to feel something and not ruin your life

• The last socially acceptable prejudice: beauty bias (link)

• Why your romantic partner shouldn’t be your therapist, best friend, and emotional Sherpa all in one (for the suffocation model by

  Eli J Finkel
  - link)

The more roles you ask of a partner, the less oxygen for either of you to breathe.

• Cultural programming from Gilmore Girls to Baywatch and how it’s still messing with our heads

• The ethics of mentorship, the psychology of privacy, and the art of not being a weirdo when you’re seen and heard by someone new

Watch the recording below if you’ve ever:

• Been accused of cheating for walking with someone at halftime

• Wondered if you’re allowed to have a close to “objectively attractive” friend and not implode your relationship

• Thought about giving someone your house keys or your heart and weren’t sure which was riskier

This one’s messy, honest, and full of moments that’ll make you rethink what you thought you knew. Tell me what hit hardest. You will witness one moment where I get the chills from something said…