15 Types of Relationships People Of Different Genders Can Have With Each Other

[melannen]

As I have gleaned from my extensive study of "podcasts in which people of different genders have unscripted friendly chats about specialized subjects."

1. Heterosexual monogamous married couple.
2. Heterosexual monogamous married couple and their friend they took in after her divorce who is slowly learning that she can move out any time she likes but she can't ever leave.
3. Committed boyfriend and girlfriend living in domestic polyamorous bliss with boyfriend's wife.
4. Ex-spouses (and former childhood sweethearts), now transcontinental partners and best friends.
5. Not-directly-romantically-involved members of what is supposedly a science club but is increasingly sounding like one large polycule.
6. Two people in a love triangle with a cat (and their extremely tolerant friend.)
7. Two midlife career women and their young mustachioed minion.
8. Friendly coworkers.
9. Fellow graduate students.
10. Two people and the silent, never-mentioned absence of the third person who was removed for sexually harassing one of the first two.
11. Three strangers who started talking about UFOs in a bar one night and didn't manage to stop until one of them moved to a different country years later.
12. Three academics in the same field but vastly different levels of academic authority/privilege collaborating on a hobby project in which the least academically privileged is the project lead.
13. Two non-romantically-involved people who frequently go undercover in situations in which they are presumed to be a couple.
14. Yeah she may be half his height, but she could take him in a fight.
15. One year in three or four, when it's going to be a good mast year for the fruit of the Rimu tree, the male finds a high place over the fjord, makes a bowl, and begins booming and chinging. After the summer solstice, the female will follow the sound to find him and mate, perhaps several nights in a row, before she builds a nest in the hollow of a tree. The rest of the time, they actively avoid each other.

(....a no prize to anyone who can name the podcasts.)

Comments

[seekingferret]

4 is pretty clearly Jay and Miles.

I'm rooting for 1 to be Throwing Sheyd.

[melannen]

Yep, 4 is Jay and Miles. :D

1 is actually several different ones, including "Futility Closet" and "Sawbones". Throwing Sheyd currently is third on my list of "if you ever run out of your current ridiculous number of podcasts and need a new one". :P

[petra]

I would like the cheat sheet of answers to this, if you're willing to share it, posted with spoiler warnings for people who want to play the game.

[melannen]

I will do so, at some point!

[thedarlingone]

Is 2 KUEC?

[melannen]

Yes! It's amazing how quickly Liz became an essential part of the show.

[azurelunatic]

14: And her co-host Matt Effin' Wallace on the right.

[melannen]

So settle in folks, buckle in, and boot up!


...I'm actually way behind on that one because it makes me actually want to buckle in and write and so I only listen to it when I'm going to have time to write for a couple hours afterward, and, well.

[rushthatspeaks]

13 is ONRAC, I presume. Who I keep worrying are actually going to do something that permanently harms them, although I guess if ayahuasca, urine therapy, and Scientology haven't they're pretty difficult to permanently harm.

[melannen]

Ross actually did do something permanent to his foot, didn't he? I started late so I've only been picking series from the last year or so, so far, but he keeps trying to get people to heal his foot.

[rushthatspeaks]

That's eczema, though? Like, granted, it started after he was really, really dumb about firewalking. And it might be permanent, but it could also calm down again-- that kind of reaction to a burn tends to settle down eventually. That's absolutely as close to permanent consequences as they've gotten, agreed.

[melannen]

Ah, right! I forgot what it was exactly. Yeah, that's not a major injury, I guess.

Although most of the kind of stuff they look at *doesn't* hurt you in an obvious way, and that's why it's insidious - if people reliably ended up in the hospital after three classes, it would be a lot less convincing! And I think they are probably smart enough not to try stuff like black salve and Vitamin Cyanide.

[carmarthen]

I want to know what 15 is so I can listen to it.

[melannen]

It is the Kākāpō Files from Radio NZ! Because it is a very good mast year for Rimu fruit, and so far they're having what looks like the best breeding year for kakapo since the conservation project started. If most of the chicks survive there may be a 50% increase in total population!

So they started a podcast where you can hear about every single mating and hatching, as it happened. :D

[carmarthen]

PERFECT I am excited and I wish them ALL THE REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS.

[melannen]

I just learned from episode 6 that the males all have recorders that not only automatically record how often they have sex and who with, but also how good it was that time. I HOPE THERE ARE GRAPHS.

[satsuma]

The only one of these I’m currently listening to is #4, but I’d be interested in picking up #5 & #12 as well if anyone knows what they are

[melannen]

#5 is Skeptics with a K, which is a podcast about science and skepticism produced by the Merseyside Skeptics Society (the poly stuff doesn't come up too often, don't want to be misleading - it's just that recently every so often they mention going out with other club members and stuff and then add "oh in case you missed it, we're poly, it's all fine".)

If you liked my Let's Read A Scientific Paper post, that's basically what they do, only in audio and with more bad jokes and they tend to alternate between looking at actual scientific papers and looking at advertising that makes scientific claims (and occasionally do things like go to Flat Earth conferences or start a legal challenge to keep the national health service from paying for snake oil. One of the hosts does a lot of placebo and scientific method stuff, one does a lot of health and sexuality stuff, and one does a lot of science-in-the-media topics. And there's a recurring guest who's really great who does pseudoscience in the prison system. I like them partly because they're more likely to cover that kind of thing than the easy targets a lot of other skepticism outreach does.)

#12 is Archaeological Fantasies, which is run by Serra Zander, a PhD student and working CRM archaeologist, and features her co-hosts, Jeb Card and Ken Feder, who are both established and tenured research professors at different institutions, who met through her blog rather than through academic circles. I find the way they balance that dynamic really interesting even if not always perfect. Unfortunately it's recently been moving more toward the interview-new-people format than the hosts-chat-about-stuff format, so you don't see as much of the friendship dynamic between them.

But it's still fun if you want to hear working archaeologists rip apart racist nonsense like Ancient Aliens every month, and they also cover a lot on both the history of archaeology (they have a drinking game that involves the word 'Victorians' said in a certain tone of voice) and the cutting edge of archeology (they had a recent episode on the archaeology of open-sandbox mmorpgs that was fascinating.)

[jenett]

I was wondering if that was #12 - it's great, and I agree, that the back and forth is some of the fun stuff there.

[melannen]

Yeah - I've never been too fond of interviews, but especially if I'm in it for the regular hosts, I want the regular hosts to talk! This is especially a thing where it seems like nearly all of the Serious Science Podcasts About Serious Science use an interview format, and it's fine, but I'm not going to get really into it, because you never know what you're going to get on any given episode, and I want consistency in my podcasts!

And also especially with scientists, a lot of the guests will have strong accents that I'm not used to listening to, which is super cool, and if they're a regular I learn it pretty fast, but if it's new I have to pay close attention, and I usually listen while distracted, so that doesn't work well when it's a different guest every episode.

[satsuma]

I suspected the poly-ness wasn't the focus of the podcast, so that doesn't surprise me (tho it is amusing)

and I DO want to hear working archaeologists rip apart racist nonsense every month! Tho I might check out the blog first - I'm better at text than audio - even if that means missing out on the drinking games

[amaresu]

I miss Thinking Sideways.

[melannen]

Me too. They kept hinting that something new might be coming but I fear they've rediscovered the concept of "free time" instead (Which is always a danger.)

[amaresu]

I'll scroll down to check them in my feed every once in awhile and then get sad.

[wolby]

Given the number of podcasts I subscribe to (I gave up trying to keep them under control at the 300 mark and I'm pretty sure I passed 400 at some point) I'm surprised I don't know a single one of these. We must have pretty divergent podcast habits.

[cadenzamuse]

+1

[melannen]

Wow, and I thought trying to keep up with 30 was too many! Do you actually keep up with them all? Do you have a time-turner?

My podcast app fits 12 icons on a screen, so in theory I try to keep it to no more than twelve that have unlistened episodes, although it's more like 12 that have only a few unlistened episodes and I will be caught up sometime soon I swear + 12 that I will not be caught up on anytime soon + 12 or so active ones that I *am* caught up on.

I stick pretty close to the "people who are not all men and genuinely enjoy each other have unscripted chats about specialized subjects they are knowledgeable in," format (and all of the ones I listed here are like that, except the last one) so if that's not your thing, there probably isn't much overlap! Also the specialized subjects part means they do tend to be kind of niche. And I tend to find new ones by searching for episodes on obscure topics, so a few of them are REALLY obscure.

I am kind of surprised nobody's called out #7 yet, though, it's a pretty popular one, I thought.

[dhampyresa]

Mustachioed minion is a good phrase. I don't think I know any of those, though.

[melannen]

I don't, either, but they seem to be a very useful type of person to have around.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

#5 sounds like the perfect relationship :D

[melannen]

I have been super jealous of the existence of that club even before they started talking about being poly on the podcasat. :D It's a skeptics' club, that is also a core group of really good friends, and I wish we could have a club like that in my area in a way I could be reasonably sure wasn't full of barely-hidden misogyny and white supremacy, but formal skepticism in the US is a rats' nest. (Although I know a large part of why it *is* better there is that the people in the podcast have been doing all the hard work to make it better. And I'm too tired.)