- How many bad boys have you dated
and why are you more likely to date bad boys?
- Yeah, I don't know if people who date bad boys
know they're looking for bad boys
or if they realize after the fact.
- I'm a real needy person.
I like someone's mentality to match my own
and if you're not necessarily bringing that
to the table it's my way or the highway.
So, I guess that's kind of where my,
the downfalls have been in my most previous relationships.
- I love running errands with people.
Doing things the more mundane,
the more banal the better.
And I think that's like, a really sexy
sweet spot of being with people but
not being on in that performative way.
Hi.
- How are you? - I'm great.
- Excellent. - [Interviewer] Stop talking!
- Sorry.
Your name is Kenneth
and this is your story.
You are 27 years old.
For work, you are a graduate student
in some kind of research laboratory.
You grew up in Uptown,
part of New Orleans.
And your cultural or ethnic background
looks black to me.
- Perfect.
My name is Julian.
I am 27 years old.
For work, I'm a bartender.
And I did grow up in Uptown New Orleans.
- Yes.
- And I am African American, black.
- Cool.
- Your name is Lynn,
and this is your story.
You are 24 years old.
For work, you are a creative author.
You grew up in Upstate New York.
And for your cultural or ethnic background
you're Korean American.
- My name is Melody.
I am 28 years old.
For work, I'm a criminal justice reform advocate.
I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas.
And my cultural/ethnic background is
Taiwanese American.
- Okay.
- Yeah, Upstate New York.
- Don't know.
It was just kind of immediate.
I don't know.
Impulsive answer. - Yeah.
I think of young white farmers
when I think about Upstate New York.
- I think of young white farmers when I think
of middle America Arkansas.
So yeah.
- There's a lot of kind of like suburban parts,
suburban escape.
But yeah, it's good people.
Since there are not a lot of people
who are from there, leave.
And not a lot of people who are from the outside, go in.
- Is Little Rock like big city?
- No.
It's maybe 300,000 people.
- Okay.
Okay.
Cool.
- A little bit quiet,
but changing a lot the last few years.
People are staying around.
- But you consider it home, for sure?
- I consider New Orleans home.
- Okay, great, yeah. - Yeah.
I went to a large public high school,
white and black.
A lot of churches and banks and box shops.
There's not a lot of scaffolding for social mobility.
You can't move up or down or laterally very easily.
So the things that you can manipulate
to express yourself are more limited.
- So I did come from a pretty big family.
I'm the oldest of five.
Live in New Orleans, grew up,
it's tough out here,
but we made the best of every situation
we could after Katrina.
I was actually 13 when Katrina hit.
And we kinda split all around the country
at that point.
We moved up to D.C.
When my dad moved down to Tallahassee, Florida area,
so we were kinda just spread amongst the map.
I have family in California, Texas.
Trying to keep in touch,
stay close with everyone was kind of a difficult
point for a couple years.
But we all cling back together.
Your idea of a perfect date would
be a picnic in the park.
You are more likely to date sweethearts.
You're an early bird because you fight crime.
And your Mardi Gras experience
looks like getting dressed up in costume
and being up early for the early morning parades.
My idea of a perfect date is doing some
sort of activity, like putting furniture together,
something that's interactive, or riding bikes.
You know, you can do a thing,
talk a little bit, do a thing, talk a little bit.
I am more likely to date bad boys.
- How many bad boys have you dated?
And why are you more likely to date bad boys?
- Yeah, I don't know if people who date bad boys
know they're looking for bad boys,
or if they realize after the fact.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. - Sure.
You realize after the fact.
- Yeah, and I don't think anyone's explicitly bad,
I think bad boys don't know they themselves are bad.
It's just that, yeah.
I mean, my friend and I talk a lot about
if a person is drawn to sorrow or joy in another person
and if for example I'm drawn to sorrow in another person,
what is it for?
Is it because it's a mirror
or is it because you have the capacity to understand
something beautiful?
Or if it's joy is it because I lack that
or because I only wanna stay in the light?
So I don't have a good answer for that.
Just that it has been a track record,
but I'm moving the ship.
- Sure.
- Yeah.
I am a night owl.
My preference is to be because
I think there's just very interesting things
that could happen when you're under the cover of the night.
But I do have to wake up
and circulate around other people who are doing things
at regular hours, so.
My Mardi Gras experience looks like
waking up very early.
Doing St. Ann's parade.
Involves a lot of color,
a lot of wonder, and a very long walk all over the city.
- All over.
- Yeah.
- Do you take part in the balls?
Ball season?
- I go to every ball I'm invited to.
Yeah, I love being plus one.
- Yeah, noted.
- Your idea of a perfect date is brunch.
You're more likely to date sweethearts.
And you are a night owl
because of your work hours,
but I also think it's your preference
to connect with people in that kind of
third space of across the bar.
Your Mardi Gras experience looks like
a lot of friends' parties.
I think you probably kind of bounce
from homie's house to homie's house.
And also your favorite bars.
- My idea of a perfect date would be
in a dungeon bar.
Dark, where we can barely hear each other.
So we're screaming to make conversation.
That's cool.
I am more likely to date sweethearts.
You got that.
I am a night owl because of
just my wiring.
You're right, spot on, due to my work hours.
So I'm always up at night.
My Mardi Gras experience is bouncing
around from homie's house,
walking all over the city,
but it's also camping out on St. Charles,
whether it's raining or freezing cold,
and tailgating pretty much all night.
So, yeah.
I guess some assumptions people make about me.
I'm a pretty boy, I guess.
Clean cut, all that extra-curricular stuff.
I guess something that they're pretty far
off about is that I grew up like rich.
I did go to nice, private schools.
That's kind of my background.
But we struggled,
and my mom worked her ass off to get me in those schools.
So, yeah, I'm not a rich kid by no means at all.
- I grew up in the south
and I didn't spend a lot of time
around people who look like me.
I had moments of recognition where I realize
I wasn't white.
Like, oh shit.
So I maneuvered around that,
and did a number of things
that kind of diminished my background
or downplayed ways that my family,
inside of the walls of our house, was different.
That's too bad.
That's too bad for a young person to
erase parts of themselves,
but it's also kind of a survival thing that I don't think is
useful to give ourselves shit about either.
Okay, Julian, your biggest fear in a relationship
is being shut out.
The best way to give back to your community is
daily acts of kindness.
I believe you believe that small things like
that add up.
You do not believe a strict upbringing is key
for children.
If money didn't matter you would spend your life
traveling to warm places
but also I think you could put on a coat
to see some cold places too.
- Yeah so, my biggest fear in a relationship is
a person not committing.
I can't stand that.
Just take a step.
Build towards a future.
The best way to give back to my community is
through philanthropy.
I like helping the youth.
I don't know why, I just do.
But I do believe that strict upbringing
is pretty critical for children.
If money didn't matter, I would be like Bruce Wayne.
Be a philanthropist all throughout life and give back.
Your biggest fear in a relationship is
being hurt, lied to, cheated on.
The best way to give back to your community is
to help kids or homeless people in need.
But you do believe a strict upbringing
for children is key.
If money didn't matter, you would travel the world.
- Okay, my biggest fear in a relationship is monotony
and loss of autonomy.
The best way to give back to my community is
being joyful and truly present.
I say that in the context of
spending a lot of hours of my time doing
public service work.
But I actually think it's that core and simple.
I'm not sure if a strict upbringing is key for children.
I think I had parts of a strict upbringing and parts not
and there's a lot that goes into child
rearing that I think is complicated.
So I don't know.
Maybe part and part for that.
If money didn't matter, I would spend my life
pranking my friends.
- Awesome.
- Whoa.
- This is deep stuff, Yeah. - Let's circle back here.
So, autonomy, monotony.
- Yeah, I think that's hurtful to everybody.
I think some level of habits and formation
and that kind of companionship is good.
But I think people, in general,
just need freshness in their lives and to one another.
It's a dynamic, it's a live thing.
Yeah. - Yeah.
Keep the other person guessing, on their toes.
- Yeah, I think in terms of monotony,
maintain your interests
and maintain yourself as an interesting person
for the sake of yourself and others.
And the loss of autonomy,
the kind of relationships that are about control,
or obligation or manipulation,
doesn't feel good.
- Sure.
- So Julian, you wrote that you do believe
that a strict upbringing is key for children
and sounded pretty confident about that.
Do you have more background on why?
- Absolutely.
So strict upbringing.
My dad was in the military,
so that's kind of where that rooted from.
I was raised by a single mom as well,
so the reverse side of that.
So you can kind of take it from two different angles.
Pretty strict dad and very strict mom.
And I think I turned out well,
so that's where that derives from.
- Overall, it was helpful more than it was--
- Hurtful, for sure. - hurtful.
- When I first saw you,
I thought to myself
I would date you.
And now that I've gotten to know a little
bit about you,
I still think I would date you.
- Yay!
- When I first met you Julian,
I said that I would date you.
Now that we have spent some time chatting,
my answer remains the same.
- Awesome. - I would date you.
I think that after chatting with you,
you are kind of a sophisticated
and thoughtful listener.
And you have some quirks and weirdness about you,
so I'd be down to learn more about them.
- You're right, I'm a total goofball.
- I think that we should order Ikea furniture
and bring it to the scene,
and build it there.
That would be a great first date.
- Sure.
She's got it all figured out.
I'm down, Yeah, it works. - Yeah.
A shot and a beer and a little shelving unit
at the scene at four A.M.
- Four A.M., my kind of girl.
Done.
- Yeah.
- Thanks for watching "Tell My Story."
- If you wanna see more people getting weird
and taking a chance on love,
please subscribe to sell my pancake.