- Hi, I'm Jazzmyne.
- I'm Lindsay.
- And I'm Joyce.
- And welcome to our sort!
- Our what? - Our what?
(Jazzmyne laughs)
- Its not a seance!
- Today, we're looking at our first relationships,
which, all look super different.
- And we have a special guests coming to our fort,
our friend, Sasha!
- Hi!
- Oh, my God, I'm in the fort!
- Maybe it was a seance, 'cause you just appeared.
(laughs)
What's happening?
- Is this thing going to talk to us?
- How old were you when you had your first relationship?
- Oh, I could tell you.
- Okay!
- Never.
(cheers)
- Situationships.
- I know that very well.
I think it was probably 16 or 17,
but it was just one of those, like,
we didn't even, like, hold hands, really.
I was a shy girl and it lasted, like, a month, probably.
- I called my friend, Tony, my boyfriend in kindergarten.
And we both are SO gay.
- I love that!
- If I don't count my kindergarten relationship,
then my first relationship was when I was 16.
I wasn't allowed to date till I was 16.
- The first, like, hold hands on, like, at school,
I think I was in like seventh grade.
- Ooh! - I was, like hotsie-totsie.
- I love that!
- I was, like, obviously like a queer kid,
but I didn't know I was trans yet,
so I was with a girl and didn't realize like,
"Oh, I actually want to be her."
Taking notes. You know, "What moisturizer do you use?"
- What level of relationship would you say it was?
- Like a one to five? Five being full on serious?
- Right.
- Yeah and one being, just friends but,
special friends, maybe?
- Yeah.
- I would say two. We went on, like, dates and, like,
held the hands and did things like now, but I didn't...
I like look back and I'm like, "Did I even like it?"
It's like sometimes when you're, when you're in town,
there's not that many options,
you just, you kind of just, lean into whatever's there.
- Yup.
Okay, I'm not going to go off my kindergarten relationship,
I'm going to go off my 16 year old relationship.
I would say we were at like a...
people knew we were talking with each other,
they knew we were seeing each other.
I don't think we were ever, like, "official."
Like I'm your girlfriend,
you're, I was dating a, it was a guy. Kyle!
So what is that, like a two?
- Oh, I guess that I was a three, then.
- Well, then what's one and two?
Well, I thought one was like...
- We're going one through five!
(beep)
- It was like a 1.5.
- How did you meet?
- The thing is, is that, you know, most of my situationships
are friends who are, like, "Wait, Joyce,
I'm in love with you."
- So dumb.
- Why is that still how it is?
- Uh, so we met through friendship, most of the times.
- Both of my high school boyfriends,
that lasted 0.2 seconds,
were because I worked at the movie theater, in town.
And so they both worked at the movie theater.
And they both didn't even go to my high school,
like, it was a different high school, so...
- Ooh.
- So, I feel like that also is why the relationship never
really progressed, because we never saw each other,
except for like after work or if we were in the same shift.
It was actually, it was really fun.
- Me and Kyle, we hung out in the same friend group.
- It was, like, in seventh grade,
so like whoever was sitting next to me.
(laughs)
- Who would sit with you on the bus.
- Right. You're the one!
- Did you take it very seriously,
or was it just a fun, casual experience?
- I mean, I'm not going to lie,
I did some reckless things in college,
I mean, in high school.
- Tell!
- I'm just going to say his name,
so I used to write love letters to this boy named Jameson.
And he never knew it was me, and we used to post them
in the hallways. That poor boy.
He had a girlfriend and everything he's like,
"Please stop," and I was like,
"It wasn't in my hand writing," 'cause you know,
I got really bad handwriting. So, yeah,
we had a whole team of girls
who were just writing letters to these boys.
- No, I never once took it seriously.
- No?
- No, I, 'cause now, like, later in life,
any person I like remotely date, I was like,
"Could I spend the rest of my life?"
Like, I look far into it,
but you'd think that of me in high school,
but I definitely didn't.
- I definitely wasn't looking far into it, either.
I was there for like, "Let's round these bases."
That's what I was trying to do.
Make out! Hickies! Dicks!
- Whoa!
- Yeah. It was like, it was like a saga.
I mean, who doesn't when you're in like seventh grade?
Everything's like, dramatic.
And plus it was like, I'm a eighties baby.
So I was definitely like listening to, like,
The Cure on the way. So I was already programming myself
for like unrequited love.
- Yes!
- Plus I was like, I was totally like the most feminine,
like queer kid in school. And so they all knew,
but I was just really like, I can be like one of y'all.
- Right.
- And so really, it was like my girlfriends that took like,
(mumbles)
- Yeah.
- Yeah, you know, 'til you figure it out.
- What did you learn from your first relationship?
- Oh, my God!
- So for me, I think what I've learned from my relationships
is that it's... relationships aren't like the movies.
And I need someone who I'm actually compatible with
and someone who loves and treats me with respect,
instead of treating me like a secret.
- At first, I thought my type did change drastically
because I'm so much older now.
But looking back, I've always been super into, like,
artistic boys, creative, into like theater.
Like, when I look back, they've all played
like a musical instrument.
- Oh.
- And it's still relevant to this day,
so maybe it hasn't changed that much.
I love a soft boy; always have.
- I think what has changed most for me is,
when I was younger, I was like talking about standards,
I was like, no standards. Like, if you show me attention,
I want to date you. You know?
And now I'm like...
- I hope my standards have gotten better.
You have to breathe and I like you.
- Okay. Yeah, yeah.
- Same.
- I feel that.
- Yeah, and I was like, let's do it. Let's see.
I'm pan, so I like whatever.
I'm not, like, tied down by gender or...
- Yeah. Do you think when you were younger,
you were tied down to a gender?
- I felt like I had to be. 'Cause, you know,
the, the hard thing is when you're, like, trans
and then your sexual identity and your sexual preference,
you get all like misconstrued. So I had to really, like,
I actually was still attracted to girls
or like I would like a boy now and then,
so we'd go back and forth,
but I was definitely, like, trans.
So it was kind of like, well, who can get this?
Who can I do this like Rubik's cube?
(laughs)
- Yup. True.
- What are the pros of being in a relationship?
- Someone to make out with and satisfy you physically.
- That's true.
- Yes.
- Like having someone on your team.
- I was going to say that, too.
- You know, I feel like when I was younger,
whenever I thought about, like,
what I wanted in a relationship,
I wanted someone to, like, lift me up
as much as I lift them up and, like,
constantly, like, be inspired and go back and forth.
I still believe that to this day.
- Yeah.
- What are the cons of being in a relationship?
- Cons, somebody always up your butt.
You know, someone's always with you.
I need, like, alone time. According to my mother,
I'm actually very introverted. So I need, like,
I would need someone who's, like,
doesn't expect me to text him every single day.
And in a lot of my past situationships,
because I wasn't texting him at 6:45,
or texting them before I went to bed,
they thought that I didn't care about them.
So it's just like, for me,
it's like, having healthy boundaries.
- Yeah.
- Losing yourself for the person,
even in a good or bad relationship,
but like trying to find your worth,
you know, based on them, and like changing things
that you actually like about yourself,
that could be like really detrimental.
- What are some red flags?
- There's too many!
- So many. People really trying to control you as a person.
Like, a lot of my toxic situations were people wanting me
to have less opportunities, wanting me to speak less,
wanting me to be insecure.
Like, made me feel like I wasn't worth being alive.
And so it's, like, through their own insecurities,
they projected that onto me.
So I feel like you need to literally watch
how a person treats themselves.
Because if they treat themselves horribly,
they're going to treat you even worse.
- You know when you start dating someone,
my mom used to always say like, see if they have friends;
and see how those friends are.
And when I look back at all the guys I talk to or whatever,
that just didn't work out,
or would turn out to be not good people.
I always look, I'm like, "They didn't have friends."
- Or like the friends that they keep,
you know, like, "Oh, y'all are shady."
- This is looking back, because when I was in it,
you could have dangled a red flag in my face
and I would have been like, "Oh, it's a scarf."
Like, so, but now looking back, realizing that
I was giving up more of myself
than I was getting in return, that would be like,
that's what I've taken, moving forward, finding partners.
Like, I'm not your therapist.
- What advice would you give someone
who is starting their first relationship?
- Go to therapy.
- Masturbate, so that you know what you want in the bedroom.
- Honestly!
- You can't just like...
- And so that you're not depending on someone else.
- Yeah.
- Meditate on your core values,
so that you don't lose yourself in the relationship.
It's easy, especially in a first relationship,
super easy to just fall into a person
and forget about yourself.
And just remember that the person you should be with
is someone that you really don't have to change for,
core value wise, and that is just on the same path as you.
- I mean, high school, focus on school.
- Right?
- Yeah.
- Focus on education, focus on that check.
- It's fun if it's like,
if you're looking for a first relationship,
just know it's fun.
You're going to, you don't know what you're doing.
And it's not like the movies.
- No.
So you're not going to, that was... unanimous.
- See, like, every relationship is a learning experience,
and don't see it as, like, a failure.
- There's my favorite song, it's called The John Wayne,
and one of the lines says, "There's so many more people
out there to love than people who love you now."
- Ooh.
- So don't let, don't let your first love experience
be the end of the movie.
- Truth.
- Love. - Love. - Lust. - Love.
- Stand your ground.
- Apologize.
- I have to apologize, more often.
- I'm going to say a little spoon.
- Little spoon!
- Big!
- Spoons are like this.
- They're not separate drawers.
- Kind of like the butt of the spoons are touching.
- Farting openly phase.
- Honeymoon.
- Farting openly.
- I was raised Haitian, so this is really hard for me,
so I'm going to say privacy.
- PDA, PDA.
- PDA
- Privacy.
- Dumpee.
- Dumper? No, dumpee.
- Dumper.
- Dumpee, blame them.
- Blame them and make a beautiful short film about it.
That's literally how I graduated film school.
- Thanks for coming into the fort!
Thank y'all for having me here.
- And thank you guys so much for watching.
I hope this was enlightening for you,
and maybe bring your booty back to the fort for next time.
Bye!