PODCAST #405 WITH DR. DIANE STRACHOWSKI TRANSCRIPT
? You are listening to the Reality Steve Podcast with your host, Reality Steve. He’s got all the latest info and behind the scenes juice on Jen’s season of The Bachelorette and interviewing some of your favorite reality stars. Now here’s Reality Steve.
What’s up everybody, welcome to podcast number 405, I’m your host Reality Steve, thank you all for tuning in. Good episode for today, we’re bringing back Dr. Diane Strakowski, she is a psychologist She is the back to love doc on Instagram for now. We’re going to talk about Jen’s episode. Jen as the bachelorette, how she’s done as a lead thus far this season, what she thought of Sam M what she thinks of the golden bachelorette coming up, what she thinks of grant as the bachelor, a lot of bachelorette and bachelor talk today with Dr.
Diane, and we will get to that momentarily. Few things to go over before we get to that. I said this at the actual end of the daily roundup today. So almost 25 minutes in probably should have put it closer to the beginning, but I might have your golden bachelorette spoilers by this weekend. I know one thing for sure.
And I think I know the order breakdown from four, three, two, one. The one thing I am 100 percent sure of. Is Jordan Heller went home at four. He was eliminated after hometown dates. So that means your final three are Pascal Ibgui, Guy Gansert and Chalk Chapel. I’m going to love saying Chalk Chapel all season long.
I really am. So those are your final three. I think I know who Joan ended up with. However, I have no idea if there was an engagement. And I can see Joe not getting engaged in this, not wanting to jump into an engagement. She’s been made, she made it very clear before the show even started, Hey, I’m not moving.
And I just think the sense I got from her preseason was that she wasn’t going to end this thing engaged. But she did want to be with somebody, but maybe they did get engaged. I don’t know, but I think I might know the breakdown and maybe on Sunday night during the live stream, I’ll be able to confirm that and put it out there.
The other thing that I did want to say is Sunday night’s live stream. We’ll have some golden bachelorette talk, maybe some bachelorette and bachelor talk or whatever. But the other thing that I wanted to mention was. Sunday nights live stream will be the gambling related live stream that I wanted to do sports gambling, where I’m going to take your questions.
I have three people that are going to come on that said they had questions. They wanted to be a part of the live stream. And then I’m going to also, if you’re in the comment section, you can ask something. If you’re not understanding something or you want me to pull something up or whatever, I’m going to have some photos there to show you so it’s not just me just blurting it out.
I’m going to walk you through certain things. And like I said, just all involved with sports gambling, not anything else. So I just wanted to put that out there. The other thing being on Sunday night. Like I said, I will talk some other stuff before we get to the gambling, sticking with sports gambling, mostly going to start with football and then maybe do a little baseball, but we’re not in basketball season.
Most people don’t bet hockey, so I just want to give people a gambling one on one. No question is too dumb. I will do my best to explain it as slow as I can. A lot of it is math, but it’s not hard math. I mean, it’s literally just addition and subtraction with not big numbers. That’s really all it is when it comes to it.
Now, if you’re talking about what’s the payout for certain things, yeah, that’s where you get into multiplication and stuff like that, but we’re just going to go over the basics. What is a spread on a game? What is a money line? What’s a parlay? What’s a teaser? All these different things. Can you do, you know, what do, what do other teasers can you do?
Can you put a. You know, a three team teaser or a four team teaser, just know they all have different odds and, you know, what are the odds when it comes to a football game? Basic stuff. That’s obviously stuff that I know because I’ve been doing it for 20 years, but I understand that a lot of people don’t and they get intimidated by it and they don’t understand and maybe some people want to know what people are talking about when they talk about gambling.
What’s an over under? Stuff like that. Over under is probably the easiest thing to understand, but I’ll explain it. So we’re going to go over all that stuff. On Sunday night on the live stream. I already have three people that want to come on. And if you want to participate and just watch and ask a question in the comment section, I can pull those up as well on screen in the daily roundup.
Today. I also talked about the challenge from last night, second episode of the season, eliminated our first eight people, but we got a little twist at the end. Those eight people can give. A karma vote where they can rank contestants, but we don’t know what that karma vote will ultimately end up being.
We’ll find that out. I’m assuming as the season goes on, I’m assuming everybody gets eliminated, gets a karma vote and not just the first eight that were eliminated in last night’s episode. Big brother last night. We know what happened. We knew what was going to happen going in. If you listen to the podcast, the last few days, Tucker one power of veto, he took Quinn off the block, put Chelsea up.
So now Chelsea cam and. Brooklyn are all competing in BBA arena tonight. If Brooklyn doesn’t win, it seems like she’s going home unless there’s a change in the house over the last 24 to 48 hours. It’s see, I mean, she’s, she’s Tucker’s target. So if she doesn’t win BBA arena, if she’s sitting next to cam or if she’s sitting next to Chelsea, seems like she’s going home because Tucker’s running this game right now.
And it’s about as simple as that. Are people going to go against him? Probably not. At least not now. I’d wait a little bit. I’d lull Tucker into a false sense of security and then go after him because he’s running the Sixth Avenue Alliance. And after tonight, it’s going to be six in the six, six people in the Sixth Avenue Alliance.
And then five people in the other, I don’t know if you want to call it Alliance. Cause I don’t even think they’re in an Alliance, but the Sixth Avenue is going to have a majority. Now, if someone from Sixth Avenue doesn’t win HOH really won’t matter that they have it. But my guess is, Like I said, if somebody outside of the six cents wins, HOH do not put Tucker up.
You have to backdoor him. He’s going to win power of veto or the BBA arena. He’s winning one of the two. So if you put them up for patent, but you put them up on the block, you put them up for eviction and nominate him. That’s giving him two chances. You don’t put them up and you just hope that somebody in your Alliance wins power of veto.
And then you can backdoor him and he only gets one chance in the BBA arena. Yeah, he might win it, but you can’t predict that you got to give him the least amount of chances. That’s your only way to get this guy out because the second he is up on BBA arena, he’s up for eviction and doesn’t win BBA arena.
That’s going to be your only hope to get him out. And I hope these people see what’s happening in this game. Unfortunately, I’m not too confident because they all seem to be cowering to Tucker now, and he’s just running the show. But time will tell. Never know. All right. This podcast is brought to you by Weigh.
With Weigh, you’ll get hydration that won’t weigh you down plus extra benefits that your specific strands need. Think volume and bounce, shine, and protection against frizz. For me, No frizzies here, even though it was 1. 07 yesterday in Dallas. My hair didn’t frizz, probably because I had a hat on. And it wasn’t really outside very much.
But other than that, my hair didn’t frizz. Does it got volume? You bet your ass it does. Does it got bounce? Does it got shine? It’s got all those. Go watch podcast number 405 today on my YouTube channel because you’re going to get it in your Apple podcast feed and you’re going to get it in your Spotify feed, but you’re also going to get it on podcast number 405 and you can actually watch it on my YouTube channel and look at my hair and comment, my gosh, Steve, it looks like your hair is glowing.
You know why it’s glowing? It’s because of way, wash your way to healthy hair and get a hair routine that’s made just for you by way. Go to the way. com T H E O U A I. com. Use promo code reality. Steve for 15 percent off any product. That’s the way. com T H E O U A I. com. Promo code reality. Steve for 15 percent off any product.
Any podcast is also brought to you by mint mobile. You know, when mint mobile came to me and said, we actually have a phone plan. That’s 15 a month for three months. Immediately. I thought, what’s the catch. Do I have to be locked into mint mobile until the year 2087? I might not be alive in 2087. So that seems kind of ridiculous, even though it sounds great.
15 bucks a month for three months. What’s the catch? No catch. None whatsoever. All the plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.
That’s how easy it is. Switch over. It’s not this long drawn out process. I dumped my old carrier that I’ve been with for 15 years because I was paying over 120 a month. Now I’m paying 15 a month. It’s awesome to get this new customer offer and your new three month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month.
Go to mint mobile. com slash reality. Steve that’s mint mobile. com slash reality. Steve cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mint mobile. com slash reality. Steve 45 upfront payment required equivalent to 15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on a limited plan.
Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See mint mobile for details. All right, let’s get going. Podcast number four Oh five. All right, let’s bring her in. She is the back to love doc on Instagram. She’s a multi time guest on the show. She is a relationship relationship expert and a licensed psychologist.
It’s Dr. Diane Strakowski. Dr. Diane, thanks for coming on. Hello, Steve. How are you? I’m good. I just wanted to bring you on since we are through hometown dates of Jen’s season. And obviously we’ve had, what, seven episodes now of, of, of her season. And I kind of overall wanted to just ask you when you saw Jen was announced as the Bachelorette, as you’ve watched her first seven episodes, your thoughts on Jen as a lead this season?
Well, steve, I really like Jen and she is growing on me. At first, I’ll be honest with you, I thought she was a little bit young you know, a little more playful. I didn’t expect much from her, but I have to say I always want to know more about the character. I want to know more about her work, her background, et cetera.
And we don’t get as much as I’d love, but she’s definitely grown on me. And I think she’s really, she has the skills to make everyone, to make the men comfortable, to get the men to open up. And I think her training as a physician’s assistant, I mean, you have to be an empathic person to really sit. With patients who are ill, etc.
And I think her training in that area has really helped and I actually have been most impressed with how she’s handled Sam, how she handled Sam M. So to me, it was like, you know, people have been like, why didn’t, why did he stay around us? I’m like, listen, we’ve had leads who have kept even charity. He was a therapist kept Xavier.
To fantasy suites. So I was not surprised it took her that long, but I really like her level of questioning. She’s good with the followup. Like, tell me more, what do you mean? And so I think she’s got a nice level of empathy. I think she did great with the parents too. Last night, we’re going to get to that, but I really do think she’s growing on me and I think I’m hopeful.
One of the narratives surrounding Jen this season as. Told to us by her is just always picked the wrong guy, right? Great relationship. Nobody’s met her family She’s never been in love. Nobody’s ever told her. I love you Does that stem from something as simple as just a bad picker? She has expressed the fact that she did not have a great relationship with her father And being a psychologist, I’m sure you’ve dealt with patients that didn’t have great relationships with their fathers.
And then it turns into, they look for something in relationships to sort of replace that relationship they never had with their father. What do you see about Jen’s past that she’s now bringing into any of these relationships?
Well, I, that’s what I pay attention to right from the beginning. Steve absolutely.
The narrative about her dad, not even knowing her birthday. I was like, oh my gosh, poor thing. Right. And so what’s interesting is oftentimes back to attachment styles. We’ve talked about this before. When you have a parent who’s there for you, sometimes not other times, what you get like addicted to is the working hard.
Okay, so if my parents not there and I have to work hard to get their attention, then I learn that love is working hard. So then I’m attracted to narcissists that are hard. And right from the beginning, she said she wants this ferocious love. I’m like, Ooh, okay. What does that actually mean? There’s a little bit of, I want it to be wild.
But I also there, there’s something about this
I, I don’t know that it, this wild meaning like ferocious being fun, playful, but, but there is a level of work there and so that concerns me just a little bit because I want to know that she’s healed that and then being able to say, Oh, you kind of look like my ex, that’s not good for me. That didn’t work.
I haven’t heard her talk about therapy at all. I get the sense. She’s done some of it given her family history. But she hasn’t referenced it directly like some of the other bachelorettes and bachelors have. So I’m, I’m, I would just be curious about that. That’s a question mark for me
is, is it something to where that she is looking for?
Is the word validation in men, is that kind of what she’s dealing with or is it something not that way? She’s not looking for validation because she seemingly never got any validation from her father.
Yes. You’re looking for validation. You’re looking for someone who, again, is going to fight hard. And I did a video myself on this, like this is what worries me a little bit.
So when you say ferocious love and somebody fighting for you. Do you set yourself up for somebody who love bombs you
that,
right? Cause, cause it’s like, Ooh, I’m really looking for that. Right. Now what’s also interesting is you know, a couple of the men, it was Sam and, and some, and even grant said he was falling in love with her.
And then she comes and says, No one’s ever been in love with me. I’m like, wait a minute. They have on the show. We just saw two examples of men professing their love, but when it comes to love, the only ones that really matter to us is when we’re, it’s mutual, right? The only time it matters is when I feel love and then you express love back.
And we both agree. So I thought that’s why she got so excited When Devin said, I love you and you saw her just like the smile on her face, because I do think she’s falling in love with Devin and you could just see that mutuality. And those are the ones that stick them, right? That’s the time you remember being in love.
When it was mutual.
Yeah. And I think that she is obviously someone who throughout her past dating history, she has said, I’ve never been in love. She’s had probably men tell her in love with her. She’s never reciprocated it. And she’s always said, I’ve been in rough relationships. And You just wonder, you know, with somebody like that, who has never been in a, it sounds like just a healthy relationship.
If she, I mean, if she’s never been in love, then has she really ever been in a serious relationship? My guess would be no. Can you be in a serious relationship and you’ve never been in love with somebody? Or is it just dating at that point? Yeah, I dated him. I liked him a lot. But I wasn’t love. Is it serious?
I
think we, we also have revisionistic history, right? We go back and you know, it’s kind of like, I mean, I, myself, maybe you can relate, right? You’ve had some relationships or later. You’re like, what the hell was I thinking? Right? Yeah. And then when we feel a level of love now, we’re comparing it to back then, but we’ve sort of forgotten how we felt at the time because we wouldn’t have stuck around had we not had any feelings, but we go back and and somehow people want to be on the show and report that this is somehow like a new love, right?
Like love, like they never experienced because it happened so fast and and all of that. So I. I don’t really think that we’re good at giving our own history. I don’t because your friends will go. Oh my God, you were so in love with them, right? We just kind of forget.
So I wanted to talk about Sam before we get to the hometown dates.
And he’s obviously been a major topic of conversation this year. And I think for him, I don’t like throwing a word of the word narcissism around. It’s just, it’s too deep of a word. He just seems like somebody who obviously good looking guy probably had it very easy with women his whole life because of his looks seems a little self absorbed.
I think that’s a lighter term to use. I don’t want to throw Norris narcissism out there, but he definitely. Thinks very highly of himself and pitted himself against Devin from the get go and was in this competition to where, and we’ve seen this in the past before where contestants on this show will say, I can’t believe they like that person if they like me, we’re totally different, but it is possible for Jen to like Sam M and also like Devin and Marcus.
They’re not the same, all three of them. It is possible to like that, but he took it so personally. And I just wanted to know your outside opinion, just obviously off an edited version of this television show. What you thought of salmon.
Well, I like that. And I’m exactly with you because narcissism is a loaded topic and we would have to see a pervasive pattern and we’re just getting snippets.
And again, it’s highly edited. But. I went back and I looked at a lot of the clips from Sam and from night one, he was pretty, he was dishing on the guys really negative guys were coming out of the limo. He had something negative to say about a lot of that. And so it just felt a little bit mean to me, like sort of like the mean girls.
It’s kind of like the mean guy, but what’s also interesting is that Sam in every single group date, he says, I’ve got this. Right. And even he does the coming out of the limo, he did the shot o’clock thing, which, okay. Lots of people have done, but he didn’t bring a shot, right? He talked about it, but there was no behavior.
And then there was someone else who also brought the shot o’clock and brought the little injectors, right. With like alcohol. And I thought that’s how you do shot o’clock. You, you actually have something. So to me, it’s like, Sam’s a lot of talk, not a lot of action. Same thing in the striptease. He’s talking about this is my thing.
I got this. And like, in the practice, he looked better than he did on stage. It’s like, Sam, there’s something cringe there. And I saw a couple of moments where I thought Jen got the ick for sure. Like, she was attracted to him, but remember also those girls. The other previous bachelorettes, they said, be careful, don’t choose the hot guy.
And I think that really stuck with Jen. And she’s like, yes, he reminds me of people. I’ve, I’ve seen this movie before, but a lot of talk. I’m great at this. Every single date at the beginning, this is my thing. And then I was just underwhelmed. So a lot of ego inflation, right? Lots of talking about himself and not a lot of awareness because then when we see that radio date in particular, which had a lot of cringe moments at one point, you know, later, when she comes to him before she sends him home, he’s like tripping over his words.
You can’t get it out. He’s like, there’s like a lot of word salad. We can’t quite make out lots of words, but I’m not even sure what Sam saying.
Yeah, it just really seems like. Whether it was just grasping at straws, cause maybe he knew he was going home, but to throw out the, I’m in love with you card where based on the conversations that we saw her and him, I mean, everybody could see it.
This was a clearly physical relationship where they clearly were physically attracted to each other, but when they did have conversation. Just didn’t seem to be a lot of meat on that bone. Didn’t seem to be a lot of substance to it. It was just two people that were talking. And when he did talk, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times, it was just about, it was about him.
It was about him. And it was about certain things that are happening and seems like he was taking memes from Nicholas Sparks books and quotes from all these different things he found online. It just didn’t seem sincere.
Agreed.
Yeah,
I felt like Sam was auditioning to become the bachelor. I do. I mean, and you know, they did a whole promo on him.
Right. He’s from South Carolina.
Right.
Carpenter, all of that. And yeah, I, I, I, I just agree it felt just devoid of real substance and Jen saw through that. And that’s how I think she handled herself really well. And I thought we’re like seeing this girl mature in front of her eyes. Because calling that person out, I think is really just like a confidence booster.
You’ve got crazy chemistry. He got the 1st impression rose and now she’s saying, I need more than that. And I think it’s going to be interesting because to me, it’s like, she’s calling out Sam. But she’s not calling out Marcus. He hasn’t even gotten to how he feels about her. And I’m like, is she going to be able to call him out?
Cause I think there’s a different dynamic going on there.
So if we go to hometown dates and we kind of break it down, let’s go kind of in order of what happened, Devin’s hometown date was. Running, which I’m sure no lead wants to do. I don’t care what, what face she put on and maybe she likes Devin the best.
Nobody wants to run.
It looked hot and sweaty. I don’t even
think runners, I don’t even think runners truly like running. They think they just, they like the effect it has on their body, but I,
yes.
To enjoy running for. However long they ran for. I mean,
yeah,
in Houston, which is a sauna basically. But so let’s get to the part of the day that actually meant something, which was his family, his conversation with his mother.
Devin said from the very beginning of the show, I’m a loud guy, like to be the center of attention. He’s stayed true to that character for seven episodes. I mean, he is very loud, speaks his mind. Didn’t have another, another person that Is on the show, didn’t have a great relationship with his father, even though his father was at the hometown date.
So it was his mother and her new husband or I don’t know how long they’ve been married, but his stepfather. So we never ever heard. I mean, even though his father was there, surprised that we never got any clips of him talking to his father. Oh, we did. I might’ve sometimes it’s on in the background for me, Tito.
Yeah.
Timo. Timo, excuse me,
Timo. We did. And in fact while I was watching this, Steve, I thought I, when the mother watches this back, I wonder what she’s going to think of it, because I thought I saw Devin backtracking a little bit saying, dad, You know, you’ve been so influential and I’m like, oh, no, that’s not what we had heard prior to that.
So I felt like he really was kind of in a bind. And I wondered if that’s why he wasn’t so nervous because his mom is his cheerleader. Clearly, they have a strong relationship. I really like the mom. She was really humble and that that tracked for me, but telling his dad what an influence he had. I was like.
Ooh, how’s the mom going to feel? I, so I thought that that was that was his anxiety walking in was dad being there.
Okay. I’ll be honest. I think my food arrived during Devin’s day and so I was, it was on, but I was eating and probably wasn’t paying too much attention. So my mistake there, but. He seems to have a really good relationship with his mom, respected her, appreciated what she had done for him growing up.
So good to hear. And you mentioned it earlier and it’s, it’s interesting because Devin was the only one of the four and he didn’t, you know, to drop the L word and he didn’t drop, I feel myself falling in love with you. He didn’t drop, I can see myself falling in love with you. Jen, I love you, which is a big thing on this show, especially when the three hometown dates right after him, they couldn’t even throw the word L in there and they couldn’t even say.
I can see myself going there with you, you know, I’m not there yet, but I can totally see it. It’s just, it was really weird. But that’s a, that’s a big thing. And like you said, Jen’s reaction, I think
her reaction tells it all, but I actually found myself very endeared to Devin. I mean, I felt like the producers gave him a bad rap right from the beginning because he did steal Jen on that group date and Sam was so against him.
But I think, and even on that sheep date, remember that he kind of pulled her aside and then he got extra time. That’s what the lead should be doing. And I think he’s so nervous because he cares. He really, you know, also said, I want to bring somebody home that I’m proud of and correct the wrongs. And so that is a, a narrative that they both have joined around the single mom.
Single strong mom want, you know, not having a relationship with the father, even though dad’s showing up late now and so I think that’s really where they, as a couple have really been bonding around that narrative about, you know, life is hard. And they want to do it differently. And there was actually that little moment where I did feel bad for the mom when Jen was talking about that, like, you know, wanting to do it different.
And what I loved about mom was she was not defensive at all. She was very humble. She said, you know, Hey, I wasn’t perfect, but I found love now. And you know, again, Devin was so nervous, even walking in. He’s like saying who they’re going to meet. And then just Jen’s like, and your stepdad is there too.
Like she’s paying attention. And Devin was like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I love that the grandmother was like, love you. I mean, I think it was just a lovely hometown. And I thought the mom, she really shined, you know, what do you love about my son? What stands out? Of course, all parents are nervous. We’re going to get to that, like what to do or what not to do.
But I thought Devin’s mom was exactly who he said she was. Supportive, loving, kind, gracious. You saw the connection. I really like this hometown.
Now for the second hometown with Jeremy, there were two things that stuck out to me. One thing that’s just a big pet peeve of mine, and I think people need to stop saying it on the show.
And then we’ll get to what his mother thought of the whole situation. The first thing is I am starting to get sick of contestants and I feel like we get at least one every season, if not multiple every season that will utter this line. I only want to be engaged once. I only want to be married once. It’s like, it’s almost.
I think we kind of know that as a, as an audience, you don’t need to say that to make it sound more important. I don’t think, because I don’t think anybody goes into an engagement and a marriage thinking, yeah, this will probably be one of two or one of three in my life. I, I don’t care about, it’s like, of course you want to be engaged once let’s stop.
And when you think about it on the show, Jen season is the 49th season of the show. There have been way more broken engagements than engagement. So to say it on this show makes it even more. It just rings hollow to me and I think people just need to stop saying it. We get it. You don’t want to be
100 percent agree.
Steve. It’s like, I’ve had it with that. And it’s the same thing. Like, nobody enters into a marriage thinking they’re going to get divorced. I mean, it goes without saying so I think what the person’s trying to do is I’m taking this process seriously, right? That’s what they’re really saying. And by saying, I only want to do this once.
That’s how to let you know that I’m not here for the wrong reasons. Right. But there’s other ways you could say it. I agree.
Just like I said, pet peeve of mine drives me nuts. And I feel like at least one person a season says it, if not the lead saying it, like, I only want to do this once and it’s, and it’s, it’s different for the lead.
It’s almost more ridiculous when the lead says it because the statistics show. More often than not, it’s not going to work out for you. And we all know every bachelorette, she’s the 21st bachelorette, even though we’ve had 23, every single one of them has gotten engaged at the end of this thing. So, and I think only seven or eight have ended up getting married except for one gen shift, but you know what I’m saying?
Like two thirds of them end up in a broken engagement. So to say, I only want to be engaged once when you’re the lead of the show is just, it’s just throw that out there. Aside and just stop saying that the second thing was the mother who was very skeptical and we’re, we’re starting to see this more on hometown dates and recent seasons, more skeptical parents about the process, how fast it is, is my child ready to do this?
And I don’t think any kid, any child on the show is ready to get engaged to someone that they’ve known for seven weeks. Where they don’t spend a lot of time with them. Some parents express it a little bit more than other parents do. Other parents say, I trust my child. And if this is what they feel, I will support them.
Yes.
