Marshmallow Day - Snap Classic

Katie falls hard for Barys during a whirlwind trip to Belarus. But there’s a giant red flag she can’t ignore any longer. And two people who have the same name, live in the same city, and have the same professional interests soon find out what else they have in common. STORIES Real Love Boston-based writer Katie Simon is on assignment in Belarus when she meets and falls hard for Barys in less than a week. When she’s back home, her friends alert her to a giant red flag she can no longer afford to ignore. This story briefly mentions sex, sensitive listeners please be advised. Thank you, Katie, for sharing this story with Snap! Keep up with her latest work, including an upcoming book about falling in love and generational storytelling here http://www.katiewsimon.com/. Learn more about Katie on her Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/katie.simon.581 Twitter, https://twitter.com/katiewsimon & Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/katiewsimon/ Produced by Regina Bediako, original score by Renzo Gorrio, artwork by Teo Ducot. Ovrkast “Love Somebody” – Music Spotlight This week’s Snap Music Spotlight features Oakland artist Ovrkast with the song, “Love Somebody” watch the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYA152-3qSA! Listen to Ovrkast’s latest album, Try Again (DELUXE https://album.link/i/1547987037) out now!! To stay up to date with all things Ovrkast, be sure to follow them on Twitter https://twitter.com/ovrkast and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ovrkast. Katie vs. Katie When Katie Crouch learned there was another Katie Crouch who lived in the same city and apparently had the same professional interests as her she thought, huh, what else do we have in common? She would soon find out. This story was done in collaboration with Ozy.com, the online magazine that published both Katies’ essays: The Other Me http://www.ozy.com/true-story/the-other-me/33853 and Doppelgangers Unite? http://www.ozy.com/true-story/doppelgngers-unite/67104 Katie Crouch continues to virtually cross paths with her name twin from her new city of Chicago, where she works for an educational publisher, raises a toddler on her own, and writes ablog https://thesolomamaproject.com/. Katie Crouch is a New York Times best-selling novelist. Her books include Girls in Trucks https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Trucks-Katie-Crouch/dp/0316002127 and Abroad, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H6EFAZ8/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i5 among others. Produced by Nancy López, original score by Renzo Gorrio Season 16 – Episode 10 - Snap Classic Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Speaker 00

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• 0:52Speaker 00

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• 1:18Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so, the first thing, the very first thing you have to understand about Japanese society is, if you want to live there, that this is a gift-giving culture. If you're granted the high honor of paying exorbitant rent to your landlord, you gotta give them a gift for their generosity of spirit. Or if you're meeting a potential business client, bring a gift. The mailman, look at your funny, give him a gift. Gift, gift, gift, gift, gift, gift, gift. How does anyone afford it? Do you buy a nicely packaged gift for every day of the week? No, my friends, that is a rookie mistake, a costly mistake.

• 2:00Glynn Washington?

  What you do is, you re-gift the gift someone gave you.

• 2:07Glynn Washington?

  That's right, you just snip out the personalized card and pass it on. You're good to go. Get and give, get and give, stick and jab, everybody does it.

• 2:17Glynn Washington?

  Of these Valentine marketers, they're always one step ahead. They know what all the Romeos and Juliettes will do. Get the present from one, pass it to the next. So they set up this diabolical plan. They make Valentine's Day just for the fellas. That's right. Women, and only women, must give dark chocolate to the men in their lives. Boyfriends, husbands, sure, but coworkers, bosses, dog walkers, the whole bit. And what do the women get in return? They get Jack. That's what they get. It's a pretty good deal for the dudes, but the ladies aren't having it. They invent a brand-new holiday. Marshmallow Day, or White Day.

• 3:01Glynn Washington?

  It's March 14th, where the dudes are obligated to get something for the women. And if you think you're slick, no. You can't just take the dark chocolate you got a month earlier and pass it on to the females on your wish list. No, no, no, no, no. The rules clearly state, it has to be white. Like, white marshmallow covered in white chocolate with a white gold box white. This way, they thwart the re-gifting before it even begins. Curses. And nobody sells cheap stuff, no way, you can't find it. Only big expensive boxes of hand-dipped white gold dust or whatever. And if you're, ah, I don't know, me, and you're looking for love, but you just started your new job and you're broke?

• 3:45Glynn Washington?

  Well, you've got some decisions to make. Pay ring, or get white chocolate? Food to eat, or white chocolate? You can't afford to play a numbers game? You can only get one box. Better make it count. But who are you gonna give it to? Anyone who doesn't get a box is gonna be ticked, angry. Might as well cross them off the list right now. And right when you're standing on the corner, contemplating your next move, you hear the beep beep? Look up, and see Nordico.

• 4:21Glynn Washington?

  Beautiful, kind, magnetic Noriko stops her car just to say hello. Noriko. And here you are, holding a box of chocolate. Gran con, darle no chocolateo. Glenn, whose chocolate is that? Eh? Anta no mucho. What you mean? I've been looking for you everywhere. And you hand over the prized box. Arigato, gran sam. She takes your box, your exquisitely wrapped chocolate, and throws it in the backseat on top of a pile of other white boxes. Johnny, bye bye.

• 5:05Glynn Washington?

  She drives off, probably to spend some time with someone she actually likes. And here you are. Here I am. Standing there, stupid, empty-handed, knowing that it's gonna be a very long year.

• 5:33Glynn Washington?

  Today, on Snap Judgment, Marshmallow Day.

• 5:40Glynn Washington?

  Stories of it not quite working out. My name is in Washington. Nobody even likes white chocolate when you're listening.

• 5:49Glynn Washington?

  The Snap Judgment.

• 6:24Glynn Washington?

  We begin, in classic Marshmallow Day style, the story about putting all those feels in the line, scaling the nearest rooftop, battling the opposing suitors, dropping to one knee, and finally, listening close, getting real quiet, wondering what's the world saying back?

• 6:44Glynn Washington?

  Our story begins a couple of years ago. Boston writer Katie Simon, she's on assignment in the old country, in Belarus. She's renting an apartment for the three days she has left on her visa. And meeting her at the door of the building, keys in hand, is a young man. Katie, take it away.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  He introduces himself. His name is Boris. And we go in together. It's very old and dark and like litter is everywhere. And I'm like, what is happening? We walk into an elevator. All of a sudden, I can smell him. Oh, I want to be near you. This has only happened to me a couple of times. As the elevator goes up, I sort of find myself leaning towards him to like drink in that smell. He was wearing headphones around his neck.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  He had these electric blue shoelaces. Like these little things make me curious about him. And I'm sort of seeing all of this through the haze of being pretty exhausted. So it's significant to me that I am this interested in somebody new when I am also very interested in going to sleep. I leave the elevator first and my brain is spinning a little bit. He literally has the apartment keys in his hands and is putting them down on the table in the apartment I'm about to stay in.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Oh no, I have to find a way for this to keep going.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  I look up at Boris and I see he's trying to find a way to say goodbye. Instead, he asks if I would like to go on a walk with him. It feels kind of magical.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  That's when we exchange numbers. Boris leaves and I touch the keys he's left there and they're still warm from his hands.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  As I'm grocery shopping, I'm checking my phone. And as I'm unpacking the groceries, I'm checking my phone. As I'm getting ready to go, as I'm getting ready to go to bed, I'm checking my phone. Yeah, I'm feeling very antsy, waiting for this text to come. There might be some cultural differences here. And I text him, "Do you want to go on a walk with me?" And he pretty quickly responds like, "Sure."

• 10:00Speaker 02

  I feel absolutely giddy. My head is spinning, like, thinking about the future. Move here for a few months. English. Travel writing. Just a man coming back. I can find excuses to just, like, keep coming back to see this person that I have yet to spend more than a few minutes with.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  He takes me on paddle boats through the main river to the city. We start talking about books. I really love a guy who reads and, like, checks that box, so that's perfect. He takes me to a small amusement park and we get on a Ferris wheel. And this he seems pretty excited about. We are also locked in together on this two-person seat. I sort of can find excuses to, like, knock our knees together or, like, nudge him.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  And that's fun.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  If I turn to look at him, I find that he's always looking right back like he was waiting for me almost to make that connection. We went to get picnic food and then every for everything he picked out, he held it up to me and said, "Do you like this?" And I said, "I don't know." And then he would explain what it was and then we ended up with this picnic that we would both like. Looking back on this day with Boris, I saw the whole old town. We went on a Ferris wheel and paddle boat and had a picnic in an historical park and he has made this trip so much more alive than it would have been

• 11:51Speaker 02

  possible if I were alone. I mentioned that it's late and we should probably head back and he says, "Okay, but is it okay if I come over later?"

• 12:08Speaker 02

  In the night Boris rings the bell to come into my apartment and it isn't long before we're kissing on the floor. I in my in my head, I'm like, "Oh, this is amazing kissing." We move into the bed and we begin having sex and like, "Oh, this is the best sex of my life."

• 12:34Speaker 02

  I should be really sleepy and tired and it's like five in the morning, but instead we just keep talking.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Eventually he leaves because he has things to do. The next day, I just clean up the apartment and get ready to go and then there's a knock on the door and it's him. I am totally infatuated with this guy and I am leaving the country in a few hours. I have never been so aware of the passing of each minute. It feels like a countdown.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  He says, "We will never see each other again." In my head, I'm just like, like, I disagree strongly.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  There isn't time anyways. I already have a car to the airport waiting. I hug him goodbye and get in the car.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  While in Belarus, I have only had one night of very restless sleep. Other than that, it's been a couple hours here and there. That is the first red flag to me that something might be going on beyond just falling very quickly, very hard for someone new. Having so little sleep can be a trigger for me.

• 14:41Glynn Washington?

  Hang tight, Snap Nation. When we return, Katie finds out exactly what this trigger could release. Stay tuned.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science. Neuroscience, chemistry.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or-

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Politics.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  Country music.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Hockey.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Sex. Of bugs.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not-science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

• 15:35Speaker 04

  And hopefully, make you see the world anew.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Radiolab: Adventures on the Edge of What We Think We Know.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:49Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the Marshmallow Day episode. When last we left Katie, she'd just departed Belarus, where she fell madly and deeply in love with Boris. And now that she's back home, things are about to get real complicated, real fast. Snap Judgment.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  I come home and I can't stop thinking about Boris. I know we'll see each other again. I go and see my friend for dinner. I start to tell her about Boris, and I won't drop the subject. She says, "I don't really understand why you're talking about this so much, given that he lives so far away." I become frustrated with her, and she notices. And she says, "Katie, you seem to be talking a lot, nonstop, overly focused on something. You're sort of confident, but I don't think it makes sense." She asks me, "Have you seen your psychiatrist recently?"

• 16:57Speaker 02

  I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 19 years old.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Bipolar disorder is a mental illness in which people suffer both depressive episodes, feeling very low, and then elevated mood episodes. When my friend suggests that I might need to see a psychiatrist, she's gesturing towards those previous bipolar episodes. I remained irritated at her. "I don't want to do that. Like, nothing's wrong, everything's great. I'm in love with this guy." But since I already had a checkup the following week, I decided there was no harm in at least just doing that.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  I walk into my therapist's office and sit down on her leather couch, leaning back against the same familiar pillows. I've been here 100, 1,000 times before. I am drumming my fingers against my knee. I am leaning forward. I'm telling her about Boris, who I find so important. Boris and I have sent messages back and forth. There is this ongoing spark. I think we'll be great together as a couple. Like maybe I'll end up living on the other side of the ocean. Totally certain that things will work out.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  She interrupts me when I'm a few sentences in and says, "Are you aware of how fast you're talking?" "No, I don't know," and sort of shrug it off and try to launch back into my explanation about Boris. She interrupts me and says, "Katie, I think that you might be having symptoms of a hypomanic episode." I feel resistant, just how I felt with my friend. She tells me that I need to get a new psychiatrist. The idea of trying out different medications that might make me

• 19:19Speaker 02

  like have unwanted side effects that was really at the bottom of my want-to-do list. I'm afraid of losing my feelings for Boris.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  I crash into a depression. I am lying in bed for hours at a time, sleeping maybe 16 hours a day.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  There is an overlap between how love and infatuation work on a chemical level and how a manic episode might work on a chemical level. So what's going on here?

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Am I able to trust myself within this mental illness? Am I able to trust my judgments and my memories?

• 20:15Speaker 02

  The next time he messages, I look at the phone and I don't respond. I don't respond to him for many weeks, the longest we have gone without talking. And even as I come out of the depression, I'm still hesitant to restart communication because I'm very confused.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  I'm in my normal self and my roommate has to go to London for work. We end up going together. Well, what do I have to lose? I message him, "I'm in England. Do you want me to visit for the weekend?" He replies, "Yes," very quickly. I spend the rest of the week fantasizing hard about what that weekend will be like. I'm very much looking forward to just touching him as if to prove he has existed all this time.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  I'm worried that I might have been affected by my manic state and that some of my feelings for him might not have been or be real. Our messages are really brief. I'm just not quite sure what to expect. What if he's a different person than I thought?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  I'm standing in basically a snowbank because it was February in Minsk, maybe for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, messaging Boris. I'm full of a lot of questions about what's about to happen. And I look up and he's there.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  He walks towards me while it is snowing very lightly. And it seems like another kind of imagined dream Boris. I know just by looking at him walking towards me, grinning in the particular way that Boris grins, that I was not wrong before to be so infatuated with him, to fall in love with him. That I was not wrong to think about him so much or to try to talk about him all the time to my friends.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  I feel like I am in the exact right place at the right time. Boris walks up to me and hugs me in a sort of bear hug. I am a lot shorter than him. It feels very safe, sort of like a, like a promise almost. The thing that I really notice is that he still smells the same. This sort of irresistible way. That was not something I made up in an elevator the first time we met.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  I'm really looking forward to going back to the apartment. When we get there, he tells me he is busy the rest of the day. Can he leave his backpack here? And I can just rest and then we'll meet up later. And I say, oh, well, it's true. I, I didn't sleep much. I should sleep unlike last time. So I sleep for many hours. The next day, which is halfway through my visit, he doesn't come back. Finally, he does come over. He sits down. I ask him, what's going on? He says, you know, I'm sorry that I've been so busy.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  I'm happy to be friends, but I don't actually want to have any kind of relationship with you. At first I think he's joking. And then he explains about his recent breakup.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  I tried to just sort of grin and nod and get through it and pretty soon excuse myself to go to the bathroom. I slide down onto the floor and hug my legs to myself. I can hear him shuffling around outside, waiting for me to come back, but I feel like I'm on the verge of crying. It feels even colder in this bathroom right now than standing outside in the below freezing snow.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  We hung out as friends for the rest of my visit and it was lovely and also soul-crushing. And I left Mints a couple of days later and I sort of walked into the rest of my life.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  The fact that I could visit him, recognize that my feelings for him are real in person. It hadn't all been some manic obsession with the sky made me trust myself more. I have always been grateful to myself for finding out the final answer. Like, I am still in there, able to fall in love.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  The experience I had with Boris was definitely one of learning a little more to take treatment seriously. And in the process of doing that, in the early days of the pandemic, at a peer support group for people with depression and mood disorders, I met Michael.

• 27:10Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to Katie Simon for sharing this story with Snap. Katie's currently working on a book about bipolar disorder, about falling in love, and the stories that we pass down from generation to generation. To find out when that drops, check out our website, snapjudgment.org. The original score for this story was by Renzo Gorrio. It was produced by Regina Berriaco.

• 27:45Glynn Washington?

  Now, in this spirit, and to get you ready for our next Marshmallow Day story, we're gonna bump a rare Snap Music Spotlight. An Oakland artist we're big fans of here at the Snap. Name is Overcast. Good song, "Love Somebody."

• 28:08Speaker 05

  My nephew was just born today. I'm an uncle. It's Uncle Raps.

• 28:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 05

  Yo, don't you know that you are loved? It was potent, it was coated with the hug. You can troll it, you can throw it like a dove. And let it rain down over you above. Or you can take it to the bank with a deposit. And you can pay it for the pain that's out of pocket. And you can say it to a face, you can stall it and put it all in your pocket and save it all for yourself. Uh, yo, ain't that selfish? Getting older, getting over what I held in. Family on the coast to where I kept it. Drinking from the faucet I had bottled in the kitchen. I'm sorry for the switching from the happy to the sad. I got a problem still to visit. And I ain't get the picture, yo. I ain't get the memo. I was crying trying to fix it.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was crying trying to fix it. Yo, but at least I can admit it. Yo, it's been a minute. Yo, but at least I can admit it, yeah. Yeah, uh, yeah.

• 29:45Glynn Washington?

  Overcast, O-B-R-K-A-S-T with the song "Love Somebody." Congratulations on the new member of the family. That's beautiful. Sending a big love to you from everyone here at the Snap. Overcast's latest album, it's out now. We're gonna have a link on our website, snapjudgment.org.

• 30:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, my mama just sent me a picture of my nephew, wow.

• 30:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 30:29Glynn Washington?

  Now, don't go anywhere, Snapers, because after the break, we hear from another Katie who discovers, yes, another Katie. Stay tuned.

• 31:04Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Marshmallow Day episode. My name is in Washington. Now then, you've always imagined, haven't you, that there's another you out there somewhere. I know I have. A secret twin, a hidden doppelganger. Well, what if you knew exactly where she lived?

• 31:37Speaker 00

  So this is a story about Katie Crouch.

• 31:40Speaker 06

  I liked my name growing up. I liked the name Katie. Katie Crouch was my grandmother's name, so that was the first other Katie Crouch that I knew. So soon after college, I think I was Googling my name, and I came across Katie Crouch, who had graduated from college the same year I did. And she was my same age. And so I just remember making a mental note that another Katie Crouch existed out there.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  And then a couple of years later, Katie went to a friend's wedding in Miami.

• 32:09Speaker 06

  And this guy came up to me that I'd never met, had a big smile on his face, and he said, "Excuse me, are you Katie Crouch?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I know the other Katie Crouch."

• 32:25Speaker 00

  And as it turned out, the other Katie Crouch also had red hair, also worked in publishing, and at the time, also happened to live in San Francisco.

• 32:35Speaker 06

  So it kind of brought her into reality even more. Like, is this really my doppelganger? What, you know, are we destined to meet? So when I got back to San Francisco, I emailed her. I wrote something like, "How crazy. We both live in San Francisco and have the same name. Let's meet up." And there was no response.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Katie eventually moved to New York City, looking for a change of scenery. And almost immediately, she started receiving online friend requests from people looking for the other Katie Crouch, who was now also living in New York City.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  For Katie, the coincidences just kept stacking up. So she decided to email the other Katie again, suggesting they meet up.

• 33:23Speaker 06

  And she got it. And I know that because she responded, "Neat. Take care." Her response really shut me down. I was disappointed. I thought, well, maybe it ends there. I moved back to San Francisco. And I'd be at different establishments, like Kabuki Springs Spa, or REI, or different places where they say, "Oh, Katie Crouch on Upper Terrace." And I would say, "No." And I realized, that's her. She's back. She lives in San Francisco again. I can't believe it.

• 33:59Speaker 06

  I gave it one more shot. So I sent her an email, I think it was brief. "Hey, you know, you live up the hill from me. We should meet sometime for coffee. We're both back in San Francisco." And she never responded. It sounds like such a sad story from my perspective. I just kept reaching out, like, "This can't be. You have to be more open to this." But clearly, and for whatever reason, the other Katie Crouch wasn't open to this. So Katie resolved to move on and leave the other Katie Crouch behind her. Although, that proved to be kind of impossible. I received an email from Katie's mom with a link to vacation photos on Walgreens.com.

• 34:43Speaker 06

  I went to Walgreens.com and created an account so that I could look at the photos. Photos of Katie and her family by the lake. And I saw that she had just had a baby girl. I realized that this was not a window into her life that she had granted me by any means. But it made me feel good to see her happy with her baby girl by the lake. And I responded to her mom and said, "You got the wrong Katie. You must have the email wrong." I think I knew at that point there would be no way to shut it off because the emails and the phone calls and the crossed wires just kept coming.

• 35:25Speaker 06

  And then came the book. In 2008, the other Katie Crouch published her debut novel, Girls in Trucks. It got raving reviews and secured a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list.

• 35:38Speaker 06

  And I immediately started receiving congratulations and accolades. Someone actually sent me a clipping of the review and said, "Congratulations. When did you find the time?" I saw it on the shelves in tons of places. And so did friends of mine, who would take a picture of it on the shelf and text it to me and say, "Here's your book." I was a creative writing major. I wrote fiction and poetry in college. And I work as an editor in publishing. So just the fact that I had not yet published a novel was just kind of rubbing it in my face a little bit, that she was out there and she was quite successful with it. From that point on,

• 36:20Speaker 06

  Katie's online existence was pretty much usurped by the other Katie Crouch. Google the name and you get links to Katie.

• 36:27Speaker 07

  Katie Crouch, bestselling author. Katie Crouch, Girls in Trucks. So this Katie's one solace. She got to Twitter first.

• 36:36Speaker 06

  I do have the Katie Crouch handle on Twitter. She had to be KDA. And that felt good, just to claim a little piece of the online world for myself. I think at that point, my attitude was just to be a good name neighbor and forward messages along that were misdirected. But I stopped trying to be too friendly about it because I felt like, for whatever reason, she really didn't want to know me.

• 37:05Speaker 07

  Two years ago, Katie got a text from a good friend.

• 37:09Speaker 06

  OMG, Katie, she's writing about you. And sent the link. So obviously, I clicked the link and was quite amazed to see what she had written.

• 37:22Speaker 07

  The Other Katie Crouch had just published an essay on Ozzy.com, an online magazine.

• 37:28Speaker 06

  The title was "The Other Me." It was about me. Obviously, my first impulse was to make sure that I came out looking OK. Like, is she going to make me sound like a jerk? So I read it really fast, and then I read it more slowly.

• 37:43Speaker 07

  The essay is quick and punchy. In just under 800 words, The Other Katie lists a series of missed encounters, like going to the video store and learning Katie had rented DVDs on her account, and the time Katie took two over-prepaid yoga classes. And then she met someone who happened to know Katie and had great things to say about her.

• 38:04Speaker 06

  She didn't make me look bad. She made me look great. She made me sound friendly and open.

• 38:11Speaker 07

  But instead of feeling compelled to meet this Katie because of all they shared in common.

• 38:15Speaker 06

  One of the last lines of her essay is, "It's not you. I just don't want to know." What is she doing, writing about it? If you really wanted to pretend that I don't exist, maybe don't write an essay about me in a magazine that has thousands of readers. I knew the minute I finished reading it that I was going to write a rebuttal.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  I got an email saying, "The Other Katie Crouch's essay is up, and you should read it. It's funny."

• 38:49Speaker 07

  This is The Other Katie Crouch, who published the first essay, and, to my surprise, was very willing to talk about it.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  I remember going to Ozzy.com, and I had sweaty palms, and my heart was beating. I was nervous, because it was going to be someone else talking about me, you know? And I clicked on it, and it was, you know, very disarming.

• 39:15Speaker 07

  Katie's essay was a lot more candid and forthcoming. She talks about her desire to meet her doppelganger. She talks about the rejected emails, and also the impact of Katie Crouch's novel. But it's the end of her essay that really struck this Katie Crouch the most.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  I felt a little like I had my hackles up, because that last line...

• 39:38Speaker 07

  Which reads...

• 39:39Speaker 02

  "A few years ago, she became a mom. Last year, I did too. I thought I saw her sitting outside a café downtown last week, staring into her smartphone. We'd have so much to talk about. The forces of the universe insist that we're two sides of the same coin, but I want a better ending. The writer and her should too."

• 39:58Speaker 02

  It's such a taunt. It's such a taunt. She definitely put me in my place. Yeah, I felt a little bit chastised. I did. I did reach out.

• 40:13Speaker 06

  I was sitting at work, and my phone popped up with a notification and said, "Katie Crouch wants to be friends on Facebook," which, as you can imagine, is kind of a trip when your name is Katie Crouch. It's like confusing, what's happening? And I realized it was her. And this is shocking, because being friends on Facebook is pretty much the opposite of ignoring someone.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Facebook is sort of the perfect non-reach-out-reach-out. It's like so easy. You just click a button, say, "Hey." And then I kind of covered my bases that way, I felt. You know, I Facebook messaged her, saying, you know, "Thanks for writing the essay. It was a great essay."

• 40:49Speaker 07

  Did she respond to your message?

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Message? Yeah, in an equally, you know, cool way, in a diplomatic, non-personal way. You're, you know, I loved your essay too.

• 41:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, I responded briefly because by now I'm feeling kind of burned. I accepted her friend request. I was like, let's just get used to that and then see what happens next.

• 41:15Speaker 07

  But as the months passed by, there would be no other direct messages or posts between the two Kates. It seemed like this was it. Two dueling essays for the record and the status of Facebook friends. But really, after all these years, living somewhat parallel lives, this is how their story is gonna end?

• 41:37Speaker 07

  Are we recording? We are recording. Great. So, Katie, I'm gonna hand you over to Katie.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 41:49Speaker 06

  Hi, Katie.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Hi, Katie. It's Katie. It's Katie Crouch.

• 41:54Speaker 06

  It's Katie Crouch.

• 41:57Speaker 07

  So I knew arranging this phone call was going to be risky. Like, where is this conversation gonna go? Which does lead to some early awkward moments.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  I'm feeling strangely ner-- I'm not even strange, I'm just feeling nervous.

• 42:13Speaker 06

  I'm totally nervous. This is a big moment.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Wow. So, uh, where do I?

• 42:22Speaker 06

  Where do we start?

• 42:23Speaker 07

  It started slow. During the first few minutes, they filled the air with small talk. But of course, there's an elephant in the room. And the question is, who's going to address it first?

• 42:36Speaker 06

  So I didn't know if something changed after the essays. Like, I became a real person to you that you might want to know. And before that, I was sort of an inconvenience.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  No, you were never, Katie, you were never an inconvenience. I didn't quite know where it would go if we met. And also, I, I don't know, I didn't, I just, I wanted, I wanted to hold on to my individuality. It's Katie Crouch. It was just about me, really. It was all my buried anxieties and neuroses.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  But it's nice to talk to you now.

• 43:12Speaker 06

  I had no idea what your perspective would be on the whole thing. And I was really motivated to write my response. I don't know if you expected that or knew that it was coming, but I just felt like it was inevitable that I had to respond.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  Well, I was definitely surprised that you wrote an essay, but I wasn't, it made sense, you know, I wasn't like, you're, I mean, I think your essay was a little more barbed than mine was.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  So one line in your essay was a little, was particularly prickly to me. And maybe you didn't mean it to be. And that was that you picked up my book, Girls in Trucks, and read it. And then your next line was, I didn't want to like it. And then, period. And then, instead of saying, but I did like it, you said something like, you know, you said something else.

• 44:06Speaker 06

  No, it means I did like it. I just, I felt jealous about it, you know, and you sort of blew me off. So I was like, I hope this is just terribly written.

• 44:20Speaker 06

  And I guess I meant for that to be a little bit hanging, like implying, yeah, I grudgingly really liked it.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Well, I'm glad you liked it.

• 44:30Speaker 06

  But you're right.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Because I was sensitive, I am very sensitive about my writing. I was, even like pretend not to be. I don't care if she doesn't like it. She doesn't.

• 44:43Speaker 06

  I wasn't super sensitive about that because I was just feeling envious and a little hurt.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

• 44:59Speaker 06

  Well, thanks. I, I get it. I think the truth is, we are really different people. And the proof of that is how we've communicated thus far really differently.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. But your essay drove it home to me that you, you know, yes, this is a real person and, you know, not just an idea. And it's much harder to say no or to ignore a real person than the, an idea of a person. So, I think that's, that's what changed.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  And, and the fact that the essay was so honest and like, I liked that it was barbed. It makes for good writing, it was honest.

• 45:43Speaker 07

  The conversation takes a detour here. They give each other a status update. The first Katie moved to Chicago back in August. The second Katie just had another kid and is actually taking off to Africa for a year. And the first Katie opens up about choosing to have her son on her own.

• 46:02Speaker 06

  I don't know if you knew that I had him on my own.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Which I think is completely amazing.

• 46:09Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I mean, really, like, I've, had wanted to do that for the longest time and then, um, something else happened, but I think that's, but that would've been really crazy if we'd both done that.

• 46:19Speaker 06

  Oh, my gosh. We would've met a lot sooner because it's a very tight group in San Francisco.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 06

  I was actually the organizer for Single Moms by Choice in San Francisco until I moved away, so I was pretty active in that group of amazing, kick-ass women.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Wow, that's awesome.

• 46:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  I knew you were better than I was.

• 46:42Speaker 06

  Aw, stop it.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Angie played the violin!

• 46:49Speaker 06

  I'm not perfect, Katie Crouch.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  You are to me.

• 46:54Speaker 06

  Aw.

• 46:57Speaker 07

  Okay, so, however you guys wanna...

• 47:01Speaker 02

  Wrap it up?

• 47:01Speaker 07

  Wrap it up.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  It's a tough one. What if we never talk again?

• 47:05Speaker 06

  Well, while you're out of the country for a year, maybe we could both reflect on what happens next.

• 47:27Glynn Washington?

  A very big thank you to Katie Crouch and to Katie Crouch for sharing their story. This was done in collaboration with Ozzy.com. We love the Ozzy. Check them out, the online magazine that published both Katie's essays. We'll have links to both at snapjudgment.org. Katie Crouch works for an educational publisher. She raises a toddler on her own and writes a blog, thesolomamaproject.com. While Katie Crouch, the New York Times bestselling novelist, she's currently working on a thriller about doppelgangers. Not really. Maybe. The original score for that story was by Renzo Gorrio. It was produced by the one and the only one,

• 48:09Glynn Washington?

  Nancy Lopez, because there are no other Nancy Lopez's up in this piece.

• 48:36Glynn Washington?

  Can you even believe it? Look at what we've come through together. If you missed even a moment of today's show, if you're lonely or afraid, subscribe to the amazing Snap Judgment Podcast. It might not fix all your problems, but it won't make them worse. The Snap Judgment Podcast, get them wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to hear the real deal, the dirt, the dish, follow me on Twitter, on Facebook, Instagram. Don't miss a beat. It's snapjudgment.org.

• 49:10Glynn Washington?

  Snap is brought to you by the team that would never eat corn chips out of the bag over the sink and wash it down with stale, two-day-old soda for breakfast. No self-respecting snapper would ever treat themselves so poorly, except for maybe the Uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich.

• 49:31Glynn Washington?

  Sheena Shealy, Marissa Dodd, there's Papa Cee Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryeo, John Facil, Mika Singh, Taylor Decot, Leon Morimoto, Flo Wiley, Nancy Lopez, and Regina Badiaco.

• 49:47Glynn Washington?

  Wow, this is not the news, no way this is the news. In fact, you could luxurious on a huge fluffy marshmallow just laying back and taking a bite out of its delicious gooeyness whenever the mood strikes, only to wake up flailing underwater in the pool, vowing to never ever fall asleep on a flotation device ever again, and you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.