Dulce Sloan: Will You Be My Valentine?

Trevor and Eugene sit down with comedian and former Daily Show correspondent Dulce Sloan for a wide-ranging, candid conversation about life. Along the way, they dig into the loneliness that can come with fame, the challenges of dating, and the unspoken pressures men and women bring into relationships. When it comes to the emotional math of choosing between independence and intimacy, is staying home the only good option left? Funny, sharp, and disarmingly real, the episode captures the contradictions of modern love in a world that rarely slows down.

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

• 0:04Speaker 00

  I said to my homeboy that I was inceled one day. And he was like, "That's not true." I said, "Of course it is." I said, "I am celibate and it is very involuntary." These are... This is what inceled means. Involuntary celibate.

• 0:16Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  I would love to be having sex time. There's nothing better than having your legs in the air. And yet...

• 0:21Trevor Noah?

  Trevor, do you agree?

• 0:25Speaker 00

  Get up.

• 0:25Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you what's funny?

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Hmm, tell me. Having your legs in the air.

• 0:28Trevor Noah?

  Is that you made me picture my legs in the air. That's what I hate about what you did to me there.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  That's what good friends are for.

• 0:34Trevor Noah?

  That's what you did to me there.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 0:35Trevor Noah?

  You made me.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Anytime.

• 0:37Trevor Noah?

  Because you asked it. My first instinct, my first instinct was to defend myself. But the first thought I had...

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Anytime.

• 0:44Trevor Noah?

  The first thought I had was me with my own legs in the air.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Whenever I hear something enjoyable, I think of, "Who could enjoy this more?" And my friend comes to mind. And I'm thinking, "Look, there's an opportunity for someone's legs." Who would enjoy?

• 1:00Speaker 00

  You're an idiot.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Who would enjoy this?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Stop talking.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Who would enjoy this more?

• 1:04Trevor Noah?

  So, okay, so... No, no, no, wait.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  And I appreciate that about you. You're a fool.

• 1:09Trevor Noah?

  So let's go back.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Your friend is a dum-dum.

• 1:16Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now with Trevor Noah.

• 1:23Trevor Noah?

  Earth can be a lot sometimes. Heat waves, gas prices, bad hair days. Why not go where life is good? Escape to Pluto TV. Turn off your problems and turn on your favorite movies and shows. You know, the ones you already love. From Anchorman, the Legend of Ron Burgundy, to Dirty Dancing, to Top Gun Maverick. From Alias to The X-Files. It's all here and all free. Go where the TV is always good. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 1:58Trevor Noah?

  This segment is brought to you by Google Pixel. You know what's really frustrating? Knowing the exact information you need is somewhere on your phone, but still ending up wasting your time digging through five different apps just to actually find it. Thankfully, Google Pixel 11 is designed with Gemini intelligence, so it can proactively find the information I need right when I need it. Like my flight info and travel days or my calendar when Eugene texts me to hang out. Oh, sorry Eugene, I'm booked. Learn more about what Google Pixel 11 can do at googlestore.com. These AI features are available in select countries and languages for users 18 and over, and make sure to check responses.

• 2:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, booked forever, forever. This episode is brought to you by Verizon. Pretty much every brand offers rewards these days, but most of them, let's be honest, they aren't that rewarding. Well, starting now, Verizon's doing rewards different. Rewards you'll love all year round for every customer. They're introducing Verizon Dollars, which gives you cash back every month just for being a customer. That's it. Plus, you have the flexibility to use those glorious new dollars how you want. Shop with Verizon. Get gift cards for the brands that you love or transfer them to our partner programs. They're also introducing Verizon Shine,

• 3:27Trevor Noah?

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• 4:05Speaker 00

  Right, only difference between me and Dominican is a boat stop, that's it. I could have been Mexican, I could have been Dominican, I could have been from Costa Rica. But instead, we landed here. So, if I go to any of those diaspora places, no one's questioning my existence. But if I go back to... The motherland. All of a sudden, it's, "Well, what is she doing here?" And I'm like, "Nigga, planes fly daily, that's why I'm here."

• 4:27Trevor Noah?

  If you kept quiet and you came to South Africa, no one would know you're not from there.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Probably it's me keeping quiet, you know that.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  What, have we met? You've never been to South Africa? No, he's supposed to take me and Roy. Yeah, but Gunini. Yeah, that works.

• 4:42Trevor Noah?

  What do you mean, "supposed to"?

• 4:43Speaker 00

  No, not you. I'm saying, "Yeah, now Gunini, I should go."

• 4:46Trevor Noah?

  What do you mean, "supposed to"?

• 4:47Speaker 00

  You said, "You don't, you said to me and Roy..."

• 4:51Trevor Noah?

  Dose, I'll let you finish your sentence. Accuse me, so that I may respond in full.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Cause he always says, like, you know, like, "An American black people, we don't have a lot of noises." We do have one.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  No, sir. You said, "Oh, I want to take you..." Cause talking to me and Roy. "Oh, I would love to take you out of South Africa." Roy was like, "Mothers, mothers too, bring everybody." All of a sudden, this nigga done called amnesia. Tell him that he don't remember. Telling me, let me say something. I always remember when a man tells you something he didn't intend on doing. That's what I will always remember. Something a nigga was really gonna do? Ah, I don't remember that. Like what? I don't know, calling me back? I'll always remember. So you'll remember that one? Yeah, cause I know it's not gonna happen. Guys don't call you back? It's very confusing. You see these titties, I don't know what's going on.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Very nice.

• 5:41Trevor Noah?

  We rolling? Perfect moment. "You see these titties?" That's the best place to start a podcast ever. "You see these titties?"

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Cause I'm sitting here going, "Why would they not call back?"

• 5:50Trevor Noah?

  Welcome to the show. "You see these titties?"

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Hey, man. Go to church, that's how I got him.

• 5:55Trevor Noah?

  There are a few people in this world. I would love to hear the last part of a sentence from the Dulce Sloan. No, I'm serious. When I think about it, I go, like, you know, you know when you just catch the tail end of a conversation? Or something someone said? You will never beat Dulce. Listen to the end of that sentence. "You see these titties?" And now you go, "What was the beginning of that sentence?" Fill it in.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  In my head, I was like, "Can we see more of those titties?"

• 6:19Trevor Noah?

  What do you do when someone says, "See these titties"?

• 6:24Trevor Noah?

  You just fell into a Dulce trap.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  Here's the thing, I will always remember you said to me, I'm the blackest person you know, which is crazy cuz I'm not the blackest person that I know. So, I was like, how am I the blackest? And I was like, oh, you don't know a lot of niggas, that's the difference. You know, black people.

• 6:43Trevor Noah?

  You always say that to me.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  Who you friends with?

• 6:46Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, you always say that. Wow. You just took shots at Josh, he's not even here.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  And he deserves it.

• 6:52Trevor Noah?

  Wherever Josh Johnson is right now, he's like, ooh.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 6:55Trevor Noah?

  Ow.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Damn.

• 6:56Trevor Noah?

  Wow, Dulce.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  I love Josh, it's my favorite thing, but you know, Josh doesn't have any siblings.

• 7:01Trevor Noah?

  Josh owes you half of everything.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Oh, cuz I braided his hair?

• 7:07Trevor Noah?

  Yo, Dulce made Josh over, Josh will even attest to that, Josh Johnson, the way we see him today, that's a Dulce makeover.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  I made him.

• 7:15Trevor Noah?

  Full makeover.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  He's as Bob Ross than he is now?

• 7:16Trevor Noah?

  Yo, Josh, that was a full, Dulce was like, she sat him down one day.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  His Afro was stressing me out.

• 7:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but it was like a, like yo man, there's Afros and then there's.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  Whatever's happening.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Wait, so there was an Afro intervention?

• 7:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but it was, it was.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  African intervention?

• 7:31Speaker 00

  No, it was a.

• 7:31Trevor Noah?

  No, this one was.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  It was a black woman intervention. Cuz one day he came to work and it was when the Afro was smaller and so it was like, it looked like he had his hair cut into like an old box, like an old school box.

• 7:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  But he'd just been sleeping on different sides of his head. So it just turned into. So I call it a sleep box. And so, we started giving him a bonnet and all this type of stuff cuz like during the Emmys one time, he came up to our room. Cuz when I took my mom the first time we went, she was showing him how to shape it up. Cuz we were talking about trying to get like different hairstyles he could get, I said, well, your head is too small for cornrows. And he was just like, ah, the shots keep coming, I was like, I'm just trying to be helpful. Cuz like I said, he has no siblings, so he doesn't have an older sister to terrorize him or to educate tomato potato. So, one day, it was like one Christmas, like during Covid, I was like, hey, come to my house, cuz he didn't go home, I didn't go home, my homeboy didn't go home. And so, you know, the day after Christmas is the first day of Kwanzaa.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  So, I made him come back, come to my house and said, I'm going to wash and deep condition your hair. And sometime at Kitchen Sink, Whole Nine, like, old school, doing your hair. And then I braided it up, and the whole time I was just like, this motherfucker's got so much more hair than me. And the whole time I'm braiding his hair, I'm annoyed by it. But I just was like, I just needed something to moisturize and condition his hair. I didn't know what kind of style he was going to keep.

• 8:48Trevor Noah?

  It was beautiful.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  So.

• 8:49Trevor Noah?

  It was, it was like those movies where the person walks, you've known them like for years. And then just before the prom, they get a makeover and they walk through the halls. And Josh Johnson walked down the hall with like that one.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  That one braid?

• 9:02Trevor Noah?

  That one braid falling over his face and like, Josh, is that, is that you? He even got a new, a new bass in his voice. Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I didn't realize until like one day we were at the Cellar and a bunch of the guys at the Cellar.

• 9:13Trevor Noah?

  Started hitting on.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Were telling him.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  These are black men, they were, they were. No one's more homophobic than a black man. And so like, it's male, like, black male comics, like, your hair looks great. And he kept going, Dulce did it, Dulce did it. And I'm like, really? Like, yeah. And so when he started getting like compliments from like black men, I was like, oh, this was a great.

• 9:31Trevor Noah?

  That's when you knew it was the upgrade.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. And I was like, oh, he's keeping this.

• 9:34Trevor Noah?

  Has anyone done something like that for you in your life?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  Uh.

• 9:38Trevor Noah?

  Who's Dulce Sloan'd your life?

• 9:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. Nobody.

• 9:43Trevor Noah?

  What do you mean, nobody?

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Hmm. I just, me, nigga, it's me. I do me. I, I'm the Dulce Sloan for me. I guess my mom, maybe? I don't know.

• 9:51Trevor Noah?

  No, but moms don't count.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Moms don't count.

• 9:52Trevor Noah?

  What? No, don't take that out of context. Moms count very much.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yes.

• 9:57Trevor Noah?

  Don't clip that. Don't clip that.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  What? Do over, do over.

• 10:00Trevor Noah?

  Moms, yo, moms count.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Do over, do over.

• 10:02Trevor Noah?

  What I mean is, in this conversation we're having now, we're saying moms already are the most amazing thing in the world. So, we don't count moms in this case.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Moms can't Dulce Sloan you.

• 10:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So we're saying who's Dulce Sloan'd you?

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Uh.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Probably you.

• 10:17Trevor Noah?

  No, don't say that, cause I'm here. I'm saying like.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  No, for like, like, if you're asking.

• 10:20Trevor Noah?

  I didn't Dulce Sloan you. What are you talking about?

• 10:22Speaker 00

  What I'm saying is that if you're talking about someone who was coming and changed my life, it was probably you or Big Kenny who got me into stand-up.

• 10:31Trevor Noah?

  But I didn't, but I didn't do you a favor. You did Josh a favor. There was no benefit for what you did to Josh.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  There was all the benefit.

• 10:38Trevor Noah?

  What was the benefit?

• 10:38Speaker 00

  That I didn't have to look at that Afro.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  He was stressing me and eating it out.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  How long did it last for, that new haircut?

• 10:48Trevor Noah?

  What do you mean? It's still there. It is Josh's hair.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  So he goes to a lady now and gets it washed and braided?

• 10:55Trevor Noah?

  It is the greatest thing that ever happened.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Oh, so he's stuck to it?

• 10:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, like the style he has now. So I did his.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  The one?

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, the one braid. I'm responsible. Have you seen the TikTok where the girl was like, she was trying to get dressed and she realized she was just Josh Johnson? Cause she had a twist out, she had a twist in. And she said she was put on this gray hoodie and then a braid fell down and she's like, when you're getting dressed and realize you're Josh Johnson.

• 11:17Trevor Noah?

  That is so funny.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Truly.

• 11:20Trevor Noah?

  You two have like, one of the best dynamics I've ever come across. You know when you meet people who, it feels like they've known each other their whole lives? Cause how long have you known Josh for?

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Uh, I met Josh during like 2016.

• 11:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you see, that's not, that's, that's like now, but I feel like you two are like siblings.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  I met him a year before, like a year, maybe a year or two before I started at the show.

• 11:45Trevor Noah?

  Is that cause you're both from the south?

• 11:46Speaker 00

  We were doing NACAs together.

• 11:48Trevor Noah?

  What, I'm sorry, what?

• 11:49Speaker 00

  So NACA, so you've never had to do this whole stroll. Um, so NACA, it's the National Association of College Activities. So basically, uh, there's all these different, so they cut the whole United States up into regions.

• 12:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 00

  And then like comedians, musicians, uh, those companies that just make like little kitschy shit. Uh, anybody with a bouncy house will go to, you pay to perform in front of them. And then you just kind of stand there and just wait for them to pick you. It's very much like you're very much a hooker on the stroll. So my college agent, you had to apply to this and then you.

• 12:25Trevor Noah?

  You applied to NACA.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, you applied to NACA, you pay money to audition. And then, but here's the thing, so Josh broke the record, cause for one of the regions, cause Josh booked like. Seventy schools.

• 12:37Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  So I think I, and, but I think he booked like, so Josh paid off his student loans performing at colleges. I think I did, in the two years I did NACAs, I did sixty schools. So that's why I've almost died in the state of Pennsylvania like four times.

• 12:50Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  So you would go to these NACAs in different, so there was like the North Region, the Southern Region, the Mid, and all of that. And so you'd do fifteen minutes on stage. And then afterwards, they had this thing called camps, and you'd be in these big convention centers. And then my, my college agent, AKA The Pimp, would stand there with a list of all of the schools. And then every school that came up to talk to you, she would notate. And then the kids wanna talk, so she'd be the bad guy, be like, oh, she's gotta talk to more people. And so she'd be the bad guy and kick these, and so she would just keep track of every school that came to talk to you. And then, I got to be in one of the meetings that I wasn't supposed to be in, apparently, and so they would do something called block bookings. And so the longest block booking I ever had was, I did thirteen schools in fourteen days in six different states.

• 13:34Trevor Noah?

  Thirteen schools in fourteen days.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  In six different.

• 13:37Trevor Noah?

  Different states.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Yes, and I was living in LA at the time, and a lot of schools I had were out here, so I, one time I flew out, so I flew out to New York. And then my homeboy picked me up to the airport, and then we drove to Connecticut, and we had a show that night. And then the next day, we drove to Maine. And then the next, cause the most you could drive in a day was five hours. And so every day, cause the, the grouting was like, well, here's all these states that are really close. And so we would wake up, drive two to four hours, do a show, stay in a hotel, wake up the next day, drive two to five hours, do a show. And so I did that for four, so there was like one night we stayed in two places, but it was stuff like that. Or I did a booking where it was like, was seven days in just the state of Massachusetts, just bouncing around doing schools. And so that's what I was doing before I booked the show, was performing for these little motherfuckers.

• 14:23Trevor Noah?

  There's moments where I miss those grinds. We've all had them. You miss struggling. No, like. Did you have fun doing it?

• 14:30Speaker 00

  What? Sometimes.

• 14:32Trevor Noah?

  No, what do you mean? What, what, why would you say struggling? Hey, she nearly died.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that was because of the snow.

• 14:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's different. Why are you making it like it's a comedy thing?

• 14:42Speaker 00

  I almost, almost die every day. I'm a woman in America. I'm almost dead ninety percent of the time.

• 14:46Trevor Noah?

  Damn, Dosey took it there.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, that, which is just death for death.

• 14:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but his death was a joke.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, but he, I mean.

• 14:54Trevor Noah?

  Yours was real.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you know, sometimes you gotta get out of an apartment. You know what I mean? So, me and my friend were talking about this, like, men do not realize how much danger women are in on a regular basis. Cause one of my friends asked me the other day, he's like, you think you killed somebody? I was like, yeah. He was like, that was fast. And I was like, you've never been a, you've never been a woman.

• 15:12Trevor Noah?

  One of the greatest jokes I ever heard was, it was just like a small throwaway thing. It was Dave Chappelle on stage and he was talking about one of the first gigs he ever did in New York that he was getting paid for. And he performed for some, I don't know if they were gangsters or not gangsters. Long story short, they paid him in cash and they gave him ten thousand dollars in cash. And he was like in one of the burrows long before New York was like easy in most places.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:37Trevor Noah?

  And he tells the story of having the cash and he puts it like in his pants.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:42Trevor Noah?

  And then he gets on the train and he's riding the train and.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Why would you get on the train with ten thousand dollars?

• 15:47Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Get a cab.

• 15:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but this is.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  Get a cab.

• 15:49Trevor Noah?

  Don't victim blame. And then Dave Chappelle's, and then, no, but he says, and that, that was the punchline of the joke. Obviously, I'm, I'm truncating it, but basically he says, everyone was looking at him. He felt like he was in danger. And he's like, he's never felt more like a woman in his life.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 16:02Trevor Noah?

  That's, you know what I mean?

• 16:03Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Every day. So it's just like, so, you know, you start carrying a knife.

• 16:07Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, so wait, let me ask you a question. So, uh, cause I threw that thing online and I didn't ask anyone about it when it was happening.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 16:13Trevor Noah?

  Who, who would you rather be in a forest with, a man or a bear?

• 16:16Speaker 00

  You can throw food at a bear. You gotta throw pussy at a man.

• 16:21Trevor Noah?

  You didn't answer the question.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  A bear.

• 16:24Trevor Noah?

  A bear?

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I know what, because the thing is, it's like, a bear is not inherently dangerous.

• 16:31Trevor Noah?

  Ah, maracas.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Unless it's hungry.

• 16:34Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so let me, let me ask you a question here. I'm glad you're here, Dulce. You're the only person I'll probably ask this to.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:38Trevor Noah?

  Because you'll be honest. Um, could it be that men struggle with hearing that answer?

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 16:47Trevor Noah?

  Because as men, we don't see ourselves as a monolith.

• 16:53Speaker 00

  No, men struggle with seeing that answer because men don't want to think they're the bad guy. So every, so here's the thing. Women are told to take self-defense classes.

• 17:04Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  Don't dress provocatively.

• 17:06Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Don't be a whore.

• 17:08Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Carry a knife, carry pepper spray, carry all of these things. So you're telling me to do all of these things to make sure that I'm not assaulted or attacked.

• 17:16Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  But then if I get assaulted or attacked, you don't believe me. But you told me to do all of these things. And so if I'm being attacked, somebody's doing it. But we're never talking about who, we're not telling the attackers not to attack. We're telling the victim, don't get attacked. So every man that heard that was just like, well, I would never. But every woman you know has either been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted. So some, we're not doing it to each other. So how is it that no man has done it, but it has happened to every woman?

• 17:48Speaker 00

  So when men hear that, it's, well, I wouldn't do that. Because I was talking to Kabuka about this one time.

• 17:52Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  And Kabuka was like, he's like, it's crazy. He said, you don't think that your friend, he's like, he said, your friend is talking to all the women, come to find out, he's raping everybody nobody knew.

• 18:02Trevor Noah?

  That was a good impression of Kabuka.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  Thank you. He's like, he's doing the thing. So you see what I'm saying?

• 18:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the thing.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  He's doing the thing.

• 18:07Trevor Noah?

  Doing the thing.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  And you don't know he's doing a thing. He's at the bar, he's talking to the ladies. You don't know, he's raping everybody. Like, you see what I'm saying?

• 18:11Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  So it's like, no man wants to think their friend is like that. No man who, there's men that have assaulted people, it's like, well, I didn't do anything wrong. So if you as a man think that a woman would rather be with a wild animal. In the forest, then you. Cause here's my thing, I think all the men that got upset by that. There's always a saying that I would hear growing up, a kick dog will holler. If I didn't kick you, you're fine. But if you felt like you got kicked, then you are somebody who has been harassing and terrorizing women. Point blank.

• 18:42Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Because if I wasn't talking to you, you wouldn't have gotten upset. And the same reason why people go, well, I'm not racist. And I was like, I wasn't even talking to you. But anytime somebody pops up, I can't believe that women would feel this way. Yes, I said I would rather be in the forest with a wild animal. Because here's the thing. Bears aren't inherently going, they don't want to be bothered by humans in the first place.

• 19:05Trevor Noah?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  That's the thing.

• 19:07Trevor Noah?

  That's their default.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  The default is, ah, ugh, person, bleh. Then, but if they need something, it's just like, well, I'm kinda hungry. I wonder if this human got snacks. This human smell like snacks. Which is why I don't wear any food scented fragrances. I don't want to trick nobody.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  I'm a floral bitch. Right?

• 19:27Trevor Noah?

  I hear, I hear your logic, but.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  But you see what I'm saying?

• 19:30Trevor Noah?

  No, I hear, I hear, I hear what you're saying, but the kick dog hollering thing, the reason I don't think it necessarily applies is because you, we are speaking to everyone.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  But that's what I'm saying.

• 19:39Trevor Noah?

  No, so this is, so this is what I mean. So let's, let's, let's, let's, let's move it to another category, right? Let's, for instance, let's say somebody says. I don't like white people because white people are racist.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:48Trevor Noah?

  Right? There's a lot of white people who would respond to that going. Well, you, why would you say that? I'm not racist.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:54Trevor Noah?

  Because they're not racist.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:56Trevor Noah?

  And some who are racist would respond as well. I'm not saying they wouldn't respond.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:00Trevor Noah?

  But if you, if you speak to a collective, you shouldn't be shocked when some from the collective respond to you.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  I'm not shocked, but when I'm saying it, there's a, there's a level of going. Oh, why would you say that I'm not racist? But what that sentence is also acknowledging is that.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm talking to white people. But if you're not racist, I wasn't talking to you. So you see what I'm saying? So it's like, well, white people are racist.

• 20:22Trevor Noah?

  I get what you're saying.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  You want to defend yourself. So in the same reason, like, well, you know, they're, they're, they're used to, you know, black people are criminals. I don't crime.

• 20:30Trevor Noah?

  So you don't, so you wouldn't respond to that?

• 20:32Speaker 00

  No, because you're not talking to me because I'm not a criminal. Also, no, I know this is a blanket. Yes, it is a blanket statement.

• 20:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  But you also have to remember, this is pure hyperbole. Somebody said, would a woman rather be in the forest?

• 20:43Trevor Noah?

  I'm with you.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  With a person?

• 20:44Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  Or a bear, and you?

• 20:49Speaker 00

  Started a TED Talk about why

• 20:54Speaker 00

  if you saw that and you went, first of all, stop typing.

• 20:57Trevor Noah?

  Right, right.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Stop typing. This is already goofy. That's saying, would you rather be in the ocean with an octopus or a shark? I'm at the beach. It doesn't matter.

• 21:05Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  I know one of them might inherit, because that's the thing, there's no inherent danger in a shark.

• 21:11Trevor Noah?

  But you know, you know what I think it is? I think it reveals something about us as people in general. And that thing is,

• 21:18Trevor Noah?

  I love that you said hyperbole, right? Oftentimes, any statement of protest, provocation, any, any statement that's, that's meant to elicit something from people is often blunt and provocative.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:32Trevor Noah?

  Right? Like, that's not the place for like nuance in a way.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  That's why text messaging needs fonts.

• 21:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so you go, you just say the thing. So I remember, for instance, when, when Black Lives Matter first came out, like Black Lives Matter. And then the first thing a lot of people said was like, why only black lives? Why, why are you saying black lives? What about the other lives? And then black people went, no, that's not the point. The point, we're not saying that because no other lives. And then it became this whole, do you know what I mean? It's like a game of semantics now where you're actually arguing. But it's interesting when you say that because I go like, oh, that's, that's an insight that I don't think I've thought of until you said it that way about hyperbole. That any group that is saying something, whether it's two people, a nation, ethnicity, you know, gender, religion, or whatever it is,

• 22:23Trevor Noah?

  the people who are not in that group that are being, that are, that are speaking can think completely differently and like it's not about them in a way. Does that, does that make sense?

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:33Trevor Noah?

  Because I think there's a lot of black people, if somebody said, let's say a white person came out and they were like, I'm not safe around black people because black people are criminals. There's no hook that they would be let off. You with me?

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Hmm, hundred percent.

• 22:46Trevor Noah?

  It's like there's no hook that they would be let off. There's none, none, none. And they can't be like, no, no, no, don't respond. If you, if you're not a criminal, then why, why are you offended? Then you're like, hey, hey, hey, you didn't say you have a problem with criminals. You said black people are criminals.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Right, and so.

• 23:00Trevor Noah?

  And so then if they said, if they said, no, no, no, but if you're black and you're not a criminal, you shouldn't be offended. People would go, no, hell, no, you're not, hey, you're still on that hook.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  Right, but here's, but here's the difference. It's, one is ridiculous, one is not, right? So bear versus human man?

• 23:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Same thing on TikTok. It was, uh, they were talking about like, who would win? A hundred Americans or a hundred British people?

• 23:29Trevor Noah?

  A hundred British people? Oh, I thought you were talking about the gorilla one. I was just talking about the gorilla.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Right, first is, but see this, so when, sweet, back up then, the gorilla thing.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  It un, it makes sense to me why men were upset, was like, well, she would rather be in the, with a bear. So it was bear versus human man, right? Women pick bear.

• 23:48Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  Then a bunch of men said, hey, one gorilla versus a hundred men.

• 23:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  And a bunch of men were like, yes, we could do this. And you're just like, have you ever?

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Have you ever watched PBS? The strength of a gorilla? You know how you could squeeze the orange and get juice? A gorilla can do that with an apple. A human man can't squeeze an apple and get juice out? But a gorilla all day, boom, ha ha.

• 24:15Trevor Noah?

  But there's a hundred of us.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Right?

• 24:17Trevor Noah?

  But there's a hundred of us.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  I understand that.

• 24:19Trevor Noah?

  There's a hundred of us.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  Right, and so this isn't movie rules.

• 24:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I'm saying there's a hundred of us.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  I get it. You can pile on them. I get it, but you would have, but at least twenty of y'all are dead.

• 24:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but eighty have won.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  I'm not saying eighty one. And I'm not saying that, here's the thing.

• 24:35Trevor Noah?

  Are you saying a gorilla would beat a hundred men?

• 24:38Speaker 00

  I'm saying.

• 24:38Trevor Noah?

  This is gonna be the most controversial podcast we've ever put out, from the jump.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  Which men are you sending?

• 24:45Trevor Noah?

  No, but that's.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Are you sending your best men?

• 24:47Trevor Noah?

  Are you sending your best gorilla?

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Absa fucking lutley.

• 24:49Trevor Noah?

  Then Absa fucking lutley.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  But we also didn't ask what men are gonna be stuck with in the forest instead of a bear?

• 24:54Trevor Noah?

  Ah, touche.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  No, any man's a problem.

• 24:57Trevor Noah?

  Aww.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Any man's a problem. Listen, I mean, are we gonna send a tiny man?

• 25:03Speaker 00

  You send me a tiny man?

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Peter Dinklage in this bitch, yeah, spin Peter Dinklage, I might have him. But if he catch me in the shins, it's over. You see what I'm saying? Like, I don't, I don't know his moves. I don't know, he got a weapon on him. You just sit one man. I don't know what's on him.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Okay, maybe I should ask. A bear, grizzly, or black bear, let's start there first, and what kind of man would you choose to be, not to be stuck with in the forest?

• 25:29Speaker 00

  Here's the thing.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  I exist-

• 25:32Speaker 02

  And I'll tell you why I'm asking you this.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  I exist in... I exist in a body where a lot of men aren't paying attention to me anyway.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  So-

• 25:42Speaker 02

  By the bear.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Huh?

• 25:45Speaker 00

  That's crazy. This man got foley? Your boys over here do a sound effect?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Did you call it foley?

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. You mind them looking at them?

• 25:52Speaker 02

  That is one of the deepest cuts. That's amazing. Most people would say "sound effects." That's when you know someone's in the movie industry. She said she called it foley.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Foley artist over here.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, no, no, your jeans got hella foley.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Outside. Crazy.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Man, nuts. He's thirsty? I don't... Here's the thing, I thought it was such a silly question-

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  That I didn't really think about it, like, yeah, so like, I started a newsletter because you have to always constantly be talking to people. And I put like a silly thought at the end of it. And the one I put in it this week was, is an acai bowl fruit soup?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  So that's the level. So when I saw that bear, man versus bear thing? Or a hundred men versus a gorilla?

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, wait, don't just move on. That's... Is an acai bowl just fruit soup?

• 26:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  What makes a soup a soup?

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Is it a fruit stew? You see what I'm saying? So it's, it's silly shit like that. So like, I used to tell one of my friends that I think a doctor is a body mechanic.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  I think that's correct.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  Right. So just goofy shit like, it's just a dumb, like, it's just a silly thing I think of, so like, is a doctor a body mechanic? Is that fruit soup? Uh, they don't put, you know, there's numbers in math, but there are no... There's letters in math, but there's no numbers in words. Had a full-blown argue with my brother for 20 minutes about this, until my mom was like, "Just say there's no numbers and words, damn." But yeah, there's numbers in-

• 27:19Speaker 02

  How long has your brain been like this?

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Hmm. I don't have a husband or children to take up space, so I get to think about goofy shit.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  You think your brain would stop if you had them around?

• 27:29Speaker 00

  I think I would have other things to think about, other than acai bowl with fruit soup.

• 27:36Trevor Noah?

  When was the first time you noticed that your brain wasn't working like most people's brains were working? Cause you you're an interesting combination of things. You are, you have like the, what I call the like the leaky brain of a comedian. But then you also are like one of the most genius people I know when it comes to like learning, retaining information, uh, expanding on that information. I mean, even in school, you were in.

• 28:03Speaker 00

  I was in gifted classes.

• 28:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you were in like all the gifted classes. You were the, you the, solving the puzzles.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like, it's, which is so funny because physics has never clicked for me, but I think that the thing that always bothered me about physics was it was like, they wanted us to calculate the like, you gotta learn about vectors and they're like, okay, somebody's throwing this ball off a cliff. Calculate, I remember going in class going, but he can't get the ball back. So why am I doing this?

• 28:28Trevor Noah?

  That's where your brain went?

• 28:29Speaker 00

  I went to my teacher, I said, excuse me, why are we calculating this? He can't get the ball back. My teacher went, what? I said, what? If he threw the ball off the cliff, he ain't going to get it. So why do I need to know how fast it took to get down? What was the acceleration of the shit? He's, it's gone forever. Why do I need to know this information? So I need things that make, that's why like geometry made sense for me. Uh, chemistry made sense for me because there was too much. As much as I was a theater kid, I could suspend a disbelief.

• 28:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Some stuff is, this is busy work. This is real middle management bullshit. You not trying to, I'm not getting it. I'm never, there's a difference between I'm never going to use this and this man needs a job. I didn't like being participating. It just keeping some white man employed. I did not like that because I need, I need certain things to make sense, even if they're ridiculous. I love science fiction, but sometimes it has to be like, that's why every joke, they're like, well, every joke has a bit of truth to it. Some of it doesn't. Some of it's just purely goofy.

• 29:22Trevor Noah?

  Some of it is purely funny.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  Some of it's just.

• 29:24Trevor Noah?

  It's just words put together that makes a person laugh.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  It's a foreseeable fruit soup. Goofy shit. Like that I understand, but it's like, I rem, I think the first time I was like. I remember never believing in Santa Claus because the logistics didn't make sense.

• 29:39Trevor Noah?

  That was your big gripe as a child?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 29:41Trevor Noah?

  Like, not even from the beginning. There was no point where you believed in it. They explained it to you once and you immediately went. What part of the logistics didn't make sense?

• 29:48Speaker 00

  One, I knew my mom wasn't gonna let some random man in our house.

• 29:51Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  That was first. Two, I know some-

• 29:54Trevor Noah?

  But you don't have to let him in the house. That's the first thing.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Well, it was like, well, I knew like when we first, like the first place we lived didn't have a chimney and I was like, well, already out.

• 30:01Trevor Noah?

  That's true. I thought that in South Africa because we basically, no one had chimneys essentially.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  And then when we lived somewhere with a chimney, I was like, this definitely isn't gonna work. Also, my mother never told us he was real, but my mother never told us he wasn't real.

• 30:12Trevor Noah?

  So wait, how did you account for the magic, though? Because remember, there's magic as well, so-

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:16Trevor Noah?

  Santa Claus makes sense because of the magic.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  The logistics bugged me.

• 30:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but the magic. The magic covers the logistics. It's like, you gotta think of Santa, like, okay, think of Amazon.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:25Trevor Noah?

  Let's say we told somebody about Amazon two thousand years ago. They would go, this doesn't make sense.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  No, they wouldn't.

• 30:31Trevor Noah?

  What do you mean, in one day, something can get to you? From where? And you'd be like, yeah, so I think of something that I would like or need.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 30:40Trevor Noah?

  And then a day later, it is here. And they would, they would say to you, so you can just dream of Odysseus' brush?

• 30:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:49Trevor Noah?

  And it shall appear. And you're like, yes, it will appear.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  But, but home delivery, y'all, but we were, but things were getting delivered to homes forever. So even in Rome, somebody was like, hey, I bought some bread. Old boy from the bakery is bringing bread. You know, when the shadow hits this part?

• 31:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So then Santa Claus is home delivery.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  But I think it never made sense to me because nobody was, because everybody was depending on the fact that I was a child. And I'm just like, oh, you can tell kids anything.

• 31:15Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, okay. Okay, so you didn't like that?

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Well, it was like, once you start asking questions and you realize they have no answers.

• 31:23Trevor Noah?

  That's what gets you.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  That's when I was just like, well, what the, I was like, well, how's he get here on a sleigh with reindeer? Fine, I can accept the magic of that.

• 31:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Right, but I'm just like, well, how, what kids does he know to come to? Because I was sitting there going, I was like, well, not every kid is a Christian. So I'm like, there's whole countries he ain't got to go to, then. So that gives him more time because not every country got Christians.

• 31:40Trevor Noah?

  Isn't going to India?

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Right, there's Christians in India, right. He's going in them seventeen Christians in India, going on about his business. I don't know the logistics that are, uh, information behind that. But I'm like, okay, he's not going to the whole world because there's not Christians that live everywhere. Fine. And then the, what, the news in Georgia, they would have, you ever see, in America, they would do the Santa tracker? So they would be like, okay.

• 31:59Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, and they'd show you where he is in the world right now.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Right, and I'm like, yeah. On Christmas Eve, they would have the Santa track.

• 32:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and you could see where he is and be like, oh, he's, he's crossing over Iowa right now.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Right, and I'm like, wow.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Kids would have to go to bed.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, you gotta go to bed.

• 32:14Trevor Noah?

  It's like, they just knew, you knew where he was because it was, I guess, midnight there or something. And it's like, that's where Santa was now.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  But he was never, but like, you would never be like, it wasn't like, he's in Georgia, go to sleep. You're like, you're not going to bed. It's like, oh, he's over, like, oh, he's flying over Kenya, he's gonna be in America soon. And you're like, all right, maybe, but we need you to go to sleep. So, but as soon as you.

• 32:34Trevor Noah?

  Did you go to sleep distrustingly?

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Okay, maybe.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  All right.

• 32:38Trevor Noah?

  What did you go to, why did you go, why did you go to sleep?

• 32:42Speaker 00

  Cause it could, cause like.

• 32:43Trevor Noah?

  Okay, wait, wait, but, but sort of to Jesus' point is like, did you? I'm, I'm trying to understand young Dulce, that's what I'm trying to understand. So I see like, I see this little girl who is very logical, wants things to make sense. But like, what part of your imagination did you go crazy? Were there things that you did believe in or did think about that, you know, you know what I mean? Weren't logical in that way?

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Well, like, I remember, like, finding out about like imaginary friends. And I was like, oh, I should get one of those, but then I kept forgetting about it.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Cause I'd give myself one and be like, oh, fuck, I had an imaginary friend. Oops.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  You were basically like, these are like Tamagotchis that you would kill.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, like a Tamagotchi, so I was like.

• 33:29Trevor Noah?

  Dulce forgot to water her imaginary friend.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  Right, and I'd be like.

• 33:32Trevor Noah?

  There's a Pixar, you know, there's a Pixar movie in the somewhere, a kid who keeps forgetting their imaginary friend.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:37Trevor Noah?

  And then their imaginary friends are like dying because they aren't remembered. Cause you, if you, if you're not imagined, you can't live.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Right, but if he was better, if you were a better imaginary friend.

• 33:45Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  You might not have gotten forgotten.

• 33:46Trevor Noah?

  Wow, you blaming the imaginary friend for not being imagined?

• 33:49Speaker 00

  But I'm also six, so it's like, how much? How can I maintain, like, you know, if you watch like DW for Arthur, she's had an imaginary friend for at least 15 years. Nadine's doing a lot of work. I, on the other hand, had human friends. So I would also have cousins and stuff. So I had people taking up my time. I had a little brother, I didn't have time for an imaginary friend, I had a little brother I had to keep alive. When you don't have siblings and imaginary friend, ah, what you?

• 34:15Speaker 02

  So how many of these imaginary friends did you have and, and let go?

• 34:18Speaker 00

  I don't know, I had one for like 30 minutes, shit just seemed like too much work to me.

• 34:24Trevor Noah?

  I love, I love that you imagined somebody who was annoying.

• 34:30Trevor Noah?

  That's a, that's a special way to see the world is that you get to make up your own person.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  And then you're like.

• 34:34Trevor Noah?

  And you make them annoying. You're like, man, get, get the hell out of here.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  This is too much, cause I'm like, how much, how much I got to play with you?

• 34:40Trevor Noah?

  But why couldn't you imagine like a, a person who was like self-sufficient and just chilled?

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Cause it's like, there's still no one here. It's like, every time I think about like,

• 34:50Speaker 00

  like it's the idea of me wanting to get married. The idea of my husband isn't a imaginary fucking friend.

• 34:54Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Like every damn, just like, I hope he should, like, please God, I've been losing eggs.

• 34:58Trevor Noah?

  You, you wanna get married?

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 34:59Trevor Noah?

  What do you like about the idea of getting married?

• 35:01Speaker 00

  I wanna make people and I don't wanna do it by myself.

• 35:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Yes, so that's why I got my eggs.

• 35:06Trevor Noah?

  So you don't, I like this. So you don't wanna get married? You just wanna make people and you don't wanna do it by yourself?

• 35:09Speaker 00

  I absolutely wanna get married, but it's also, it's like, I think we have, I think western culture has sold us so much of the love of a thing. My God, now I sound like a booga, but it's, it makes sense for a long time that like marriage was a contract between people.

• 35:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  And then we made it a love thing, right? And so now we've kinda lost the idea of, this is two people, cause once like the emotions can fall out of a thing, so it's like, we're not doing the work anymore.

• 35:38Trevor Noah?

  Right, right.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  So it's like, as much as a friendship is work, as opposed to any relationship with a person is work. It's like, like for instance, I had a friend break up last week, right? As opposed to, I can't be friends with this person anymore.

• 35:49Trevor Noah?

  A real friend?

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. And so, because of just things going on in our friendship, that I was like, this isn't working for me anymore.

• 35:55Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  And it was,

• 35:59Speaker 00

  but you, we don't talk about friend breakups as much, we talk about relationship breakups.

• 36:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Because a friend breakup is like, this wasn't ever supposed to happen. It was supposed to be here forever. Which also doesn't make any sense.

• 36:09Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  So like, I wanna, I've always wanted, like the last time I had a boyfriend was, I was thirty, I'm forty-two. And so.

• 36:17Trevor Noah?

  Twelve years.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the last boyfriend I had cheated on me. And so, but then, like I started, so like around. So I was like thirty, but around like thirty-three, I started being on the road like full-time. And then I moved here and then I was in. So it was just like, it was things. And then that's when I found out, oh, men don't like it when you're gone all the time. You're on the road, because my homeboy said to me one day, he was like, listen, he said, you might not have had a boyfriend. But you weren't alone. And I was like, well, that's true. There was some negro wasting my time, or a white, don't worry. Um, somebody would pop up. A gentleman you talked to for a little bit. Right?

• 36:54Speaker 00

  But it's, I wanna be, I wanna be in a long-term relationship, right? And one of my friends, I was talking to her about that, and she said. She asked me, she's like, do you think you're ready to be a wife? Hmm, damn. No one asked you that question. No one ever asked you that question. But no one asks men if they're ready to be a husband. No one asks anybody if they're ready to do these things. You just think, you fall in love and you find somebody and da-da-da-da-da-da. And you don't think about the fact whether you're ready. And I, but one of the issues that I've had is that I have been asked repeatedly. And I don't know if, and I was talking to one of my friends about this last night. I don't know if this is something we just do to black women, or all women. But because I am in the position that I am in, right? And because I have the career that I have.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  It's sometimes frustrating for me, right? Because it's like, I have an Emmy at my house. They can count all the people that have Emmys. You can't really count all the people that are married, right? Yeah. So I am doing well at a very hard thing. Yes. But I'm failing at something people do every day. And so that in my brain is where my disc, is where I get upset because I can't. I can't shake the feeling that I'm failing. But also, it's like. I had to think, I was like, are there, is there anything that I want in my life that I couldn't get on my own? And this is the only thing that I truly want, that I have to be like. Need someone else.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  I need someone else. And then I was like, well, that's not true. Because.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  I was doing like, doing stand up and I'm acting, but like you have to get agents. You have to get a manager. Someone has to see you and go, I wanna help. So it's like, and especially as comics, cuz this doesn't happen with actors, as comics, some of your first opportunities as a comedian is someone going, hey, you're funny, come do a thing. Hey, come, you're funny, come get on this show, come do this. And I don't think, and so it's funny for like as, as lonely, quote unquote, as much as like comedy is like you're doing a lot of work on your own, you're, all your opportunities come from other people.

• 39:06Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Especially when you first start out. And so it's like, oh, so I need the opportunity to be like, please, uh, make me a mother. Cuz it, cuz then there's also the thing where people go, why don't you do it on your own? I was like, I don't wanna be a statistic, that's why.

• 39:21Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  And I watched my mother do this on her own. It didn't seem like it was fucking fun. And so now it was just like, cuz I'm either being, I'm either trying, oh, I can do it on my own, or, or I can be with a man who is not, who cannot pay the bills in my house.

• 39:42Trevor Noah?

  So pause there.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  But hold on.

• 39:44Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait, don't, don't, I'll tell you why, wait, pause, cuz I, I don't want us to lose the beginning part, which I think is really insightful and important. And then we're gonna go through it. So, so, we'll, we'll, we'll put a pin in that part.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  Oh, I, oh, no.

• 39:56Trevor Noah?

  Pay the bills.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Listen, you know a breakdown, yeah.

• 39:58Trevor Noah?

  Pay the bills, so.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  Because you have to remember, most people get divorced in America because of finances. Not because somebody cheated, not because somebody fell in love. Most people in America get divorced because of finances. That's the number one reason America get divorced, people get divorced.

• 40:11Trevor Noah?

  So I'll go backwards.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 40:13Trevor Noah?

  One of the first things you said when, when talking about this was about getting married, and you said,

• 40:21Trevor Noah?

  It's something that you have to do with somebody else. It's something that you have. I think you've tapped into something that a lot of people are experiencing across the board. But I I love that you brought it up the way you did because I do feel like the weight is felt differently between men and women.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 40:38Trevor Noah?

  Right, but men are definitely feeling it, just at a way less.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Male loneliness.

• 40:43Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, on a way like way less level. But it is, let me tell you something, you say goofy, goofy is what starts militias and

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

• 40:53Trevor Noah?

  Crazy armies.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  Listen, I said to my homeboy that I was in so one day. And he was like, that's not true. I said, of course it is. I said, I am celibate and it is very involuntary. These are, this is what in so means involuntary celibate.

• 41:07Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  I would love to be having sex time. There's nothing better than having your legs in the air and yet.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Trevor, do you agree?

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Get up.

• 41:16Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you what's funny is?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Hmm, tell me, having your legs in the air.

• 41:19Trevor Noah?

  Is that you made me, you made me picture my legs in the air. That's what I hate about what you did to me there.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  That's what good friends are for.

• 41:25Trevor Noah?

  That's what you did to me there.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:26Trevor Noah?

  You made me.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Anytime.

• 41:28Trevor Noah?

  Because you asked it, my first instinct, my first instinct was to defend myself. But the first thought I had, the first thought I had was me with my own legs in the air.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Whenever I hear something enjoyable, I think of who could enjoy this more? And my friend comes to mind and I'm thinking, look, there's an opportunity for someone's legs. Who would enjoy?

• 41:51Speaker 00

  He's an idiot.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Who would enjoy this?

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Stop talking.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Who would enjoy this more?

• 41:55Trevor Noah?

  So, okay, so, no, no, no, wait.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  And I appreciate that about you. You a fool.

• 41:59Trevor Noah?

  So let's go back.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Your friend is a dumb dumb.

• 42:01Trevor Noah?

  So let's go back, so let's go back. So.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Also, that is also the uh form, biggest form of respect from an American black person. If they run away because of something you said, so just know you did well today.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  So there was no bit?

• 42:14Trevor Noah?

  They go, if you go.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  There's snacks in my purse, so no.

• 42:17Trevor Noah?

  If you um, if you go back to what you said, like um, you you long for a time when it wasn't about love. I actually think that's probably one of the biggest things we're grappling with now in society. And we don't, we didn't understand it as a, as a second system effect.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 42:33Trevor Noah?

  Right? We, in the same way that people didn't understand what would happen when the globe became connected via trade. There were many things that would improve. Oh, money's gonna cross borders, people will become wealthy, etc. But then it's like, oh, poverty's also gonna speed up.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  And white people were spread illness.

• 42:48Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm. Okay, but like. Second families. Yeah, no, but all of these things.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  The internet.

• 42:55Trevor Noah?

  These are second system, yes, disease, these are second system effects.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  My uncle did have two families.

• 42:59Trevor Noah?

  There you go, so.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  In the same city, it was crazy.

• 43:02Trevor Noah?

  So now we got a pin in that as well, please remember this. He paid two bills. Pin, pin, pin, pin, pin.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  I don't know about all that.

• 43:09Trevor Noah?

  These are all pins.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  He's dead now, so it's fine.

• 43:11Trevor Noah?

  But I, I think that's what we haven't fully grappled with, right? Is the curse of choice is that it increases the amount of time that you need to choose. I don't think there's any human being out there who is not trying to find the perfect person for them.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  But that's, I think that, but that's the, but that's the problem. It's the perfect person.

• 43:32Trevor Noah?

  But that's what, no, but listen to what I'm saying.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:34Trevor Noah?

  It is a lot easier to assume that you have made the perfect choice, once you've exhausted your choices. So when we grew up in a village where there were twenty people, like in our age range.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:45Trevor Noah?

  At some point, you assumed that you had made the best choice because you had exhausted your choices. You went, well, okay, number seventeen. The hottest person around, yeah. Or the one for me, the personality and heart, or the combination, but you were done. Yeah. Then you made it a town, then you made it a city, then you made it a country, now you've made it infinite. Literally infinite. Dating apps, social media, etc. Like, we talked about this with Esther Perel on the podcast, but like, the fact that people have a constant deluge of other human beings being put into their head, and the option of them, by the way. Because remember, you'd walk in the streets before. And you didn't know whether people were or weren't single, so it it's not it's not necessarily the same thing, but a dating app is an infinite scroll.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  You know for a fact.

• 44:28Trevor Noah?

  Of people.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  No, you don't.

• 44:29Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no, yeah, that's funny, I know what you're saying, but I'm saying, still, it is advertised as they're single.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:36Trevor Noah?

  Here's an app.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  It's what they're selling.

• 44:37Trevor Noah?

  It is advertised, it is advertised. Now, I think we haven't fully grappled with the price that society has paid for that infinite choice, to your point, because I'll tell you now.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Because people think they have better choices than they do, they think they have more options than they have.

• 44:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  So, for instance, I got off of dating apps because I was tired of my phone hurting my feelings.

• 44:56Trevor Noah?

  Ooh.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  So every time I would log in, I'd be like, man, a city doesn't want to fuck me? That's crazy. And then I put my phone down.

• 45:01Trevor Noah?

  Do you, were you at the Daily Show when we did? No, you weren't. Uh, we did a piece on this early on in the, uh, in the Daily Show when I was, when I was hosting, was, um, we did a thing on how, and we actually had one of the guys, funny enough, who, who released a study, they showed that black women and Asian men.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  Have the worst results on dating apps.

• 45:18Trevor Noah?

  Like, terrible.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:20Trevor Noah?

  Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  That's why I used to do a bit about the fact that, uh, cause I think I was like, I sometimes do it and sometimes don't, I said we should come up with our own app and call it Black and Yellow, and so.

• 45:29Trevor Noah?

  You know what it is.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Right. And make the, just the smartest basketball players the world has ever seen. You see what I'm saying? Like, well, we should just date each other, right? Cause if, cause we get the worst, we truly do, black, black women, so like, for instance, my friend was like, somebody get on Match. I was living here, I got on Match, Match costs money, right? And so, I was watching people pick every single ethnicity but black women. Like, really? Pacific Islander? You don't know no fucking Pacific Islanders. When are you gonna meet this bitch? You're telling me that you would rather meet Moana than me? Get the fuck out of here. You are not gonna meet her, bro. Moana's never home, though. She, uh, uh, she's on a seat, she's out here with grandma, being a man to right.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  So, so, so you, if I'm looking on Match, cause like, one of my friends, same thing. Or people like, oh, just get on Riot, just get on Riot. Stop talking to me. I was on Riot, right? I was on Riot, saw you on Riot, and tried to take a screenshot, and Riot goes, hey.

• 46:26Trevor Noah?

  Don't do that.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  I said, screenshot.

• 46:27Trevor Noah?

  Don't do that.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Oh, cause I, like, somebody doesn't have another phone.

• 46:30Trevor Noah?

  Don't do that.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Listen.

• 46:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but we, but Riot was just trying to stop the people who weren't thinking far enough in advance.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:37Trevor Noah?

  They're just trying to stop impulse people, don't do that.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  And they don't do that.

• 46:40Trevor Noah?

  Ay.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  So then my homegirl took a picture of my phone, and I texted you, and was like, ah, you outside, south. So you hurt your wrist.

• 46:47Trevor Noah?

  Dulce is so unruly.

• 46:50Trevor Noah?

  We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break.

• 46:55Trevor Noah?

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• 47:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, one of my favorite YouTube Premium features is Smart Downloads. Because how many times have you gone somewhere and realized, "Ah, I forgot to download anything!" And now you're on the way to the airport and you're like, "Download, download, download, download." You're on the plane, "Download, download, download, download." There's no Wi-Fi. "I wish I downloaded." Now, all of those things that you were gonna watch are just on the internet. Smart Downloads basically thinks ahead for you. It automatically downloads recommended videos based on what you like to watch, so even when you forget to prepare, YouTube Premium didn't. I love it. It's like packing for a trip and discovering somebody already remembered the thing you always leave at home. It's always the underwear. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium.

• 48:25Trevor Noah?

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• 49:00Trevor Noah?

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• 49:44Trevor Noah?

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• 50:13Trevor Noah?

  In the same way, there was like an industrial revolution. I think we are now entering into a new phase of sort of like a relationship revolution. And what I mean by that is we are still grappling with the effects that we don't know are going to start to affect the changes that we've made in society. Right. Right? So if you look back, as you said, to a time when marriages weren't about love, a lot of the people who were in that time did not like it. Yes. Because the thing they said was, I hated that I didn't have a choice. Right. I hated that I couldn't choose who I was going to be with. You would listen to grandparents, you'd go, did you love? I wanted to be, I wanted to be, I don't want that time either. No, no, no, I'm not saying you do. I wanted to be a combo. No, no, I'm not saying you do. Right, right.

• 50:57Trevor Noah?

  I'm just saying, people would say, you know, you talk to your grandparents and they go, do you love my grandfather? And they'd be like, I never loved, I never loved that man. But, I mean. He's here. Yeah, we just had to do a thing. We had to do a thing. Right? And then, and then you move forward a generation, you move forward another generation. And I find it interesting and it's, it's, it's really poignant that you brought it up that. Now, we're searching for the opposite. It's like before, the people had ultimate certainty. And so all they yearned for was a little bit of opportunity for something, you know, to pop up, just something that wasn't predictable.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:33Trevor Noah?

  Don't define my path for me. And then now, it almost feels like we've gone so far down the world of you have choice, whatever choice you want, that now people yearn for the certainty. I wish I knew, I wish I could get with somebody, I wish I knew when I. I I've had more conversations with friends in every walk of life, women who are going, I'm freezing my eggs. But like, in a way, now it's becoming just ubiquitous.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, your insurance better be right, because that shit cost me thirty five thousand dollars. I end up with two eggs.

• 52:02Trevor Noah?

  But what I'm saying is, this no, but this is a real conversation. It's like, eggs is like, but it's a thing, it's, do you know?

• 52:07Speaker 00

  But for the first time in history, there's more women in their forties than women in, that are teenagers in their twenties. For the first time in history, there are women who are financially stable, having kids.

• 52:19Trevor Noah?

  Now, that's, yes, that's the point. So now, this is, this is what I'm trying to get to. I want to go to something you said, and I know some things you say as a joke, some things you say being real. So I I actually want to get to it.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  You never knew.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  That's what I was about to say.

• 52:29Trevor Noah?

  No, but like.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  And I knew you.

• 52:31Trevor Noah?

  So when you said, no, when, when, when you said, when you said, I, because I don't want to be with a man who doesn't pay the bills. This is like, what I mean about.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  Not doesn't, can't.

• 52:42Trevor Noah?

  Can't, fine, can't pay the bills. That's fine.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  Because doesn't.

• 52:46Trevor Noah?

  That's fine.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  But can't.

• 52:48Speaker 00

  Calm down.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Can't.

• 52:49Trevor Noah?

  Can't, he loves trying to get an American accent right.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  Well, I have a southern accent.

• 52:53Trevor Noah?

  We, we.

• 52:54Speaker 00

  Well, not real.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Good go.

• 52:55Trevor Noah?

  We're good to go.

• 52:59Trevor Noah?

  So.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  I don't know why that was my first reaction.

• 53:04Trevor Noah?

  So.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  That's what the pilot said.

• 53:06Trevor Noah?

  So. So if we.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  How do you know?

• 53:10Trevor Noah?

  So if we, if we look, let's, let's break the time, you go like, I don't want to be with a man who can't pay the bills.

• 53:17Trevor Noah?

  Let's start with this, the whys, like, why do you say that?

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Because he will, you will end up with your enemy in your own bed. Because, you have to think about this. Men have been told, and this is not to the benefit of men or society at all, right? So, men are told that they have to operate in a certain way, by other men. The confines of society, because we're like, I'm not even talking about toxic masculinity, I'm talking about what a man is supposed to be doing. He's supposed to be providing, he's supposed to be taking, he's supposed to be doing these things, right? If he cannot do these things, he is either going to find fault in himself, or fault in you. So, if my mortgage is X amount of money, and you cannot pay this mortgage, you're either going to find fault in yourself, or find fault in me.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  And usually, speaking to my friends who have been this, been through this, and women who have been through this, they find fault in you. And so now, you're dealing with someone who resents you, because I've dealt, because people are like, well, what if he's a nice guy? I've dealt with men who weren't as successful as me, and it always ends up with them being hurtful towards me because they resent me for the fact that they can't do the thing that society's told them they're supposed to be doing.

• 54:34Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  In the same way that it's like, it's, you talk about white privilege, and there are white people that get upset because they're like, well, I grew up poor, I didn't have white privilege.

• 54:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  But they don't understand the full scope of what white privilege is, because all they knew is, is they grew up poor, so I can't have a privilege of being white, because my white experience is that I grew up poor. You can't tell them that you can inherently fix this thing, which is why the bootstrapping myth makes sense for them, right? In the same way that I know that also, when I have children, I want to be able to take time off of work.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna let love make me homeless. So if I'm not working, someone has to pay the mortgage. Someone has to, if I at least have savings, fine, I can pay half the mortgage, but I'm not working. Someone has to keep us indoors. Right. So if I'm dealing with somebody who can't keep the lights on in here, then I have another dependent in my house. Then I can't do the things that I need to do as a mother. I can't do the things I do, I need to do as a person. I can't do the things I need to do as an adult. Because there's a fucking man in my house who cannot pay my light bill. He cannot pay half the mortgage. He cannot do the, he can't do, so what is he here for? Because I already have people in my, my mother's retired. My mother's got a job for fun.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  So it's just like, I have people in my house that I'm already taking care of. I need a partner. I don't need another dependent. Because if that's the case, I'm putting you on my taxes, bro. Give me your social. Because here's the thing, there's not an, I have never made a dick that, I've never met a dick that would make me send my mother to work. You see what I'm saying? My mother works because she wants to, because she has to. Do say, do say. I can't, I can't. Welcome to my life. What is?

• 56:26Speaker 00

  I remember the number of times some random girl would be like, oh my God, I can't, how can you, Trevor's so handsome. How can you work? I said, first of all, he's my boss. First of all, so I don't see him like that. Where were you when these conversations were happening? At the fu, at the stand, at the cellar. There's always some girl that's like, oh my God, do you have Trevor's number? No, we're getting distracted though. No, we get distracted because I want to be distracted because I have to make sure I don't cry on your podcast. So my brain just needs to kick somewhere else. And then we have to come back. And so, but I'm being told repeatedly, it's, well, what if he has potential? And da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And I was like, I want to know if other groups of women are being asked to go, well, what if this man has potential?

• 57:10Speaker 00

  Because one, it's the only men I've ever seen worried about gold diggers are the men that don't have gold.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  I have never met a man. Onto my new American phrase. God damn.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  Well, we're good to go. Oh, god damn. That's a combo. Oh, okay. Somebody watch BET yesterday? Oh, man. God damn. So. Because you have to think about it. I'll tell you what.

• 57:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  You're telling men they have to provide.

• 57:40Trevor Noah?

  Right, but you know, you know. There is something that I think. It's painful because it's true. But in the same way. The sugar lobbies got us to hate fat and tricked us into not focusing on what was actually happening in food. I do find it really sad. That we talk about relationships. And most of the things that we're bringing up about relationships have nothing to do with the dynamics of a relationship. They have to do with the dynamics of late-stage capitalism.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:10Trevor Noah?

  You know? Because everything you said is true.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:13Trevor Noah?

  But everything you said isn't really supposed to be. The real, real, real crux of a relationship, you know?

• 58:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 58:21Trevor Noah?

  Can you pay the bill? When I'm a mother, I don't want to be homeless because of that. That's a very true and real thing.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Because I have to keep my children inside.

• 58:29Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  I have to be able to take care of my children. How many kids do you own?

• 58:31Trevor Noah?

  But that's why when you go to Scandinavian countries. No, but that's why when you go to Scandinavian countries, for instance. They don't really have that issue. And I know there they have, I'm not saying it's like a perfect place, but you realize that the issue is minimized because. There's a certain contract that people have with the state where the state goes, no. If you're a mom. If you're a parent, in fact, man or woman. You'll get a certain amount of paid leave. Your child will be able to go to school. Your health care is not dependent on whether or not you have a job. Because you, the state has an interest in keeping you healthy.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  Right, but you have to remember that the reason we do not have. Universal health care is because of racism. If you look at a lot of the practices of the state of Mississippi, right? A lot of things that they do is to oppress black people. The problem is white people also live in that state. So. If you don't want to have universal health care in a country because you don't want black people. How are you punishing? Eighty-seven percent of the people for something that, because you don't want thirteen percent also. I've never believed that was really part of the population, but we won't answer the census. So. You don't want thirteen percent of your population to have something.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  So you won't give it to the other eighty-seven percent of your population. Tipping, and here it comes from, there's a racist history of tipping. Because you weren't paying black people correctly. When we started getting like, it's a whole thing with it, when we started working on railroads and stuff like that. It was, they didn't pay him a livable wage, they started tipping them. That's why service to this day do not get a livable wage because you can survive on tips. Right?

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  And so, this is a thing that's still hurting people today, but because of a racist start of it, and then we lose the history of things.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  And so, the pro- but the problem is, is that if I let love carry me in certain places.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  I would be divorced from a broke man. If I let love dictate. And if I let to think, if I let, because I'm already, we know I make bad decisions.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  Let me ask you a question though, before you move on from there. If, I mean by the, you know, last reported wherever numbers, if they say fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce anyways. Then doesn't it mean that even if you get into a marriage, and not you, but as a person. There's a fifty percent chance that you're already getting divorced regardless of what the other person's income is or isn't. And like even brokenness, people can become broke.

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean? Like people can come in with money and then end up broke, people can.

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  Do you think I make the same amount of money I did when I worked at a show?

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  I'm assuming not, because I don't.

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  Uh, listen. So, listen, I got to start paying attention in the store now, it's crazy, oh my god.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  I had to look at the price or something, oh, I was so mad.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Whenever I think of conversations about relationships, and I think

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  relationships only, permanent ones, long-term ones, only make sense based on a stage of life that you are at.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  So for example, I, I've told you the story before. My daughter's turning seventeen now, and we've been together alone since she was five, turning six.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  Mm.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  Right now, my brain is going, I would love to have someone around, because I've had her.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  And I didn't feel like there was room for someone else.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  Mm.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  But now I feel like, if I had made that decision ten years ago, I would have had to accommodate the both of them in my life.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  And some of the things that I wanted to do in the last eleven years that I got to do anyway.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  But right now, I'm thinking about it differently, because I would want someone, more than anything, to tolerate me.

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  Right, and so, but I, so I'm having to ask someone to, so you have to also look at the dynamics of things, right?

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  I remember being at a show, and I was talking to a comic. Uh, I was talking to Nick Gata about this.

• 1:02:09Trevor Noah?

  Wait, before you go into the story.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  Um.

• 1:02:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I wanna respond to something cuz I don't wanna forget it, and I think it's important for you to hear this.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:02:15Trevor Noah?

  I have heard from many women who do have the same story. In fact, you go like, I wonder if it's just me or women like me. I remember speaking to a woman, this was in Sweden, and she was a very wealthy businesswoman, like, and I mean, like, has done a phenomenal job and helps people start businesses and she can, I mean, like, killing, like, by all metrics.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:36Trevor Noah?

  Great kids, living the life, you name it, you name it. And the biggest thing that plagued her was she said, "I feel like my life is a failure." And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Well, I never got remarried and now I can't find a man." And I was, I said, "What do you mean can't find a man?" Just elaborate on that. And she said, "Well, if I meet some, some of the men I meet, we get along well with, but they're also in a high-powered position, and they're not flexible and I'm not flexible because they, they can't leave what they do and I can't leave what I do. And so, it just ends up fizzling." And then she, and then I said, "Okay, but what about men who aren't successful?" And she said, "I'll be honest with you, I'm not attracted to them. I'm not, I just can't be with a man who's not like doing something and not, you, you know what I mean?"

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:03:19Trevor Noah?

  And, and so, no, just to, I just want you to know that, like, not, not to shift anything or to shape, but you asked a question, and I don't have the answer for everyone.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:28Trevor Noah?

  But I do know, and I think it's important for us to know this in life,

• 1:03:33Trevor Noah?

  because we generally don't post how we are actually doing and feeling on Instagram and social media. We don't really know how anyone is or isn't. We know what the advertisements of people's lives are. We know what the highlights are.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:03:46Trevor Noah?

  Right? We very seldom know the lowlights.

• 1:03:48Speaker 00

  Well, that's why I posted the other day and I was just like, "How is everybody doing?" Cuz I'm having a hard time right now. And I don't like the fact that sometimes if I get on Instagram, I realize Tik, Instagram will sometimes make me feel bad.

• 1:03:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Because I'm just like, it now is just like, here's the good, everybody's doing great, everybody's doing fine, these are the things you aren't doing.

• 1:04:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Speaker 00

  And then I get on TikTok and it's just like, "Hey, so my coloring book," so like, I see a bunch of craft stuff, and then I see, uh, the Maori doing hawkas. Uh, and it's like, so, uh, a little good, little Middle Eastern song, right? So now I know a little bit of Arabic, the whole boy, Womanshi singing in Chinese. So, TikTok is still fun cuz that hasn't figured me out yet. Instagram, it's like you're, I don't like the fact that. I'll get on TikTok and Instagram and be like, this is why our industry is dying? Because you want to see somebody make a cake for six episodes? As opposed to a well-written thing? So it's like, we don't see the real, we don't see people's real lives. And it's to everybody's detriment. In the same, it's like, it's like a dating app.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Yes, it is.

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  You go through, you see a man holding a fish, you see another man holding a fish. So you see white man holding fish and a black man sitting in the passenger side of a car. Or the pictures that you see on dating apps, if you're wondering. It's white dudes holding fish. Black man on the wrong side of a car. I was like, I don't know if this is flipped because he's in the driver's seat. All I know is I never see a dri- Dude says he's a white man holding a fish, white man holding a fish.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  But here's my, maybe you can help me with this, Dosa. I'm, I'm trying to figure out. Isn't being in a meaningful relationship about someone else tolerating you? I mean, the other person and you tolerating them.

• 1:05:23Speaker 00

  Right, but I don't, but the thing is, I'm not trying to be inflexible. What I'm trying to do is, because here's the thing you have to un- understand. It's, I have to get past

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  meeting a man, I have to get past him one being insecure about what I do. Oh, you at war shows? Oh, you doing all of this? Yes, sir, I am. So do you want to put on a suit or do you want to talk shit? What are we doing? Because if you can't, if you don't figure out how to hold a fort, because I can't be sitting somewhere nice and you sitting up eating like a convict. We need to, so let's do that first. Second, oh, you making all this money? Are you doing big things? If I hear you're doing big things, I'm blocking your number. Because what that lets me know is you're not do, I don't need you to do big things. But what I need you to do is not talk shit about what I'm doing.

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  But Dosa, what if that was just a question?

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  It's not a question. The thing is, you're not, so because I am a person who listens to people. I know what all of these thing, I know what all of these things mean. Because there've been enough conversations where, oh, you're doing big things. Fast forward to a week later, oh, you think you're better than me? No, nigga, you think I'm better than you. Anybody who's ever asked me that question, you think you're better than me? I don't know you, so no. I'm not thinking about you in the way you're thinking about me. Because I don't know you. I'm not excited to meet you, I'm not doing any of these things. You're excited to meet me because I'm on television, but you don't know who I am as a real person. Because you saw me on Daily Show, you saw me in a clip, so people are like, oh, my God, you're so much nicer in person than you are on stage. You think I'm doing this, you think I'm performing at all times? Are you paying me in this conversation?

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  So I go on a date, so God was like, and I've had men go to me, oh, man, I'm having such a good time. It's like, so you're acting right now? Bitch, are you paying me? I don't perform for free. Also, a pussy costs more than appetizers, so let's go, so get that out the way. God damn!

• 1:07:14Trevor Noah?

  See, when you walk, you want to sit over, walk in a room, so.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:07:18Trevor Noah?

  I, there's, there's, there's, there's a question I'd love to ask you, and I'll, I'll maybe ask it by, by sharing something from my life.

• 1:07:26Trevor Noah?

  One of the hardest things I learned from therapy was that.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  It's expensive.

• 1:07:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's expensive. But I, I also learned

• 1:07:40Trevor Noah?

  that there's a filter that we can apply on the world because we are constantly moving towards

• 1:07:50Trevor Noah?

  or partially creating the reality that we do exist within. So I would find myself having one idea of women.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:59Trevor Noah?

  Because I was going there all like this. All women do this, all women. And then I, I would talk to a friend who's in a healthy, happy relationship, married, whatever. And they would go, I don't actually know what you're talking about. What are you talking about? And I'd be like, oh, no, that, that's because you, you're an outlier, man. Let me tell you how it really is. And then I would meet somebody else at some point, and I'd get to know them, and I'd go, you know how, and they'd go like, actually, I don't know what you're talking about. And it took me a while, and I think it takes all of us a while, to then ask ourselves, because of where we are from, how we were raised, like, we had Roy on the podcast, and one of the conversations that we had with Roy, like, you know, he gets into it in his book, is.

• 1:08:44Trevor Noah?

  You realize how many of the cycles and patterns we've inherited?

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:49Trevor Noah?

  And don't even know we're in.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:53Trevor Noah?

  And then we ask ourselves why they keep repeating.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  Now, what's the difference between that and a generational curse?

• 1:08:59Trevor Noah?

  No, it's the same thing.

• 1:09:00Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:00Trevor Noah?

  The same thing. But but I'm coming back to what you're saying like I noticed just when I'm listening to you and you go. You have an assumption

• 1:09:10Trevor Noah?

  that the man you're meeting, you've already met.

• 1:09:14Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no, no, that's the thing. It's I take everyone at face value. I'm not gonna have an issue to you give it to me.

• 1:09:21Trevor Noah?

  No, I'm with you, no, so I'm with you, forgive me. So let me put it this way, this is what I'm saying. This is exactly what I mean in therapy is like. Cause I remember I was so defensive about it, right? When my therapist was saying, she was, I was like, no, no, I was like, no, I I start from scratch. I start, then she's like, no one's starting from scratch.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  It's impossible.

• 1:09:37Trevor Noah?

  We all think we're starting from scratch.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  We're starting from our scratch.

• 1:09:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but the the best way to think of it is if I was to use an analogy, think of it like, think of it like food.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:46Trevor Noah?

  A lot of us in life will say, man, why do I keep getting fast food? Why do I keep getting greasy food? Why do I keep getting this type of food? Why do I keep, how, why don't I get wholesome meals and what, you know? But what we never ask ourselves is, why is our eye attracted to that bright pink logo? Why is our nose attracted to the smell of of of that, you know, crispy, you know, fried chicken flesh? Why is that? We don't ask that question of ourselves as people.

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  Oh, I always ask that question.

• 1:10:13Trevor Noah?

  No, and so what I mean is, if we end up with the same outcome that we don't want, the hardest thing for us to like try and figure out is which part of it is us participating in the story? And which part of it is the story existing on its own?

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  So I'll tell you what I found in the therapy, therapy. So my therapist said to me, she's like, you're very self aware.

• 1:10:34Trevor Noah?

  You're supremely self aware.

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  She said, I'm very self aware. She said, and she said, honestly, and it makes it a lot easier to to have these sessions with you because you're very self aware.

• 1:10:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  She said, but because you're so self aware, you analyze everything.

• 1:10:47Trevor Noah?

  Oh, so you're hyper self aware then?

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:10:49Trevor Noah?

  You're too self aware.

• 1:10:50Speaker 00

  So I'm always going, so my thing is like, I remember saying to my ex one time. Cause I, you know, talk about him in the book and the mechanic and all of that, right? And so I said to him one day.

• 1:11:02Speaker 00

  So I was talking about, because it was like years into this back and forth, because I couldn't see better for myself in this situation, right?

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  And I said to him one day, I said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:11:17Speaker 00

  I said, so from you, I don't, I expect you to do the things that you are doing. Because I would be crazy to think that you're going to do something else based on the information and the years that I've spent going back and forth with you, right? So for me, it's never, why don't I have this thing? My issue, my thing is always, what is wrong with me? I'm rarely ever thinking, was when things start going slight, slightly, I'm always looking for a pattern. Because it's like, I'mma catch you before you catch me, right? Because I know I make bad decisions. So now I have to go, now I have to be extra vigilant, asking these questions. And getting to know some man, because I know I can't always trust the decisions that I make.

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  I can't always trust the fact that I've picked this, I'm talking to this person. Also, a lot of, like, because my friends, I was saying to all my friends, I said, if you line up all the guys that I've dated, they don't make sense. I have, one of my homeboys, I can't tell these girls apart. He's got a new girlfriend, I didn't know it wasn't the other light-skinned bitch he had been dealing with a year ago. I didn't know it was a new girl. Because, I fuck, my ex is the same way. He had a picture of a girl, I would look down, I was like, when did I take this picture? It wasn't me.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  But he, I was like, okay, then I am the fucking archetype. If you look at all the dudes I've messed with, all of them don't make sense. But the thing was, it's, I have more instances in my life where a man is like me than a man I've liked has liked me back. So it's now I'm just dealing with the men who like me. So then I'm dealing with that part of things.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  You're dealing with yourself?

• 1:12:46Speaker 00

  Hmm?

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Are you dealing with yourself?

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  Like you're saying, if, if you're saying you're dealing with the men that are.

• 1:12:53Speaker 00

  I'm so the men that are attracted to me. And more times as opposed to, oh, I like a man, I think he's attractive. Nine times out of ten, that man doesn't think I'm attractive, so he doesn't talk to me. So a lot of times I'm dealing with men who come to me first. And then it's just like, okay, well, this is where I'm at. It's these are the men that are attracted to me. They're not your option. So it's just like, well, and then I had to go, well, you can't keep entertaining these dummies. Because it's there is the consistency of the men that are coming to you. Versus the men that I want to be with. So the men I just want to talk to, so the men that are coming to me are the men that aren't

• 1:13:34Speaker 00

  the men that aren't, they just have jobs, they don't have careers, right? It's just they're just doing a thing. And so they're just surviving every day. And so you see me, you're like, well, at least there's food at the house, I know that much, right? So she's got a place to stay, she got food at the house. I'mma deal with her. So I seem to catch men that are in their struggle. And so you came to me because you need a head to lie on. Or you need a place to stay. You can't stay with me like that. I'm not gonna feed you like that. Because the thing is, I'm, so we always think about that, because I always remember this from like growing up, like there was always the term equally yoked, right? And so I think about that in a lot of different ways, as in like if you can't understand

• 1:14:21Speaker 00

  if you can't understand where I'm coming from on a regular basis, as in you don't understand the words that I'm saying. So, so in my book, I talk about an ex that I had, best boyfriend I ever had, but he grew up very poor. And so I remember telling him about like, we had gone on vacation one time as a kid, and I was like a teenager or something, my mom, I brought a friend. You know, we were all hanging out. And so he was like, oh, you trying to shine on me? I was like, I'm not trying to shine on you. Basically, I was trying to brag. And I was like, I'm not shining on you. I'm, you asked me about something about me being a kid, like, like, they he asked me about something as an experience as a kid, and I was like, oh, my mom took us on vacation, and so he thought I was bragging. About going on vacation. And I was just like, we were staying at a Days Inn in Savannah.

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  We didn't go to Europe. We weren't still in the same state. What are you talking about? But, and he also asked me one day what an aquarium was, because I went to the aquarium for my birthday. And he asked me what an aquarium was, and I went, what? And he's like, is it a museum? And I was like, yeah, for fish. Let me call you back. Because he was inherently not wrong. An aquarium is a museum.

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  But I still had to call him back.

• 1:15:29Trevor Noah?

  More like a zoo. But.

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  But what I'm saying, so I had to go, I have sex with this man.

• 1:15:34Trevor Noah?

  Wait, who?

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  And that's why I had to stop. So it's like.

• 1:15:36Trevor Noah?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I want to know. Wait, you go ask your question first.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  I want to disturb. But my thing, because I found what you said very interesting. So if the men, correct me if I'm wrong.

• 1:15:45Speaker 00

  It's a zoo.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  If the men that are attracted to you, look at you as a soft place to land, right?

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  Yes, if you are flailing, ugh.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  Right, so if you, if you want a very successful man and you're an artist, do you think sometimes they think that of you? Like if, if, if there's a banker or a successful lawyer goes, you're a comedian, what if your things are not popping and I'm doing very well? Are you looking at me as a way out of your situation?

• 1:16:13Speaker 00

  They need to Google me.

• 1:16:15Trevor Noah?

  No, but that's, you know, that's an interesting, it's an interesting point because, because you, it, it brings up the conundrum of life, right? And that conundrum is that, is that the arrows are often pointing. You know, I remember once seeing a motivational speaker, you know, and you know, they, sometimes they're like very cheesy gimmicks they play on the audience. But sometimes it, it really sticks with you. And there was this one motivational speaker and we're in an audience and he was talking about love.

• 1:16:38Speaker 00

  What his teeth looked like?

• 1:16:39Trevor Noah?

  And he, say again?

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  What his teeth looked like?

• 1:16:41Trevor Noah?

  His teeth were perfect.

• 1:16:41Speaker 00

  Of course they were, go, go ahead.

• 1:16:43Trevor Noah?

  So, I was talking about love and then, um, talking about being chosen. And then he said, you know what I want? I want everyone to turn to the person on their left and notice something about their face. And so everyone in the audience turned to their left. And then he's like, okay, now everyone face the front. And he's like, raise your hand if you, you know, the details of their face. And then no one could raise their hand, because everyone was looking at the back of somebody else's head. And he said, that's like the paradox and the conundrum of life and being chosen sometimes. Is that everyone is trying to see this person's face. The person behind them is trying to see their face, the person behind them is trying to see their face, the person, do you know what I mean? And so now, like what Eugene is saying is interesting because it's like, I know that I've experienced that. Now, way less, obviously.

• 1:17:29Trevor Noah?

  But I remember when I was starting in comedy, I would be on a date and someone would go, "So what do you do?" And I'll go like, "I'm a comedian." And they're like, "No, no, but what are you like, like, what are you gonna like do?"

• 1:17:39Speaker 00

  But what you're missing-

• 1:17:40Trevor Noah?

  Like, what are you gonna, no, no, I'm just saying, like, it was interesting, it would be like, "What are you gonna like do do?" No, like, for like, but like, like, like, when you, you could, they almost wanted to say, "What are you gonna do when you grow up, though?"

• 1:17:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:17:51Trevor Noah?

  Like, when you become an adult, what are you gonna do?

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  But you have to remember, I'm a woman.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  So no one is looking for me to do that thing. No one asks women, that's the thing, and this is so you have to remember-

• 1:18:03Trevor Noah?

  No, he's not saying, no, no, he's not saying that, so this-

• 1:18:05Speaker 00

  No, no, no, I'm saying, so he's talking about like a banker or something, worried about that. But you have to also remember is that men inherently aren't, they do not have to, men aren't running around looking for, "I need a successful woman."

• 1:18:22Trevor Noah?

  I think that's, I think that's where you may be wrong, I'll tell you-

• 1:18:25Speaker 00

  I'm not saying, hold on, let me finish.

• 1:18:26Trevor Noah?

  Let me speak for some men.

• 1:18:27Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:18:28Trevor Noah?

  I'll speak for some, wait, wait, let me say this, I'll speak for some men. I think there's a misconception that is often spread amongst people where they go, "Men don't care, men don't look at that."

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  No, that's the biggest lie that we've been told, is that men don't care.

• 1:18:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but what I'm saying is, I think, this is what Eugene is saying, it is, it is, if you listen to the kernel of it, it's really interesting, it's like, it's, we take for granted that we ourselves are the most stable thing in our lives, often. And then we are presented with somebody who we feel brings instability into our lives. But then we are still thrown by somebody else when they treat us like we are the instability that could potentially come into their life. That's, that's, that's what he's saying.

• 1:19:06Speaker 00

  No, no, no, I understand that, but what I'm saying is like, I've never had, I've never been in a situation-

• 1:19:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  Where a man has been worried about what I do for a living. That he's worried that I'm going to bring him financial instability.

• 1:19:22Trevor Noah?

  Might not be financial.

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  He's been worried about that I would bring him emotional instability. That's been the biggest, where it's just like, "Well, I need a woman to be my peace." But you terrorizing bitches on a daily basis. You ain't nobody's peace. There's always some, I need a woman to be my piece, I need a woman to be ride or die. First of all, I just met you, I'm not going nowhere, I'm certainly not going to perish for your needs. So, it's because, and so that's when I think about the fact the old, cause like I said, I've met more men worried about a gold digger.

• 1:19:50Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:19:51Speaker 00

  Than I've met worried about, cause I've met men that's like, oh, I don't worry about a woman does. I'm like, once you find out what I do. Cause a man in Atlanta's trying to holler at me when my mom are out. And he was like, well, you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And I was like, great. And my mother's like, oh, well, he's like, well, my mother was trying to talk to him, he's like, oh, I don't care what she does. And I was like, you will when you find out what I do. Because I am, I travel a lot for work, I'm successful. Cause a lot of the issues that I've had, it's the traveling for work. And I'm in a male dominated industry.

• 1:20:21Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  And so, and I said to one of my friends the other day, if you're a dirtbag individual, you think other people are doing dirtbag shit.

• 1:20:29Trevor Noah?

  Yes, okay.

• 1:20:30Speaker 00

  So, since I'm not a dirtbag.

• 1:20:32Trevor Noah?

  Or if you've been dirtbagged.

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  Or if you've been dirtbagged.

• 1:20:34Trevor Noah?

  We always have to include that.

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  So if you've been, like, it's like, so one of my friends, like, you know.

• 1:20:37Trevor Noah?

  Cause if you are a dirtbag.

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:20:39Trevor Noah?

  You will constantly think that people are doing the same thing as you.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:20:42Trevor Noah?

  But also, if you've been dirtbagged.

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:20:44Trevor Noah?

  People also, cause like, you've been dirtbagged, so you're like, so we should also always include that, I think.

• 1:20:48Speaker 00

  I've been dirtbagged, I've been sandbagged, I've been fucking, uh, quick sanding, all of that.

• 1:20:52Trevor Noah?

  Tea bagged.

• 1:20:53Speaker 00

  Let's, I'm a Christian. So, for me. May you just calm down.

• 1:21:01Speaker 00

  So I have, but it's like traveling for work, or it's.

• 1:21:05Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:21:05Speaker 00

  If I tell a man what I do, you're either challenged because he's like, oh, you're funny.

• 1:21:10Trevor Noah?

  But I'm saying, do you hear even in your, you're making a, like a full on.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  I'm not saying, I'm only talking about my experiences. I don't expect.

• 1:21:16Trevor Noah?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:21:17Speaker 00

  But that's all I can do is go off and experience. So I have, so if I, so I'm not saying that I haven't met men who weren't interested. It's like, oh, that's really great.

• 1:21:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, right, right.

• 1:21:25Speaker 00

  So I'm not saying that I haven't met men who haven't been intrigued by it, or haven't been impressed by it, or haven't thought that was interesting. I have. But, things did not progress with that person.

• 1:21:39Trevor Noah?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:21:40Speaker 00

  And sometimes, and so it's like, oh, this is great, and it's like, oh, but you're gone a lot. Well, yeah, that's how I, but I work. So now, it's, it's like, I'm not trying to be inflexible. I'm just trying to understand.

• 1:21:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Speaker 00

  In the same way, I'm just like, I need Santa, because here's my thing, what's the fix? I travel a lot.

• 1:21:58Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:59Speaker 00

  So, doesn't it make sense if we're trying to be together? What if you, okay, I'm gonna be in, I'm on, I'm gone twice a month, right? I'm going to Iowa and I'm going to Seattle. What if you came to Iowa or Seattle, right? I'm not trying to be inflexible. I'm trying to help.

• 1:22:18Trevor Noah?

  I said this to Eugene the other day. Do you remember we were in the car, we were in Johannesburg? And I said to you, I don't even know what brought it up, but I said to you, I said.

• 1:22:26Speaker 00

  Oh, also, I didn't forget. You told me you were gonna take me to South Africa. I didn't forget. You, you changed the subject. You knew what you want. It's your podcast.

• 1:22:31Trevor Noah?

  I said, I said to Eugene, as much as I love what I do, said, and as much as we love comedy and all these things, I said, man, do you ever think about how wonderful it is for some people that their jobs don't require them to leave constantly, right? And we're speaking about this and I'm talking to Roy about it. And I remember saying one day, someone was shocked. They said to me, and I'm glad that this has diminished over time. But I remember someone once being shocked, saying like, man, a lot of comedians commit suicide, right? There'd be like, no, there was like an outsized number of comedians would commit suicide. If you look at like per industry.

• 1:23:05Speaker 00

  I can say in the summer of twenty twenty-two, it was like a lot at the same time. I don't know what happened, but it was.

• 1:23:11Trevor Noah?

  But this is like constant.

• 1:23:12Speaker 00

  Or just dying.

• 1:23:13Trevor Noah?

  But then I said to a friend, I was like, yeah, I get what you mean about like, you know, a lot of comedians commit suicide. And I think there's many factors that probably contribute to that. But one of the glaring parts that sticks out to me is how and where. Is like, everyone would focus on that, the fact that they committed suicide. I would focus on the fact that they were always alone in a hotel room. It was always like alone in a hotel room in a random place. And very seldom, not never, obviously, but very seldom did I read a story of a comedian committing suicide at home, with their friends, with their family, with their, and in that one moment, I realized how insidious isolation is.

• 1:23:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:23:54Trevor Noah?

  And I think what you're talking about, which I think many people can relate to.

• 1:23:59Trevor Noah?

  Is the isolation that we might experience for a variety of reasons.

• 1:24:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:04Trevor Noah?

  Because I'll tell you now, as somebody who's experienced it, fame is one of the most isolating experiences a human can have. Right? And I didn't think of it as isolating because you go, people go, everyone knows you. You're like, yes, that is isolating in a strange way.

• 1:24:18Speaker 00

  Everyone knows of you.

• 1:24:20Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:24:20Speaker 00

  They don't know you.

• 1:24:21Trevor Noah?

  Exactly. But that's what I mean is isolating. Because everyone else gets to walk into a room and not be known and write their story. You walk into a room, people have an assumption of you. That's isolating.

• 1:24:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Trevor Noah?

  Exactly.

• 1:24:32Speaker 00

  End of story. Perfect.

• 1:24:33Trevor Noah?

  And I'm not saying it like as a woe is me thing. I'm just saying isolation is an interesting concept to understand.

• 1:24:39Speaker 00

  Because every, because now every interaction. Because one of my friends, she was saying to me, she's like, well, when you, when I first met you, I didn't like you. And I was like, okay, I don't know why people tell me these things. We're friends now, why are you telling me this? She's like, well, when you first met me, you know, you weren't excited to meet me. I said, why would I be excited to meet you?

• 1:24:56Trevor Noah?

  I don't know you.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  I don't know you. You, she's like, my mom had the SS magazine with you in it. I said, yeah, you know me. I don't know you.

• 1:25:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Speaker 00

  You're excited to meet me. Of course I wasn't excited to meet you. I don't know you. I'm not excited to meet strangers even before this.

• 1:25:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:14Speaker 00

  Because you're like, you don't, you're a stranger. I don't know you. Right? So it's. And I had this conversation when like, when you left the show and they were looking for a new host, right? And you don't know this, but as soon as this came out, I went, I went to plans at his office. I was like, not me? No, thank you. Uh-uh. I know I'm probably not in the running. Don't even ask me. I don't want this. I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want it. And if I said that to any, well, what, what, do you want to do that? I was like, no. Every comic I'm talking about would argue me down. I can't believe you don't want this. And I was like, this is like, it's a great opportunity. And I said, for you. Because you don't know the logistics of this thing. You don't understand how this works.

• 1:25:58Speaker 00

  I don't want, then one of my friends asked me, one of them was really pushing me and I had to go. I don't want to spend my career asking other people what they're doing with their careers.

• 1:26:08Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:26:09Speaker 00

  That's why I don't want that job. I don't want to sit at a desk every day and go, so what are you doing?

• 1:26:15Speaker 00

  Because that's because I told you when we got to my first host of the week when we went to the when I did that camera turn going from act two to act three I said never fuck it never never.

• 1:26:25Trevor Noah?

  But that's the part of it that you felt the most. I mean, that's like five minutes in the show.

• 1:26:30Speaker 00

  No, no, no. What I'm saying is that it was just it was confirmation.

• 1:26:34Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so for you, that's that was the confirmation that it's not for you.

• 1:26:36Speaker 00

  That wasn't wasn't for me.

• 1:26:37Trevor Noah?

  Completely with you.

• 1:26:38Speaker 00

  Right. And I'm just like, oh, this is because that's why I couldn't do factory work because it's a repetitive thing. And so I was like, I'm gonna be sitting here forever asking people. All right, Orlando Bloom, what's his next movie? All right, Lupita, what's this new book?

• 1:26:50Trevor Noah?

  Let me let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Because I I'm noticing something about, you know, like, reading the stories in your book.

• 1:26:57Speaker 00

  You read the whole book?

• 1:26:58Trevor Noah?

  When you'd fight with the teachers.

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Trevor Noah?

  Reading the stories about like, you know, your mom joining the school and then having to like, discipline you from inside the school.

• 1:27:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, she whipped my ass at that school.

• 1:27:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and then and then and then you fighting and like the jobs that you would go and have afterwards and like. I it find it I found myself asking the question. I was like, because now even when you're saying like at the Daily Show, it wasn't your piece. I'd love to know, like, where has your piece been? Where do you find you've like, is is this is there even a moment or slither where you go like, this is this is it? This thing that I tap into is my piece?

• 1:27:30Speaker 00

  So I have a craft room.

• 1:27:31Trevor Noah?

  Crafts.

• 1:27:32Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:33Trevor Noah?

  You had a that was like your first Facebook post ever was selling crafts.

• 1:27:36Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. I, uh, oh, you was digging deep. Um, I. So I've been working since I was nine years old, right?

• 1:27:45Trevor Noah?

  You've been working since you were nine years old?

• 1:27:47Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. So you read that in the book. So I've been working since I was nine and.

• 1:27:54Speaker 00

  I. Everything had to become a business, right?

• 1:27:59Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:59Speaker 00

  So like the craft thing was like, I enjoy this because my mom would always get me little crafty things. And so. It was like making little paper beads or making little hair bows and stuff like that. I've always been like a maker because I like. Like that was like I was talking about my friends about like British baking show. And I like, I think, and I like that show because it's, you know, sometimes you watch cooking shows, it makes you hungry. That's why my mom doesn't watch them. I never, first of all, I don't get hungry watching those shows, but especially that show because it's literally about the technicality of making a thing.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:30Speaker 00

  As opposed to, there's a finished product, but it's about the technicality of everything, right? And so, when it comes to crafting, it's like, I, so for instance, coloring talk hopped up on my TikTok, and so now I got in like coloring books, right? And I say adult coloring books, and then people think I'm coloring adult stuff. No, no, no, no. There's a bear going to get coffee. You see what I mean?

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

  From a man. No!

• 1:28:55Speaker 03

  That's an industry that is waiting to be tapped.

• 1:28:58Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no, they've got those books too.

• 1:28:59Speaker 03

  That's an industry, wait, they are?

• 1:29:00Speaker 00

  Oh, there's all kind of nasty little books.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  Oh, adult coloring books?

• 1:29:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Speaker 03

  Like, adult.

• 1:29:05Speaker 00

  Yes, there's one, you can color in curse words, you can color in titties.

• 1:29:08Speaker 03

  But you only need like, what, four color crayons, and then you're done?

• 1:29:11Speaker 00

  Four.

• 1:29:12Speaker 03

  How many colors do you need?

• 1:29:13Speaker 00

  I know, I was asking.

• 1:29:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:29:14Speaker 00

  I mean, listen, that's why I don't like porn with white people, because everything's pink. So, I don't know who starts or finishes. I don't know who's where.

• 1:29:23Speaker 00

  Everything's pink. I don't want it. So, I have like my craft room.

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:27Speaker 00

  Right? And so, my house in LA, there's three bedrooms upstairs, and one of those, me and my mom share a craft room. Right? And so, this place of like, it's, I need to be able to have a thing that makes sense. And then the other place of peace, I think I sometimes have, is on stage. Depending on the show.

• 1:29:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50Speaker 00

  But, it's where like, I understand, I understand everything that's happening right now. I understand what I'm saying, I understand what the reactions are, I understand how people are gonna take me in, I understand that like, no one's going to misunderstand me, no one's going to judge me, it's like, I can under, I, I know what I'm doing.

• 1:30:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  And I know what the reactions are going to be. So like, while I'm performing, great. After a show, ugh, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's like, what did you hear? Why are you asking me these things, right? Not the chicken Maurice. So, I have these moments where it's like, I have my peace in that, or it's like, just sometimes, you know. Being at shows sometimes. Yeah. Cause it's like, I under- I understand how this works. I understand how this goes. Like if I'm on set, I understand, cause this is like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Cause when it comes to like, cause one of the hardest things for me about relationships,

• 1:30:49Speaker 00

  like romantic relationships, is like, with work, I knew the steps to get to what I'm wanting to do. Yeah. If I need to do something, it's like, okay, I had somewhere tickets, alright, fuck, we gotta do this promo, cause these clubs aren't promoting us like they used to, but you're still charging me for marketing. So it's just like, okay, I have to do this, I can do this. I know it's, some things, even in this industry, isn't input in and input out. I can still understand the steps of this. When it comes to relationships, I feel like somebody gave me dipsy cups and string, and we're like, okay, now go to the moon. Because I don't have enough experience with successful relationships, that a lot of times I don't know what I'm doing.

• 1:31:32Speaker 00

  And so sometimes I have to be quiet, because I also have to stop, because I've been in so many bad relationships, that I know what the trigger is. So sometimes I have to stop myself and go, hey, hey, hey, hey, that might not be what he's doing. That might not be what he's doing, you need to calm down. You need to calm. I'm so familiar with it. But I'm so familiar with the, because I see the pattern now. Right. Oh, I haven't heard from this man in five days. What usually happens is this, is like, oh, you've disappeared, you've done this, da, da, da, da. Yeah. But if I'm dealing with someone who's communicative, like the last guy I was talking to, he had a family issue, that's why we're not talking anymore. You had a wife? No, he had a, something happened with his mom. Um, and so I hit him up and I said, hey,

• 1:32:14Speaker 00

  um, I haven't heard from you in a while, so I just wanna make sure, is everything okay with your family? Mm-hmm. That was my first thing, cause something did happen. And I said, is everything okay with your family? Or is life just lifing? And if, if so, if you need space or time, just let me know. Because I've been in this situation too many times, and no, and, and somebody didn't tell me what happened, right? And he texted me back and goes, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to ignore you or trigger you. And then he was like, but there's stuff going on with my life right now, with my family, I need space and time. Thank you so much. There's so many times I've been in relationships with people where I said, hey, I can fully understand that you need space. Yeah.

• 1:32:57Speaker 00

  Just tell me you need space, and they wouldn't give me that. Because and so then I'm just in a spiral because now I'm sitting up trying to go. What did I do? What happened? What did I do? What happened? And a lot of times I have to go. But I also have to be aware of the fact, sometimes this isn't me.

• 1:33:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  But the only thing I have control of is what I did and what I said. So sometimes people have, but but since I have a lack of information.

• 1:33:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:20Speaker 00

  And the only input of information I have is things that I did. You told me nothing. So now I just had to go, okay, well, did I do this and I do this? And then you just have to go, wait. You do the fuck, you get to the end, I was like, I didn't do shit.

• 1:33:33Trevor Noah?

  There's a common thread I see coming from that and it's um.

• 1:33:39Trevor Noah?

  It's predictability and control.

• 1:33:41Speaker 00

  Which I don't have.

• 1:33:42Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I'm saying in stand up and in crafts.

• 1:33:46Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:46Trevor Noah?

  Two worlds where. You have direct control and immediate feedback. Like if you're a comedian.

• 1:33:53Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:53Trevor Noah?

  And you say something that the audience does not agree with or like. They will instantly let you know.

• 1:33:58Speaker 00

  It's either information or confirmation.

• 1:33:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:00Speaker 00

  This joke's either works or it doesn't.

• 1:34:01Trevor Noah?

  They let you know. So you then know immediately. There's. There's almost no audience out there, maybe in Japan, that's the only time it happened to me. Where what they were doing didn't relate to how they were feeling.

• 1:34:11Speaker 00

  Oh, you've never performed for black lesbians. They are the hardest audience to perform for.

• 1:34:16Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I cannot say that I've done a show solely for black lesbians.

• 1:34:19Speaker 00

  In Atlanta, there was a place called My Sister's Room and they would do shows there and every comic would get off stage going, you can't crack them.

• 1:34:27Trevor Noah?

  So wait, so let me go back to what I'm saying.

• 1:34:28Speaker 00

  And then they get off stage and go, you had a great set. And we were like, tell your face, ma'am.

• 1:34:34Trevor Noah?

  Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this.

• 1:34:42Trevor Noah?

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• 1:35:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, one of my favorite Youtube Premium features is smart downloads. Because how many times have you gone somewhere and realized, "Ah, I forgot to download anything!" And now you're on the way to the airport and you're like, "Download, download, download, download." You're on the plane, "Download, download, download, download." There's no wifi. "I wish I downloaded." Now, all of those things that you were gonna watch are just on the internet. Smart downloads, basically things ahead for you. It automatically downloads recommended videos based on what you like to watch. So even when you forget to prepare, Youtube Premium didn't. I love it. It's like packing for a trip and discovering somebody already remembered the thing you always leave at home. It's always the underwear. If you like Youtube, you'll love Youtube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium.

• 1:36:12Trevor Noah?

  Terms apply. Cancel anytime. I think one of the things you realize when you start caring about clothes is that simple doesn't have to mean basic. Because a t-shirt is a t-shirt until you find the right t-shirt. Ooh, then suddenly you're talking about the cut, the fit, the weight, the way it falls on your body. Then you're like, "No, no, no. You don't understand. Look at the sleeve." And that's what I've really enjoyed about Quince. One of my favorite things is their Pima Cotton Lux Touch t-shirts. And it's become one of those pieces I keep reaching for. The cotton has this really smooth, premium feel to it. The fit is great, and it just lays really nicely. And I think that's what you sometimes take for granted with simple clothes.

• 1:36:56Trevor Noah?

  When they're done really well, they become the foundation of an entire outfit. You can throw on a jacket, a sweater, whatever you want, but everything works because you started with the right thing. That's what I like about Quince. It feels premium without feeling like you're trying too hard. It's effortless. So find your next four favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. Hello over there. Oh, and if Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was What Now with Trevor Noah. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:37:41Speaker 04

  Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest of the other two. We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hader, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless now on the Sirius XM app. Download it today.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  Trevor and I have had this conversation so many times before and we were talking about hobbies. And one day he was saying to me, was asking me why I have so many hobbies. And I've just recently discovered hobbies. I used to think were just things of interest. And I said, one thing I discovered about hobbies and the people that are hobbyists is they're usually good at one thing that they do for a living. Surgeons, police, whatever. But a hobby humbles you constantly. Because something that you try, you love it. Yeah. But you keep failing at it and you come back again. You dedicate time to it apart from the thing that you're already good at. So the more time you dedicate to a hobby, the better it becomes. And the better you become. And as soon as you master it, you start another hobby.

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Right, so if you're coloring or making beads, once you're done with this bracelet, you'll start another bracelet.

• 1:39:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:39:11Speaker 02

  You never go, this is my ultimate bracelet. Well, the conundrum is when you are talented.

• 1:39:15Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:39:16Speaker 02

  That's the only bracelet that you'll ever make.

• 1:39:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:39:19Speaker 02

  Standing on stage, making people laugh, you get better at it, but it's not like you're gonna go become a famous welder afterwards. So there's this thing that you can, that you can always go back to. And my thing is, and why I said earlier on, my mission now is to be with someone who can tolerate me.

• 1:39:35Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:39:36Speaker 02

  It's because I've realized that the best version of me is the intolerable version of me.

• 1:39:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:39:41Speaker 02

  So when I'm doing hobbies, I don't judge myself, I don't criticize myself as much, and I'm not seeking perfection. And why wouldn't I be that version to someone else? And they accept that, and then they can also see that sometimes I'm a comedian who does comedy and stands on stage and over analyzes. So my thing was, when you present yourself to the partner that you would like to have.

• 1:40:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:40:04Speaker 02

  Are you presenting Dulce, who does arts and crafts? Or are you presenting Dulce, who over analyzes and stands on stage and tries to find the punchline to life?

• 1:40:15Speaker 00

  All of it, because if you're gonna be with me, there's, that's why it's like there's no, anything less than that is a performance. So it doesn't behoove or benefit me to be performing for people in my personal life.

• 1:40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:31Speaker 00

  Because then I never get to be myself, right? Like, you know, I told you, I went to that friend breakup, and the thing that

• 1:40:39Speaker 00

  was so hard about that was like, being with him, I got to be a woman. So I didn't get to be, and I got to be soft, and I got to get taken care of, and I got to

• 1:40:53Speaker 00

  kinda like just.

• 1:40:56Speaker 00

  You see what I'm saying?

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:57Speaker 00

  Cause like other openers I would bring with me, I'm taking care of this person while I'm taking care. So it's like, okay, now we're doing this, now I'm going this, okay, we gotta get around, okay, we gotta do that. And the benefit of him was, I didn't have to, it's okay, what's the itinerary? It's like, oh, you're, cause I don't have a tour manager, right? So it's like, it's the benefit of as a person, if someone is making sure we're doing this, making sure we're doing that. Oh, you're hungry, let's find something to eat, let's do all of these things, right? And so I said to him, I was like, I get to be a woman around you. I get to be soft. Cause like if you talk to like, especially like older women. And it's just like every day before her husband, she had to go do this and do that. And like you have to, you were constantly performing.

• 1:41:42Speaker 00

  You constantly were doing things for this person's benefit and it wasn't mutual. It wasn't.

• 1:41:49Speaker 00

  It wasn't y'all taking care of each other. Because when I've, I, you know, dated men, it's just like, you know, what would you want? Say, why was I want to take care of me? Oh, well, you want to try and take all my money. That's the only care that you know. Is financial. You're not thinking about emotional. You're not thinking about, that's only thing. So I've said this to people, it's like, oh, you only think money. A lot of times people only think about care, they think about money. But if we've taught men that most of our, it's transactional with people. That's what we teach men. That love is transactional. We teach women that love is emotional, we treat men that love is transactional. You have to give things to be loved. Women, it's like you have to be quiet. And let this man do these things.

• 1:42:32Speaker 00

  You have to accept whatever he does, even if you don't like it. I didn't like this ring, I didn't like what he said to me, I didn't do any of these things. But if you want to be with somebody, you have to accept these things. And so I don't want to be in a situation where I can't tell you how I feel. Or I can't tell you what's going on with me, that I can't pray with you. Cause people ask me, well, do you have to be a Christian? I just did the Daniel fast. I just did a religious fast for 21 days from the Old Testament. If my husband does not understand what I am doing, if my husband cannot do it with me. My mom is also fasting at the same time. My house is fasting. If he does not understand my faith, he doesn't understand me as a person. He doesn't understand what I do, he doesn't understand me as a person. So I don't understand if this person I'm trying to build a life with, cause that's the thing. You're always going to like, cause I had changes in my faith.

• 1:43:17Speaker 00

  I didn't do the fast last year because I was mad at God. So I was like, I can't be in this place anymore. Cause if I'm mad at God, I'm mad at everything that exists in the world. So I have to then, but I was mad at God because I was mad at myself. And so I had to find forgiveness for myself. In a crazy way, it's like I had to forgive God. In my mind, for me being in the position that I'm in, because for some reason I'm here. And I don't know what that is, because I don't, I don't know what God does, I don't know where they are at. But at least have to accept, as a person of faith, all I can do is go out and do stand up, leave my house, and just hope that the work that I'm doing benefits in the way that I want it to, because you don't know what God's plan is, all you know is you go outside your house, hope you don't die,

• 1:44:01Speaker 00

  and maybe what you want and what God's plan is matches up somehow. But I can't lie, I don't lie to my friends. I'm who I am with my friends, I don't know why I wouldn't be that with my, I'm gonna spend more time with it, he's gonna be in my bed every night. Can't lie to this man, that's exhausting. I'm already tired. I was in six cities in a week and I'm supposed to come home and be like, alright, let me go lie to this nigga, who wants to do that? That's, and so I don't want to, also it's like, I'm not trying to change nobody. You can't change a person. Well, I, because I've heard people say that, well, I met him, but I can just change him, bitch. Do you know how successful you can be in your life if you didn't spend all your time trying to change somebody else?

• 1:44:43Speaker 00

  Do you know what you could possibly be doing, that's why I was talking about, like, like truly crazy people are never successful, they're too busy being crazy. People who are obsessed, because I realized one point, I was like, oh, I think I'm addicted to people. When I was younger, that's when I was addicted to people because I don't want to think about myself. So it was always thinking about what my friends were doing, and were they okay, and how were they, and da-da-da-da-da-da. Because when you stop thinking about other people, you don't think about yourself. But we've been told as women, thinking about yourself is selfish. So I had to figure out, oh, it's okay for me to think about me, oh, it's okay for me to worry about me. I had to learn about self-care, because we grew up, you get your nails done, you get your hair done, bitch, that's self-care. No one's talking about my emotional welfare, at all. My hair is done and my nails are done, bitch, you're fine. So all of these things you have to learn as a person, because I realized, if I had gotten married before I went to therapy,

• 1:45:28Speaker 00

  I would be divorced, definitely. Because anybody I would have married before I went to therapy,

• 1:45:35Speaker 00

  wouldn't have been a healthy relationship, no matter who it was, because I was not in a good place, and I didn't care about myself the right way, and I didn't think about myself the right way. So I would have married somebody who was at the point of where I was in my life. And that was not a good place.

• 1:45:50Speaker 00

  So he was either going to treat me the way I treated me, which isn't good. Because I had a friend tell me one day, if somebody spoke to you the way you spoke to you, I would fight that person.

• 1:45:59Trevor Noah?

  So let me ask you this then, as, as, as we leave you. I've heard you talk about happiness. I've heard you talk about

• 1:46:09Trevor Noah?

  peace, your vision for your life, etc.

• 1:46:14Trevor Noah?

  If someone was to wave a magic wand and give you exactly what you wanted, what do you think that would look like tomorrow? I'll, I'll, that's the first part of the question. What would that look like tomorrow?

• 1:46:28Speaker 00

  First of all, I'm a bad bitch. I'm playing. I'm already a bad bitch. Um, one.

• 1:46:39Speaker 00

  I don't want my friends out with my mom. Uh.

• 1:46:43Speaker 00

  If you wave a wand tomorrow,

• 1:46:47Speaker 00

  I am

• 1:46:51Speaker 00

  married, happily married, with someone who understands me. I have children. Uh, three. Um.

• 1:47:03Speaker 00

  My brother is better.

• 1:47:07Speaker 00

  My mom is married. Uh. I'm in a house that accommodates everybody.

• 1:47:16Speaker 00

  And

• 1:47:21Speaker 00

  I have.

• 1:47:25Speaker 00

  Because I don't think this, it's not that the situation gives me peace, it's that I have a place of

• 1:47:34Speaker 00

  I don't have that sadness in me anymore.

• 1:47:39Speaker 00

  I think that's the wand. It's like, I have the things, it's because this is what I think about all day is what I don't have. And it's so, and me taking care of everyone else. And so I think if a wand is waved, it's I have a partner who can help me take care of everyone else. And someone that takes care of me and someone that I can take care, but it's also, it's like, I need help.

• 1:48:11Speaker 00

  And I'm past the part of my life where I'm afraid of asking for help. I'm afraid of the part of my life where I don't feel ashamed asking for help.

• 1:48:22Speaker 00

  But I think if a wand is wave, I get the help that I need. Because I'm not, because the goal is to stop feeling like I'm failing. Is really the goal. To be like, you did enough. Just because things didn't work out, because no one's ever told me that I'm failing. My manager tells me all the time, you're not failing.

• 1:48:44Trevor Noah?

  But I can't. Don't go far, sorry to interrupt.

• 1:48:46Speaker 00

  But I can't shake the feeling. So that's the wand wave, is that feeling of.

• 1:48:54Speaker 00

  Because someone asked me, it's like, well, how do you know that you made it? I was like, I don't, I've never felt like I've made it.

• 1:48:58Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:48:59Speaker 00

  I've never felt like I've made it. Because like, oh, you got Daily Show, you made it. I'm like, this is one job, this is, this, your career is your whole life.

• 1:49:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:07Speaker 00

  So it's for me, it's like, I, the wand is I don't feel like I'm failing anymore. And I have the things that I want to make me feel like I'm not failing.

• 1:49:16Speaker 00

  What's the next question?

• 1:49:16Trevor Noah?

  So, no, no, no, the, the, the second part of it isn't necessarily a question. It's more, it's more an idea that I hope to leave you with.

• 1:49:26Trevor Noah?

  When, when my production team was asking me, they're like, so like, why, like, why Dulce? They asked me about everyone to try and understand. They're like, why do you want this person on? And why do you want that person on? And I say, why Dulce? And I said, because I've met few people who embody the real idea of heroism than Dulce.

• 1:49:49Speaker 00

  Me?

• 1:49:50Trevor Noah?

  Oftentimes, we're sold heroes as people who have overcome an idea. Oftentimes, I get frustrated because we're sold people who have overcome voluntary ideas. I climbed Mount Everest. I ran a hundred marathons. And I'm like, yeah, this is my hero. I'm like, no, no, no. They, they chose a thing to do. In my opinion, heroes are the people who are not choosing the thing, but have to climb the mountain anyways.

• 1:50:16Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:50:17Trevor Noah?

  Heroes are people who have to run a hundred marathons, but there's no ribbon on the other end.

• 1:50:23Trevor Noah?

  And I won't change it overnight for you emotionally, but I I genuinely hope you know. And it's something that somebody said to me that, man, stuck with me and it hit me hard. Because I think I've experienced, I think everyone who's gonna listen to this or watch this can at some point acknowledge feeling what you're feeling and sharing with us.

• 1:50:45Trevor Noah?

  It was the feeling of want, the want and I don't have and I don't. And they said something really, really, really impactful and beautiful. And at the time, I just, I resisted and I was like, no. And they said, my one wish for you in life is that you realize everything you want is everything you already have. Where is it?

• 1:51:06Trevor Noah?

  And and I, you know, I I took it as trite. I took it as like, ah, you whatever, whatever. And you know, you and I've spoken about these things, but I've gone.

• 1:51:19Trevor Noah?

  You're not wrong. Whoever you are in life, you're not wrong to go, I don't have, because you don't.

• 1:51:27Trevor Noah?

  But you're also wrong if you only think you don't have. Right. Because we all don't. I've talked to people who have found the love of their life and then they died. That's so. And let me tell you something. You think you're lonely because you haven't met the love of your life. Meet the love of your life and have them leave this earth permanently. Oh, I think about that all the time.

• 1:51:49Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no. And then you'll understand a different type of loneliness and a different type of pain. And I'm not saying this minimizes because I'm not one of those people who goes. Other people have it worse. So I do think perspective is a wonderful thing because it allows us to see parts of ourselves in our lives that we are otherwise unable to see. And the simplest analogy I'll give is Eugene and I have laughed about this for years. We'd always go, nothing would make you appreciate your car more than the guy at the car wash driving it away. You know that feeling we'd always talk about? You'd have your car, you used to have this car and it's annoying. I gotta fix this and I gotta. And then there's a moment where the guy at the car wash would drive it and you'd look at him in your car and you'd go,

• 1:52:31Trevor Noah?

  that's my, that's my car. And there'd be this, and we used to literally laugh about this feeling and. Yeah, the the the one thing I I say to you as as as we wrap up here is it's like, I think it's like broken down into parts. One is thank you. Because I I think you don't realize sometimes

• 1:52:53Trevor Noah?

  that you doing

• 1:52:56Trevor Noah?

  is helping others. It's like even on like the smallest level, which I think is a big level, like comedy. Man, let me tell you something. The amount of times people have told me what they came into a comedy show with and how they left a comedy show. Changed like my perspective on it, you know, I think about it with good food. I think about it with with anything you name it. And you doing for your family, you like, I hope I hope you don't

• 1:53:25Trevor Noah?

  I hope you don't take for granted

• 1:53:29Trevor Noah?

  that part of it because I know the burden is intensely upon you.

• 1:53:37Trevor Noah?

  And I hope genuinely, I just, I hope that the feeling you just felt now is a feeling that you'll constantly be able to dip into regardless of what does or doesn't come into your life. Because the feeling is all that we're pursuing. That's the thing I've learned and it's taken me years and years, and I'm not perfect at it, by the way, I still slip. But the feeling is the only thing we're pursuing. We feel like we want to be married with kids. We feel like we want to have kids. We feel like we want this job. We feel like we want to do that. We feel like we and we're not wrong. But the thing is, to your point, we don't know. You've never met that man. I've never met my wife. I've never the person might never exist, but you know what does exist? The feeling that we have when we think of them.

• 1:54:21Trevor Noah?

  And so I think that's like one part of you that I think you might not be able to see all the time is how optimistic you are. Is how much of like the lining you're seeing because you want it. To want it is to believe that it can even possibly exist.

• 1:54:38Speaker 00

  I know what happens when I don't. And so that's the thing. It's like I

• 1:54:46Speaker 00

  I don't know if you saw this clip, when I was hosting the show, the lady asked me what was the hardest part of your career and the hardest thing you had to do and all this other stuff. And I said, "Oh, hope."

• 1:54:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:55Speaker 00

  People never talk about how hard hope is.

• 1:54:58Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54:59Speaker 00

  Hope is the hardest thing to have. Patience is hard, patience is easier than hope. Because at least when you're waiting for a thing,

• 1:55:08Speaker 00

  it's...

• 1:55:09Speaker 03

  It's coming.

• 1:55:10Speaker 00

  And that's the thing. You're only patient for things that you know are coming. Hope is you waiting for a thing that you don't know is coming.

• 1:55:17Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:55:18Speaker 00

  And so, there's a lot of faith that you have to have in that. And I can offer you this. If you think seeing somebody drive off with your car at a car wash is a feeling, your car in a tow truck?

• 1:55:36Speaker 00

  That's a worse feeling. Because it, because, because here's, because the tow truck, because here's the...

• 1:55:39Speaker 03

  No, I said the car thing's a good feeling.

• 1:55:42Speaker 00

  When someone's taking, we say man of the car wash taking the car?

• 1:55:44Speaker 03

  No, I'm saying it's a good feeling.

• 1:55:45Trevor Noah?

  You get to appreciate it.

• 1:55:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was saying it's a good feeling.

• 1:55:47Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no, no. I appreciate my car more.

• 1:55:52Speaker 00

  Every time I had a car in the back of a tow truck, I had to appreciate the fact that it is going to be fixed. That's, that's the moment you have to go, when you see a car in a tow truck, you have two options. Either you never see this car again, because she gone. Because I told you I dated a mechanic for a long time, because I could only afford used cars. And sometimes you gotta go to some man's house to pay for oil change. That's not the point, you love him. But,

• 1:56:16Speaker 00

  real hope is seeing your car in a tow truck and going, "I'm gonna drive the car again."

• 1:56:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:22Speaker 00

  No matter what's wrong with it. Also, car, somebody else... I've never been to a car wash where somebody had drive my car off. So, I just hope, just one day to get like you.

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  Oh, no, it's quite common in South Africa. Don't, don't get it twisted.

• 1:56:32Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no, they have them here, I just have it gone.

• 1:56:34Speaker 03

  Oh, it's like pouring gas. You know, like in America, people are like, "They pour your gas for you." And you're like, "Oh, no, no, this is not, this is not the way it seems."

• 1:56:40Speaker 00

  No, in New Jersey, they pump the gas.

• 1:56:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, no, no, it's one of those funny things where people, you know. But to say, this was a, I know we're gonna, we're gonna have to...

• 1:56:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, we have to wrap up. But yeah, it's a, listen, this is the longest I've ever spoken to you. So.

• 1:56:50Trevor Noah?

  Don't lie.

• 1:56:51Speaker 00

  We've never talked for two hours straight before?

• 1:56:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I don't talk to anyone for two hours straight.

• 1:56:55Speaker 00

  I'm fully aware, so I'm saying this is the longest I've ever talked to you.

• 1:56:58Trevor Noah?

  I was gonna be like, in our lives, we've spoken for way more than two hours.

• 1:57:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, if you put it all together, it was three hours and fifteen minutes.

• 1:57:03Trevor Noah?

  In fact, I'm gonna challenge you, when we were backstage in Atlanta, I had the fried chicken and we were sitting, remember I had the Nashville spicy hot chicken? And we were backstage and you came to the show in Atlanta. We stayed backstage until they kicked us out of the backstage.

• 1:57:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, because that's the only time I leave somewhere is when they get kicked out.

• 1:57:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but that was hours.

• 1:57:19Speaker 00

  And I'm happy.

• 1:57:20Trevor Noah?

  But that was hours.

• 1:57:21Speaker 00

  It was.

• 1:57:22Trevor Noah?

  How dare you forget me?

• 1:57:23Speaker 00

  I did not.

• 1:57:23Trevor Noah?

  How dare you erase me from history?

• 1:57:25Speaker 00

  See, look at this man, you see what happened?

• 1:57:28Speaker 00

  He had what, now mind you, that's the longest we ever talked, how long I've known this man? How many, how many presidents did I done know you for? Trevor, Ezekiel Noah?

• 1:57:38Trevor Noah?

  Only one real president.

• 1:57:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:39Trevor Noah?

  Because the other one stole the election.

• 1:57:41Speaker 00

  Listen, I.

• 1:57:42Trevor Noah?

  Now, everyone who's watching is like, I know who he, he means.

• 1:57:45Speaker 00

  Biden.

• 1:57:48Speaker 00

  Stolen.

• 1:57:49Trevor Noah?

  Alright.

• 1:57:49Speaker 00

  But no, I'm glad, I was worried you were gonna, I'm proud of myself for not crying. I'm glad I got to, um, I'm glad I got to do this because I do,

• 1:58:02Speaker 00

  I do like your perspective on things because you weren't born here. And so there is a certain amount of

• 1:58:14Speaker 00

  optimism and perspective that you have that

• 1:58:22Speaker 00

  especially black people born here don't have. Because one, most Americans don't leave America.

• 1:58:31Speaker 00

  But also two, there is a

• 1:58:38Speaker 00

  there is a

• 1:58:44Speaker 00

  When you come from a place that was colonized and stolen from you, but the majority of the people in your country still look like you, then you're watching a minority run your country, right? Yeah. And so you can see the theft. You can see that y'all shouldn't be running this shit. We just didn't have guns. It's the only reason y'all are here is because you caught us slipping. How dare we not have weapons, right?

• 1:59:09Speaker 00

  Here it's, you took over and brought us with you

• 1:59:15Speaker 00

  and stripped us of who we are. And every time we try to create who we are, you tell us we're not, you try to convince us this whole time that we're lesser than what we are.

• 1:59:29Speaker 00

  And we've accepted that to a certain point. But we spend all this time, because if you notice what black people do all day is look at white people and go, that's not us. How do you not know who we are? We know who y'all are. We've been with y'all the whole time. So black people spend all this time going, no, that's not us, that's not us, that's not us, that's not us. And you're coming from a place where, oh, I know who I am. And so there's a certain fight that you don't have to have mentally, that we have to have. Because not only are we fighting the population at large, we're also fighting for each other, be like, no, no, no, no, no, we're in this together, but I don't know you niggas. But we're in this together, but I can't, we, we, and so you're always trying to figure out friend or foe. Because sometimes it's like skin funk and kin folk.

• 2:00:13Speaker 00

  So there's a perspective that you have because like you have the basis of, I know where I'm from. And I know where I'm from. I'm from here. But everyone's telling me I have no part in this. And then I know where I'm from as a continent.

• 2:00:31Speaker 00

  But I have multiple tribes in me who could have been at war. I'm just the descendants of these people. So I'm walking around with nations in me, but everyone's telling me that I'm lesser than I am. So I spend all this time going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm big, I'm big, I'm big. Look, I'm big. See me. And so that's a perspective. So I think that's why you get to see people the way that you see them. And I think sometimes that's why I see people the way that I see them because like, oh, I can see that you're hurt. You're mad at me because you're hurt. That has nothing to do with me. And I think you can see the hurt, but sometimes I only see the hurt. Because that's the only thing I'm trained to see.

• 2:01:07Speaker 00

  And you get to see the happiness and the hurt. And I'm sometimes, I always, a lot of times I miss the happiness, but I always see the hurt. You always see both. That's why I always appreciate talking to you because you can see all of a thing. But I'm descended from people who were constantly in pain. And if you think of, so we spend all this time trying to be happy. Because the default is, well, fuck. I didn't die. Because you can't be upset because it's like, we can't be depressed.

• 2:01:40Speaker 00

  Because my ancestors were slaves. Oh, you niggas can read? Why are you sad? Oh, y'all can buy houses and earn money? They used to beat us to death. You can't be sad. So I just always appreciate talking to you because I feel like you see people as a whole. All of a sudden, I'm just like, this nigga sad, let me go help him. Sitting up in his makeup chair looking like that.

• 2:01:58Trevor Noah?

  I would give you my left hand, but I don't have one.

• 2:02:01Speaker 00

  Friend. What happened? You playing tennis or some shit?

• 2:02:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, don't start. Dulce, thank you for joining us.

• 2:02:10Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me. I'm sorry I took up all your tape.

• 2:02:12Trevor Noah?

  You didn't take up any tape. There's no tape.

• 2:02:15Trevor Noah?

  This is the future.

• 2:02:15Speaker 00

  That's D Card.

• 2:02:16Speaker 02

  I'll tell you, there's a Dr. Wayne Dyer, I don't know if you've heard of him?

• 2:02:19Speaker 00

  Who?

• 2:02:20Speaker 02

  Dr. Wayne Dyer.

• 2:02:21Speaker 00

  Dr. Wayne? Now I know Dr. Wayne.

• 2:02:22Speaker 02

  He said, he quoted from the Tao Te Ching, the book. He said, "You don't have to do anything because you're already being done."

• 2:02:31Speaker 00

  Who doing it?

• 2:02:32Speaker 02

  That, that, that quote relieved me from a lot of stress and anguish from thinking I need to do something because everything is already happening.

• 2:02:39Speaker 00

  Say it again?

• 2:02:40Speaker 02

  You don't need to do anything because you're already being done.

• 2:02:45Speaker 00

  That sounds like a translation issue.

• 2:02:49Speaker 02

  Well, it was Chinese.

• 2:02:50Trevor Noah?

  Dulce Sloan, everyone.

• 2:02:52Speaker 00

  She already done had hers.

• 2:02:56Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.

• 2:03:27Speaker 05

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