Welcome to Unruly Season 2
A podcast from Flamingo and Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios
At Flamingo, we know that women deal with a lot: the expected, unexpected, and everything in between. That’s why we created Unruly. Season 1 was all about navigating a world that loves to categorize, analyze, and discuss women’s bodies; Season 2 has the same spirit but a different bent. Instead of talking about regulation, we’re talking about conversation.
Because we believe that if women are talking about it, it’s important. Whether we’re discussing dating in a recession, the way TikTok is shaping girlhood, consumer capitalism, or how to survive that annual girls trip, we’re giving women the opportunity to be their truest, most flamboyant selves. New episodes drop on Wednesdays.
Anna: Throughout the season, we have been covering topics that kind of feel like things that your group chat would just be popping off about. And this episode, I feel like we wanted to actually talk about kind of the group chat itself. Why community is so important, what goes into actually preserving it, like the effort there. And I'm really excited we get to do that with you, writer, editor, and culture critic, Jazmine Hughes. Thank you for being here. Thank you to my fans.
Jazmine Hughes: I'm so happy and excited to be here. I have so many group chats. Shout out to Cheetah Sisters, the church bus, Sex and the Shitty, Ush Bucks, the Disgusting Brothers.
Anna: Okay, so with all these group chats you have, Did they all come from group travel or are you someone who does a lot of group travel?
Jazmine Hughes: Anna, here's the thing, I have been popular my entire life and it's horrible.
Anna: It's hard.
Jazmine Hughes: Right? And so often, no, basically the answer is no. My main group chat, my, like, circle of friends did arise from a group trip. We — five of us went to Jamaica together. The group chat used to be just the Jamaican flag, but we changed it to “Church bus” because we're a bunch of old black ladies on our way. And then, Ushbucks, another group chat I have, came from a Las Vegas trip to go see Usher.
Anna: Okay.
Jazmine Hughes: Which I highly—
Anna: That's a good name.
Jazmine Hughes: Highly recommend.
Anna: Usher Live in general, you high recommend?
Jazmine Hughes: I recommend 36 hours in Las Vegas and if you can spend some of that time looking at Usher,
Anna: Good to go? Thumbs up.
Jazmine Hughes: Fantastic, especially when you get pushed out of your job. Great place to go later.
Anna: It's a great place to kind of, like, rethink things in the presence of Usher with Usher's thoughts and feelings involved.
Jazmine Hughes: When I tell you I started sobbing when he hit the stage because we were the third row. Anyway, ush bucks. And then there's one more. There is a relatively new group chat called the Disgusting Brothers. Shout out to my Succession fans, that has arisen in part because of an upcoming trip that we're all going on. And then I have four younger sisters, and once a year we try to get together for Sister Weekend, and that is always — that's the groupest trip of all the fucking group trips.
Anna: I only have one sister.
Jazmine Hughes: You want some of mine?
Anna: I can imagine doing it with four.
Jazmine Hughes: I have plenty to spare. You can take one. Jermane, Javonne, Javonda, J’mari. Fun fact. They competed and won Steve Harvey's Family Feud like as a group. I did not go.
Anna: I am — to be one degree closer to Steve Harvey is huge for me.
Jazmine Hughes: Listen, so take one. They've got a really good pedigree.
Anna: I've always wanted a little sister. So maybe, I mean, it depends, but —
Jazmine Hughes: How old are you?
Anna: I'm 29.
Jazmine Hughes: You're my little sister now, number one. I have so many. I can add another one in, Janna, and then —
Anna: I'm excited for our sister weekend trip.
Jazmine Hughes: And then you can come to sister weekend. All my sisters have the same — we all have J names, we have rhyming middle names. So you would be Janna and we would have a time.
Anna: Okay, I'm excited. I'm actually really good with the itinerary, which brings me to my next question, which is like, are you the itinerary traveler? Like what kind of traveler are you? Is it like sleep in, lounge at the beach, or like wake up, we have things to do, we have places to attend.
Jazmine Hughes: No, traveling is the only place in my life where I completely cede control. I will just say, take my credit card, tell me how much to Venmo you, like, I do not care. And luckily, I am dating a very well-planned woman — Virgo Rising — so she's like, I got it, it's fun for me. But with my sister-
Anna: Because you kind of get to release some of that.
Jazmine Hughes: Because I get to really release, and I'm just like, I trust your taste. If I have one or two things that I definitely wanna see, we can talk about it, but like, planning vacation sort of stresses me out and there are people who find that really sort of meditating and fun. So I'm like, God bless you. With my sisters, however, I do have to plan the things because I'm the eldest. I don't have any kids, you know, I'm a freelance writer, as you can tell with my open-toed shoes. I like, I have a more flexible schedule and it's — and I'm oldest and so I have the politic to like confab with four very different insane women.
Anna: Yes. You’re an authority figure.
Jazmine Hughes: And say like, we gotta come up with a plan. It's tough. What about you?
Anna: I'm definitely an itinerary person.
Jazmine Hughes: Are you — You're an older sister?
Anna: I'm a younger — I'm the youngest sister, yeah. But I think that I feel a lot of ownership for everyone's feelings and how they're enjoying a place. So for example, even if I just booked a dinner reservation and someone was like, ‘oh, like my food was a little cold’, like I take that personally. Like it's, is it my fault?
Jazmine Hughes: When's your birthday?
Anna: I'm in Gemini, June 12th.
Jazmine Hughes: What's your rising sign?
Anna: My rising is cancer.
Jazmine Hughes: Interesting.
Anna: Yeah.
Jazmine Hughes: Okay. Okay.
Anna: Noodle on that.
Jazmine Hughes: Okay.
Anna: Taurus Moon.
Jazmine Hughes: Taurus Moon. Same as me.
Anna: No wonder we’re getting along.
Jazmine Hughes: Four of my closest friends, we all have Taurus moons and I'm like, because we like beautiful things and for things to be situated.
Anna: Yes, no, and that's exactly it, like I want the trip to be relatively smooth and to be where we're spending time together, not time organizing something, but then it's like a bit — I put way too much pressure on it.
Jazmine Hughes: Yeah, I hate that for you, but I hate the alternative for me, which is that like, I'm like, ‘did you get there? Yeah. Great. You're grown, figure it out’. Nothing to do with me. If our dinner reservation was delayed or the food was cold, I'd be like, ‘that's the restaurant's — that sounds like a personal problem.’ Did you get to vacation? Did you?
Anna: Did you put that food in the oven? Did you shake it out? No.
Jazmine Hughes: No, entonces, It's not for me. Yeah
Anna: Well, do you have like, do you certain pet peeves with group travel or is it?
Jazmine Hughes: Yeah, I dislike when we — I think with group travel, even though it can be sort of hard for our egos as adults, I think there should be a group leader and we should just do what that person says.
Anna: Mm-hmm.
Jazmine Hughes: My girlfriend and her friends, who are all very kind and cuddly — when they go on a group vacation, so there's five or six of them, they do it three times a year. And every trip, two people decide where they're going, where they are staying, like everyone submits their budgets, and two people plan the trip, and you're like, that's the trip. And everyone gets one turn every year. But I am — So yeah, not having a plan is definitely a pet peeve of mine. Not having enough space. The thing about having four sisters and we all get together, and I have two nieces now, Laurean and Miami, they're four and two. And so we can't just get a nice two bedroom somewhere. We have to get a house.
Anna: Do you have anything even like up a level from that? Is there anything that you, like, you must do this one thing?
Jazmine Hughes: When you travel?
Anna: Yeah with the group.
Jazmine Hughes: Oh with the group.
Because It's the group dynamic.
Jazmine Hughes: It's a group dynamic. Bring noise-canceling earphones and an eye mask. Because if you have to share a room — let's be real, hotels are expensive, you're in an Airbnb. If you can swing it, everyone get their own room. Then that's a match made in heaven. But if you want to share a room, be able to set your own light and noise preferences and, if possible, get a place with as many bathrooms as you can.
Anna: That checks out. That actually might — that might be it.
Jazmine Hughes: If you have a backyard and five bathrooms, then you're Gucci. But you know what I mean? Like you have sister, you know what it's like to just be battling out over bathroom space.
Anna: I, we — luckily, we were six years apart, so we kind of had a good little, we had a beat. But my issue was always turning down the lights in the bathroom, because I was like, ‘oh, I don't want to like’, like I would turn it really far down. I was, like, ‘I dont want to see my pores.’ And then she's like, ‘I can't see anything in here.’ And she'd blast the lights on. And honestly, our worst — that was probably our worst bathroom fight, usually over that, which is pretty good. Pretty good. We'll take it.
Jazmine Hughes: Thats not bad. As far as sister fights go.
Anna: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too.
Jazmine Hughes: Do you vacation together?
Anna: Um, so we went — my — when she was maybe five or six months pregnant with my second niece, her and my mom and I all went to Savannah, which was super fun. We had a great time.
Jazmine Hughes: It's beautiful.
Anna: Yeah, we all stayed in the same room. I really organized — I itinerarized. Verb. A verb version of itinerary, that trip to hell.
Jazmine Hughes: Period.
Anna: There was a — there was a deck with everyone's arrival times. It was really — I'm gonna show it to you later. It's really beautiful.
Jazmine Hughes: Actually, please do. And you are the perfect person to go on vacation with, because I'd be like, tell me how much money to Venmo you, and then I'm showing up at the airport.
Anna: And then I also made sure — so when we were there, for example, my mom and sister, we all wanted to get massages. But I also wanted to go to this kind of, they have like cool historical graveyards there, and so I was like, I wanna go to a historical graveyard. But then my sister, who's six months pregnant, is like not super interested in historical graveyard at this point in time. So she just got-
Jazmine Hughes: So grandma?
Anna: Yes, no, no no no, was not interested. So she and my mom went and got facials, and then I joined them after. So like it's kind of, I also think maybe that might be part of it, is accepting that not everyone will want to do the same thing all the time and not forcing people into it.
Jazmine Hughes: Honestly, it's weird. It's giving like cults, if like you and five, seven of your friends, adult women, are like getting massages at the same exact time, and going to do this at the same exact time.
Anna: There needs to be free play.
Jazmine Hughes: There needs free play, body's choice, and the ability to be like, ‘actually, I want to take a fucking nap.’
Anna: Yeah. I think the nap actually might be — that might be another one on the list.
Jazmine Hughes: But it's like, you go on vacation with your friends, you're like, ‘I know you in this very particular context of our everyday lives.’ And then we're removed from our context, and we're all learning things about each other, and learning things ourselves, but mostly learning things about each other. And sometimes you're ‘Oh, my friend is weird.’
Anna: Yeah.
Jazmine Hughes: Or my friend has bad habits, or like, I think it's totally fine to be close friends with someone and know that you can’t travel together.
Anna: I agree with that. I think I think that's something that people need to recognize. I mean, do you think that a lot of these issues, like you were kind of listing some general ones? Do you think most of the issues people have on group travel are like common occurrences?
Jazmine Hughes: I think they're common occurrences and they come from not wanting to be honest. And I think even though it's uncomfortable and again, might be painful for her ego, going into a group trip, it's best to be brutally honest. One of my best friends. She knows who she is. I love her down, but I will not ever go on vacation with her and share a room with her because I want to remain friends with her. I will be across the hall. I'll be downstairs.
Anna: You'll be a phone call away.
Jazmine Hughes: Phone call away.
Anna: You'll be a text away.
Jazmine Hughes: But if we share a room, we're gonna fucking kill each other. So it's not even worth it, you know? And like, we've talked about it. And there are times in which she's worried that she feels that she's coming off as bratty by being like ‘I need my own room’. But it really is, I'm like it's not bratty because A, you can afford it. B, you're not putting anyone out. But C, you like, know yourself. You know what you need to be like your best self.
Anna: To show up in the way I wanna show up.
Jazmine Hughes: And have fun.
Anna: Mm-hmm.
Jazmine Hughes: So get your own room! Who cares? Whatever. And then on the other side there are friends with whom like anything, we can share a room, we can share a bed, we're sharing a bathroom, we're taking poops in front of each other — only one friend but she knows what to do.
Anna: But there's a list with a name on it.
Jazmine Hughes: There's a list with the name on it. And so, yes, going into a trip, you have to be realistic. There are people who have certain needs. We also have certain needs, and you're like, instead of trying to be nice about it, let's get real. Sorry, I sort of lost my train of thought because I was gonna try to make a real world joke. But, let's stop being polite and start getting real, and talk about what we need on vacation. Because the point is to have fun, not to have a stress test of how much can you —how much you can handle when you're a big group of people.
Anna: I think that's also why I like to overdo the itinerary, so that it makes maybe potentially space for those things, but that's not always the case.
Jazmine Hughes: Not always the case.
Anna: It's not foolproof.
Jazmine Hughes: I will also say as a person who can't drive, as a woman of non-driving experience.
Anna: I shouldn't laugh about it, I'm sorry.
Jazmine Hughes: You laughed mad hard. I want to say for the record that was a cackle and you know what respect, ‘cause I'm a 33 year old woman, I need to learn how to drive. But as someone who doesn't drive I also feel like people who don't drive have fewer rights. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But because I do not know how to operate a motor vehicle, like I have no say in like when the driver is leaving, what kind of car we're getting, like how fast you're driving, how slow you're driving, I'm just happy to be here. And I think that is a hard and fast rule that us with our non-driver state IDs need to accept for ourselves. We have no say.
Anna: Where as I am an eldest child. Again don't know how to drive
Jazmine Hughes: And I've had to check myself several times
Anna: I'll drive you.
Jazmine Hughes: Thank you. We are — we're gonna go on vacation. Where do you want to go? We can go to Vegas. 36 hours. Usher. In. Out. Senior frogs on the way out.
Anna: I got my corporate card. [laughs]
Jazmine Hughes: But you know as the eldest I always have to make sure that I'm not like telling everybody what to do because it's — like I think sibling dynamics really come out in group shit. And some people are only children and that's okay, but we all need to, like, remember, you know, sometimes they're new to sharing, they're new to collaborating. It's like we all have to overstand, as my friend Collier likes to say. Sometimes on a group vacation you have to overstand instead of understand your friend and just say like, ‘I'm gonna give you twice as much empathy because we're all out of our element and I love you and I want this friendship to continue.’
Anna: I think that's so, I love “overstand”.
Jazmine Hughes: Overstand is pretty good.
Anna: I think it's so hard just to be a person sometimes because I wanna be empathetic, of course, to boundaries. And I think boundary setting is really important. But it's like, how do you navigate establishing and respecting your own without the guilt? Does that make sense?
Jazmine Hughes: Totally.
Anna: Like where — it's I wanna respect. You and I are on this trip. I wanna respect your boundaries, but what if they're kind of conflicting with mine a little?
Jazmine Hughes: Like, I want to spend every second of every day together and you're like, actually, I really just want to quietly read this book by the pool for a few hours, right? I think —
Anna: I want to read my smutty book. Yeah.
Jazmine Hughes: Well, if it's smutty, I'm gonna make you read it out loud. We are doing a live reading. But look, okay, so when I came as a member of the unemployed community, freelance writers, when I came into this office, right, you had water. You had snacks. You had air conditioning, you had all these things in place to allow me to sit down on this very comfortable chair and have this fun conversation with you so I could be my best self. On vacation, you have to treat yourself like you're the talent, you know? Nobody else, no one else should be expected to treat you like the talent, but you have treat yourself like a talent. Which is to say —
Anna: Thats a line.
Jazmine Hughes: Period. Which is to say if you're like, ‘hey, I need to get up at seven o'clock and do my morning pages or I'm gonna be a total grouch.’ Like, do it. I think that like stating your needs but also giving a little bit of context is pretty important.
Anna: I think context is actually really key here.
Jazmine Hughes: Right. Because you're just, you are letting the person in, right? You're letting them into your process, into your experience. And I also think that it's, as much as you can, make sure your boundaries don't like infringe on other people's comfort. Like if you say to me, it's really important for me to get up and listen to Screamo music at 8 a.m. every day, I'm gonna be like. Well —
Anna: We might have to compromise here.
Jazmine Hughes: Let's do a headphone situation.
Anna: Yeah. And compromising, I think, is most of preserving a friendship.
Jazmine Hughes: Totally.
Anna: Not most, but a very big part of it. And that means sometimes adjusting what the hard bottom line is. Have you ever felt that preserving community in that sense is uncomfortable or inconvenient?
Jazmine Hughes: Oh, like making compromises? Absolutely. I am a lesbian with four sisters. All I do is apologize to women, okay? Sometimes I mean it. But sometimes I'm like, I care more about winning the war and not the battle.
Anna: Mm-hmm.
Jazmine Hughes: And like, yes.
Anna: I fear that I love a good battle win.
Jazmine Hughes: I mean, listen, there's nothing like it. [chuckles] You know?
Anna: There's nothing that high.
Jazmine Hughes: When it's just like two people in the ring just verbally sparring. Again, the sisters, I mean sisters. I feel like people with sisters are good at, like, seizing in on, like, the things that the other person is uncomfortable with or like insecure about. So like, no one can hurt me the way my sister can. Because she'll, instead of calling me like ugly or stupid, she'll be like, your pores are too big and no matter what you do, they won't change. And I would be like-
Anna: Always the pores.
Jazmine Hughes: Oh my god. You know?
Anna: That was why the light was so low in the bathroom.
Jazmine Hughes: Because you didn't want to see your pores. Exactly. And your sister could say some shit like that to you in a way that-
Anna: And it would hit. It would hit-
Jazmine Hughes: In the way that like, an internet troll or like a rando on the street could never say to you because they don't know you that well, right?
Anna: Exactly
Jazmine Hughes: And then, like, maybe group trips like we're all sisters. We're all really close and we're jostling and sometimes you have to just be like, I'm gonna let you be crazy and then I'm going to sit over here.
Anna: Yeah. Yes. I think like, speaking of like, mediating conflict. I think since the Tumblr era, a lot of millennials and Gen Z have started gaining access to I guess what we'll call language and concepts that have histories in the mental health space, the social justice space,
Jazmine Hughes: Ah, therapy speak.
Anna: Yes. And not just throwing your huge pores in your face, but the therapy speak, like you just said. And obviously, like, I'm very happy people like gained access to language to be able to describe themselves and their identities and their feelings and hopefully better understand what intersectionality means. But I think that that language in the wrong hands can be very damaging. It's like fighting with, like, an evil therapist or something. And I think that that kind of language comes up with boundary setting, comes up with mediating conflicts. Do you have that experience or do you have even just like any advice on preventing yourself from, like, being gaslit in these situations?
Jazmine Hughes: Anna. I'm a lesbian. You can't say it, but I can say it. Of course I have. And I think, I mean, it's frustrating because the language is so empty, right? Like it, like you understand the intention. Like the person is essentially saying, like ‘you hurt me and I am upset about it’. but it's like cloaked in all these things and it's given all these exceptions and rules.
Anna: And it's just like, I know that from your childhood, and you’re like , you don’t know —
Jazmine Hughes: Right! No no no no no. Let's deal with the real. I think sometimes for me, I just hear the other person out, like pinch myself the whole time. Do a little Robert Carrow, like writing down shut up, shut up, shut up, don't say anything. Let them get it all out, and then say like, ‘okay like I hope you feel better. I'm sorry I made you feel this way. I love you so much and I care about this relationship. Like let's take a beat.’ I also think that it's perfectly fine for two people to disagree. I think it's fine when two people are mad at each other, and two people need space. And I like — would the world be a better place if everybody was like me just in this one case? Yes. I think its about, like, accepting the discomfort and knowing that's a part of intimacy, and that in order to have like a deep and real, honest relationship with someone, you do have to have these moments of tension because that means you're being honest with them as opposed to placating them. and then you bitch about it to some other friends who aren't there.
Anna: The bitching is very important.
Jazmine Hughes: You do have to have like a little satellite friend who maybe sort of knows the people you're on vacation with. With whom you're in the space, you're sharing community with, and like loves them and thinks highly of them too. So that like you are complaining to someone who has context for what you're complaining about and like genuinely feels warmly towards —
Anna: The context.
Jazmine Hughes: Towards the other person — the context — as opposed to sort of like someone who has nothing to do or has no experience with those people, because then you're sort of just shit-talking your friend
Anna: Yeah, and I think that gossip in itself is so interesting and I think the role it plays in women's lives is very interesting because I think a lot of it is, of course, like gossip gets a bad rap, but I think gossip is a tool. A social tool for women that helps them navigate spaces and, like, move better in a way that's, like, beneficial to everyone. And I know that a lot of time like shit talk can feel kind of yucky. I just sounded like my mom. Yucky! It can feel —
Jazmine Hughes: When you do it right, it's not yucky.
Anna: That's true. But it's it okay. So even if it does feel yucky to some people, it's also inevitable, and I think sometimes maybe useful —
Jazmine Hughes: Gossip is like a true social force. Gossip, it's the way that we —
Anna: It's a social tool.
Jazmine Hughes: It's a social tool and it's a way that we learn about norms. That's how we learn what's okay. Because when we're gossiping, that means somebody has deviated from the norm. They've done something unexpected, something surprising, something wrong. And by spreading the word about that, like, you're essentially checking in on how everybody, how your community feels about that. Some people will be like, ‘oh my god, fuck that person, that's crazy’. And other people will like, ‘doesn't sound that bad to me. Maybe they had X, Y, or Z going on.’ I think that without gossip, there's no way that we can stay in connection with other people. And, personally, gossip is really fucking fun. As someone who was homeschooled into the fifth grade, and is really just trying to shake off the sensor of that every day. I grew up with this nervousness or this neurosis that I wasn't quite normal, you know, that I missed out on these, like, seminal early years. And so I started gossiping in elementary school when I finally started going to public school so I could, like, fit in and be normal because I didn't really know. And I also think gossip is good for the soul. Sometimes you just need a little bitch sesh, a joint with your friend, a martini with your girl and you get it all out and it's cheaper than therapy. Sometimes better than sex. Depending on the sex. Not the sex I'm having currently.
Anna: And depending on the gossip.
Jazmine Hughes: And depending on the gossip. There's gossip that I also think is so juicy that it can transcend language. Like I live part of the year in Mexico and last winter when I was there in Spanish immersion school, I had a piece of gossip that was so explosive that I told everybody in my Spanish class. And they too —
Anna: Did you say it in Spanish?
Jazmine Hughes: Indeed I did.
Anna: Wow, okay. Snaps.
Jazmine Hughes: It was a long time, and it was kind of bad, but even my random friends in my Spanish class were all shocked. Gossip is really, it makes us feel alive and helps us remember that we are people. Gossip it's basically like ecstasy, but it's legal and good for you. For me anyway.
Anna: It's legal, and gluten free.
Jazmine Hughes: [laughs] You're good, you're having some lines tonight, okay? And by tonight I mean 3.30 in the afternoon, but you're coming out with bars. I like that.
Anna: I'm like, everyone write this down.
Jazmine Hughes: Write it down!
Anna: I think it is too funny though, because I think gossip is something that can also help you reconnect with people. Because even if, for example, a college friend or something I haven't spoken to in a while, we see so and so, someone we knew breaks up, gets engaged, I can text them, I haven't talked to them in months, and it just — instantly pick up where we left off on talking about this thing. And I, it kind of almost sometimes feels like putting in the work of preserving the long distance friendship is sometimes through that shared storyline and referring back to it. Preserving long term friendships is hard, it's really fucking hard. And I can even think of like two off top my head that are dead and gone, rest in peace.
Jazmine Hughes: Yeah.
Anna: But, what kind of work goes into keeping those alive?
Jazmine Hughes: Ayy. My gosh. I think, well, I think that what you were just talking about, sort of getting in touch with an old friend to talk about someone else you know or something you know about, that's a really good way of establishing a connection because you're returning to that thing you have in common. That experience, that community, those people, that place, whatever, and I think that just helps sort of, I don't know, strengthen the foundation of that relationship, both because it gives you something to talk about, but reminds you where you're coming from, right? I think long-terms relationships are really hard and we should probably get ourselves more credit for them. A couple of my friends and I will celebrate our five and 10 year anniversaries, we'll go to a nice dinner. Because it requires so many of the same skills as it does for a romantic relationship, which is being honest with yourself and the other person, allowing that other person to change and show up in different ways. And also, like, people move, people change, they cut their hair, they get a new job, whatever, and just like rolling with that person, not where that person is, you know? So when it comes —
Anna: That's an active choice.
Jazmine Hughes: It's an ACTIVE choice. I think our best relationships are both a decision and a choice. Like I am choosing to be friends with you, and also like we are choosing to invest in this relationship. Like out of everyone in a row, I'm choosing you to be my friend, and the decision is like, I want to be in this relationship with you. And if that's already sort of the thing that you accepted, you can work through your fights. You can work through your bad vacations. You can even work through like getting COVID and having to waste $5,000 on something, you know? Like you can weather those storms when you've already agreed like we're in this.
Anna: Yeah. Well, I also think, too, that's kind of why there can be a lot of weight placed on the group trip.
Jazmine Hughes: Yeah.
Anna: Because it's like, especially if you're long distance and long-term, this is the time to gather and you have a limited amount of time to make it count.
Jazmine Hughes: Yeah, it's the friendship Olympics, kind of.
Anna: It's kind a lot pressure.
Jazmine Hughes: It's a lot of pressure, completely. And I mean, I think part of the reason why it's hard for me to answer this question is that I don't have a lot of friends who don't live outside of New York, you know? Because it's so hard to keep up those relationships. And when I think about my few friends who I do have, my few very, very close friends who don't live in New York City, it's just like, I gotta text them something once a week, you know? Even if it's a meme, just like — and it's not even about the content of the text. It's like, ‘I was thinking of you because you're part of my life. You're not someone who I forget when we're not seeing each other.’
Anna: Thoughtful.
Jazmine Hughes: But yeah, when you go on vacation together and you only see each other once a year, this is a movie genre. This is the movie Girl's Trip. This is the movie Brides — This is like every movie about a bunch of, this is about every movie about more than three women. It’s everyone coming back together at the house or at the beach or the plantation or whatever to check in and see what's up? And like, let's take Girl's Trip for example, like those women were friends since college, let's say 25 years. And like tensions were high, people were fighting, people were like coming up with stuff from back in the day, like the Best Man, it's just like, anyway. A vacation can be a place where people are bringing their baggage from wherever in the relationship, in college.
Anna: Carry on plus others.
Jazmine Hughes: Carry on and others. Do you remember that show? There was a show on Game Show Network where it was like, you have a small baggage, medium baggage, and large baggage. It was so good.
Anna: I fear the only thing I can think of is, like, Meghan Markle opening the deal or no deal like, briefcase. You said luggage —
Jazmine Hughes: [laughs] Meghan Markle is bringing her luggage and she's opening it up and she like, actually I've always felt that you snapped at me when you had a couple of drinks and I'm deciding to talk to you about it right now while we're in Tulum. And you're like, okay. But I think it's just about being like, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I disagree, but that's okay. And I love you and I'm sorry that I hurt you.
Anna: Well, I think, one thing that — to that point, one thing I think is really interesting and that it's a concept that my therapist has talked about with me before, is that a lot of times, it's something crazy, like 70% of the time, people are in relationships, friendships, parent-child relationships, romantic relationships, are in a moment of disconnect. And that the power and intimacy of a relationship grows when you can overcome the disconnect and reconnect, because you had a strong enough relationship to discuss the issue and get to that point of reconnection. And so even those moments of fighting or bringing up when they are upset about something you did and you say thank you for sharing that with me, it's like, ‘oh, maybe, of course, I don't wanna hear about something that you think I've done that is distressing to you, but I love that you felt you could share, genuinely love you felt that you could share it with me because you didn't think it was going to ruin our relationship.’
Jazmine Hughes: Totally. Yeah. And you feel like, yeah, you can show up and be yourself. I think there's a — okay, the sort of schema that I apply to relationship uncomfortable — or the schema I apply to uncomfortable moments in relationships is the weird or bad dynamic. It's like, I have to check in with myself and say, ‘does this make me feel bad? Or is it just weird and uncomfortable?’ If something's bad, then you sort of deal with that in your own sort of like tearful, and in my case, like epistemological way where I'm writing like twenty page letters being like, ‘you harmed me!’ But if something is weird, you're just like, ‘okay, we're having a weird.’ It's sort of, I like that terminology that my friends and I use because it's sort of like, it's softer than a fight, you know? It's not like, ‘oh, Anna and I are fighting.’ It's like, ‘we are having kind of a weird, we're taking a couple days apart, like I'll see her next week when we all hang out’, whatever, right? But yeah, I think that the ways that, oh my god, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm going to use a gym metaphor. But the way that you build muscle is by strain, right? You like are tearing little muscles, the proteins are coming in. I'm glad that-
Anna: If it had to be a gym metaphor, it was decent.
Jazmine Hughes: And, I will say, I do think that everybody gets like, one friend, maybe two, who is like your true, blue, real, down-ass friend with whom you never fight. But everybody else, there's gotta be, like, an annual weird, a bi-annual weird where you sort of just, like, have a moment and then you talk it through. Cause that's being real. Otherwise you're just like subliminating your own desires. You're not showing up in that relationship and then like, then you've got bigger problems.
Anna: I think sometimes, too, I wish that — this is probably not politically correct to say, but sometimes I'm like, I wish we could just physically fight.
Jazmine Hughes: And you're speaking like a true ass sister. [laughs] Sometimes you just have to like, wail one out on one of your sisters. What's your, like, go-to fighting move? Like if you could, okay, let's say, you have been endowed with all the powers of a wrestler.
Anna: Mhm.
Jazmine Hughes: What move would you do on your sister? And she's not gonna be hurt or anything.
Anna: She won't be — she won't.
Jazmine Hughes: She’ll walk it off. She'll be fine.
Anna: She'll be fine she's, like, a she's shorter than me. She has a lower center of gravity.
Jazmine Hughes: You’ll knock her over. She can't get back up.
Anna: Yeah I mean, I think it would — I really like the kind of behind the like hook from behind. Ooh I got the mic. Hook the mic from behind. Kind of and like bring them down that way, like I kind of want it to be a surprise
Jazmine Hughes: I wasn't thinking like that.
Anna: Yeah or because, I think there's, there's an advantage in it being a surprise, and then I also think there is an advantage in just owning it and like coming from the front.
Jazmine Hughes: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Okay but why do you think that sometimes it's like a physical fight, it's better to do a physical fight?
Anna: Because I think sometimes the frustration is so — maybe juvenile or petty or temporary that, its like, this will just get it out of my system really quick, you know, like ‘I'm annoyed at you’, I'm just like quick like, jab, jab jab jab. Like we just need this like cathartic moment of —
Jazmine Hughes: It's cathartic. Oh, I like that. I'm about to pop one of my sisters next time she’s talking crazy to me.
Anna: Tell them I’m so sorry.
Jazmine Hughes: But it's like I mean the feeling that we're getting is anger. And when it's from one of our intimates, it's intimate anger. It's sort of, like, it's almost like betrayal. Yeah because it’s, you know me. You know my comforts, my boundaries, whatever. And yet you have chosen to disrupt them.
Anna: Yeah.
Jazmine Hughes: How could you? I have five placements of Scorpio, count ‘em. Five. How could you? Thereby, I must destroy you. Here comes the humor. That would be my move.
Anna: So I think what you're saying is we should end this episode by like us kind of just, like, punching each other in the face. [laughs] I think that's a good ending.
Jazmine Hughes: [laughs] Okay!
Anna: I think we have ice.
Jazmine Hughes: Oh my god, you're crazy. Look how tiny my hands are. Nothing would happen to you, okay? I didn't do nothing.
Anna: I wouldn't wanna break a nail.
Jazmine Hughes: Wait, we can't break our nails.
Anna:
At Flamingo, we do not condone punching people in the face because that would indeed not be clocking that tea or standing on business.
Obviously if we don't punch each other in the face, I think that the last question I will ask you is, what's the most unruly thing you've done all week?
Jazmine Hughes: I just came back from visiting some friends on the North Shore of Massachusetts. They had this beautiful house overlooking the beach. And for three days straight, I just did the crossword, smoked weed, and ate food. I did not move. I did not work. I did not think. And no, that's not unruly.
Anna: Well, thanks for vibrating on business with me here today.
Jazmine Hughes: Oh my gosh, I would love to vibrate on business with you on a beach somewhere.
Anna: I'm excited.
Jazmine Hughes: And we can combine our Delta points.
Anna: Thanks for being here.
Jazmine Hughes: Thank you so much.
SEGEMENT
Anna: So this is the Unruly Tapes, Stories You Can't Unhear. And the story that I would like to not unhear from you, by hearing it, is an outrageous or unruly story from one of the trips you've taken with your many sisters who won a family feud or any of your friends.
Jazmine Hughes: That's gonna be the first line of my obit. Jasmine Hughes, sister to the women who won Family Feud, but was not on it.
Anna: I think that's good.
Jazmine Hughes: I'll write it. Okay, once, I'm gonna say in 2019, I —
Anna: Pre-pandemic.
Jazmine Hughes: Pre-Pandemic, but like...
Anna: Do you think that that's important?
Jazmine Hughes: It's important — no it's not.
Anna: Okay.
Jazmine Hughes: What's important is that I, at this point, was a card-carrying lesbian. I was deep in the game. I went to Miami with my best friend. We are at the spa, the Standard Hotel, and I'm in — we're like going in between the sauna room and the steam room and the pool, and we eventually lose track of each other, because body's choice, like you don't have to move together. And I don't know, I got bored. And I went into a sauna room and there was, like, a handsome man, about 45, and he said to me, ‘hot enough for you?’ And I was like, ‘I bet I can make out with this guy’. And I did. And then maybe like 10 minutes in I came too and I was like, ‘what am I doing?’
Anna: You awoke —
Jazmine Hughes: I awoke from my brief throwaway into heterosexuality and I was like, ‘I gotta go’. And he was like ‘but can you just tell me your name?’ And I was like ‘I gotta go.’ And then I was running around all the sauna rooms. I should have said a different name. There's so many other gyms. This is why I have to go on vacation with you. You would have known exactly what to do. But I was runnin' around and trying to find my best friend and I found her in the sauna and she was ‘like where did you go?’ And I'm like ‘we gotta get out’.
Anna: You're like ‘to like another dimension.’ [laughs] To another version of myself.
Jazmine Hughes: There was a glitch in the Matrix and all of a sudden I was straight again. I don't like it here. Get me out of Miami. I once tried to take a solo vacation for myself to Jamaica, and then four of my friends invited themselves, and two of them had a big beef that we all that they sort of like — that they went back and forth on like in the water. We all were sort of —
Anna: In the water?!
Jazmine Hughes: Like yeah we were all just floating in the water and one girl was just like ‘I love you so much.’ I love you too, after a big long talk, like ‘I'm sorry that I can be withdrawn’ or et cetera.
That's kind of beautiful.
Jazmine Hughes: It was very beautiful, but I was trying to go on vacation by myself [laughs].
Anna: [laughs] You're like, I love that so much. Do that somewhere else.
Jazmine Hughes: But I loved, I loved that.
Anna: Did not ask to participate.
Jazmine Hughes: Did not remotely ask.
Anna: Thank you for sharing that with me, I feel like it brought us closer.
Jazmine Hughes: And, you know, I think the best part of vacation is like having a bunch of drinks with your girls, dancing under the stars, being like, this is what life is about. This was the podcast version of that.
Anna: I want to cry a little bit. This is huge for me.
CREDITS
