GoodByWeekly #2: Embracing single feelings in relationships, Olipops, and bonding over a deep clean!

Hello to all you beautiful people who love us enough to be reading this here today. It's Dave hopping on the newsletter this week with some spicy takes sure to get you and your friends chatting. I won't hold y'all here we're jumping straight into the Q of the week.

Question of the week

I'm a pretty black or white, all or nothing kind of person when it comes to relationships and how I feel about them. First, how often is this feeling bubbling up? If we're talking more than once a month you have a day of sitting at home, walking around, whatever and this little "I kinda miss being single" thought creeps up it's not normal. If you're "all in" with a person, the single feelings you may be missing are feelings that you should be getting in your relationship. Someone's going to come at me and say well it doesn't matter if I feel like that once in a while because it's only one part of my relationship. But realistically it's a sign that you've allowed something you need in your life from a partner to not fully be met and so you're starting to think about where else you can fill those needs.

For anyone who knows me, I really don't watch movies and I would take the under bet on a line of over/under 200 movies watched in my life. But of those few movies I have watched, one of them happens to be Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carell (yes I had to look up the cast for names don't judge me). One of the themes that persists through the film and actually is the reason the whole plot moves is that a couple's marriage has become stagnant as they raise kids, work, cook, and really just exist. Bottom line, they're too tired to have fun together and just accept that their marriage has led to this dulled lifestyle until they see one of their friends going through a divorce for similar reasons. It is a rom-com, but the feelings they're having are VALID.

Stability is not enough in a committed long-term relationship. If you're missing being single or missing a little flirt, I would bet you're actually just missing the spontaneity and excitement of something new or not knowing where a night might go. Another possibility is missing the freedom of not having to take someone else into account when making decisions, but that's a discussion for another time. So to address the question, if you convince yourself that missing being single is normal, you're also convincing yourself that it's normal to be consistently sacrificing that exciting feeling that you're missing in your relationship. Like Steve and Tina, go on an exciting date and make a habit out of it! Accepting that your relationship will leave you missing feeling single is normalizing that you can put those feelings aside instead of addressing them in that relationship. So no, it's not normal to miss feeling single in a long-term serious relationship regularly. I can understand a once in a blue moon feeling creeping up just out of a bad day or a busy stretch of weeks in your relationship; it happens. But let us know in the comments what you think and ask your friends!

Insider scoop on the bev: Olipop

Before I even start, this post is not sponsored. This message come free of monetary incentives (but I would take the money don't get me wrong). An American diet these days lacks fiber and these cans are PACKED with it. Get your bathroom breaks right with these cans of goodness. Olipop was the original overpriced can of "modern soda" that Austin and I tried. Modern soda refers to the category of kinda healthy sodas that cost way too much per can and at least in San Francisco this category is exploding.

But besides that... storytime! We live about a 10 minute walk from a store that sells Olipop and it's kinda become lore between Austin and I that a bad day means we gotta get a bev to cheer us up – and no this doesn't mean a beer. There was one day both of us were in our feelings and we had to go grocery shopping because our food supply had reached that point where you start reaching for those meals that at least for me my parents always told me to have in case (I'm talking like the kinda shitty pasta and canned sauce type of meal in that one cabinet shelf). We walk to the store, slug through our grocery shopping and then decided get a can of Olipop. We got home cracked them open and sunk into our couch and sipped on them. I'm pretty sure we were good by tomorrow. So for the first GoodByWeekly, I've dedicated the biweekly bev to the one that started it all. Cheers!

A spin on spring cleaning

This week we're bringing you an activity inspired by one of the chores we actually love to do once every 3ish weeks. Not to call my boy out, but Austin's hinge profile at some point defined an ideal Sunday as one where we listen to a record on blast and deep clean our apartment. Now whether or not his matches believed it, it's true. The only issue is often times it leads to us completely tearing apart some piece of our apartment and reorganizing. Last time we did it a friend was visiting from out of town and we moved all our plants to new locations, re-potted a couple, and just refreshed our space and we felt great.

Now that you have that context, it's the start of 2024 and spring will be coming soon so start your year with get together reorganize and redesign event. Whether that's painting a room that you've been meaning to do for a while, putting up some shelves, trying out that new layout for your living room, or anything related, enhance your space and bring your friends in on it. Get some good snacks and devs, put on a favorite playlist and hang with your friends while reorganizing your space (or theirs)!

Arayes

Arayes is a Middle Eastern street food common in the Levant. When I was living in Amman, Jordan it was one of my favorite foods, and as a Palestinian American, it has a feeling of identity for me. For anyone familiar with Middle Eastern cuisine but not Arayes, this dish is basically a kufta kebab put in a pita pocket and grilled – I'd say as close as you can get to an Arab taco. My favorite dip for it is toum (garlic). I like this recipe, but have fun with the dish, make it vegan if you want with impossible meat and I hope you enjoy! Oh and did you know that Al Pastor was born as a fusion between Lebanese shawarma and Mexican food after Lebanese immigrants came to Mexico in the 19th century?

Kitty Ca$h, Saint Levant, Rihanna, JID, and more

2024 first roto is self-explanatory - the first rotation of my year. I listed just a few of the artists I'm listening to to start the year, but this playlist is all over the place and I've kinda been all over the place this year so far. Kitty Ca$h opened for Kaytranada and Anderson .Paak at Cow Palace towards the end of last year, and was so fun I loved her!

I've got my favorite song by Saint Levant, "From Gaza, With Love" which I find so interesting because he talks about always repping Palestine, yet feeling like he'd be a tourist if he even went back which is how I feel too. I'm pretty sure he sings in French, English, and Arabic during the song so the change in flows with language is cool. Rihanna is just a classic if you don't love her I don't understand you. I first saw JID open for J. Cole when he toured with 4 Your Eyez Only. He came out going crazy and I fell in love and still love his music. Of course there's some old Drake bops too, they've been sneaking into my music pretty consistently lately and I'm not sure if I should blame Spotify or myself (or Austin?). Happy listening!