This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome back to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. This is the part of the show where I remind you I'm
not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor, but I've written three books on
relationships, did a dissertation on attachment theory, and I've been personally obsessed with
all the research on the science of love for the last thirty years. So
I've also had a lot of experience in the love arena. So that's why
doctor Wendy's wisdom is valid for you. Okay, So, if you do
want to send me dms, the handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh,
at Dr Wendy Walsh, producer klyst checking Instagram, she checks TikTok, she
checks YouTube, et cetera. Feel free to shoot me a DM if you
have a question. You will always remain anonymous. Okay, All right,
here we go. Here's the first one. Dear Doctor Wendy. So my
boyfriend and I have been going out for seven months. Now, What does
it mean if I try on dresses for him to get his opinion and he
doesn't really answer. I tried the first one on and he was like,
where'd you buy that dress? I tried the next one on to ask him
again, and he says, why don't you ask your girlfriends or someone in
fashion? Does this mean he doesn't like them? He's very kind every other
way, but I can't wrap my head around it. If he doesn't like
the way I dressed, maybe how I looked in them or my body?
Why is he being so avoidant? Okay, this is so obvious to me.
I'm quite amazed that women are curious about this. So here's the thing.
He's your boyfriend of seven months. He loves you. He's not quite
smart enough to say, honey, you look great in whatever you put on.
I love you, right. He also knows if he gives any kind
of criticism you might take it in a crazy way. So he is literally
giving you no answer. He does not want to get into this game.
He does not want to have a dog in this race. Okay, so
you've got to accept that he's telling you very clearly ask your girlfriends who know
about fashion. Dudes don't know anything about fashion, all right, they really
don't, and they make all kinds of mistakes all the time. So he's
just trying to be cure, like, oh, so where did you buy
that dress? Now he's thinking, oh, nord Strum, that's where I
can go for our birthday. Right, He's just getting information. He just
doesn't want to be in this game. It's okay. That's not being emotionally
avoidant. It's just being I'm not going to So all you have to say
to him is, okay, it looks like you don't like when I put
on a fashion show for you. I'm gonna go to my girlfriend's next time,
but don't complain if you don't like something I'm wearing. You're out right.
You make it cute, You give him a kiss, you make it
lovely, all right. Next one, Dear doctor Wendy, my girl friend
damaged my car while she was being the designated driver for my friends and I
on a night out. This has financially set me back, and she refuses
to help. She says I shouldn't have gotten so drunk. Good point.
I want to sue her. What to teach her a lesson. Will this
cause me to lose her? You actually need an expert to weigh in on
that. That's pretty simple. Yes, that will cause you to lose her.
So here's your choice. You either go through insurance and the two of
you choose to split the deductible, right, that's one idea. Or you
say to her, you're right, I should have gotten so drunk. I
take full responsibility for me, my car, my actions, and you keep
your girlfriend. Or you say no, babe, you pay and you lose
your girlfriend. So that's your choice. Door number one, Door number two,
Door number three. You try to figure it out, But I mean,
she does have a point. You got too drunk to drive, You
designated her to drive, and now you're mad that she didn't do it perfectly.
I actually think she might be in the right on this one, I
really do. What do you think, Kaylea? I feel like she damaged
his property. As a stand up person, you should you should kindly was
driving a car full of drunks that she didn't even e was going to have
to do that. We're like forcing her to How did you get all that
she was just a designated drive? Could she have said, you take her
to get home safely. You're gonna be like, I'll drive. I don't
want you driving. I think if she wants me a good girlfriend, she
should offer to split it fifty to fifty, not pay for the whole thing.
No, not that he didn't do anything. He was responsible by night
drive. You know, I agreed. I think she should pay. It's
a tough one, isn't it. I think so she should pay fifty percent.
I think they were both in this together. They were both in this
mess together. They were Okay, Dear doctor Wendy, I have an amazing
connection with this guy that I'm dating in person. I love it how they
have to say in person now because we are in a time where people are
dating strangers on the internet and robots on the internet, so we have to
qualify now in person. We actually see each other, okay, And when
we text, uh oh, maybe he's a robot. He just sends me
a bunch of selfies from different days, but he's always in the same post.
It's so weird and I don't like it. He sends like ten pictures
back to back. He's cute, but it gives me the X. It
will give me the X too. How can I let him know not to
do it without hurting his feelings? Okay, so let me talk about without
hurting somebody's feelings. It is our job sometimes to give people the gift of
pain, okay, And sometimes hurting somebody's feelings is not you that did it.
It's you just setting a boundary with what you like to see and receive.
It's not you making him feel a certain way or predicting how he's going
to feel. You are not in charge of his feelings. So what I
would simply say is do it in person. And I wouldn't do it in
a text, because then he could sit there and read it over and over
and imagine the tone of voice and ruminate and be hurt. When you see
him in person, you're gonna say, hey, you know when you send
me no, you start with a compliment, remember my communication sandwich something sweet
first? So hey, it's so nice to see your beautiful face in person.
But you know when you send me like ten texts in a row with
you just posing in that, what does that mean? Like? What are
you trying to say there? Just ask inquire and I'll be like, well,
I don't know. I thought you'd like to see a picture of me,
and you just say I'd rather see you in person. I don't need
all those but thank you. That's it. That's all you do. It's
simple. Own your own voice, Own your own voice. All right.
When we come back, I'm going to continue to answer your social media questions.
You can send me a DM at at doctor Wendy Walsh on Instagram.
You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I Am six forty live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from
KFI AM six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI
AM six forty. Were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Going into my
dms on Instagram if you'd like to send me one, it is at doctor
Wendy Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. Okay, Dear Doctor Wendy. This man
asked me out on a date and told me I can choose the restaurant.
I chose a pricey place because that's where I eat. When I sent him
the restaurant, he told me he was thinking more tacos and beer, not
phile mignon. I told him we could change the place, but he stopped
responding. I feel like he thinks I'm a gold digger or something. Should
I pop up with tacos for him? No? So here's what you learned.
You guys are not a good match. You see, this is how
you learn. The beginning of any new relationship is all about eliminating those that
are inappropriate. If you want to have a lifetime of tacos and beer,
then yeah, chase him down. That's going to be it. If you're
a Philly Minu girl, it's not that he thinks you're a gold digger.
He thinks you're out of his league, and that's okay. You can move
along unless you're ready to be tacos and beer and fast food and get a
little billy maybe some hips, all the fattening food, you know, if
you make more money now. I also, I want to sort of clarify
something here that we right now in the mating marketplace have an oversupply of successful
women. So you're gonna find ladies that there are a lot of women making
way more money than men. So the words to the whys here is probably
don't suggest the super expensive restaurants right away and just see where it goes.
Because your idea of a power man might be a guy who can power a
stroller. Right, So, maybe you learned don't do Philly Migno right away.
He's not getting back to you, which tells me that he's lost interest.
Not because he thinks you're a gold digger, but because he thinks you're
out of his league. Now, if you really, really, really really
like him, then do what you said, pop up with tacos? What
does that mean? Show up? Don't show up like at is? How
does that sound? Stockersh Like? Well, when you're into somebody and you
want to like prove you know, yeah, but like you bring a cake
or a pie or where do you know she's going to see him? I
guess she knows where she's going to see him. I don't want to be
stalkering him or anything. Don't get arrested, all right, Dear doctor Wendy,
I can't stop ruminating on my latest breakup. Oh I'm sorry about that.
It's destroying me mentally. Oh what are some healthy hobbies I can start
to alleviate myself. Well, first of all, you need to go see
a therapist because this kind of rumination is chronic anxiety. It could be RelA
related to attachment insecurity, something that happened early in life. I don't know.
I'm not your therapist, but I would say you need to see a
licensed therapist to work through some of the stuff. From my own personal experience,
having recovered from an anxious attachment style, having spent months and years decades
of my life ruminating over lost men who I couldn't get back, I will
tell you the number one thing that helped me was exercise. Yeah, just
get to the gym, work out how hard, especially cardio. Get those
endorphins going. You'll feel so much better. That's what worked for me.
All right, think here's another one. Dear doctor Wendy, I need help.
Okay, Well, thanks for reaching out to me. I am new
to this area and my first meaning new to LA or new to the area
of dating, new to the area of dating a sind a person. What
do you think they mean? I would assume to the because I'm new to
La. Okay to La, Okay La. I'm new to LA and my
first connection was with ooh, a dangerous person. I want a restraining order.
What are some other ways I can find safety and community in a new
area. Well, I have to tell you something. I have gone to
the police a number of times in my life to ask for restraining orders on
people, often strangers, often somebody I might have had one date with when
I was a young hot woman. Okay, that's when the stuff happens.
And they were very clear that it's super hard to get a restraining order unless
somebody physically assaults you, shows up at your house regularly, and you can
take pictures of them there, et cetera. But if they're on public property,
even then it's hard. But remember in the documentary on Netflix with what's
the name there the Dutch baby, No, no, no, the Duchess
and the Prince and princess are up in Santa Barbara, the real life ones
Harry and Megan. Yeah, so Megan was saying when she was on suits
and dating him and she was filming in Toronto, you know, thousands of
people would be peering through fences and doing everything she said in real life that
would be having a stalker. But the police could do nothing because they were
standing on public land. Right, It's very hard to get a restraining order.
I have one. You do have one on somebody. I do my
ex boyfriend. He was not okay, he was dangerous, a dangerous person.
Is he in this state? No, he's in New Jersey, thankfully,
and I don't think he can afford to fly to this state greatly.
However, getting the restrained restraining order was very difficult. It took a bunch
of different the order chances. He violated it every single week. I was
at the police department submitting that he violated. The only reason he got arrested
was because he assaulted another man who I was dating. So it's hard as
a woman out here. I hate to tell you this, my love.
If you ask me how you can find safety and community when you're in a
new area, it may simply mean if he knows where you live, moving,
I'm sorry, finding a new place, and you may be able to
get out of your lease if you feel threatened. But you've got and you've
got to find new friends through your work, through the gym, through other
kinds of social connections. But you've got to get healthy people around you so
that you can feel safe. That's so scary and a protector. You were
able to break your lease if you were if you felt like your life was
in danger, so hopefully California is the same way. Yeah. Yeah,
I broke my lease and it was no no. You know, I'm a
landlord and one of the things I do is criminal background checks on people,
because you know, if you put somebody in your building and they do some
violence on another I think landlords might even be able to get sued because they're
a bad person in there near there. Yeah, it's so hard, hard,
it's you know, one of the most vulnerable groups in our society are
young females, and we need to rally around them and help keep them safe.
And guys, you need to do that. Walk them to their cars,
be nice to them, be the good guy. Hey when we come
back, If you have been concerned about where you're actually going to find the
truth in the world, I have a former colleague of mine from CNN who
has some advice on how we can all start to get true facts in real
life. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls's show on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on
demand from KFI AM six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show
on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Well, I
have my next guest is I would like to say a dear old friend and
colleague. Can I say that? Josh Levs? Can I call you that?
Are you kidding? I am honored? Yeah, absolutely. We're both
all CNN veterans and been around a long time. But I wanted to have
you on because I wanted to talk specifically about your new project and how it
relates to our hour, meaning the whole public in America, our relationship not
only with the media, but with the truth. And before we get there,
let me start by giving you an introduction that's going to make you blush,
because that's my job. So Josh Levs, if you don't know the
name, you can google him. He spent twenty years at both NPR and
CNN. He has won lots of awards, Peabody Awards, Edward R.
Murrow Awards, and awards from the Society Professional Journalists, et cetera, et
cetera. It goes on and on, and you know he has to throw
in there and is Bioling came from Yale University I know, fancy school and
all that stuff, right, but he came to big national attention and my
attention and got to my heart, what year was it when you're when you
delivered a baby? That would have been back in that two thousand and nine,
two thousand and nine. So what happened was Josh as a prominent reporter
for CNN, his wife was pregnant, gave birth, and like before the
ambulance came and he's the nine to one one call. Became famous because there
he was learning how to deliver a baby and a nine one one call.
And then later found out that his company, Time Warner didn't have any paternity
leave. That's a pee there, folks, not maternity paternity leave. And
here he had a premium baby to care for, a sick wife, et
cetera. So he was a vanguard, he was a silence breaker, and
he took them to court anyone, and now almost every company is gender neutral
when it comes to family policies. And Josh, thank you so much for
doing what you've done for families around America. I appreciate that. Wow,
well, look I so appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, you know,
and what was driving me at the time was just again crafts reality that
dads are also caregivers. So at the time it was that Pid Time Winner
only had two weeks for biological dads that everybody else, everybody else could get
ten weeks. It was ridiculous. And so yes, that's FWICE became a
big national thing, and I'm so happy to say that we have come a
long way. Oh few years since then, you wrote a book called All
In, Busting myths about dads and modern families and anything that breaks gender roles
and looks at what families are, how they're actually living and doing, is
wonderful to me. But you are here today for another reason. You have
a new podcast called They Stand Corrected. I'm going to say it again,
it is called They Stand Corrected. You were a fact checker. Now I
should tell you I started as a journalist. I'm going to totally date myself
here in the ad say I went into my Canadian accent because it was in
Toronto E. I was in the late eighties writing for magazines. Remember those.
It was before we had the internet and before we had blogs. And
every time I submitted an article, Josh, I had to first send it
to somebody called a fact checker, and the fact checker had to call up
all of my sources, read the quotes to them, ask them things about
other things that I had written in the article, and then send it back
to me and say it's inaccurate and this area fixed, this area, they
wanted more clarity on this area, et cetera. Nowadays, I don't know
who has a fact checker anymore, anybody. So rare? Is it rare?
It's yeah, it's so rare. It's almost never done. And they
make and also what they sometimes do if they say their fact check is all
they've done is source check. That's what I call it. As in,
like they find another news outlet that claimed the same thing, but they don't
check whether that news outlet got right in the first place or they good.
Yeah, they go back to the source and say, did you actually say
this not? Is it true or not? Did this? Can we print
this lie? They told us, okay, as long as you make credit
it to you. So one of your new missions is to help us all
have a better relationship with the media. On your podcast, they stand corrected,
What do you do? How do you fix this? I am factchecking
the media, so you know the through line for all my work has always
been like this passion for the truth. It's actually the reason I jumped from
NPR to CNN because I would look at CNN and see all these live interviews
where these politicians and pundits would just get on the air and say anything they
wanted, and literally no one has the job of going through and fact checking
this stuff. And it's just gotten worse and more since then, which you
know, politicians have discovered you can just walk through the giant, gaping hole
in the media and just say whatever you want, any of the global figures,
everything. And I have seen the way that our society is praying because
so often people are having these fights, you know, about politics, about
international issues, when we literally don't have the facts. And because the media
is not doing this job of fact checking everything, people are losing the concept
of a source they can trust. And so what we need is fact check
the media. So that's what I'm doing. I'm tackling big stories and I'm
saying, this is what major organizations have said, but they got it wrong.
What sources are you going to? So, Josh, how are you
So let's say you see a story done on a cable news network, and
then you say to yourself, that sounds a little fishy. Where do you
go to find the truth, because everybody seems to think they have the truth.
Yeah, So this is where my unusual expertise comes into play. I
have a long history of knowing how to find original government documents, original official
documents, actual videos that have not been faked. I go back often to
the original report that everyone is basing what they're saying on. So people will
say, well, there's this study from this group that claimed blah blah blah,
and no one I'm telling you, I mean, you probably know this,
but other people don't. No one in the news agency actually went and
read that report. So these original reports, I dig into things that might
sound boring, like methodologies and the small prints and all this stuff. But
what it's all about is finding out what's true. So when you hear claims,
very often these things actually can be checked. What's the real source of
this? Why didn't we hear that on the news, and why doesn't the
news agency itself go and collect that information for you in the first place.
So instead of having you know, fights about why I heard this, well
I heard this, Which one of those things is true politics aside feelings aside
nothing about opinions and narratives and feelings. Let's find out what did what actually
happened on that day? What do we actually know definitively clearing out the noise.
To me, that is the starting point for healthy relationships, for a
healthy understanding of society. Okay, Josh, I have to go to break.
When we come back, I want to talk to you about how we
can all become better critical thinkers, which I try to teach my students.
And also let's talk about how there usually isn't just one truth. And remember
Kelly and Conway with the alternative facts, So let's talk about that when we
come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM
six forty er Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy
Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty Welcome back to the Dr Wendywall Show
on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. My guest Josh
Levs. He is the podcaster behind a new podcast called The Stand Corrected.
He is a former fact checker for NPR and CNN, and he's decided to
use his fact checking skills to check as many stories as he possibly can in
the media to find the truth. Josh, we talked about how you have
this ability because you have a history of this, of going to find original
studies, government documents, et cetera, et cetera. Could we all learn
to do what you're doing. Yeah, but it takes time. Here's I
can tell you. I don't ask anybody to take my word for anything.
So when I fact check the meters, I have this newsletter also, but
I've set up with someone called Substack, in which there's all these links that
go along with it. So if you want to see what I'm talking about,
what the actual sources are, you can you can get there. But
you know, a lot of these is about the time, Like there's this
royal figure from the Middle East, Queen Rania, who has been doing these
interviews lately, and one of my listeners sent read this link and said,
would you fact check this? And so I've been going through this transcript and
I have found so part of there are twenty different things that we're wrong,
and they're all demonstrably wrong. Like you can actually go find the original content
that shows why it's wrong. And this is the kind of thing that is
not a part of the news ecosystem. So yeah, so I EA a
lot of it about the time, and yet people can learn to and I
would love for everybody to become really active and passionate about doing this absolutely.
You know what I ask my students to do. I teach at cal State
Channel Islands, and I teach in the psychology department, and I ask my
students to become critical thinkers. So when they we often find facts from the
news that say, oh, a new study says this, and I say,
well, let's go to the study. And the first question I want
to ask ourselves is how many people did they actually research with? And sometimes
the study is like ten people, And how did they collect the data?
Was it like an interviewer with a subjective questions that are kind of a little
bit leading, or was it, you know, some kind of internet survey
where someone could tell lies about who they are also who paid for the study.
We were looking at one the other day and it was about how TikTok
doesn't hurt mental health. And then I looked at it and it was it
was translated into English. It was all Chinese. It was all Chinese universities
and China. Of course, I'm like, and yet this stuff will end
up as a headline in the media. Oh all the time, this is
you. I'm so glad you brought numbers. I didn't know if you wanted
to go there. So I'm going to tell you this is like the ban
of my existence, all of these wrong numbers in the news. I do
this piece once for Money at Money magazine dot com because they had run this
alleged study thing to talk about men and women and dad's families all and I
knew it didn't make any sense because I had reported the opposite based on my
studies. Well, what they had run was based on a quote unquote study
from like literally third the people back in the nineteen nineties. Well's what I
was reporting out was that annual set of surveys that deal with tens of thousands
of people and represent a stampling and show what's really going on. Wow,
And this happens all the time. I'll tell editors the thing you're looking at
is non representative, and they're like, well, that's the scientist to figure
out we don't want and no, no, no, any human being can
understand that what thirty people have to say doesn't tell you anything other than the
fact that thirty people said that same right, But the news is filled with
it, and there's no system in place to make sure that anyone will really
piece through that stuff and find out what is real and representative. You know,
for example, I don't think the average person understands that there's a big
difference between a correlational study and a true experimental study with a control group,
where you can maybe imply some causality, and so people will say, oh,
a new research study shows that depression is higher in women, So somehow
people will think being female causes depression, right, Well, you know,
it could be it could be sexism, it could be sexual harassment, it
could be sexual assault. It could be not having a voice in the room
or a seat at the table. There could be all those things causing depression
that have nothing to do with your biology as female. But people think,
oh, you know that that must cause that then, And you know what.
The rare time that people often try to come together around fact is when
there's someone that they care about who has a medical diagnosis that happened to you.
You know, something yeah, happened to me. Is my son when
he was born with a two days old he'd needed major heart surgery and you
know, he came through it wonderfully, of course. But what you find
with families is that often that's the time when people are not worried about like
all the screaming opinions in society. They're like, Okay, what do we
actually know? And yes, there are people who are like Google diseases that
decide the obscure thing that they find on some website is true, absolutely,
but most people are saying enough in the moment like that to say, what
do we know, what can we prove? What is really happen, and
what are our options here? And they come together instead of screaming at each
other with their different opinions based on life lives about the election being stolen or
whatever it is. They're no longer lost in that anger and they're more focused
on facts. And if we could do that for everything in the news,
then we would have fewer fights in society, fewer families being torn apart,
fewer difficult relationships, fewer strained relationships, and we would be at least even
if we disagreed, we would at least be starting from a point of truth
that is true. But I also want to remind you that there are many
truths in every room, in every family, in every relationship. And I
think our individual truth is based on our individual biased perceptions. Right. So
we have stuff that's happened to us in life, so we have opinions about
people or events based on what happened to us before, and somebody else sees
something completely in a situation. One of the things I do when I'm teaching
my student's cognitive biases is I show a picture of a guy and he's backlit,
so he's dark. You just see kind of his silhouette, and he's
holding the shape of something in his hand. And I show it to them
for two seconds, and I asked them was he holding a gun or a
cell phone? And it's amazing how people project onto it's actually ambiguous, uh,
and they will just project onto it based on their experience in life,
right. And so the problem with truths is that we have to learn,
I think, to stop trying to convince other people of like if they're an
anti vaxxer, so stop trying to convince them that vaccines are safe. And
instead you know, let them have their truth, but say, you know,
and and everybody's doing it, and everybody's okay, right, Yeah,
I mean there is some lip and stuff, but it's like you can have
you can balance that with truth. So for example, like you know,
I've talked to in the past about the myth of black fathers generally being absent
by all the majority of black fathers live with their kids and they are on
average the most involved. And this is just actual, and it's getting a
case for years and there's all the data that's legit proves it. So instead
of people saying, well my feeling is this about black dads or my experience
was this, there are facts that people can learn that can show important society.
Yeah, so there are times that we can say, you know,
like we have so much information about since wenty twenty election, how people voted,
what really happened, the claims have been adjudicated. There's so much people
look into. The election was not stolen. We know this because so much
has been studying it, because the people claiming it and they were lying.
We have all the information that we need to decide that. So we shouldn't
be having so you know, have an opinion about what's better, have an
opinion about the candidate you want or the policy, but start with a basic
understanding of facts so that you can at least share a center point of truth
before you go off with your different perspectives. Josh, I can't wait to
listen to your podcast. His podcast is called They Stand Corrected. He is
going to be the fact checker over election season and beyond of the media.
Josh Levs, thanks so much for being with me. It's always a pleasure
to chat with you. Always a treat, your great. The show is
great. Thank you so much. And that brings the Doctor Wendy Wall Show
to a close. It's always my pleasure to be with you every Sunday from
seven to nine pm. You can always follow me on my social media,
where I try to be as truthful and factual as it can be. The
handle everywhere is at Doctor Wendy Walsh. We'll see you next week. You've
been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can
always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on
Sunday and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.