Being in a relationship is truly a dream, but one thing that feels like a nightmare is that my boyfriend is obsessed with podcasts, which involves listening to people talk that are not me. Every goddamn minute of the day he’s got his buds in his ears listening to two men discuss humans becoming cyborgs, or three men eating their way through Tuscaloosa, or four mean reviewing bad movies. It’s like if I’m not sponsored by Blue Apron, he won’t listen to my inane thoughts about barbecue sauce! That’s why I decided to take control of my relationship and start a podcast just so my nerd ass boyfriend will listen to me.
And it wasn’t easy; something people don’t mention about podcasts is that starting a podcast is hard! “How do you even record one?” I shouted at no one in the shower. I scoured the Internet for help and turns out there are more podcasts than there are children in the world and all I needed was a computer. Did you know your computer is also a microphone?
The next step was naming the podcast. I had a few options, including “Girlfriend’s Guide to Tommy This is For You”, “Tommy Francis’ Girlfriend Speaks”, and “TOMMY LISTEN TO THIS YOU FUCK!” I landed on the latter and decided an explicit rating on iTunes was worth it. Sorry mom, this one’s not for you! It’s 100% for Tommy, who won’t pay attention to me otherwise.
Now, you’re probably thinking this is all it takes to get your boyfriend to listen to you talk for roughly 55 minutes a week! Nuh uh! A podcast can’t exist without a backlog of episodes! So I sat down in our one bedroom apartment while Tommy was at work, opened my computer, hit record and just started saying all the things I wish I could say to Tommy. It all came out so naturally! Before I knew it I had spoken for six hours straight. I titled the recording sessions with, “My Parents are Coming to Town the Second Week of August”, “Wine Glasses Need to Be Hand Washed Not Put in the Dishwasher”, and “I Got a Haircut Today Please Say Something Nice”.
I just needed the finishing touches and I was seconds away from becoming the podcast of my boyfriend’s dreams in my dreams.
I created a quick graphic to accompany the podcast in iTunes, which was just a picture of a scar on my chin that he always forgets I have. I created a theme song, which was just me singing my middle name over and over and over again so he would fucking remember it, and I gave the podcast a description my boyfriend could enjoy, “Tommy’s girlfriend talks Legos, dungeons and dragons, Marvel movies, and the best lasagna.” Then I popped it into the Internet.
The response was overwhelming! I had 17,000 subscribers in one afternoon. Within a month I was on an established podcast network, recorded a live show at SXSW, and did an interview with a Twitter celebrity. This was the best decision I’ve ever made. Sure Tommy hasn’t listened to a single episode (he says he prefers shows “about something”) but at least the world knows what color my eyes are.
Blue!
