From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
This is Modern Love.
And today I'm talking to Eddie Huang.
Eddie kind of does it all.
He's a chef.
He makes movies.
He's the author of the memoir Fresh Off the Boat, which became a hit TV show.
And in Fresh Off the Boat, Eddie talks about what it was like for him growing up in America with parents who were Taiwanese Chinese immigrants.
It was really hard.
Eddie was bullied a lot.
He felt lonely.
And he responded by fighting back.
He became a tough kid no one could pick on.
And that tough kid grew up into a tough man.
Now, Eddie has a new book out.
It's a novel, but the main character sounds a lot like Eddie.
He's a middle-aged guy Asian-American, struggling to figure out the kind of man he wants to be, especially when it comes to his relationships with women, which the guy in the book is really, really bad at.
Eddie's had to work through a lot of this stuff himself in his own relationships.
And I wanted to know when you've tried so hard for so many years to prove to everyone that you're not weak and you're not vulnerable, how do you let someone in?
Like, what happens when the tough guy meets someone he really likes?
Someone he might even love?
Eddie Huang, welcome to Modern Love.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
I'm excited for this.
We're excited to have you.
Eddie, I want to start this conversation by asking about something I think has been important to you for a long time masculinity and Asian-American-ness.
On that note, back in 2017, you wrote an op-ed for The New York Times about these ideas.
I'd love for you to read a part of it.
Does that sound okay?
Yeah, sure.
Okay.
Every Asian American man knows what the dominant culture has to say about us.
We count good.
We bow well.
We're technologically proficient.
We're naturally subordinate.
Our male anatomy is the size of a thumb drive and could never in a thousand millenniums be a threat to steal your girl.
As a kid, you believe the things you're told about yourself.
But as I grew, I started to see things unravel.
I wasn't subordinate.
I didn't count good.
And outside downloading gifs of Daisy Fuentes, I was terrible with computers.
Over time, I began to find solidarity with my singularity indifference.
Yet the one joke that still hurts, the one stereotype that I still mistakenly believe at the most inopportune bedroom moments, is that women don't want Asian men.
We just don't have the ingredients.
I mean, 2017, almost 10 years ago.
But as you read that, I don't know, what comes up for you?
You know, funny enough, I've not seen this since 2017.
And like my right shoulder just started twitching when I was reading it.
Huh, why?
And...
I think that I've gotten past a lot of this.
I don't think about it anymore.
And like when people tell jokes about like Asian penis size… Like I'll laugh.
It's fine.
I'm over it.
You know?
But…
I think just being transported back to that place When I was still very bummed out about it.
You just remember and You know you start to twitch a little bit.
So…
You know, as a 44-year-old man, you don't love admitting that these things really hurt your feelings, but they did.
Huh.
I want to go there to that place of...
Well, I think we're going to loop around because there's a beautiful love story, you know.
But I want to go there because I'm really interested in your openness to talk about this.
And I want to sort of take us back, or take you back to the time when you were sort of actively hurting about this right.
Yeah.
Can you tell me, however far back this question takes you?
Do you remember how you first realized that this was how Asian men were seen by some people?
Whoa.
From a very, very young age, race was just like an interesting thing.
You know, like I was on my block when I was six.
I visibly remember.
I was the only full 100% Asian person on the block.
There was one girl who was half black and half Chinese.
We really got along.
The other four to five kids on the block were all white kids.
And they would just like pick on us.
And I just, from a very early age, I just understood.
I was like, all right, we're weird.
We're outside.
You're inside.
And that's just how this is.
Can you remember a specific moment where you realized I'm on the outside of something?
Yeah.
I mean like at the age of six.
I already knew, but physically it started to happen around fourth grade and I was around 11 years old.
It was my birthday.
And after Little League, there were like, a couple white kids and they knew it was my birthday.
They knew my parents were late picking me up.
I was there by myself.
And they just ran around me in a circle throwing sunflower seeds and whatnot, saying Ching Chong, Eddie Wong, sitting on a jumbo gong and like peeling their eyes back.
And I just ate it.
I just ate it.
What do you mean?
You just sat there?
Yeah.
I just sat there and I ate it.
It felt terrible.
That stuff's the worst.
Yeah.
I mean, I know I was like, we're going to go there.
But it just I mean even hearing it.
I want to like, I want to reach out to that 11 year old and be like damn, it's going to get better.
You're going to own Bauhaus.
But in that moment, did you contemplate?
I don't know, being like, shut up?
Or was that not... I know this is one instance, but did you consider saying something?
Or was it more like, okay, I'm just going to get through this?
I wasn't going to win against three to four other kids.
I just didn't say anything.
I let it pass over.
You know, like when you're a young boy and you've been shamed like that, it just kind of breaks you.
Something breaks and you realize and it's a really unfortunate realization that like, people are mean.
Yeah.
Like people are mean and they are going to hurt you.
And I think the first instinct at that age if you're picked on like that and just like completely embarrassed and no parents come to save you, no adults care.
Like there was tons of adults at this little league park.
They just let it happen.
You know, you learn that you have to protect yourself.
Was that... And thank you for sharing that.
I mean, I know it's many years ago, but it clearly is still very present.
Like, you can go back there.
Was that a turning point for you where you're like, okay, I need to...
Fight back.
I need to stand up for myself.
It was a huge turning point.
And I learned to fight.
And it wasn't long after that that somebody pushed me down to the lunch line and called me a chink for the first time.
And then that moment became the pilot episode of Fresh Off the Boat.
So my way has been to alchemize these feelings and moments and share them in the hopes that, like future, young boys don't do this to each other.
And that if it does happen to you, you see a reflection of you that fought back, that did something.
You're mentioning that you became a fighter.
You decided to fight back.
Yeah.
Can you paint me a picture of what that looked like, what that meant?
I just refuse to be picked on anymore.
And...
I could see situations where I would not have the upper hand and I literally just wouldn't walk into them.
You know, I always had a padlock on me.
I always had something on me and it just changed the way that I moved through the world.
I mean, I guess I should just say like I ended up getting a couple assault charges.
I got in trouble.
I did sell drugs at one point.
And then around the age of 19, there was a book that a professor, Jennifer Henton, gave to me.
It was very interesting and it was breaking down how the Asian American male has been emasculated through films, starting with things like Long Duck Dong in 16 Candles, where he's on a stationary bicycle as a metaphor for sex.
And it's very funny, but he like never gets the girl.
Sure.
In Replacement Killers, Chow Yun-Fat never gets with Mira Sorvino.
In Romeo Must Die, Jet Li saves Aaliyah, doesn't get the girl.
So it's just like there was many, many examples where-
Asian American men were just like blocked from intimacy.
I realized, you know, it wasn't just a me thing.
There was like a systemic kind of attack on the Asian male through like pop culture and identity.
And so, I mean, Fresh Off the Boat comes out from that.
Like.
That is absolutely the driving force behind Fresh Off the Boat is to represent not just Asian American men but like anyone who feels downtrodden and anyone who feels like they're not allowed to be a whole human person in the society that they participate in.
When you were younger, Was it like do you remember a specific time where we started off with that op-ed about this assumption that Asian men were not wanted by women wanted for intimacy?
How did that play out in your own life when you were a young adult, when you were dating?
Yeah.
So going back to this idea that once I was picked on a lot and people made fun of me for being Chinese, and then all the you know small penis jokes started percolating around like fifth grade,
I started to approach things with that sense of like, be careful.
Don't get in a danger.
Don't be vulnerable.
Things like that.
And I remember I ended up having the biggest crush on this girl in eighth grade.
She rode horses and stuff and she would always wear like Ralph Lauren purple label.
And I was like, this is so fly.
And a horse girl.
Wow.
Yeah.
Horse girl.
She looked like, you know, like a Ralph Lauren ad.
I was like, oh my God, this woman is incredible. incredible.
And she was so smart.
Like she would understand the books we were reading.
I didn't really understand the books we were reading in class.
And I would never admit I liked anyone.
Why?
I mean, you're a kid, so people don't like to do that, but why?
Yeah, because you could get hurt.
You know, like I would never admit I like somebody because then you could get hurt.
You could be made fun of, right?
So I told my best friend and I was just like, yo, do you think she would want to hang out with me?
And he was like, why don't you just ask?
I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I can't ask.
You just got to like… you know, maneuver.
You got to just like be in the same spot.
And like, maybe we like the same thing.
And like, I'm not going to ask.
And it went on for like months.
I was just obsessed with this girl, but would not like go talk to her.
You know, like, I'd freeze up if I, like, ran in or in the hallway.
This is classic, yeah.
Yeah, and I think you know, I think my friends in middle school would say I was one of like the tougher boys.
And, you know, we were the boys that, like, we didn't even eat lunch.
We just played basketball during lunch.
We were the basketball kids.
I was a little bit scared of those boys, yeah.
Yeah, we would just play ball.
And so one day I come to school and the principal's like, you need to come to the office right now.
I was like, what?
And he's like, look, I need to tell you what happened.
I know it wasn't you.
Your friend has already admitted to this.
But your friends wrote a letter to this girl saying I love you and I want to eat your dingleberries.
Signed by you.
Oh my God.
She turned it in.
She knows you did not do this.
We know you did not do this.
Everyone has admitted to it.
But like...
The school knows.
And I was like this is probably the second most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me in my life.
Oh my God, Eddie, that sucks.
I had no idea where that was going.
What the heck?
Why did your friends do that?
Your friends wrote this note pretending to be you.
Yeah.
Why?
And even as a kid, I wasn't mad at them.
Sure.
Because I think their thing was like, just get it over with, man.
You talk about this girl all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
I remember sleeping over at my friend's crib and he had a bunk bed.
I'd be on the top bunk like, yo, you think I should call her?
And he's just like, just call her, man.
And so I think they meant well, but also as boys, you can't like really do it well.
You have to put a dingleberry in there.
So they did.
They did not know they were going to get in that much trouble.
They did not know it would blow up.
And then, funny enough, like a really nice girl brokered like a movie date for me and this girl, to go on.
And we went and I did not say one word.
Oh my God.
I did not say one word.
I just went home.
I was so embarrassed.
Okay.
This story is endearing and also that turn with the friends.
Oh my God.
But the question I'd asked that spurred this, and I hate them for you.
I mean, I can't.
And was actually dingleberry the word that was used?
Yeah.
I mean, my friends have always been idiots.
Yeah.
I'm surrounded by idiots eternally.
Like, for eighth graders, it's pretty clever.
Totally, totally.
But it's interesting because the question that teed up the story is I was sort of like this idea that you weren't wanted.
How is that reinforced in your own life?
And is the subtext of that story like you didn't believe she could want you because of who you were.
Is that why that story came up?
Yes, and I also distinctly remember that was the first girl I admitted to anybody that I liked.
And also my homie that wrote the letter.
He was my best friend at the time.
I love the guy is a Filipino guy.
And his older brother had a non-Asian girlfriend.
And they would always be like, Eddie, you're fine.
See, you know, like he did it, you know?
Like he's dating a white girl or a non-Asian girl?
Yeah.
And like it was also just like they could see.
I think that my model for romance at home was like not great.
And they didn't understand why I had so much trouble.
Like in my head, because my friend, he didn't have a problem talking to girls.
He just go talk to girls.
And he's like, I don't know why you're all messed up about this.
You know?
Tell me about your model for romance at home.
You've written a lot about your parents, your parents' home, how volatile it could be.
But tell me about that model that you witnessed when you were growing up.
I really rejected the model of male figure in my house and the romance because, like my dad, is a very smooth dude.
And I remember one time, even just going back to Taiwan at the age of 12, there was like a like mid thirties woman that was having tea.
And she decided to say to me, you know, your dad was the one.
He really was the one.
Like me, all the girlies, like we loved your dad.
And I was just like, huh?
How did that hit you as a kid?
I just thought he was a dirtbag.
Oh, I didn't know that that was... I was just like, what a dirtbag.
You know, because it's like...
I couldn't understand why my mom was mad at him all the time.
Because like… Women would call the house and my mom would lose her mind.
And I was like, what's going on?
And like around 12 when we went back to Taiwan… That trip was a seminal trip in my life because…
Someone told me my dad was like in a gang that protected the neighborhood.
These women were like, your dad was the one.
And so these pieces of my dad started coming into focus.
But I rejected it all because my dad hit my mom.
My dad did really bad things.
And I just didn't want to be a man like my dad.
In romance.
Tell me more about that.
Tell me the qualities that you?
It sounds like you're rejecting this sort of slick, maybe womanizing tendency you were seeing.
What were you moving towards?
If that's what you wanted not to be, then what did you want to be?
I always knew who I was.
I just knew.
And who were you?
I'm a nice, sweet kid who just wants to be with one or two other people.
Like my wife, my son, my best friend or two.
You know I pretended to be bad and I created like this tough exterior because I didn't want to keep getting picked on.
But deep down, I'm just like, I'm just like a nice kid, you know?
I'm curious if, as you were growing up, maybe even after you moved out, was there ever a moment in a relationship with a woman or with a friend where you kind of opened up and almost showed this more sensitive, vulnerable interior but then realized like, oh no, i need to be tough.
Like was there a moment where you almost gave someone access, i guess, to that inner part of yourself that you can recall?
Yeah yeah uh, Yeah.
There was one relationship where I opened up about, like my parents and the relationship between my mom and dad.
Like, you know, the idea of family came up.
How old were you in this relationship?
I was in my 30s.
I was in my 30s and like family was on the table and we were talking about it.
It was something I wanted.
And I had actually shared with this person everything about my family.
And the person actually brought it up and was like well, I just don't know if you're gonna be great at this because of the family you come from.
That really hurt my feelings.
And I really regretted telling that person anything.
Was this the first time that you felt like you'd been truly honest about...
Your family, the way you'd grown up with someone you were interested in romantically?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because this person also had their own issues.
So I felt, oh, okay.
I could probably tell you mine and you'll understand because you're not perfect either.
Yeah.
And I was just like, I trust you.
It's hard to like diagnose why you trusted somebody.
But I think the fact of the matter is I trusted this person.
So I shared my story.
And when the gun kind of got turned back at me, I was pretty flabbergasted.
And I would say that you know you're a good journalist because I did not think about it at the time.
But it absolutely is the same feeling I had when those kids were throwing like sunflower seeds in my face.
I was going to maybe circle back to that.
I mean, it's really painful to be vulnerable and then...
To be totally shut down.
I mean, it sounds really hard.
Yeah, for me it's like it really.
I really do think being a man was best expressed by Michael Corleone, where it's just like, just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in.
Because I just want to be a nice guy.
I want to put my walls down.
I want to do everything my therapist tells me to do.
And sometimes things happen and you're just like, here we go again.
You know, here come the walls.
Here come the walls.
But this, this moment with this person, where you feel you think that you are able to let these walls down.
And then as you say, well, I'm pulled right back in to this toughness, this, you know, vigilance.
These parts of yourself are perhaps uneasily coexisting at all times.
Right.
Like, yeah, it feels.
Yeah.
Go.
What were you saying?
They don't coexist easily.
I think that's why I do have like trouble.
And like I think a lot of times too, like I've seen the comments on YouTube for decades where people are like what a fake tough guy.
I'm like, I am a fake tough guy because I created – this version of myself to move through the world when there's danger.
And that fake version of me is me being my father.
Plain and simple.
Oh, he's in therapy.
Oh, he's done a lot.
I did the work.
Like, I see it.
No, and I don't mean that.
I mean, I maybe shouldn't have joked about it.
No, I absolutely think it's true.
Like, I didn't understand what I was doing subconsciously, but that is what I was doing.
Wow.
Eddie, I'm thinking back to this moment that is really again painful is maybe the wrong word, but so intense to me of you opening up to this woman right.
You were in a relationship with this woman and her...
Not reacting to your vulnerability in the way you would have wanted and you shutting down.
After that, can I ask you, like, did you have this feeling like, well, I'm never doing that again?
Yeah.
Funny enough, no.
I was honestly very excited to one day try again.
Yeah.
But I was pretty sure I was like if someone's going to like turn around the thing they share with you to hurt you, it's like come on, man.
Sure.
You know.
Sure.
That's a tough one to come back from.
We'll be right back.
I remember when I said we were going to talk about your new book.
We're going to do that now.
It's called Come Undone.
It's a novel.
The main character, let's start here, his name is Hubie.
And I have to tell you, I did not love Hubie. how he was treating women.
I don't think you wanted us to love how he was treating women.
Would you classify Hubie as a fuckboy?
I know that's like a very loaded term.
Okay, you would.
Yeah.
Tell me about his ways.
Tell me how he's moving, to use your words.
Okay.
So when the book starts, the first woman that Hubie chooses is Samantha.
And he chooses her because he finds her choices...
Vulgar.
She has an orange Birkin with Rick and Morty drawn onto the side of it.
That was so specific, can I just say, in a way that I was like, yeah.
But for those who might not understand, what does that telegraph?
What does that mean to have an orange Birkin with Rick and Morty drawn on the side?
It's in poor taste.
Like, Hubie sees... everything that Samantha does as in poor taste.
And what Hubie doesn't realize he's doing and feels is he doesn't like himself.
So he chooses people that he likes less than himself because they're safe.
They're not going to hurt him.
Can you give us like a snapshot from the book of like a moment where Hubie is classic, like that shows that in action, a sort of classic Hubie fuckboy moment?
Can you describe for us?
Yeah.
In the opening chapter, Hubie is taking Samantha on this like Malibu staycation and she's.
He presents it as romantic, even though in his head it's like a quote.
Unquote ho trip.
And when Samantha- Meaning like they're just going to have a lot of sex.
Yeah, like this is just exercise, right?
This is cardio.
And when Samantha God forbid has an idea that something is going on and wants to know where she stands in the relationship, Hubie completely rejects the conversation.
And it's like, why would you have that thought?
This is a Malibu staycation.
We're going to Nobu for the 4th of July.
Like this is what hoes do.
And it's like, yeah, but you did present this trip to this woman as romantic and you know it.
It's bad.
It's bad.
No, no, no.
And it's because it's like that groan is a groan of recognition.
But it is just like what you're saying is this type of guy that Hubie is, which is someone who wants the benefits of, of intimacy physical and emotional but then, at the first blush of someone trying to define something or check in emotionally or connect emotionally, pulls away right.
And it's like, what are you talking about?
Like I never gave you the impression I wanted some like.
This is the kind of person that you're describing, who- He's very Drake-like.
Yeah.
He's very Drizzy Drake.
And Hubie also does the things – like in the book.
When Hubie's in his toxic era, he's doing the things that he knows men are supposed to do and women are supposed to be excited about, of taking you to Nobu.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
You're supposed to be like, I'm excited.
Wow.
He's taking me to Nobu.
This must be serious.
But deep down he's like laughing at it.
And it's like, you're so stupid for even thinking that this means that.
And it's like, it's a dirty game.
Why is he doing that?
Why is he choosing to spend so much time with this person who he doesn't respect?
Tell me a little bit more about the psychology there.
Yeah, I'll tell you a lot about the psychology and also why I wrote it.
Is men who move like this can read this book, and it's a mirror being held up to your face?
Was that your experience holding up a mirror to your own face writing it?
Yes.
And to my friends, right?
Like I've had friends that have read it and are like, whoa.
Yeah.
Okay, not good.
I was like, not good, you know?
And I'm going to let you into the male brain.
Oh, please.
I think what you're getting at here is that I do think there are men, and I will just acknowledge myself instead of being like there are men, not me.
I mean, men are expected to get money and have sex.
That is like the core tenets of basic male masculinity.
I didn't write the rules.
They're the basic rules.
New York Times readers should have better rules, right?
But like, I'll just acknowledge I probably didn't.
Huh.
You know?
This is the classic script of masculinity.
Classic script of masculinity is you need to be making money, you need to be successful, and then that success and money should translate into having copious amounts of sex.
And I think that a lot of men buy into this and a lot of men are just not big enough and they're not man enough to be like you know what.
I'm good without this.
And what I do see.
What is very cool is that younger men now the generation after mine, I know several young guys that are like I'm celibate right now.
There's a guy that works at the restaurant, very attractive.
People always want to talk to him.
He's celibate right now.
And like, I respect that a lot about him.
That said, the guy at the restaurant that I know who is doing this and is like being very good, is a very attractive guy who's had a lot of sex.
So it's just like kind of, you know, we have these models.
Then I also have other homies that...
You know they're smashing the dating apps and they're lonely and they're just like I, just I gotta, I gotta be with somebody, you know.
And I don't think it's about shaming people, right?
But I think we should all just acknowledge and understand that, like there are a lot of pressures around performing masculinity and being a man right,
You know, it's tough.
I can't imagine being like a 21-year-old guy right now who's a gooner on the internet trying to figure this out.
It's kind of, it's difficult.
In any generation to figure out how to be a man is difficult.
Not as hard as being a woman.
Being a woman is much more difficult.
So we should all figure this out as men.
But I wrote this character and I wrote this book because I wanted to just open up the conversation Of like we don't need to be doing these things to feel like men.
Huh.
You've described this before in various interviews as autofiction.
So I want to ask you about which parts of yourself you're exploring through this book.
Like how much of Hubie is you, basically, I'm asking.
A lot of Hubie is me, except for one central defining factor, which is when I met my wife.
I ran towards her.
Aww.
Yeah, I knew.
Well, I'm thinking... I'm thinking we just have to get into that story, right?
Now, you know, she's your wife, but how did you... And her name is Natasha, this I know.
How did you two come together?
So, funny enough...
Natasha had just broken up with somebody and decided to fire up the Raya app on her phone.
And in her like post breakup moment matched with me.
And I think we exchanged maybe two or three messages.
Then I just didn't hear from her.
She ghosted me for two years.
For two years?
Yeah, for two years.
And I mean when I exchanged the one or two messages with her, I was like oh, I like this slideshow.
I like this person.
This person's intriguing to me.
I remember her.
When she messaged me two years later, I was just like, well, I had to laugh.
She messaged me and said So what I'm going to do here is pretend like I didn't ignore this for two years.
Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
And I was like, you're worse than me.
Wait, I really like this.
Wait, wait, okay.
Can I say too, it's so hard to like know from a profile, but what about her?
What about her was intriguing such that it seems like you responded to her two years later message.
Like why?
What was it about her?
Her that made you want to respond?
Because honestly, I'd see that and I'd be like, yeah, whatever.
Like, it took you two years, bye.
Yeah, I saw it as extreme confidence.
And, you know, most people in situations, they act... in the way they think they're supposed to act.
There are a lot of like correct answer people in the world.
She is, it's in Natasha's answer world in her mind.
And I think it's cool.
And I thought that audacity to like hit me back after two years, like, yo, what's up?
I was like, you're like the worst dude I know.
And it cracked me up.
You respected it.
I respected it.
Okay, so she comes back after two years and is like, hi.
Can I say this too, Anna?
Please.
I want to say this.
It's just like, for a man who was a fuckboy for many, many years.
This is you.
Me.
Mm-hmm.
You respect someone who punches you in the face.
I was like, I deserve this.
It was like penance.
You were like, okay, this is not just for Natasha.
It's for all the women I assume you ghosted or left on, read and then circled back after two years being like hi.
Wow, that's so funny.
You were like, was it a little bit like game, recognize game, that kind of thing?
Exactly, that's exactly it.
That was exactly the attraction.
Okay, so she hits you up then do you.
Then what happens?
We just started to chit-chat.
And she, I would say, is a witch.
Like, she can see what you're saying behind what you're saying.
And I feel.
The thing about her that she saw in me, and vice versa, was the things we work on in therapy, like the masks and the projections.
She could see past all of mine and be like, ha ha, shut up.
You know, like get that out of here.
She was just kind of like throwing them all out of the way.
And then I was kind of able to do that with her.
And I think she appreciated that, because I think tricky elusive, emotionally unavailable people know that they're doing it.
And they want to be seen, but they're not going to show you.
They're going to wait for someone to pull the sword out of stone.
And wait, are we still in the zone of you?
Guys are just like messaging, or had you met up at this point?
Oh, we were just messaging.
I mean, she got like my full natal chart before I even met her.
Well, that's classic.
And that's required, actually.
Then eventually she was like, all right, I'll hang out with you.
What are you doing today?
And I was like, look, I'm boxing.
And if you want to come box, you can box too.
And she was like, yeah, I'll come box with you.
And then she came –
In a sports bra and she had a full back dragon tattoo and I, funny enough, I boxed without my shirt on.
I had a full back dragon tattoo and we were just like, we should date.
We should try.
We should do this.
We're both, we're the same moron.
Whoa.
Whoa.
I mean, that's a little on the nose for the universe.
Don't you think you both have fullback dragon tattoos?
It's sort of like how heavy handed you need to be.
So how did two emotionally unavailable people become available for each other?
One person just has to go.
Huh?
One person has to chase.
And I just had a feeling this would be the last woman I ever chased.
Why?
How?
She was it.
It was just her.
Like I just knew it was her.
Like I had a gut thing.
I was like, this woman knows how to push my buttons, how to move me around, but she cares about me.
And there's some people who they can manipulate you and they can move you around, but they do it to your detriment.
Natasha would push my buttons and move me around for our benefit.
In order for things to go to the next level, someone has to open up about their feelings.
And I'm curious how that went down for the two of you.
What happened was Natasha sent me...
A voice note saying oh my gosh, there's this guy at Kitsune that like just came out of the bathroom and told me he had deja vu and like he's meant to be with me.
It's so funny, yada, yada.
And this was maybe like five weeks into talking.
Okay.
And how did you feel then?
Getting that.
By that point, I was just like...
I had a lot of feelings for Natasha.
So when she told me that there was another guy that was telling her these things, it just upset me.
And I was like, you know what?
I don't really like this.
That feels like an understatement.
Yeah, I was like, you're welcome to talk to whoever, like this is your life.
And I'm like not a possessive person.
But I just told her very straightforward in an email.
I sent her an email.
Do you still have the email like that you sent her?
To Natasha somewhere?
I mean, I can grab the book because it's the same email.
It's really the same.
You want me to read this email?
Yeah, please.
I'll go get the two seconds.
Yeah, yeah.
Stay with us.
So funny.
I cannot find a book in the house, but I will just go into the email.
Yes.
That's even better for journalistic purposes.
Okay.
And thank God for email.
How amazing that we have everything documented as a digital footprint.
It's crazy too to like, there's so many emails to my wife.
Yeah.
Oh, man, this is embarrassing stuff.
Oh, my God.
That is music to my ears.
Okay, Eddie, let's set the scene again.
So Natasha, who you'd been seeing for you said five weeks, so a couple weeks sends you this voice note, basically being like someone else is hitting on me.
And you're feeling...
All types of ways.
Yeah.
So it goes.
Hey, I was going to talk to you in person or call you, but I feel like we do well writing.
I like you in a genuine, real way.
We joke a lot.
So I want you to know I'm not kidding when I say I like you.
I'm not the best at expressing myself or being direct when it comes to this and have kind of fucked up my life in the areas that matter most by dating people that deflect emotion and make their lives a joke too.
This stupid Don Julio tattoo I'm stuck with is the best reminder to me that I need to choose to be with people who can be honest and direct and receive my energy, because it is a lot, but it's real.
Even though it's Mercury retrograde, I've felt this way for a while.
I don't care what you've done before or who's in your favorites folder, or who this dude at Kitsune is.
And I'm not going to change my mind in a year or two or whatever.
I think you're the best.
How did that feel to send?
Oh, terrible.
And, funny enough, I'm looking at this and, like three minutes after I send it, I've forwarded it to my best friend.
With the sentence, I will live with the response.
I represented myself in an honest light.
I will live with the response.
I represented myself in an honest light.
Oh, I am so endeared by this on on many levels, because you're opening yourself up in a genuine way to rejection.
This, to me, is not a tough guy move.
This is saying hi, I like you, and also doing some very serious reflecting on the ways that you'd messed up previously.
This, to me, feels like a big change from...
And I'm loving hearing you're Natasha's son, Senna.
Because it foreshadows what we're going to talk about.
But why were you ready to open up in this way?
I had gotten to the age and understood that Life offers you opportunities, but if you don't step into them and you're not honest and you don't say what needs to be said in those moments like your life could fall apart.
You send this email and I'm loving that addendum you send to your best friend.
Like I stand by what I said, you know, like it's so cute.
Okay.
And then are you like checking your phone every two seconds for a response?
Obviously.
Yes.
Get any work done that day.
I remember my neck and shoulders just being tight.
Totally.
Oh, And cortisol going crazy.
I unfortunately, I don't recommend this.
I just hit my bong crazy.
Like I smoked an inordinate amount of weed and just paced and walked around the neighborhood and did physical activities, went to the boxing gym.
I mean, she didn't respond for multiple days.
And okay.
How did that hit you?
Did the walls?
I'm thinking about that moment with that person where your walls came back up when they didn't respond to you opening up.
Did you feel like that was happening again?
Was it like, OK, well, I tried to be vulnerable.
I laid my heart on the line.
No response.
Back up.
Like, was that the impulse for you?
I will honestly say no.
And I think that is the work that I was doing.
Sure, sure.
You have to make a deal with yourself.
At some point you have to say, these defense mechanisms are not helping me.
Huh.
They're not making my life better.
And I need to stop doing it.
Almost like an addict.
I had to tell myself, the wall's coming up.
That's not going to help you.
Running away pretending you don't care about this woman, that's not going to help you.
And then she just called me.
She called me and was like, hey, you're totally not going to believe me.
I just read your email.
It was in my spam folder.
Oh my God.
And she just told me, she's like, I never checked my spam folder.
I don't know why it's there, but I read it.
And I will just tell you, I feel similar things.
Wow.
How were you feeling when she confirmed that she was feeling the same way?
Just complete levitation of like mind, body, spirit.
Like total levitation and just...
You knew how hard it would be to find your person and for them to feel the same way about you.
Yeah.
But you believed.
I believed.
I took a chance.
I told this woman how I felt knowing it could have gone bad, but I believed.
I believed that the things I was feeling were real.
And that I'm not a moron.
And I've never looked back.
Huh.
I've never looked back.
I've always known, even at our lowest times, this is my person.
This is the love of my life.
Like, I don't know what I would do without her.
Hmm.
Does loving and being loved my Natasha does your relationship?
Has it given you a new understanding of what it means to be a man?
That's where we started our conversation.
I'm curious if you have any reflections from your vantage point now.
Absolutely.
She, on, I would say, a monthly basis, redefines for me what it is to be a man.
Like...
Don't do this.
You know, like don't get caught in that photo.
You know, like she will show me Keanu Reeves.
She's like, look at Keanu Reeves.
Keanu Reeves never takes a photo next to a woman.
There's always a gap.
There's a photo gap between Keanu Reeves and any woman that is not Keanu Reeves' woman.
She's like, that is a man.
Very practical.
She's like, that is a man.
What you're doing in these photos, Eddie? not manly behavior.
Okay, interesting.
That is very specific and I'm loving Keanu Reeves as the model of masculinity.
I think that's something I can get behind.
That is a joke, but it's also real.
You like see the truth behind that, right?
Yeah, of course I do.
So let me break that down, because it is a joke, but I did mean this literally is like, as a man, Get rid of your toxic behaviors.
Get rid of your bad habits.
You know, like remember, if I matter this much to you, if I am your person and I have changed your life and made it better, as you say, be consistent.
And that is her message to me all the time.
She's like, be consistent.
Be this guy every day.
And I get it because she knows I wasn't shit before.
Wow.
I mean you're talking about how, in a really significant way, your understanding of what it means to be a man is And a man in a relationship has changed.
And I've had conversations with men about masculinity on the show before and how to step into masculinity without
And everything that's supposed to mean to live out masculinity without becoming toxic or misogynistic.
I don't know.
How are you preventing the swing into toxicity when you step into masculinity?
Yeah, I will say I think that my understanding of masculinity was completely incorrect.
You know I created that mask and alter ego that was very much like my father, who was slick and elusive and very tough.
That isn't what I see as masculinity anymore.
If you care, you're consistent.
You're loyal.
You show up.
You're not punishing people.
That to me are the traits of a man that is productive.
Yeah, that does feel very different.
I mean, very, like, palpably different from where you sort of began with your ideas of masculinity.
I mean, it is also interesting.
You're tracing a change in your understanding, a transformation.
Like in doing our research for this interview I came across there was criticism, you know, years ago, of this sort of tough guy exterior that you had this idea of masculinity that some people felt like sort of punch down right.
Like put other people down in order to make yourself, to put yourself up.
And it's sounding like, it's sounding like that's not the place you're in right now.
Yeah.
And I definitely am now aware that's what I was doing.
And it was unnecessary.
And I don't participate in that anymore.
And I'd rather lift people up that I care about.
We've been talking about ideas of masculinity, what it means to be a man, what we inherit from our parents, what we figure out on our own.
And I want to know, like as you raise Senna, what feels important to you to teach him, to show him about what it means to be a man.
You know, It's interesting you ask this because I did make a conscious choice when he was born.
You know, with a son especially, they don't have a relationship with the father like that early on.
They really want mommy.
Yeah.
Right?
Right.
I kind of waited my turn to like be in Senna's life.
And it was around like the sixth month, he really started to open up to me and wanted to hang out.
And I mean he's still like a baby blob, but once he could talk.
Once he could talk and he could understand.
The one thing I do is I remind him.
I say no matter what, dad loves you.
Like, you don't got to be anything.
You don't got to do anything.
I love you.
You're the best.
And that's the choice I've made as a father is to not demand that he's Like.
There isn't a way to be like.
You know you're going to be this type of man.
You're going to be this type of person.
I'm just like, you're just you.
And whatever you choose to be, I respect that choice and I love you.
And I think that to me is a version of masculinity that I would love for him and other men.
It's just, I love you, man.
You know, like you don't need to live up to some archetype of man.
You don't even need to look at other men.
Be you.
Who you are is cool.
Eddie, thank you so much for this conversation.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
It was great.
I really enjoyed this.
The Modern Love team is Davis Land, Elisa Gutierrez, Lynn Levy, Reva Goldberg, and Sarah Curtis.
This episode was produced by Reva Goldberg.
It was edited by Lynn Levy and Davis Land.
Our mix engineer was Daniel Ramirez.
Original music in this episode by Alicia Baitoup, Aman Sahota, Diane Wong, and Marion Lozano.
Dan Powell composed our theme music.
The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones, and Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects.
If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes.
I'm Anna Martin.
Thanks for listening.
