Show Notes
The case of the other woman. Ellie never thought she’d be the other woman. Then she fell in love with a married man. We find Ellie a proxy: another woman who knows what it's like to fall in love with someone else's husband. In this episode: shame, responsibility, the messy morality of affairs, and what happens when you get the happy ending you weren't supposed to have.
New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic case, or Alex's Husband Is Too Straight, about a nonbinary person married to a man who still identifies as straight.
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More from Proxy with Yowei Shaw
The case of the woman who's scared of a shipwreck. Georgia knows the Titanic can't hurt her. So why does just looking at a picture fill her with dread? And can she make the fear go away? We find her a proxy who has spent decades helping people overcome their most irrational fears. In this episode: how strange fears develop and what it actually takes to overcome a phobia.
The case of the tryhard who wants to care less. Yowei has a problem. She overprepares, overthinks, and worries so much about doing a good job that sometimes it makes her worse at her job. Can you care deeply about your work without being consumed by whether it succeeds? Yowei finds a proxy who manages to do serious, thoughtful work while seemingly not caring what anyone thinks. In this episode: ambition, rejection, the surprising costs and benefits of caring less, and the art of low investment.
The case of the guy who keeps falling for his female friends. Ryan Jay has a problem. He makes friends with women. They get close. Then he falls for them. It’s happened enough times that Ryan Jay is starting to question whether he actually knows how to be friends with women without wanting to date them. So we bring in a proxy to help Ryan Jay figure out why friendship keeps turning into romance for him — and whether there’s another way to do this. In this episode: the blurry line between friendship and romance, why we fall for our friends, and whether it's possible to change who we fall for.
The case of the future doctor who's scared to ask for help with her drinking. Chloe loves her life. There's just one problem: she's drinking more than she wants to, and she doesn't understand why. She's about to start medical school, but she's scared that asking for help could jeopardize her future career. So how do you deal with a drinking problem before your life falls apart? We find her a proxy who struggled with drinking at Chloe's age and went on to become an addiction psychiatrist. In this episode: the blurry line between drinking too much and having a drinking problem, why asking for help can be so scary, and what actually helps people change.
Before Proxy comes back on September 22, Yowei and Kyle hold a tiny business meeting about the state of the show: more listeners, fewer members, a new membership goal, and what it’ll take to make year three. Also, Comcast has thoughts.