When it comes to dating, step out of your comfort zone

Lauren built a career in criminal justice after her personal experiences with the legal system. She pursued a PhD in Criminology and now does research to make the system better. She advises not to let others' expectations limit you in pursuing your passions. Lauren also shares her experiences in college debate, including breaking her jaw and dating within the debate circle. She eventually realized the need for independence and met her husband through online dating. it becomes an echo chamber when you're just around, when you're like only circles of the same people. ♪♪♪ Hi loves! Welcome back to another episode of Branded and Tailored. Today we have our first guest. Her name is Lauren. She's one of my bestest friends and one of the most badassest women that I know. And today she's gonna tell everybody a little bit about how she's built a career around one of her passions and how she's ended up in a healthy, happy, successful marriage after lots of turbulent dating. So enjoy! So Lauren, can you tell us about what you do? Yeah, I am, my title's really long. I'm a Senior Research Associate at State Institute for Public Policy. But basically I do quantitative research at the direction of our legislature and primarily in the field of criminal justice. So I do everything from research on juvenile justice through adult corrections and then involved in research that kind of intersects different areas. So if criminal justice and child welfare were criminal justice and education. But primarily criminal justice, PhD in criminology at Penn State where I met Brandy. And now I get to do research for a living. It's pretty awesome. So how did you get into it? Because I know personally, since we're very close, that you had a passion for criminal justice issues and kind of focused your career on the things that you thought were important. So can you talk a little bit about the steps that you took to make that happen? Sure. I always wanted to do law. I did debate in high school and that's where I really got interested in like the legal system and law and arguing and evidence and kind of all that stuff. But then I was directly involved in the criminal legal system twice, both through a pretty messy divorce through my parents. So the family law system and then as a victim of sexual assault in high school. And after going through it twice, both on the criminal side and the family law side, I really grew to resent the system and I did not want to go to law school. Very adamant, like I do not want to be a lawyer. My entire family wanted me to be a lawyer. I disappointed everyone, but I just couldn't see myself being just a cog in a machine that I felt had issues and I didn't want to be forced to contribute to that directly. So that took me in a direction of wanting to study the criminal legal system kind of from the outside perspective and really figure out what works, what doesn't work, what needs to be changed. So I, in undergrad, I got a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and then found a way to combine those two by getting a PhD in Criminology. So it allows me to do like a more critical perspective of the system but still be involved in it and feel like I can do work that contributes to making the system better rather than just participating in it. So people, you can take your passions and make them where you can actually have a job where you can do something about what's happening in like the criminal justice system, for Lauren's example, and I think that's really great. Taylor's kind of doing the same thing in sports and I'm still in school where I met Lauren. Yeah, I mean I think the thing is is like you can be really passionate about something and that can lead to kind of a stereotypical expectation of what you do with that and I don't think you have to do that. Like everyone expects me to go to law school and for a long time I really thought I would but I just really didn't feel like I would be satisfied there and so I took a different angle that no one in my circle had like even heard of and so I think it's important to like know what you're passionate about but not feel like you have to approach that in a way that people are expecting you to. Like there are lots of different ways that you can go about supporting your passions. And I love that you took that approach and that bravery because there's a lot of people that even I mentor that well let me talk to my parents and see what they think and and get their side of things and sometimes like yeah your parents are your initial caregivers obviously or your you know guardians or whoever that raised you right but the best people that are going to give you advice for careers or anything like that are people that are not related to you. And then yeah so it's good to identify that and like for you to identify your passions and to see what will align with your purpose. That's cool. So Taylor's gonna be so jealous. Do you want to talk about your Fulbright? Oh yeah. In grad school I was doing research for my dissertation getting ready to get my dissertation. I just finished my master's thesis and my advisor and I were talking about ways to get funding for doing a research for potentially staying an extra year to build up my publications and my CV and he suggested that I look into a Fulbright opportunity to go overseas and do my work on my dissertation in another country and so it was like pure I don't know higher power whatever the same time I finished my master's thesis and was in the process of publishing it an author in Finland published like a very similar study finding different results in Finland from what I found in the United States but the cultures are so different like it didn't mean either one of us was wrong it was like there's something else that is kind of underlying this of the way that what we're looking at operates in different societies and so I just cold emailed him and was like hey saw you publish this study I just did a similar study I think your work is great like do you think there's an opportunity to potentially collaborate and I'm thinking about applying for a Fulbright would you you know be supportive of that and the guy himself was also a prior Fulbright Fulbrighter and so like he was a professor at the University of Helsinki and he had previously gotten a Fulbright when he was in school so he was all about it jazzed and I went to Finland for one of 20 when was it 2016 to 2017 and got to live in Helsinki and do half of my dissertation I did my dissertation was just the same study in two countries and then comparing the results and finding kind of social socio-political economic explanations for the differences um yeah well fun I loved it if I ever had to live overseas for some reason I would definitely I go Finland. Finland's beautiful that's awesome she's like wait what I'm gagging on herself I'm like how do I do that I think if you've ever been up in like the Pacific Northwest around the sound people say it's really depressing it's like rainy all the time and stuff but when I came here for my job interview from grad school it was um eight months after I'd come back from Finland maybe even less than that and I came to Olympia and I was like this is like Finland like there's water everything is green yeah it rains a lot and it's like kind of gloomy in the winter but like it's beautiful and there I think that's part of why I love living here much so here's like it feels very similar to Finland aesthetically right you've got the mountains and yeah just like you mentioned it's green yeah yeah it's not like looking it is fake looking it is gorgeous yeah I used to live out west and I did a couple now I'm on a like a national park kind of kick um so I've been to Olympic National Park and Cascades and like all of that way gorgeous love it can't get enough of it yep I live smack dab between them I can see the Olympic range and uh the Olympic National Park and I can see the Cascades and Mount Rainier on a clear day I can see it all over town it's just yeah oh beautiful yeah super jealous you can come whatever yeah how about tomorrow what are you doing you can help me pack there you go Lauren picked me up from the airport I'm like there's this volcano you know I'm just driving by a volcano like this is cool yeah I mean you know it's a deal I grew up in the midwest and we had tornadoes and like stuff that happened last couple days was absolutely crazy and I feel so bad for all the families that have been affected by the huge outbreaks of tornadoes and then when I was in Pennsylvania it was like you had hurricanes that would come in I remember our tower at Penn State we were there for one of the hurricanes and like the building was swaying and we weren't even directly on the coast I don't think this is awful here you don't really have any natural disasters but like when an earthquake or a volcano goes off it's really really bad it's like really rare but but when it happens it it really does happen yeah yeah yeah I used to live out in Utah and they told me when I lived there oh yeah no no um same thing no natural disasters uh you don't have to worry about earthquakes well in Salt Lake where I lived I lived along a fault line and yeah it was right after the world shut down literally a week after we had a 5.7 earthquake that happened and where my apartment was located I was two miles away from the epicenter and nothing yeah and my whole apartment shook and I remember talking to my grandma on the phone like that morning we were just bs'ing like usual and then I felt everything shake I felt my coffee cup starting to fall like grandma I gotta go um I'm in the middle of an earthquake goes what like hung up protected the glassware and then she called me later on she says I saw on the tv you were in an earthquake thanks grandma yes grandma I told you on the phone I was not an earthquake yeah I was living away from family and you always get those calls I saw on tv this happened you're like yes it did uh yes it did it did it did yeah my mama texts me and says I looked at the radar it's supposed to rain so you should probably take an umbrella okay thanks why are you looking at the radar for up here like please get off the weather app it's a problem you have a problem mom and I'm a grown-ass woman get a hobby every time she's here she's checking the weather every 15 minutes I'm like the more they like you're not going to change the weather because you're checking it it's still gonna be cold outside the point is of a wishful thinking I don't know what she's doing I want to know what she's doing I mean I really hate that because uh there are days where especially in Pennsylvania you look outside and it's sunny out like oh it's gonna be so nice and you walk outside and it's freezing but it makes no sense because it's sunny but humidity that's what happens over here on the east coast this morning again yeah so it's funny it did snow here a couple nights ago a little bit it didn't stick but I went outside and there were snowflakes when I was walking Quincy and he turned around and said I want to go back inside like nope not happening he said you didn't warn me and I told him that I didn't know so he was not pleased with me also I'm going to plug just since I'm proud of you that you were a collegiate national debate champion and you talk so fast that you broke your jaw wait what that was real life yeah yeah who's in front of some people like a lot of people um my freshman year I was in the semi-finals of the national championship collegiate debate tournament and dislocated one side of my jaw and was speaking so quickly that when that happened it simultaneously dislocated the other side and I've had like three surgeries on it now now what that's wild today they completely cut open my like side of my face and then they suture it the same as the facelift so I used to always joke and and the process was I had like the selactic implants put in and then eight weeks later they removed them and so I used to always joke that I was like the only person who was 20 years old and who had implants inserted and removed and a facelift I'm high maintenance wow that is unreal I still can't chew gum um I can't have laffy taffy there's been like some days my jaw just hurts and it's swollen and I can't open as well and I yeah there's some jokes about this but you know um whenever you're typing and do words per minute do they do that for debates like do they calculate how many words you're saying per minute I'm sure someone has I have I have my video miles per hour but worse I believe that yeah have you ever been asked to be an auctioneer no I know I have no idea I'm just throw that out there because you talk fast so every year in grad school our department did an auction at the Christmas party to raise money for do you remember before I don't remember yeah okay different organization and was the last two years I was there or the first two years I don't know at least two of the years the professor one of the professors knew this about me and asked me to do the auction one year I had enough to drink that I decided to do it so yes one time I've been an auctioneer can we get a little taste of it no I'll send you I'll send you I have the video from the grad party auction so you can like edit a little clip into your podcast if you want perfect you have to have your uh debate championship too yeah I have my debate championship videos for my senior year when I won them yeah I I was listening to them like my brain can't even process what you're saying what you're saying you're talking so fast I can't pick up what you're laying down ma'am I don't know how y'all are debating because I can't even I don't know what's happening right now it's wild well now people that are faster than me too I'm one of the fastest yeah it's wild that's crazy to me I didn't I never would I never knew you have to like practice your breathing they talk so fast and you broke your jaw yeah talk so fast yeah when it broke did it like like did your job so I like stopped took a deep breath I slammed my hands on my legs there's a video of this somewhere I haven't seen it in a couple years though and then I restart and I get like the last 30 seconds of the speech and that was one of the middle speeches in the debate and so I just like was sitting up on stage trying not to cry slash crying for the entire rest of the debate and then afterwards like everyone was like what's going on and I was a freshman debating with someone who was like top caliber expected to win the national championship he was older had been around for a while and everyone thought after the round that I was crying because I thought I blew it and like I was afraid that I lost the round for him and I was like no wow no this is actually serious so at that point I like hadn't opened my jaw and I was in so much pain and we were in California and yeah it was the debate was my life for a long time and I think that influenced all of my dating life too so let's get into that now good yeah so in college I was in college debate we did we traveled like upwards of 10 weekends a year you're working all the time it's a lot like sports so imagine it just a full year sport like your season is the full year and I think even for other college sports where they're like doing training in the off season and stuff like it's it's really consuming in your life but the thing the debate had that a lot of sports don't have is that it's all co-ed so you're constantly just around other people and you're around the same like national group of a couple hundred people that are all nerds they do this crazy thing and they all know each other and can relate to it and so there's a lot of dating within that pool um and I was listening to your episode a week ago or two weeks ago and Brady had this kind of good analogy of a Venn diagram where like your circles can't can't make a complete circle but like there also can be can't be like very little overlap and definitely I think for a good probably like eight or so years of my life my dating life was not great because I was dating people that were like basically a perfect circle in a lot of ways we were just like too alike you know I just didn't it was not it wasn't it wasn't good right right so what ways were you're fully aligned I guess just were these people all from that debate circle so you didn't have too many differences like you all did the same activities all like the same food like what made you guys so much alike because there's like one thing that we spend the most amount of our time in our life is the same and very few people get it but it's like all-encompassing and then you also end up having a very similar worldview which is debates all about you know politics and stuff and there's there's some criticisms of the debate community being kind of unipolar and it's political thought that there's kind of a dominant way of thinking and I do think that to some extent like it becomes an echo chamber when you're just around when you're like only circles are the same people and that's all you're interacting with and so we didn't do anything else like we didn't have our own independent like passions and hobbies and things and then the problem would be when we would get out of that chapter of our life or move to a different chapter like we would start to very quickly grow apart because we didn't have that one thing that was like all-encompassing of our life it totally makes sense so after realizing this then um walk me through the process of like okay I dated these people that were so alike with me which isn't a bad thing but like you just mentioned when there's too much uh commonalities then you can't be your own person so maybe describe or share some stories with that of trying to maybe date other people and in different pools well see I wasn't great at that because I went to grad school and I just dated someone who was in my grade my apartment so I just traded one circle for another circle um yeah and then I went back to the debate circle so that's what I'm saying it was like it was struggle I think because my like formative years of dating and stuff that was what I was initially exposed to like my first boyfriend was a debater and then I went to college and only only dated debaters and then I went to grad school and was like no debaters date someone in my department also a bad idea go back to debaters because that's what I knew and it's different uh and even then it's like it was hard um coming to the realization that that was part of the problem was the book I thought I knew what I liked and what I wanted and accepting that what was best for me was something else and that was when I met my husband okay so now let's talk about that yes so I've actually been engaged twice before I met my husband both to debaters um and neither one of those worked out and I don't think they were ever going to and that's fine um all of a sudden I'm here in Olympia I have this dream job it's literally my dream job like I told people that's where I want to retire ended up getting it straight out of grad school so once my last relationship ended I kind of just like poured myself into my career and married that for a little while which also I will say is not healthy so I feel like becoming my own independent person focusing on myself building myself up not worrying about dating all of that was good but I think you there there are times where you can like pour yourself into work too much and not have a life but anyway um I bought my own house I was just accepting when I was 30 in the start of COVID single no kids dream career now I have a house and I was like man this just isn't something is still missing so I started online dating because it was early beginning COVID and was mostly just like yeah I just want to talk to people and for the first couple of months I like set all these rules for myself I was like okay I live next to a military base not swiping right on any military guys like all right I see your shirtless pic with your big gun and I know you love the gym got it nope not my type and I work for state government so I work for state government but I work for non-partisan so it's like well I live in the capital and there's a lot of people who work for like executive agencies or who are partisan staffers and like what if I date these people and then it ends terribly and then it affects my job okay no state employees not serving around any state employees I don't really want kids not serving around any kids not ready for that and so I have like all these rules and then I uh swiped right on this one guy and that was cute and didn't realize this so we started talking he's like oh I'm in Afghanistan like sorry and I was like wait what and I thought I was being catfished because he was this type of guy who like would respond to my messages over two or three days but like not respond back immediately and was like kind of dodgy it just seemed like and then when I called him out on it he's like oh I'm I'm overseas I'm in the military and that's why I can't talk and I was like okay sure still like weird um and then I he came back to the states and we met up and um agreed to go to a bar and the first thing I thought when I walked in was like holy shit he looks like the picture not a catfish there you go there's the fun yeah exactly very fun surprise super hot um like I'm like I look at him and I'm like he's out of my league like yeah this is how how did I get this guy to go on a date with me and I thought he was a catfish so we go to the bar and uh order a beer and the guy's like no leave it open and I was like or I wasn't paying my now husband said yeah leave it open go sit down start talking conversations awkward because I'm just like this juice so hot I can't think straight like it was I was a mess um and we're drinking our beers and then like beer to come to the end and I'm waiting for him to be like let's get another and all of a sudden he's just like okay yeah I gotta go what okay he's like yeah I gotta get I was like oh you have kids like uh okay military I said no and I somehow swiped right on you before I knew you were a military still didn't believe you're a military and you definitely are a military and I said no swiping right on people's kids and your kids are so hot and like I find you so interesting maybe I'll just like bend the rules um but he goes and closes the tab and I thought like he'll never call me again and the first thing I thought was if he thought the date was going well he was going to buy me a second beer and if he thought the date wasn't going well he was going to close it out so he wanted to give himself an option and so I left we like hugged awkwardly because at this point I'm like dude he's over it he's never going to call me again really kind of have an awkward hug not pissing or anything go in my car I leave I call brandy I said he's so hot and he's never going to call me again I was convinced like he wasn't feeling it two days goes by and I don't hear anything and then he texts me and said he had a great time after a second date and I was like what I found out now um that his brother was in town he his brother lives in Chicago and his brother was in town that day and he was babysitting the kids on a date and when we when he got home Jordan told his brother yeah I think she's really cool I'd like to see her again and Jordan's brother said okay but you can't text her back for a couple days oh you have to wait oh yeah but all the people out there that say there's like a two-day rule or whatever there's not yeah I don't think so either it doesn't exist yeah there's definitely not you can understand and I think he and I part of the way that we're different and brainy was talking about this in a in a prior episode like how much you communicate with one another and like if the person wants to text you all the time that's a problem but if they never text you that's a problem and with Jordan at first I didn't realize she's kind of an old soul like very old soul so like technology all the new apps and stuff he's like not about it it's like whatever so he's not very connected to his phone either so he we set up a second date for like a week down the road a week and a half and he was going to come over to my house and then it was like four or so days but I just didn't hear anything from him and then it's day of the date and I was like I haven't heard from him like he's not he's ghosted me I'm ghosted and he texted me and was like hey do you mind if I bring a dog over I just picked it up today and what's your address and I was like uh I didn't know if you were still coming over and he replied and in a way that like I totally understand now he's like I'm a man of my word I told you I was coming and I was like and I'm on I was like I am so I've been so ingrained by society that like you have to text back immediately and like you need to confirm and if they don't talk to you in days they're ghosting you and that was all he's just like I said I was going to be there I'm going to be there and it was like oh okay well that's cool like good I don't need a second guess or anything yeah Lauren's like I knew it I knew it I told you he wasn't going to call me and then she's like wait he texted me I haven't heard from him he's ghosting me now he's coming over like so funny I love this story too I'm gonna get catfished oh yeah it's like and it's all stems from yeah what I viewed on like social media and television and stuff of like expectations of communication and I love that he doesn't text me all the time it's great we like get home from work and we can have actual conversations about our day because we didn't just like text each other all day about our day and we can like go do our work and focus and do our thing and that's okay it's great so you said no military guys no guys with kids no guys with big muscles so obviously he's in the military obviously he has children what is your husband doing right now uh I think he's on my row machine he's building those muscles yeah so can you go do your podcast I'm gonna go to the garage got it and I finally did get to meet Jordan after they got married because covid love that and she's just far away and she's great isn't that what I pictured for Lauren based on the people he's dated but it works it's surprisingly it's so cute how he is like into your quirks like Lauren has a spreadsheet for everything she's the most organized person she's got calendars she's got spreadsheets and Jordan's just like we gotta put it in the spreadsheet oh yeah he leans in he bought me a sticker for uh what's that our laptop that says freak in the sheet and it has the excel logo yeah he's totally leaned in yeah love that love that too that's awesome yeah because everything I did it like I think that's why he was the one and why it worked just because like I thought I knew what I liked but I just kept dating the same type of people and then I realized that's because that's not what I actually want Jordan's everything I want and need and I think that's the thing it's like we complement each other and so like our strengths complement each other's weaknesses so well that we really are a team that makes kind of like our family and our household function so he's not he's definitely out of the box not on the debate team not in your department like what are his other like interests that make him different and make him the one versus all the other guys that you entertained before he goes to the gym he thought uh takes care of himself which I think is so important and guys I did before just like they didn't take care of themselves they like didn't do what was actually best and then they take care of their bodies and like like they did but they didn't like prioritize it and like my husband prioritizes that like he um the other ways is that he's like a I don't know just very traditional kind of man's man like he likes working on his cars he's got a freaking humvee we have a humvee like who are we invading that was my favorite Lauren's like Jordan just texted me like he bid on a humvee and said how many cars does he have do y'all even have driveway space anymore we have six with the humvee we have six oh my goodness there's two of us and I have one you almost have one for every day of the week yeah only one I drive I can't drive the humvee I don't know how uh we have a jeep this is a stick and I can't drive a stick we have a suburban and it's basically driving a yacht and I don't like driving it and he lifted it on tires because of course it's going to lift a suburban and so I don't like driving that I made a motorcycle which I don't like driving we used to have a pickup truck and I would drive that's fine that's fine Lauren's just over there like why do we own this taking videos and Jordan's so excited he's like you want to take it for a ride like and he's just so like cute like so excited driving it around the parking lot and Lauren's like oh my god we own a humvee coming out of grad school I was like pretty I don't know idealist I guess and um wasn't a huge like I didn't understand anything about the army I didn't understand anything about the military I know one of my family like direct family is the military I've never had like friends who are in the military um and so that was like a whole it's the majority of his life I just knew nothing about right and so that was another thing that um other people in the past like they'd have you know they do things or have parts of their lives that I hadn't previously directly been involved in but I like had some exposure to I could understand and like I did not understand anything about Jordan's world coming into it so I think this kind of helps segue like you obviously have like a very demanding high-powered career as much as you can can you talk a little bit about what Jordan does so that we can get into how y'all balance having two like demanding careers and family life yeah so he's in the army often does like shorter deployments so not like he's not like someone who's going to go deploy for two years in like South Korea we have a couple units out of here that have deployed to South Korea for nine months deployments and like he doesn't really do that but um he's in kind of a more specialized role in the army and so there's just a ton of training and when he does training it's not always like local so even when he's not deployed I think one year um last year two years ago like by April 1st there were 90 days in the year and he was on 45 of them and was mostly in the United States for that but not here so even when he's not deployed he's still gone or like told to have night training and so a random Wednesday in the middle of the week or a Thursday he has to work late and now we have like kids pick up duty from elementary school and so we've got to figure out how we navigate all that even when he's here um and yeah he's in the army so he's got to take care of himself and so even when he's not at work or doing military related things here he's working out in our home gym or doing cardio and running or so it's pretty demanding and it's very irregular whereas my job is demanding and regular like it's eight to five it's eight hours whenever I want really as long as they're like reasonable um and I have work that has to be done but like I'm sitting at a desk in the same office every day and he's somewhere doing something every day and it could be totally different it's wild unpredictable that's why Lauren has so many calendars when there's spreadsheets apparently yeah yeah I'm like on momager now right that's the thing I guess I don't know I don't know if I want to but I am like moving to suburbia and I think next is like I need to get a minivan and then maybe like hashtag momager stickers or something I don't know that's kind of natural progression of things but funny I just got to see the diaper space like our kids when I met them weren't in diapers so it was great I don't have stretch marks and I didn't change diapers like fine and they're great but they have perfume yeah how old are they eight about to be nine and ten I mean those are the fun ages oh yeah I mean you can actually play with them and they can talk to you and yeah like they're old enough to understand more and be interested in more and like real stuff it's not just like paw patrol you know um they're actually interested in like space and learning about real comments and playing sports and all that stuff it's great they're great they're a little bit cute the calendars help I guess how do you like you said earlier like you're really a teen so like how did you figure out how to do that where you can navigate like so many different things such a hectic uncertain schedule that Jordan has and yours is very set so that helps but you're still very busy and then there's kids with their own schedules and how do you how do you figure that out I think a lot of it came naturally I think the biggest thing is like we see each other and we're very present and so I think it's just natural that we know when we need to like step in and step up in one area versus Jordan and in the beginning like I would cook some but like Jordan does most of our cooking in the evening now like he pretty much makes dinner almost every night and he likes to cook but also it's like I have a full day of work and then I'll come home and I have to start yeah what's our schedule for tomorrow where do we need to be who's going to be where um who's picking up the kids dropping off the kids like who's getting the stuff for the Easter baskets and so I come home and immediately start doing like a lot of that planning work and then I do numbers better so like pack stuff recently has been something that's easier for me to do and I enjoy doing that kind of stuff and the planning and the numbers and she enjoys cooking and so he does it but if there's like he's working late one night then I'm just gonna make dinner and make sure it's ready when he gets home so he doesn't have to stay up super late and that's just because why wouldn't I so I think it's a it's really natural that we both know what our strengths are and we respect each other so much that we appreciate each other for those things that they do for us and that's the big thing is I it doesn't matter how many times he makes dinner like I say thank you for making me dinner because I don't like expect it you know he doesn't have to I I could do dinner too but he does and I appreciate that and that is the biggest thing I think about our relationship that is radically different from past relationships I want to back it up a little bit with the very beginning of meeting Jordan so you mentioned about rules when you're like swiping left and right and I relate to that because whenever I and I'm kind of petty with my rules though I'll be honest I resonate with the kids thing because for me I just don't think I'm mature enough yet to handle somebody that already has kids I just I'm very selfish and I'll admit that so that's a hard one for me but like my other couple rules is like okay if I'm looking at a guy's profile on some dating app or whatever like if they're just wearing hats and actually I probably don't wear a hat right now but like if they're just wearing hats like all in their pictures I'm like nah I need to see like the full view so like nope next and my other biggest thing is I love a guy's smile like hard mug shotting like all their pictures and I can't see teeth nope next oh maybe one last thing if they have a dog in their photo with them this is the best one this is the most petty rule if they have a dog in the pictures with them that's fine but I gotta make sure I like the dog the dog can't be ugly or just a dog that I don't think I could because the dog if the person doesn't have pets or sorry if the person doesn't have kids right then that dog is their kid basically so when you like you know watching Netflix or sports or whatever on the couch like that dog's going to be near you and I don't want to cuddle with an ugly dog but what if the dog has a great personality well then I don't know Taylor are you my wife I'm quite the boss I'm like uh I don't have time to get to know your dog this is my favorite one Taylor's like I can't be seen walking an ugly dog what is an ugly dog I was about to say I don't really know what that looks like but like I don't know just like a little chihuahua she always goes like little rat dogs just I like big fluffy ones just ones that are just cute and they're joy they're happy to see you not any dog that makes me question if I'm gonna get eaten or not or that happens yeah yeah for that but anyway so besides that so Jordan he broke some of those rules for you so yes yes so were this was there any kind of doubt or second guessing or any of that like whenever you started dating him like man he's got kids he um is in the military so he's going to be gone quite often like is this really going to work out for me hey I I used to having consistency like walk me through that process or were you just kind of like hey this is new like we're just gonna wing it gonna go with it I called Randy like a million times being like I just don't know if I can't like ah but he does this ah he likes this ah look what I found in this house um so there's a lot of that and but there were so many things that I liked about him like I was curious I also think it's weird because I was kind of like forced to just get to know him because it was COVID time and so like I also didn't want to get sick I followed quarantine pretty heavily and so I didn't want to be like seeing a bunch of different guys so um I kind of it allowed me to commit a little bit more and then not only having kids but he's divorced right from a long marriage by which they had two kids and so there's that whole aspect too and trying to navigate like is he really ready I'm the first woman he's really dated since the divorce um and then the first few months I didn't meet his kids like it was a while before he was ready to introduce me to them and we went on a hike the first time and they'd never like been introduced to women in his life other than like women he worked with at the office when he took the kids in and so it's just like oh yeah this is mom's friend and miss Lauren and we're gonna go on a hike and she's gonna come with us and the whole time it was just it was weird because it's my first time meeting them trying to interact with these kids it's my first time seeing Jordan be a dad um which is a whole different side of someone like you see just a whole different part of their personality and then also them like watching the kids try and reconcile what's happening because they're like oh at our mom's house oh at our mom's house oh at our mom's house and so that was really overwhelming and after that like I don't know if I can like I'm ready to step into that um but I was it turns out and all three of them just like won my heart over and so I it was a lot of like self-doubt I think of like I wouldn't be good enough like I and kind of like you said a little bit of selfishness of like am I ready to kind of give up my independence and not just marriage but also now having to like keep these cute little beings alive um and like make sure they grow up normal so it was a lot and there were definitely times that I questioned it but he just made me feel so sure and made me feel so appreciated and kind of validated me as I was stepping into that because he also recognized like this is all new for me and I think it had just as much to do with like how he supported me through that awesome yeah it's great kind of dream really you want to know when I knew that you were going to marry Jordan when when he got you to eat broccoli oh man I haven't eaten like any vegetables before I met Jordan and this was a big deal because he was so fit and like in the army and like takes such good care of himself and he would make me dinner go to his house and like there'd be vegetables and I was like I have to eat them like I can't he's gonna think I'm crazy if I don't eat vegetables he's like so fit and so I like forced myself to start eating vegetables and I learned to realize I love vegetables and so for you know the first 30 years of my life I thought I hated vegetables kind of like I thought I knew what I needed in my dating life so turns out I was just wrong about everything that I wanted and needed and vegetables are good for you and so is a military divorcee with two kids did you try broccoli before or you just assumed like it's green I guess I'm not gonna like it I did try it um mostly I was little I think I just had some like traumatic experiences of like you have to eat all your peas you know and it's like that just stays with you like I don't want to eat my peas I don't want to eat these dry peas that aren't seasoned or anything yeah I'm not gonna eat them yes and I love like I love my parents but we grew up on like can of corn crack it open put it in the microwave for two minutes that's you know yep that's your side dish Jordan his brother is a um chef in Chicago like a really successful chef has previously gotten rest works restaurant with two stars two Michelin stars but he's Jordan like his younger brother loved cooking his whole life and I think Jordan kind of grew up around that and also just enjoy his cooking and so he makes such he makes everything taste so good like fresh broccoli done the right way it's delicious yeah Lauren called me and she said Brandy I ate broccoli and I didn't hate it I think I liked it and then I went to her house and she was cooking Brussels sprouts and I was like what is happening right now Brandy woman I still can't do cauliflower but like cauliflower is gross so you don't have to like all of it he just got you to eat green things and that was I knew I was like she committed she ate broccoli that's I also just need to say for purposes of this podcast I need to be on the record that I still do not like celery ah I didn't think I grew up my whole life not thinking anything of celery to me it just doesn't taste like anything it literally just nothing Taylor's got to like celery is okay everybody else everybody everybody hates it it's like wow I didn't know everybody had this animosity over celery I also don't like cucumbers and that was the one that I think you brought up you're like what do you eat cucumbers they taste like nothing I also don't like cucumbers ah yeah maybe it's a texture thing I don't know Taylor sent me a picture of her salad the other day with like celery and cucumbers and like all these things and bring it all bring it all in I feel like you're targeting me right now like isn't this delicious no no I'll have to find that picture and show you because like you would have gagged in grad school if you saw that probably that's like salad now those are good I can't believe I was missing out avocados is another one like man I was missing out on so much of my life I'd be like Lauren can you eat vegetables and she's like I'm eating french fries that's a vegetable right totally a vegetable it's a potato yes and then she's like Brandi I'm eating more vegetables I learned how to make scout potatoes it's a vegetable she did cut them very pretty it was very pretty but um like that yeah is Jordan still in the garage I don't hear him so probably he might be doing pull-ups now oh he was gonna go run but it's gross outside today so it's gross here too it rained a lot over the weekend and it was very rainy or windy like pretty bad yesterday well I guess is there any advice that you have for any advice for really working on your passions and making it something where you can actually make a change or just I guess dating in general I've kind of gotten into it but just you know kind of a closing yeah I mean on your passions I mean I think don't let anyone tell you you can't or that you should do something else listen to your gut you spend how much like a majority of your life working why spend that time doing something you don't enjoy and you're not passionate about like it should be more than a paycheck my job is so much more than a paycheck to me like I love I love what I do and what I produce in the world um and the impact that it has um for dating don't trust your gut don't don't box yourself in you know give people a chance I think um and give yourself a chance to like maybe step into a role that you think you're not ready or prepared for it in the end it could be really fulfilling and rewarding so well great that's all great advice um thanks lauren again for joining our show and talking to us appreciate your story and your advice and just everything you shared with us today thanks for having me I'm glad I could join you too finally we hope you enjoyed that episode with our very first special guest lauren as she shared her insight with y'all okay now catch up with us again next week bye so