Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Why don't men ask follow-up questions? Not just on dates, but with their own friends. How can two guys be best friends and know so little about each other's lives? From No Such Thing , Manny, Noah, and Devan investigate with masculinity expert Liz Plank, and put their own friendship to the test. Listen to more No Such Thing at nosuchthing.show . Suppot independent podcasting! Donate to Radiotopia...

Kyle is losing faith in humanity. How can anyone still support Trump? Are they stupid? Crazy? Or just terrible people? Yowei brings Kyle together with two former MAGA supporters to find out.  For Brian and Ashton's recommendations, get our free newsletter at proxyhq.org .

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.  From the episode: — Le...

The case of the tryhard who wants to care less. Yowei has a problem. She overprepares, overthinks, and gets so caught up in worrying about doing a good job that sometimes it makes her worse at her job Jay Caspian Kang is a staff writer for The New Yorker and co-host of Time to Say Goodbye . He manages to do serious, thoughtful work, while giving the impression that he couldn't care less what. anyo...

The case of the other woman.  Ellie never thought she’d be the other woman. Then she fell in love with a married man.  In this episode, we find Ellie a proxy: another woman who knows what it’s like to end up in the same impossible position. Together, they talk about shame, responsibility, and what it means to live with a choice you regret when you don’t regret where it led. Proxy’s fall membership...

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 fo...

The case of the woman about to start medical school who’s scared to ask for help with her drinking. Chloe loves her life. There’s just one problem: she’s starting to drink more than she wants to, and she doesn’t understand why. But Chloe is scared that asking for help could threaten the career she’s worked so hard for. So how do you deal with a drinking problem before it becomes an emergency? How...

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.

Kaitlin Prest is one of the OG art weirdos of podcasting — creator of The Heart, the acclaimed queer feminist show about bodies, gender, power, intimacy, and the mysterious emotional terrain between people. But these days, Kaitlin is not pitching ambitious projects or chasing the next career milestone. She’s living with her parents in the suburbs of Ontario, making what she calls “a very simple, p...

The case of the asexual woman who wants romantic partnership with no sex.  Taelor wants a partner who wants what she wants: closeness, commitment, emotional intimacy, a life together. Just not sex. But years of dating as an asexual woman has left Taelor wondering if what she wants is too specific to find. Does she keep trying? And if love without sex isn’t possible for her, how does she cope? How...

The case of the progressive rich guy who doesn’t know what to do with his money. Sam grew up middle class, built a company, sold it, and suddenly found himself with more money than he ever expected. But instead of feeling free, Sam feels stuck. He doesn’t want to become the kind of rich person he used to judge. He doesn’t want money to change his relationships. He doesn’t want to hoard it. He does...

The case of the person who worries their husband still sees them as his wife.  Alex is nonbinary, and their husband Henry is a straight cis man. Henry has been supportive through every step of Alex’s transition — pronouns, testosterone, top surgery — but Alex worries: if Henry is straight, does that mean he still sees Alex as a woman? In this episode, we find Alex two proxies: Elvis, a trans man w...

The case of the podcast host who can't speak bro. For the past twelve years, Yowei has been trying — and failing — to have a normal conversation with her husband's best friend. It's not for lack of goodwill. But somehow, every time, they can't find a rhythm. Yowei's theory: he speaks bro, and she doesn't know how.  In this episode, Yowei finds a proxy bro and gets a crash course in bro banter — th...

The case of the dog trainer who stopped feeling close to her own dogs.  Jane's whole life has been dogs. Doggie daycare, animal rescue, behavior modification, fostering, training — dogs were the place she felt most at home. Which is why Jane is so disturbed by what's happening now. She still takes care of her two dogs. She still loves them. But the feeling is gone.  In this episode, Yowei finds a...

The case of the writer whose inner narrator disappeared.  For most of her life, Caitlin Myer had a narrator. A voice that told stories, shaped sentences, kept her company, and made writing feel less like work than a way of being alive. Then, after a concussion, the voice disappeared. Caitlin could no longer write the way she used to. She couldn’t hear the music of her own sentences. And even as sh...

Once upon a time, Yowei felt embarrassed to have a boyfriend—not because of him, but because of what it said about her.  This story comes from the Love Letters podcast. Listen to more of their episodes here .  Proxy is back with new cases every other Tuesday. Follow the show so you don’t miss the next one. New to Proxy? Start with Bisexual Wife Guy — it’s one of the clearest examples of what this...

The case of the organizer who's afraid to stop being angry.  Nicole knows how to be mad — and channel that into her work as a labor organizer and activist. The problem is, Nicole’s aggro mode doesn’t always stay in her political work. Sometimes it spills onto friends, family, and strangers. And underneath the anger, Nicole suspects there’s a feeling she’s afraid of: grief over the horrors she's fi...

The case of the woman who wants to forgive her mom, but doesn't know how.  Erin wants to forgive her mother. Not because her mother deserves it. Not because Erin wants a relationship with her. But because Erin is tired of feeling so angry.  The problem is, forgiveness feels like science fiction. How do you release resentment toward someone who hurt you deeply? How do you stop being mad without pre...

The case of the teenager who can't go home. Yaroslava was 16 when she woke up in Ukraine to the sound of explosions and had to flee her town in Ukraine.  Now Yara is 19, living in New York, studying digital marketing, arranging flowers, and doing better. But her grandma is still back home. Her friends are scattered. And every time Yara starts to enjoy her life here, she feels guilty for not being...

The case of the introverts and extroverts who love each other, but sometimes can't stand each other.  Why do some friends need constant contact, while others need three to five business days to text back? Why does one person’s “fun hang” feel like torture to another? And why does it hurt so much when the people we love have different ideas of what connection should look like? In this special Proxy...

An Emotions Beat episode about the reasons that keep going missing.  In  family estrangement, there's a strange pattern that shows up again and again: adult children say they've explained why they need distance, while parents say they have no idea what went wrong.  So where do the reasons go?  In part 2 of our estrangement series, reporter Kim Nederveen Pieterse talks with two therapists who work...

The case of the mother whose kids won’t talk to her. JC’s adult children have cut off contact with her. They’ve told her why. But JC still doesn’t understand what happened — or what, if anything, she’s supposed to do now. So reporter Kim Nederveen Pieterse finds JC a proxy: Chess Dugas, a woman who cut off contact with her own parents and now talks publicly about estrangement on her YouTube channe...

The case of two podcasters who hated asking for money. Alex Goldman used to host Reply All . Yowei used to host Invisibilia . Now they both make independent podcasts — Alex with Hyperfixed , Yowei with Proxy — which means they now have to ask listeners for money all the time.  The problem, is they hate doing this.  In this episode, Yowei and Alex investigate the the great emotional conundrum of in...

An Emotions Beat investigation about what silence sounds like when your rights are under attack.  After Trump’s reelection, Sandy Ernest Allen watched attacks on trans rights escalate — and waited for more cis people to say something. Check in. Show up. Make noise. But mostly, he heard silence. Then Sandy did something counterintuitive. Instead of asking why people didn’t care, he asked cis people...

An Emotions Beat episode about how to keep caring without falling apart. Anya Kamenetz was having trouble coping with the state of the world. So she decided to report on those feelings.  In this episode, Yowei talks with Anya about what she's learned from scientists, activists, psychologists, and thinkers about how to live through crises upon crises. Together, they investigate compassion fatigue,...