Bitch Listen, a rewired news group podcast hosted by Gimani Gandhi.

This is Bitch Listen.

So bitch, listen.

Welcome to Bitch Listen, the podcast where I dissect identity, power, and the bad habits I

develop from being extremely online for most of my adult life. I'm your host, Imani

Gandhi, angry black lady, if you've ever been on the wrong end of one of my opinions.

It's December, which is already a hostile time of year. I don't like the holidays. I never

have. Historically, this is when I cope by arguing with strangers online and pretending that

counts as community. Romance? Affection? I mean, I've always appreciated it, but for other people.

When it's aimed at me, I experience the sudden urge to disappear.

So imagine my irritation when this year, I'm fine.

I'm calmer, less reactive, less interested in discourse for sport.

I'm spending dramatically less time yelling at men with eagles in their

bios. And this is deeply inconvenient for me because I basically built an entire personality

around being annoyed online. Right. Okay. And a big reason for that is sitting across from me right now.

Well, not really across from me. She's in the

dining room and I'm in my office. Today's guest is my partner, Portia Birch. Now, we're not doing

a Hallmark holiday episode. I'm not that sappy. No cocoa, no sweaters, although we do have matching

Savage Ex-Fenty onesies and it's super adorable. But there's no pretending the world isn't still a mess.

We're talking about companionship, about Black Joy, and what happens when someone quietly

disrupts your coping mechanisms, like my very committed relationship with online discourse.

We're also going to be talking about how being with the right person can change how you

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