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Music Hello and welcome back to Big Mood Little Mood. I'm your host, Daniel M. Lavery. And with me in the studio this week is Nico Stratus, a freelance culture writer whose work has appeared in outlets like spin, bitch, extra, catapult, autostraddle, and more. Her work primarily focuses on culture, the 1990s, queer and trans topics, and as often as possible where all those ideas intersect.

Nico, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so, so glad to get you here today.

I feel like we've got a wonderful spectrum of questions that people can have, just really running the gamut. And so I feel excited

to hopefully make their lives a little bit better. I mean, fingers crossed. If I don't make

your life better, please send me a self-addressed envelope and I will do what I can to improve

the situation.

I'll go ahead and read our first letter if that's all right with you.

That works for me.

The subject is excessive or reasonable.

I've been seeing my partner for about five months.

We're both non-binary and in our mid-20s.

We've been exclusive for about a month, although we're open to non-monogamy.

I'm really happy to have found a partner who shares my values and interests and is also very communicative and goes to therapy, etc. We also both support one another's independence,

which is important to me, but I'm starting to think we're a little too independent.

Sometimes I feel a bit isolated or even single. I love to be surrounded by people and would like to see my partner often.

My partner needs more alone time, and I'm glad we're both attuned with each other's differences.

...