Dan & Phil Part 97: Arch enemies and Husbands

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alittledizzy
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liola wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:57 pm None of us know them personally so we're all just sharing opinions. I personally don't think they're anything but a couple in a monogamy committed relationship and that is also because of Phil's comments about love and dating and his wishes in the past. I also think the background of his family and his parents being obviously very affectionate and monogamous feeds into it. I don't think he would be with someone who wants an open relationship to be fair. Dan has also said things that hinted heavily on him believing in monogamy so I don't take his comments as anything but.. thirst. And also, part of his online persona, just like the overly relatable jokes when talking about anything serious.

My approach to this is that the easiest solution is the most probable solution
Warning: this answer is less me talking about the open relationship topic and more just me being an emotional proud of Dan mess.

For me I see it like Dan's late teen and early 20s years, which is when most people kinda... feel themselves most and are most actively exploring that kind of attraction and who is attracted to them, were steeped in shame and trauma. It took him until he was 28 to be ready with wanting and seeking that kind of ego confirming attention from gay men, as a gay man. I think Phil is probably very understanding of that considering Phil did get to have that kind of experience at university, which he's shared with us. He got to live in a place that felt safe, with people he felt safe with, comfortable enough to do things like give his number to a random guy he shared a cab with. Dan had Phil and got a different kind of security in himself with that relationship but I think it's totally valid for him to want to get the other side of that experience now. Phil is so dedicated to Dan, so proud of Dan, so painfully aware of exactly where Dan started and exactly where Dan is now that I get emotional thinking of things like Phil spending two hours trying to line up a wine glass with Dan's nipple just so Dan can post a thirst trap online and get some of that attention?? Like damn man that is Love lmao. And Dan just radiating appreciation for Phil and in a video where he's laying his entire heart, history, trauma, and progress on the line featuring Phil in such a central way - a clear turning point in Dan being vulnerable and alone to the point of suicidal - 'and then, though the magic of the internet, I met Phil.' I'm not trying to push the 'Phil saved Dan' agenda but finding someone he felt safe with did seem to be the lifeline that Dan clung to until he was in a place where he could save himself with therapy, meds, mindfulness, whatever methods he cobbled together. And now they're secure both emotionally and financially and building this permanence and stability together along with their home... like, god damn.

Anyway this has devolved to just me being in love with their love.
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To me this conversation just puts a point under something Dan said in BIG, about not wanting people to get so invested in his private life that when something changes it becomes drama, which I took to mean something like a couple breaking up or the nature of their relationship changing (like, say, going from monogamy to open or from romantic to platonic or vice versa). And one way you control that is by limiting information.

We can all have our opinions, based on reasoned evidence, but I do agree with the overall consensus that they have been deliberately non-definitive exactly because people (me included!) are invested in their relationship being a certain thing, and that's kinda of a no-win situation for them. They share more, and they risk making people mad who might have wished for a certain type of narrative; they share less and people speculate anyway. I feel like we'll probably get more relaxation in the future about how they present themselves, but I feel like the approach they've taken now is a really smart one. It's their business and whatever the "answer" is in terms of the nitty-gritty details, I think someone out there would find the reality disappointing in some way because we all have our own personal investments in the narrative being a certain one.

Like, people break up. People's ideas of what they want out of relationship changes. I find the idealizing of their relationship a bit troubling -- I read fic, for example, and I am much more comfortable with the romance in those sorts of stories because it's clearly fiction to me -- but in real life there's no way either of them can live up to some of the swooning narratives I see built up around them. So yeah, this path they are taking so far makes a lot of sense to me as two people in a relationship who are at the center of a lot of idealization and who also want some normal level of a private life.
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I've never seen Dan's comments about being thirsty/wanting attention from others as a case against him and Phil being in a monogamous relationship. Posting thirst traps, wanting dms, going full ass in a magazine shoot, it's all just wanting positive attention from the world around you and enjoying feeling wanted. Never has he made a comment about acting on those dms, only that he wants them. And like, who doesn't want to feel hot every once in a while?

And Phil is always in background either taking the damn thirst trap photo for two hours, or being supportive about Dan's endeavors.

(Yes poly/open relationships absolutely exist, but I've seen nothing in them that suggest it would apply here.)
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Dizzy's point of there being so many little things over the years is the one I feel the most. Also stop making me emo with your post above post wtf :rainbowtears:

I feel like everyone has made the big points and I'm really just tacking on, but one thing I also think about (and makes me emotional) is the amount of holiday time Dan has spent with Phil and Phil's family over the years. Like many years Dan has spent most of the christmas holiday time with Phil's family and then gone to visit his family alone for a short time on and around actual christmas. I personally think that Phil's family has been aware and accepting of their relationship from the very beginning (whether or not Phil's 'ahem staying the night' was Dan or slightly before), and it is one of the things that makes me so fucking happy that Dan could have that while working so hard to be closeted and going through so much internal shit.

However, just because I think Phil's family was aware of their relationship, I don't know/think he was necessarily traditionally out to them in terms of like 'I'm gay'. One of the comments Dan made in one of his interviews in the last year (I think it was attitude??) about how recent some of his work around being comfortable with certain labels was really hit me and I think it makes a lot of sense (also with what he said about putting sexuality stuff in a box to deal with later in BIG) that he was able to really stay away from analyzing his sexuality and finding a traditional label for it because he didn't have the space for that and it was easier to just be like 'sexuality: Phil.' and that's all that was immediately relevant. I think that would probably extend to his outness to Phil's family in terms of them knowing he was with Phil but not knowing (and Dan himself not knowing) necessarily if he was gay, queer, bi, etc.

On Phil's comment about 'getting your ass out for the attitude shoot' and Dan's other pictures I personally think there's decent reason to believe that Dan's always just been a little bit of a ho (that's our Dan) lmaoo. He certainly does have a very complicated relationship with getting attention, which I think plenty of people who have (had) issues with self worth and so forth may relate to where you both crave validation and confirmation from others that you look good/made something good/etc. but are also terrified of attention and the scrutiny that it might bring, as you already have so much of that scrutiny towards yourself. But Dan has always enjoyed an occasional suggestive moment and I agree with what other people have said that now he's finally getting the chance to feel comfortable getting some public attention.

In terms of individual moments that make me believe they have a relationship that is very inline with traditional amatonormative ideals, one of them is combined with their various comments that leads me to believe they are most interested in monogamy, Dan's description of them in BIG as 'companions through life' has always stuck with me. I personally interpret this to mean that they plan to be each other's closest person through their entire lives. That's basically what marriage is societally supposed to be without the marriage part. Also part of Dan's Living My Truth video has always cracked me up like
Dan, listing most important contributors to happiness in his life: Laughter, food and sex.
Also Dan at all times: I hate going outside I hardly ever leave the house
Like wow Dan it's almost like some guy you get along with really well who you've lived with for years could sort you out with all of that :lol:

Anyway, they have so much together, some of which I think just happens to be a fairly traditional romantic relationship.
And, strong agree with Megancita, that them keeping things vauge gives them room to change and evolve without becoming immediate confirmed drama. While we would notice and have a fluff about it, not applying any certain labels to their relationship makes it a lot harder for press who would love to get their hands on any juicy online-personality relationship tea, a lot harder.

Uni starts again today, Phil better be uploading that video so I can distract myself. pls.
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Dan had Phil and got a different kind of security in himself with that relationship but I think it's totally valid for him to want to get the other side of that experience now. Phil is so dedicated to Dan, so proud of Dan, so painfully aware of exactly where Dan started and exactly where Dan is now that I get emotional thinking of things like Phil spending two hours trying to line up a wine glass with Dan's nipple just
your words are so warm and cute that I choke myself laughing when after all that lovely image you had painted, you went for the "line up a wine glass with Dan's nipple" *dies on the floor* :rofl: :stan:

But still! I feel like you've perfectly encapsulated their experiences! I am not quite convinced about how Phil feels about all of this. Nobody is a saint, although he does seems one <3 and I can bet that he most likely is the person who you think he is, but I also feel that, as an adult, he must have other sides to him. He may want to be supportive, and that's lovely, but in return, wouldn't this means that he'd appreciate the same from Dan? :straggy:

And Phil is always in background either taking the damn thirst trap photo for two hours, or being supportive about Dan's endeavors.
How supportive has Dan been in this last year around Phil's endeavours? Participating in the last Stereo thing does count as being supportive, but previously? Was he liking Phil's posts (which helps Phil's business?)
a clear turning point in Dan being vulnerable and alone to the point of suicidal
I never saw this. I came out of that video feeling that the main point was only about Dan being gay/his journey to acceptance, but you are right. It is about Dan's journey, but once you get into the raw reality of those dark years pre-Phil, he does come into the narative as the one who made the difference :( omg <3
Never has he made a comment about acting on those dms,
He did say that he is horny/thirsty, which you wouldn't be after a 10 year relationship (chemically speaking, too).
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'dnp are poly' really is the new 'dnp are queerbaiting' discourse on this forum, huh?

(and by that i mean it gets brought back up repeatedly, the points made are the same every time, and a lot of wacky and reaching assumptions are made.)
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I am personally really not interested in any kind of line-items of evidence and then quibbling about little points. If people see everything I see and enjoy thinking that they might be poly, fine, enjoy that. You don't have to agree with me. If folks are new and haven't seen a lot of what there is to see in a decade of videos and social media and analysis, that's very fair, and there's a wealth on info on IDB and elsewhere to help with the info gap. I don't personally keep a log of :/ things they say because that would make me sad and that's not fun research for me today.

However I just searched my tumblr and here's what I found quickly:
"the Never Have I Ever vid is heavy on monogamy assumptions, like he fully assumes that kissing a married person would be immoral, and i don’t think most poly people would assume monogamy of other people that way as if there’s no ethical way for a married person to be nonmonogamous"
"phil thinks having 2 husbands at the same time is insane"

The jealousy stuff is older (well, I didn't pay attention to what anyone was saying about nonmonogamy earlier on, so that might be there too) and well-known, jealous!Dan is a trope at this point and there are compilations of clips on YouTube, etc. The one where he describes himself as a jealous person shouldn't be hard to find but my lunchbreak is over.

I agree that these things are very cyclical and can grate on us in that repetition, but at the same time it does seem to generally be different people asking the questions, so without an FAQ or separate area for such discussions I can't blame folks for asking about what they haven't hashed out yet, if the interest is genuine and not just trolling.
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Templeofshame wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 5:49 pm
However I just searched my tumblr and here's what I found quickly:
"the Never Have I Ever vid is heavy on monogamy assumptions, like he fully assumes that kissing a married person would be immoral, and i don’t think most poly people would assume monogamy of other people that way as if there’s no ethical way for a married person to be nonmonogamous"
"phil thinks having 2 husbands at the same time is insane"
Ok but why saying that Phil saying that is not a joke/light hearted, while it most likely is since they are acting up for entertainement but when dan makes comments about being thirsty for sex/men it's suddenly totally a joke/light hearted and he will never act on it ?
Also open relationship and having more than 1 romantic partner / cheating isn't the same thing
The jealousy stuff is older (well, I didn't pay attention to what anyone was saying about nonmonogamy earlier on, so that might be there too) and well-known, jealous!Dan is a trope at this point and there are compilations of clips on YouTube, etc. The one where he describes himself as a jealous person shouldn't be hard to find but my lunchbreak is over
I only know that 1 old jealousy clip ? where did he talk more about jealousy ?

btw i have seen A LOT of dnp and this opinion is what came up so i don't think being new is really the reason for thinking this way (and i'm not "new" to them anway), really and honestly, it's dan's comments. It's just that. It lead me to that. Not that i want them to be in an open relationship but i just see it this way
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It looks as though the last Stereo show has really invigorated the phandom, and brought in new interest, including to IDB.

We do have a FAQ forum here, and there are many other side threads open to explore. But, the heart of the forum has always been the current main thread, and here we are. <3 Some conversations seem recurring and even repetitive to us oldtimers, but that's what long-running convos are like!

Speaking of the main thread, our conversation is running so fast we will soon need a new one! Get in any last-minute name suggestions :snowflake2: here :snowflake2: , and look for the poll soon!
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TuxedoSam wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:07 pm
Templeofshame wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 5:49 pm
However I just searched my tumblr and here's what I found quickly:
"the Never Have I Ever vid is heavy on monogamy assumptions, like he fully assumes that kissing a married person would be immoral, and i don’t think most poly people would assume monogamy of other people that way as if there’s no ethical way for a married person to be nonmonogamous"
"phil thinks having 2 husbands at the same time is insane"
Ok but why saying that Phil saying that is not a joke/light hearted, while it most likely is since they are acting up for entertainement but when dan makes comments about being thirsty for sex/men it's suddenly totally a joke/light hearted and he will never act on it ?
Also open relationship and having more than 1 romantic partner / cheating isn't the same thing
The jealousy stuff is older (well, I didn't pay attention to what anyone was saying about nonmonogamy earlier on, so that might be there too) and well-known, jealous!Dan is a trope at this point and there are compilations of clips on YouTube, etc. The one where he describes himself as a jealous person shouldn't be hard to find but my lunchbreak is over
I only know that 1 old jealousy clip ? where did he talk more about jealousy ?

btw i have seen A LOT of dnp and this opinion is what came up so i don't think being new is really the reason for thinking this way (and i'm not "new" to them anway), really and honestly, it's dan's comments. It's just that. It lead me to that. Not that i want them to be in an open relationship but i just see it this way
This is exactly why I said I don't want to do line-items and defend them. I am not making an argument here. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was asked for examples of information I referenced and I do not have any reason to spend my day (when I should be working) hunting down receipts to convince people that I do not know to agree with me about things that fundamentally do not matter. Believe what you want to believe.

I personally believe, from my experience with the poly people among my family and friends (and media consumption), that poly people tend to be (more than monogamous people) conscious of the implications of the jokes they make that imply erasure or stereotypes about polyamory. Casual misconceptions about a group of people tend to be more likely to slip into lighthearted comments made by someone who has little understanding of that group of people than a member of that group. (That's not to say that it's by any means impossible for queer people to make casual heteronormative comments or similar, it's just less prevalent.) So when Phil says things that make me cringe a little because they seem to reflect a lack of Phil ever considering that someone could have, say, an open marriage, that supports the idea to me that Phil is ignorant about polyamory and is probably not polyamorous.

Phil was absolutely making jokes. Those jokes, in my opinion, reflected a lack of considering that it was even a possibility that a stranger might be poly or practice any form of ethical nonmonogamy. That is all I was saying.

As I mentioned re: jealousy, I don't have any particular clips at hand but they're not hard to find and there are a number of compilations on YouTube you are welcome to search if you are interested. If folks want to do the white whale thing here, go for it. We've had this same conversation so many times and I have work to do and I'm tired.
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Levitating wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 5:44 pm He did say that he is horny/thirsty, which you wouldn't be after a 10 year relationship (chemically speaking, too).
I just want to reply to this statement in general, not specific to DnP. People's hormone levels and degree of horniness doesn't necessarily subside in a long-term relationship. For sure, I think the nature of the sex you have with a long-term partner will change (and in some cases that might mean diminishment, but in other cases the familiarity makes it better), but it's not a given that your sex drive toward your partner or other people just goes away merely because you've been with someone for a long time. I just find that idea to be not a common one at all in my realm of experience and among my friends, so just wanted to offer an alternate perspective. I find it a surprising statement, actually. In fact, most people I know in long-term relationships are more comfortable expressing their thirst/horniness, not less.
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Omg that tittle is total clickbait
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It's here!

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Phil really knows how to get those views. And is that Phil's camera man? I always love a good face reveal.

Also, no reason I'm bringing this up, but do y'all remember Dan's reaction when Phil was talking about his airport surfer boy pal? That was funny.
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lefthandedism wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:49 pm It's here!

ahhh finally :stan: and also - they're doing an afterparty at 9pm?? or did i get it wrong
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I don't know why it just hit me that them having bought the house in 2017 means that they've been paying 2 rents and probably a mortgage for THREE YEARS? I'm almost surprised we didn't get more spons from Phil during that period.
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dontpanic wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:51 pm
Also, no reason I'm bringing this up, but do y'all remember Dan's reaction when Phil was talking about his airport surfer boy pal? That was funny.
I remember, it was indeed very funny :)
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Not to be that person but on the first 5 minutes it looked like Dan was supporting his weigh by putting a hand on Phil's thigh and that is so cute I actually want to die. Will I make it to the home part? I guess we'll see.
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Dan and Phil each fixing a sofa pillow behind the other's back ruined me. Reminded me of that old school first date move where you'd sneakily move your arm behind your date's back to see how they would feel about cuddling. But also ruined me.
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gnostic wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:23 pm Dan and Phil each fixing a sofa pillow behind the other's back ruined me. Reminded me of that old school first date move where you'd sneakily move your arm behind your date's back to see how they would feel about cuddling. But also ruined me.
The fact that Dan did it and then like twenty seconds later Phil reached behind Dan god it's ridiculous how squishy that made my heart feel.

:rainbowtears:
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that video was just what i needed today! they're so fun.
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shan wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 8:02 am
madytastic wrote: Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:13 pm you guys i'm crying when is phil going to upload the stereo video lmaooooo
I've woken up every morning since half-expecting it to be uploaded, I'm desperate for some DnP chatting on camera. Please Phil, for my sanity, tomorrow please please please :stan:

My puzzle was delivered today and I'm in two minds about it. I LOVE puzzles, I have a pretty substantial collection of nerdy anime ones, but unfortunately this one fits in the category of 'most pieces can fit with any other'. I'm focusing on the bottom half at the moment since it has most of the design and I'm dreading the sky. I've already had an issue with the bottom border putting two pieces on the exact opposite side to where they belong because they fit perfectly in the wrong spot and the design isn't distinct enough to make it obvious visually. I love the idea and would be super into him making another but maybe not this company? Anyone else tried the puzzle and noticed this? I'll admit a couple of glasses of wine have gone along with it but that's one of my prerequisites of puzzle assembly :lol:
yes! i'm right there with you. love the idea of more puzzles from phil and the art of this one is beautiful but the quality is not good and makes for an extremely frustrating time instead of a relaxing one.

i'm so happy to have the video :)

something that stood out to me during the audio was phil talking about missing his family and how he can't talk about it much without getting emotional. and then to see dan's reaction to it on camera was just a lot. like it seemed like such a genuine moment of acknowledging phil's sadness and also feeling it a little bit too.
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Help me help me it's been so long since we've seen Dan on video i'm so emotional and i don't know why!! Damn i've missed him so much 😭

He looks so cute in the bear jumper 🥺 Phil looks so good too!
And why did my heart skip a beat when Dan reached behind Phil to fix the pillow... my stupid brain thought he was going for a hug! Silly me wishes

Also! I never downloaded stereo (oops) but i think i can catch the afterparty... do i just download the app and follow Phil? Will a notification pop up or something?

More content.. incoming.. so excited!
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God. They look so soft in their big jumpers, the bear jumper is adorable and Phil just. Looks so good in the purple one. Chef's kiss. :ribena:

I have really missed them interacting. I thought I was prepared after hearing the show multiple times but nooo. The little touches and the beaming smiles and the bts photos of moving just. Wow. I'm a mess :happytears:

The video is already at 325k views and I'm a little scared that it's going to end up on the trending page, that never ends well
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I cannot wrap my mind around another show so QUICKLY like oh my god.

I hope this is Stereo paying Phil extra to bring more traffic to the app.

And I hope they keep doing it maybe?!
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