One night at a Wendy’s drive-through, Gretchen asked me, “how come you haven’t asked me to do that interview with your person thing?”

I confirmed there was honey mustard in my bag and turned to her. “Because you explicitly said you didn’t wanna do stuff like that.” By “stuff like that” I meant “be vulnerable on the internet,” because even though that’s basically my entire career, it’s not hers!

This was true, Gretchen admitted. But in that moment, she told me later, she’d wanted to be the type of significant other who was “super chill and open” as well as “a selfless human with impeccable vibes,” so she said, “well, I changed my mind! Let’s do the interview.”

I was surprised and clearly so was Gretchen — after dropping me off she ate all of her nuggets in the car and sped home high on the pure thrill of being an extremely cool person. Then she got home, threw open her computer, read the interview questions, and totally, 100% panicked. “I obviously can’t do this,” she followed up. “What IS WRONG WITH ME?”

I told her it was fine — again, no pressure! But she seemed really determined to get over her reticence and so it happened that with an absolute void of insistence from me to do so, she informed me a few weeks later that she was in fact ready, right that minute (it was 10pm on a Saturday night) to conduct this interrogation.

---

How did you meet/get together? How long did you know each other before becoming romantically involved?

Gretchen: That’s the first question? Not—

Riese: It’s a softball question!

Gretchen: Not “what’s your name and your favorite color?”

Riese: Well, what is your name and favorite color?

Gretchen: Gretchen, blue.

Riese: Okay.

Gretchen: Next question.

Riese: Okay. You want to ease into it?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: Okay. What do you like to have for dinner?

Gretchen: Oh gosh. So many things. You see how I just lit up with that question? That’s never going to happen again for the rest of the interview. How did we meet and what’s the second part?

Riese: How long we knew each other before we were romantically involved.

Gretchen: We met how all lesbians meet. At the GLAAD Awards.

Riese: Right. We met for the first time at the GLAAD Awards in 2017. I was still living in Michigan but I’d come out to L.A. to do red carpet for it with Kristin.

Gretchen: Yeah. We were both being honored for Lesbians of the Year. You beat me. Your speech was… It took my breath away.

Riese: Yeah. I swept the awards that year, I also won Outstanding Film Wide Release.

Gretchen: And I thought: “I have to make her mine.”

Riese: Exactly. That’s exactly what happened.

Gretchen: Wow. It just— tears come to my eyes just remembering it.

Riese: It was a memorable… It was such a magical night honestly.

Gretchen:  Actually, we made no impression on each other.

Riese: Nope, not at all.

Gretchen: Just a blip.

Riese: I have a super, super vague memory of Kristin introducing me to you and [Gretchen’s girlfriend at the time] Hil after the show. And I was with S– [who I’d just started dating].

Gretchen: Who was adorable.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. They were adorable, they had their backpack on!

Gretchen: For the whole night.

Riese: They were in law school so they’d come straight from class or something, or I think were gonna spend the night so they’d packed for that.

Gretchen: They made more of an impression because they looked so… they were just so happy to be there.

Riese: I know, they were so happy.

Gretchen: Like they got right off the school bus and right into the GLAAD Awards. It was truly adorable.

Riese: And you thought, “wow, one day I could be that happy to be standing there with this person.”

Gretchen: I was just like, “hopefully one day I’ll know how to be that happy.” That wide-eyed and just … your whole life’s in front of you. I guess that’s also a symptom of them being younger.

Riese: So that night we didn’t really talk besides being introduced to each other, and then we actually met for real at A-Camp in 2018.

Gretchen: I was close friends with [A-Camp Co-Director] Kristin and she invited me to come check it out as her guest. So I showed up in the middle of camp. The first thing I did was go to a Boxed Wine and Cheese tasting that you and Laneia were hosting, which I didn’t realize was an extremely exclusive event.

Riese: I’m sure you Venmoed us $500 afterwards. [Ed. Note: Gretchen: always venmos people unprompted for any perceived amount of money she suspects she could in any way owe for anything.]

Gretchen: Well, when I found out I was horrified, when you explained, “Oh, it’s kind of exclusive and only 25 campers who win the lottery get to come.” And I’d just rolled up all, “What’s your best event and where should I sit for it?” Anyway I was oblivious, so I sat down and I was sitting with [Laneia’s then-spouse].

Riese: Right.

Gretchen: Yes. And you and Laneia were doing your sketch or I don’t know — not a sketch, but it felt like that. Like a tight five. And everyone thought it was just thrilling, you guys were hilarious and the campers were clearly loving it, so I got my phone out and started recording. And I still have videos of you and Laneia doing your little boxed wine bits.

Riese: That’s really cute.

Gretchen: Yeah. I just thought, this is really adorable. But we were both getting into situationships with other people at the time. It wasn’t like in that moment I thought, “That will be my girlfriend.”

Riese: No, you just said that you really wanted to be friends. You left a little note in my box, like “Do you want to be friends? We both live in LA” or something like that.

Gretchen: That’s funny. I don’t remember that at all. But I remember I was in bed with you at one point platonically, ’cause your room was across the hall from Kristin’s so we were all hanging out there, and you said, “Your boob is falling out of your shirt.”

Riese: Really?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: You’ve never told me this before!

Gretchen: Yeah. You pulled up my shirt. My boob was showing. And you had just thrown up glitter. It was like everything-

Riese: Oh yeah, I did throw up glitter.

Gretchen: … The stars were aligned.

Riese: It sounds like we were both doing really well.

Gretchen: Yeah. I was like, what do you mean my boob is out… anyway I was dressed as a lifeguard!

Riese: Wow. Oh yeah. I remember the lifeguard outfit.

Gretchen: I was going to save all those lives.

Riese: Because I was like, “wow, she’s not even a camper and she brought a really good costume for the dance.”

Gretchen: I was hype! God, that was so fun. Anyway, that’s how we kind of started to get to know each other.

Riese: We hung out a little bit in LA here and there, often with mutual friends.

Gretchen: So then what happened?

Riese: Then what happened? Then we sort of became part of the same little social group that began forming around that time.

Gretchen: Yes. Debauchery.

Riese: Yeah. So much fun.

Gretchen: Chaos.

Riese: A chaotic group chat — there were like, six of us in the beginning and we all started hanging out in the spring of 2019. Which was great because that summer is when my life started to go downhill and this little friend group became like my lifeline through all that, like eventually we all became a family. And also it was my escape from all of the stressful stuff.

Gretchen: Yeah. You had a mental breakdown.

Riese: Yeah, in August [2019].

Gretchen: And I went to your house and… it was very upsetting. I mean, we weren’t together at that time, but I was very worried.

Riese: It’s true.

Gretchen: Because you had told Kristin, “Give Carol to Gretchen,” and I was like, I better get over there before she up and dies, she’s already bequeathing her dog!

Riese: I was getting my affairs in order.

Gretchen: I hightailed to your house.

Riese: But it’s interesting because now we’re dating. Right? But it’s weird because you were there for all of these important parts of my life. I mean, not that like my nervous breakdown was a key moment in my life—

Gretchen: Highlight reel.

Riese: … right up there with getting my GLAAD award. But that also means by the time we started dating, I knew you’d already seen me at the actual definition of my worst.

Gretchen: I mean, we were, if not best friends, very, very close friends by that time.

Riese: Yeah. You were my emergency contact pretty quickly. And also when you saved your name in my phone, you wrote “Can we be best friends? Think about it.” And you saved your name as “Gretchen Best Friend.”

Gretchen: You’ve got to manifest! That’s what I’m saying.

Riese: And luckily for me, I invited you to a Valentine’s Day Lilith Fair Karaoke thing when we were just friends too, so now I can say we’ve been together for every Valentine’s Day since 2019 [even though we didn’t start dating until 2021].

Gretchen: I gave you a valentine that said—

Riese: “Sorry that I’m not Sarah.”

Gretchen: You were like, truly, you’re one of the weirdest people I’ve ever met.

Riese: I thought it was funny though.

Gretchen: That was good.

Riese: What’s really good is that then we drank two entire bottles of blue champagne that night.

Gretchen: We had a lot of fun times before we started dating, and then we started hooking up.

Riese: Yeah. Well, our first kiss was on New Year’s Eve 2019.

Gretchen: Right! Right… We were at [Los Angeles dance party] Gay Asstrology and you said, “If you don’t have anybody to hook up with at midnight, and I don’t have anybody to hook up with at midnight, we should kiss.”

Riese: Yeah. And then we did.

Gretchen: I was in line for the bathroom, and you’re texting me because people were starting the countdown. I hear ten, nine and get a text like “Where the fuck are you?” And I found you in the middle of the dance floor and ran over and then it was midnight and we kissed. Then basically all of our friends–

Riese: They went bananas.

Gretchen: Yeah. They were all cheering around us and laughing.

Riese: It was really cute because first of all, the main thing that happened in that moment was that we had learned that we really liked kissing each other. Everything could’ve died on that night.

Gretchen: Right. It could’ve been just a joke. It could have been just a hilarious-

Riese: Like, “Ha ha, we kissed on New Year’s Eve.” But instead it was like, Uh-oh.

Gretchen: Right. It was horrifying. It was horrifying. It was like, oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

Riese: Then there was a pandemic. So we didn’t see anyone for a long time. And then once COVID got a little bit better, our group chat became a pandemic pod! And we’d all hang out, we had some little weekend trips. So at some point we started making out again and then after a year and a half of making out…

Gretchen: We had a kickball game and I said, “if we win, we can talk about what this is. And if we lose, then we continue hooking up and we don’t have to talk about it.” As you can see, I don’t like talking about things. Anyway, we won the game. We were champions that year.

Riese: It’s a good thing. If this all happened now, when our kickball team is less good, we would still just be having amorphous relationship that was bound to eventually hurt one of us.

Gretchen: I don’t like sitting down and saying what something is!

Riese: We would’ve just kept hooking up for years and never talked about it?

Gretchen: Honestly forever. Just imagine.

Riese: But one of us would’ve met someone else!

Gretchen: No. You’re like, “I would’ve.” Well, after we won that kickball game, we went back to your apartment, and I said, “I guess we’re dating.” And you were like, “You weirdo.”

Riese: So now we’ve been together for almost two years, I guess?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: And every minute of it has been the best moment of your life.

Gretchen: Bliss.

What are your big three astrological signs and how do we feel about that?

Gretchen: Do people care about this?

Riese: They in fact do.

Gretchen: Okay. Well, we’re not astrology gays.

Riese: We’re not.

Gretchen: We’re both Libras.

Riese: But we’re both Libras.

Gretchen: “How can you be together?” “Who makes the decisions?” I hate when people say that. I’m like, “I make my own choices! I make decisions! Thank you very much.”

Riese: When they say, “Who makes decisions?” I’m like—

Gretchen: I’m like, “ever try flipping a coin?”

Riese: I’m like, “neither of us do.” We just say, “You pick.” “No, you pick.” “You pick.”

Gretchen: Yeah. But then eventually someone gets annoyed and picks.

Riese: So that’s whoever’s the most annoyed. That’s who makes the decisions.

Gretchen: We make decisions all the time. And I think in our personal lives we’re ambivalent because we have to make so many decisions at work.

Riese: Yeah. We’re both big leaders at work. And then when it’s like, “What restaurant are we going to order from?” We’re like, “Ugh.”

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: Or it’s like, “What do you want to do today?” It’s like, “I don’t knowwwww”

Gretchen: Yeah. Because I truly don’t know. But we make decisions.

Riese: Yeah. Somehow we live.

Gretchen: So I have a rising and a whatever, and a moon and a sun and..?

Riese: I don’t know what those things are so there you have it: Two Libras.

Gretchen: Two Libras. Making choices.

Riese: Making decisions.

Gretchen: Making moves.

What do you enjoy most about your relationship?

Riese: What I enjoy most is that you make me laugh and that we laugh together. I know you’re groaning because you think that’s the most boring thing people say about each other but it’s true!

Gretchen: It is true. We laugh a lot.

Riese: We laugh all the time.

Gretchen: Yeah, we do.

Riese: We’re really good at making each other laugh.

Gretchen: It’s true. I would say more than anybody.

Riese: Yeah. I know other people are like, “Oh, we laugh so much together” but not as much as us, I don’t think.

Gretchen: Nope. Sorry.

Riese: We laugh a lot.

Gretchen: I mean, we do have a really fun time. I wouldn’t date somebody that I didn’t think was hilarious, and that was part of what I found attractive about you from the get-go. When I think about it, I feel like I’ve told you this before, but when we’d be in a group setting, I would tell a joke and I’d look at you to see if you were laughing first before anyone else. Because I wanted to know if it’s actually funny. Or if people are just humoring me. So I would look at your expression, and if I got nothing, I’d think, okay, I can do better. I can make it funnier.

Riese: You’re so funny in text too, like in the group chat? I’m not as funny in chat as you are. Like when you made that little movie about shipping and stuff? You were always killing it.

Gretchen: I love making little inside jokes with my friends. I live for that. I make TikToks, but just to make them for one person and then I share it only with them.

Riese: Yeah, basically every TikTok I’ve made has been just for you.

Gretchen: Yeah, I think that laughing is one of the best parts of our relationship. But also that you really press me to say what I’m feeling.

Riese: I do.

Gretchen: And it’s awful, but it’s personal growth.

Riese: It’s funny because they ask about your astrological sign but I think what’s more important is “what religion did you grow up in”? And I grew up Jewish and you grew up Catholic, which means I grew up talking about everything very loudly all the time too much and you grew up… not doing that.

Gretchen: We talk about absolutely nothing. You have a feeling you tuck that inside and you take it to your grave like a good Catholic.

Riese: But you’re getting a lot better talking about your feelings.

Gretchen: I like that about our relationship, that you do make me do things that are good for me that make me feel initially uncomfortable. Like this interview! Next question.

Riese: Well, I also think that we have a nice time together and you’re really smart and I like talking to you about stuff and we—

Gretchen: Hmm.

Riese: What do you mean? What’s that? What was that?

Gretchen: Nothing.

Riese: You don’t believe me?

Gretchen: No, I believe you.

Riese: I feel like I can talk to you about stuff with my work or with the media in general. I don’t know. I trust your opinion on stuff for you to tell me if something’s good or not. If you really like something, it means a lot to me. You know what I mean?

Gretchen: Yeah. Same.

Riese: You being my fan means a lot to me. I really respect your opinion.

Gretchen: Yeah, same.

Riese: And also you know how to make GIFs and I don’t, so you can make GIFs for me.

Gretchen: Oh, I thought you meant literal gifts. You mean GIFs.

Riese: GIFs. Yeah.

Gretchen: It’s GIFs. I say GIFs too, but I thought you meant I give good gifts.

Riese: Oh, you do give good gifts, so.

Gretchen: And I was like, that’s true.

Riese: That was part of when I was… Because you’d been saying you had a crush on me for a while, but I thought it was a bit.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: But then you gave me a really good Christmas gift that year and I was like, “Wow. She really sees me.”

Gretchen: Yeah. I like making people presents.

Riese: Yeah, you’re a really good artist. You make really good cards.

Gretchen: Yeah. Thanks.

Riese: Also you saw me have a nervous breakdown and you still wanted to be my best friend and then be my girlfriend.

Gretchen: I mean, that wasn’t that bad.

Riese: It wasn’t?

Gretchen: I mean, it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad.

Riese: It was embarrassing!

Gretchen: It was pretty bad. I’m trying to pave over it for you. I’m kind of protecting you even in this moment of your honesty. But yeah, it was pretty awful. You were obviously in a really… It was bad to watch because I love you, but it didn’t make me think less of you. I thought, wow, this is a person that’s really struggling, but who clearly, I don’t know… but also, you’re doing something that actually matters in the world. If I can’t do something that matters, I’m happy enough to be with somebody that’s doing something that actually matters.

Riese: You do stuff that matters.

Gretchen: I mean.

Riese: You tell me jokes to use in my recaps that matter.

Gretchen: Yeah. You’re always worried that I’m going to want credit for the jokes and like I always tell you, no, it—

Riese: And also this, your job is every day, you’re making jokes for other people!

Gretchen: Yeah. I’m used to that, I guess. I mean, I kind of love that. It brings me nothing but pure joy—

Riese: But also you are- you’re good at your job. You know what I mean?

Gretchen: No.

Riese: You are. You’re like a boss. Like a boss bitch.

Gretchen: No, I’m not.

Riese: And you’re really cute.

Gretchen: We’re cutting this part out.

Riese: You’re cute!

Gretchen: Well-

Riese: And you’re hot.

Gretchen: … Also, what I like about our relationship is that you’re cute.

Riese: And you’re a good dancer.

Gretchen: You’re the great dancer. You’re one of the best dancers I’ve ever seen.

Riese: Yeah. Do you think if I was doing Dancing with the Stars, that I would be a star?

Gretchen: Yeah. They’d be like 10, 10!

What hurdles or obstacles have you overcome together in your relationship? These can be within your relationship or things that you face together.

Gretchen: Nothing, everything’s been perfect, rainbows, pass.

Riese: Well.

Gretchen: Oh. A bunch of stuff.

Riese: Yeah. Tons. A lot of stuff.

Gretchen: Literally everything.

Riese: Yeah. You’ve had a rough few years.

Gretchen: Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to get too into it, but yeah, I’ve had a lot of things. And one of those things led to me becoming sober. The “not drinking” part has been very easy. But the rest of sobriety has been an interesting challenge for me.

Riese: I love it when you’re talking about your feelings.

Gretchen: I’ve had to do a lot of personal growth. Looking at how I was living before — but what’s really interesting is that we started dating when I was not sober and I think…

Riese: We were both drinking all the time. Or not all the time, just on weekends, but when we drank, we drank a lot.

Gretchen: A lot.

Riese: Every weekend we would drink way too much.

Gretchen: Yeah. Yeah.

Riese: And every time we hung out at first, we would also drink way too much.

Gretchen: Yeah, a lot of our relationship was that.

Riese: We were drunk a lot.

Gretchen: Yeah, that’s what I mean by “a lot.” Our relationship was drunk, I would say. And so I think there’s this risk of, once you stop drinking that—

Riese: Right. Well, we both stopped drinking for a while [starting in July 2021], because the stuff you were going through made me realize I had to take a look at myself also. So for the first nine months of you being sober, I was sober too, which was an interesting thing to be doing in a relationship.

Gretchen: Right. That’s what I’m saying, that I think when you get sober and you remove something that was so crucial to the relationship out of the equation, it’s like, “do I even like this person when we’re sober…” You know?

Riese: Yeah.

Gretchen: I think there’s… At least for me, it felt vulnerable in a whole different way.

Riese: Yeah. I remember the first time we went out to dinner when neither of us were drinking, and I was like, “What happens? What is this…”

Gretchen: Yeah. Yeah.

Riese: Like, part of what bonded us as friends was that, like me at the time, you were always down to get wasted, another shot, another bottle, another round, whatever.

Gretchen: Yeah, everything I did, everything social that I did, that was the fundamental part of it. So I think when I took that out of the equation, I thought, what does that mean for me and Riese? And initially I think I wanted to get out of our relationship because I didn’t think I could handle it. And I thought I needed to really focus on being sober. But I think what’s wildly fascinating to me was that we were still really compatible and maybe moreso once we—

Riese: Stopped drinking.

Gretchen: … Stopped drinking. I think it was an adjustment for us, personally, but in our relationship, I think it got way stronger because it wasn’t so messy. Everything I said to you, I meant, and I felt good about it. And I felt like we were both there mentally, which I’ve never had in a relationship before.

Riese: Right. Yeah, we’d never had sex sober with each other before.

Gretchen: Yeah, and in my past… I know you have because you’ve been in a thousand relationships. But I mean, most of the time I didn’t really. It’s not like I was scared of being vulnerable in that way, really. Honestly, I would’ve rather had sober sex than like… a conversation like this around our feelings, that would kill me! I think you were really patient with me, while I navigated being sober. And I felt lucky because I think… I wasn’t easy. That was a really rough time for me and you bore a lot of that.

Riese: Yeah. It was pretty bad for a while.

Gretchen: Yeah. And I mean, I tried to acknowledge that, but I was very much in my own shit. And you were really, really, really patient about that. But you were going through your own stuff too.

Riese: It was weird. It’s a recalibration because now I’m not sober, but I’ve completely shifted my relationship to alcohol, like it’s a special occasion thing. It was a recalibration of how I’d been living or how I perceived life in general. Even though I didn’t drink every day or anything, there were certain social situations where I always binge drank at those situations. Things like a pool party, or going out for dinner, you drink, right?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: I was like…

Gretchen: Now what do we do?

Riese: … What happens after? I think we went back to my apartment and did a jigsaw puzzle because I was like, what happens? This is the part of the night where we get a little messy and someone starts a stupid fight.

Gretchen: Also, I was thinking about your stuff too.

Riese: Oh, you mean that I had a miscarriage?

Gretchen: That, yeah. I think… I don’t know, we both had totally life altering… I mean, my sobriety wasn’t the only thing that was going on with me, but I don’t really want to talk about the rest of it.

Riese: Yeah, that’s fine.

Gretchen: But yeah, we were both on paths. I mean we were together, but going through our own personal hells. I don’t know how else to say it.

Riese: Well, I think also though, I had a lot of walls up in the beginning.

Gretchen: Yeah. I have so many walls that I didn’t even see your walls. My walls were so high that you were like, “I have walls.” I’m like, “Yeah, okay. You have a couple bricks lying around, I wouldn’t call that a wall.”

Riese: Well, I didn’t really want to fully invest. I had this intense relationship that ended in 2016 that sort of ruined my whole life because I’d invested everything in it, literally and figuratively. And so the people I dated after that, before you, I had a ton of walls up with them. I was terrified of making sacrifices or adjusting my life for someone else and then losing it all again. For like the first six months of our relationship, we had maybe two sleepovers?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: You couldn’t stay over at my house because of your dog, but also didn’t want me to come over because of your dog, and I didn’t wanna come all the way out there and mess up my weekend routine or my writing time. So we saw each other really just like a few times over the weekend.

Gretchen: Yeah. Perfect for me.

Riese: You’re like, “that’s just enough.”

Gretchen: Just my speed.

Riese: Oh yeah, we should probably say, so I live in Hollywood, Gretchen lives in Santa Monica. This is a big challenge in our relationship. So when there’s no traffic, it’s half an hour. When there’s traffic—

Gretchen: It could be an hour and a half.

Riese: It could be an hour and a half. And Gretchen’s dog is…

Gretchen: Special.

Riese: Gretchen’s dog is bananas.

Gretchen: Yeah, in a special way,

Riese: So Gretchen’s dog can’t really go anywhere. You can’t take Penny to my apartment.

Gretchen: No. No one would live. You can’t bring Penny anywhere.

Riese: Carol’s portable. I can bring Carol around.

Gretchen: Yeah, we put Carol in anything. The thing is in Santa Monica, here I live in a duplex and there’s a yard.

Riese: Yeah, so now I come stay in Santa Monica on the weekends, which was a big step for me! But I love it here ‘cause we can walk to the coffee shop.

Gretchen: Yeah. You would say, “Wow, you let me do so much. You let me work all the time and never ask me to come over, you always come to me.” And I’m like, “Yeah, everything’s going at my speed.”

Riese: It was weird at first because I was used to people always wanting so much more from me, that had been my primary relationship conflict since I started Autostraddle!

Gretchen: There was just a lot of walls up too for me.

Riese: Yeah. You were in a really dark place for a while.

Gretchen: I wasn’t thinking about “How do I move this relationship along?” Honestly, it was more, “How do I keep everything together? How do I keep things as straightforward as they can possibly be?”

Riese: Yeah. And then I got pregnant [in February 2022].

Gretchen: You said, “I’m going to have this baby.” And I thought, “Oh my God. Holy shit.”

Riese: But it wasn’t…

Gretchen: I was nervous about it. And then you had a miscarriage, which was awful.

Riese: And then the process of continuing to try to get pregnant was also really bad.

Gretchen: Yeah, all that was really, I would say overall, I would rate it as bad. We both just had really heavy stuff to unpack.

Riese: We’ve really done a lot of work, huh?

Gretchen: A lot! I mean, I know I’m being obtuse about the… I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about what happened [that prompted getting sober] — I mean, I want to. But i don’t, you know?

Riese: Yeah. You can just say that something happened.

Gretchen: Yes. Shit really went down for me.

Riese: Something happened that was bad.

Gretchen: And it really affected and impacted my whole life. I mean, hopefully I was there for you. But I know I could barely be there for myself, for my own stuff so I don’t know if either one of us could be a hundred percent the most amazing partner. Or at least I know I wasn’t, but I did what I could.

Riese: But also, you’re the best at like “being there for me whenever I need you,” even very early in our friendship, I knew at any moment you’d drop everything if I needed you.

Gretchen: Of course. But I don’t want to burden anybody with my shit.

Riese: Right. So I’ve spent now two years trying to convince you that it’s not a burden and that it’s not shit.

Gretchen: And I’m starting to learn it I think, just now, after two years of being—

Riese: But it’s funny because you don’t consider my stuff a burden!

Gretchen: Never.

Riese: So it’s all about just you realizing that other people are thinking the same way that you are.

Gretchen: It’s been really hard for me to let you help.

Riese: Yeah. I have to force my help on you sometimes.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: And both of our jobs are really challenging.

Gretchen: Yeah. I don’t know if you know this, but Riese is is the CEO of Autostraddle.

Riese: It’s really stressful!

Gretchen: We dealt with a lot, job stuff, personal stuff, some of the most devastating things that can happen to a person, I think, happened to us right as we were starting to date. And somehow… Honestly, I mean, I’m not going to lie, I’m surprised that we’ve somehow made it through all of that—

Riese: Maybe it’s because we really like each other.

Gretchen: I mean, yeah. I think that speaks to how much I love you.

Riese: And how much I love you!

Gretchen: Oh.

Riese: Okay, then I also want to say that Gretchen had COVID for 20 days.

Gretchen: Yeah. Why do you—

Riese: And was really nice to me the whole time.

Gretchen: Okay. Maybe let’s get to another question.

---

What’s your living situation like? Together? Separate? Long distance with long visits? Something else? How often do you see each other and why?

Gretchen: Okay. We’re in a long-distance relationship. [riese note: we’re kidding we know we’re not actually in a long-distance relationship]

Riese: Yes.

Gretchen: As stated, Riese lives in Hollywood. I live in Santa Monica. It’s basically living in Brooklyn and LA.

Riese: It’s basically, I live in Idaho and you live in Texas. If you imagine the distance from the earth to the moon, it’s similar.

Gretchen: Now multiply that by 12 and that’s how far it is. Well, I think in LA there’s traffic, okay, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about the traffic in LA? Anyway, you come here on weekends.

Riese: Which took me a long time to convince you that it was okay because you don’t let anyone come over! I’m the only person who’s allowed to come over.

Gretchen: Well, Penny is a lot. She’s jumping all over… I mean… I don’t want to make this about Penny. All of a sudden we’re pivoting to a dog training interview. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours and hours and a ton of money on training this dog. And some wild hearts can’t be broken! And Penny is her own spirit. And anyway, you are friends now.

Riese: Yeah, she’s crazy, but I love her too.

Gretchen: I mean, she loves you.

Riese: I’m the only other person she knows.

Gretchen: I know. But she loves you so much. When you come over, she’s so happy. I mean, truly.

Riese: Yeah, she’s so happy she tries to eat my whole hand. She’s so cute. If I put in a picture of Penny, everybody will be like, “Oh my God, she’s so cute.”

Gretchen: Yeah. People will be like, “This is a perfect dog.”

Riese: And you’ll be like, “She’s a pit bull, a pulpit.”

Gretchen: A pug pit bully.

Riese: A pug kittle. Pug kittle.

Gretchen: A pug, a bull, bull, billy.

Riese: A pugabilly! Anyhow, we both work really long hours during the week, but sometimes we see each other during the week if there’s something happening — an event or something.

Gretchen: Yeah. I mean, we sometimes see each other during the week, and it’s wonderful.

Do you have kids, pets, plants, all three? Do you not currently have but want any of these things? Why are you in agreement?

Riese: Well, I think we don’t see eye-to-eye about plants.

Gretchen: We don’t?

Riese: I’m just kidding. I’m avoiding the kids question.

Gretchen: I was like, “Why? What plant of mine don’t you like?”

Riese: You have more plants than me.

Gretchen: Yeah. I’ve been collecting some plants.

Riese: I think you’re better at plant care than I am. But I think when we live together—

Gretchen: Remember when you were showing me that plant on your bookshelf and you pulled it out of its pot?

Riese: I do.

Gretchen: All the dirt fell off and you said, “Well, I think it’s dead.”

Riese: That pot is still just sitting on my bookshelf now. An empty pot.

Gretchen: The whole plant fell apart.

Riese: Right. I was showing you how I had re-potted it. So you’re telling me I did a really good job with the plant.

Gretchen: Yeah, we love a plant. You kill them more than I do. Pets, everyone’s very aware that Carol is your pet and is a dream angel. And I think what’s fun is that our dogs hate each other.

Riese: Right. Yeah. And Penny wants to play and Carol doesn’t want to play.

Gretchen: Penn. Penn loves Carol, and Carol hates — hate’s a strong word, but hate—

Riese: Is terrified of.

Gretchen: Yeah. I’m terrified of Penn and so is Carol. So yeah, shout out to Carol and all the trauma she experiences every weekend she comes here.

Riese: But also Carol picked you. Remember?

Gretchen: Yeah. Yeah.

Riese: If there’s anything true about Carol, it’s that she always wants to be where I am — but once at Kristin’s house [in 2018], when we were just friends but not best friends yet, you were on the bed ready to go to sleep and Carol was lying there with you and I was like, “Come on, Carol, we’re going to the other room for sleep!” And nope.

Gretchen: Would not move.

Riese: She was happy. She wanted to stay the night with you.

Gretchen: And you were like, “Carol…”

Riese: I was like, this is a new personality trait. Carol’s never done this before. But every time I took Carol anywhere and you were there, she would go sit on your lap. So that was her picking you for me.

Gretchen: But now she’s pissed at me because I got Penny.

Riese: Yeah. But in the morning before we let Penny out, you guys still cuddle.

Gretchen: Yeah, we do.

Riese: When you come over to my apartment, she’s so excited.

Gretchen: Yeah, because it’s just me. She looks around for Penny and if Penn’s not there, she’s like, “Ha, ha, ha.”

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “I got her back. She’s just mine. Penny’s dead.”

Gretchen: Yeah. And then kids. So what do you have to say about that?

Riese: We both want to have 10 children right away, and Gretchen wants to give birth to all of them.

Gretchen: Wow. You said it better than I ever could.

Riese: Every morning Gretchen wakes up and says, “I wish I was pregnant.”

Gretchen: “How can I have kids today?”

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. She’s like, “Who wants to fill my uterus today?” Sometimes I look over and Gretchen’s looking at pictures of pregnant people on Instagram, and she’s like, “Ugh, I wish I was pregnant.”

Gretchen: Posting them on my baby Pinterest.

Riese: Yeah. You follow all these families on TikTok that have 12 kids, and you’re like, “Where’s our 12? Where’s our 13? Where’s our baker’s dozen?”

Gretchen: I’m only happy if I’m pregnant.

Riese: Yeah. Exactly. Gretchen’s just always…. Only wants to be pregnant. Kids, kids, kids is all she can talk about. It’s all she can think about.

Gretchen: Okay. So for real, I think I’ve been pretty torn on the subject of children. I think, because of life circumstances over the past couple of years for me, I don’t know if I’m in a position to be a parent. But I’ve been very inspired by your confidence around it. I know that’s something that you want a lot, so I’m definitely warming up to it. I think… I know—

Riese: For everybody reading this I want you to know that when you tell your girlfriend that you want to have a kid and are gonna start trying to get pregnant and you want to know what level of involvement she’s comfortable with and she says, “I just need a little bit of time to think about it,” just so you know—

Gretchen: It could be a year.

Riese: … By “a little bit of time,” she means 18 months.

Gretchen: I mean, now I’m the one asking you what’s going on!

Riese: Right. Because I took a break from trying to get pregnant because I ran out of money, and work was so busy and it was making me sad. But now I have to start trying again soon because I’m getting so old!

Gretchen: Right so now I’m the one asking you, what are we doing? What’s going on?

Riese: Okay for serious though, personally, I would like to have a child or two! And I am willing to get pregnant in order to do so.

Gretchen: You want a yes or no on kids?

Riese: I mean, sure!

Gretchen: Yes. I could do that.

Riese: Gretchen-—

Gretchen: You heard it here first.

Riese: Yes?

Gretchen: Yeah. I could do… I can handle that. You have it on record now. I’m in. We can have a kid.

Riese: Yeah?

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: Really?

Gretchen: Yeah. What do you mean really?

Riese: Really?

Gretchen: Yeah, we really can.

Riese: That’s so lovely. Are you going to take it back tomorrow?

Gretchen: No.

Riese: Okay. Can we name it Fidget?

Gretchen: No.

Riese: Can we name it Dilbert?

Gretchen: Let’s get back to the interview.

Riese: Okay, i’m not going to test my luck and keep talking about I’m just going to leave it.

How would you describe the sex you have together (if you have sex)? Do you believe in lesbian bed death and has it or do you think it will visit your relationship? What haven’t you done together, but want to?

Gretchen: Oh my God.

Riese: I would describe the sex we have as fun.

Gretchen: I would describe it as fantastic.

Riese: I enjoy the sex we have.

Gretchen: Same. We did it. Is that the… Do we have to go more into it?

Riese: Do you believe in lesbian bed death?

Gretchen: Sure.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, I believe in bed death.

Gretchen: Yeah. I believe in killing you in your sleep.

Riese: Sometimes I look at you at night and I think “this pillow would fit perfectly over her face.” Which leads us right into, what would you like to try together sexually?

Gretchen: I would like to try bed death. I would like to try killing you. My kink is death.

Riese: My kink is bed death. Yeah, we’re taking bed death to a whole new level.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: Do we want to tell all of our readers what sexual things we want to try?

Gretchen: No.

Riese: I want to try a role play where I’m a furniture store salesman and you’re shopping for furniture.

Gretchen: Oh yeah, we do a bit where it’s like, “I’ll be a this, and you’ll be a…”

Riese: Where did the furniture store thing came from? Yellowjackets?

Gretchen: Yeah. It was like, you’ll be a furniture salesman and I’ll be the customer.

Riese: We really did that one though.

Gretchen: What haven’t we done together that you want to do?

Riese: I feel like eventually we’ll do everything.

Gretchen: Yeah. I’m in no rush. I like the sex that we have together.

Riese: Yeah, me too. I don’t think there’s anything I’d be like, “I want to try this” and you wouldn’t be down.

Gretchen: Yeah. I feel very comfortable to do anything with you. I think we’re on the same page. Whatever you wanted. If you said, “I wanna try this,” I’d probably say, “Yeah. Okay. Cool. Great. That’s weird. I’ve never even heard of it, but sure.”

Riese: And the most important thing is that kissing is the best—

Gretchen: Oh, yeah.

Riese: … Thing in the world.

Gretchen: When we kiss, it’s really nice. And that is honestly…

Riese: And I look at your eyeballs and I think, wow.

Gretchen: Oh yeah? You go, WOW?

Riese: I go, wow. Yeah. Or I smile. It makes me smile sometimes kissing you—

Gretchen: Yeah. And then I go, “Why are you laughing?”

Riese: And then I go, “Because I’m so happy.”

Gretchen: “Why are you laughing in the middle of kissing me?” Which is cute. That’s pretty cute.

Where do you locate your relationship on the monogamy, polyamory spectrum? What philosophies do you have around monogamy, polyamory? How do you feel this impacts the relationship?

Riese: I feel like I barely have enough time to be in a relationship with just you.

Gretchen: It’s about time management.

Riese: I feel like I would be more capable of being poly than you, but I’d rather not be.

Gretchen: We’re monogamous.

Riese: Yeah, we’re monogamous.

Gretchen: I mean, if you wanted to be poly, I’d probably say okay. But I don’t think I’d be good at it.

Riese: Yeah. You’re a very all or nothing person.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Riese: I think I felt differently when I was younger, but now I’m just like… too tired.

Gretchen: I am pretty tired.

Riese: But also I’d rather… If I have more time to be around anybody besides you or my laptop, I’d rather be seeing my friends than be spending time dating. I hate dating! You know what I mean?

Gretchen: Yeah. Agree.

---

Do you think your relationship will more or less continue to exist as it currently is?

Gretchen: Hell no.

Riese: We’re looking to make big changes.

Gretchen: We’re gonna make changes in 2023. We’re going to upgrade the site. We’re going to get an app. We’re going to launch a podcast. We’re going to do merch. We’re going to do 10 camps. We’re going to take this on the road. We’re gonna do a cruise.

Riese: Yeah. We’re gonna do a cruise. We’re going to do a traveling circus. But no animals will be harmed in the circus.

Gretchen: No animals harmed.

Riese: What are our plans?

Gretchen: Oh, I mean, I think we want to live together.

Riese: Yeah. That’s our big dream.

Gretchen: Our modest dream.

Riese: That’s our modest dream at this time is just to live together.

Gretchen: But that’s it. Right?

Riese: Yeah. One step at a time, people.

---

What would you say are your most fundamental differences?

Riese: Well, you’re much more socially competent than I am.

Gretchen: I definitely… But I’m… I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m super outgoing though.

Riese: You’re comfortable with people though, inherently. It takes a lot for me to feel comfortable with people.

Gretchen: Yeah, that’s true. I think I need more social interaction than you tend to.

Riese: Or more than I think I need I guess. I might be wrong.

Gretchen: You might need it, you have to kind of push yourself to do it.

Riese: Yeah.

Gretchen: So how we socialize is different for sure. And the way we interact with other people, I think is different. I think you’re a little bit more closed. It takes a little bit more for you to open up to people socially than it does for me. Also, how you react when you’re in a crisis is different.

Riese: Yeah, when I’m in a crisis I want your help. When you’re in a crisis, you want nobody to ever care about you ever again.

Gretchen: I’m like, “Just let me die in a hole.”

Riese: Yeah.

Gretchen: Yeah, that’s the messed up part of me that I’m working on. But it’s fundamentally different than… it shocks me when you’re like, “I want to lean on you for support.” I think, “You do?” I’m stunned.

Riese: Which is wild, ‘cause I’ve been in relationships where literally all I was doing was helping the other person.

Gretchen: Which is wild to me. But we’ve both tried to meet the other person halfway. You try to be more social. You’ll dance with me if beg you to. But that’s where most of our conflicts originate — the amount we’re socializing and the amount that I’m able to open up to you when I need help.

Riese: Yeah, that’s true. Wow, you’re right. Good job.

Gretchen: Yeah, it’s like I basically go to therapy? [Gretchen’s note: “I don’t”]

Riese: I think what we did was we watched Couples Therapy on Showtime-

Gretchen: After that I felt I was healed. I could do anything.

Riese: And I think it was my Showtime account. So it was free for you.

Gretchen: Yeah, totally free. Could not recommend it more!

Do you have any shared dreams or goals for the future or each other? What are those?

Gretchen: Zero.

Riese: This is the biggest difference between us.

Gretchen: What?

Riese: I am constantly thinking about the future, not just now, but my whole life… I’ve always had big dreams about the future and I could lay out a million scenarios of what I would like to have in my future. And you have not—

Gretchen: I don’t even know what’s going to happen in three minutes.

Riese: Which is wild to me.

Gretchen: What a ride. So that’s me.

Riese: I mean, I would love to have a house.

Gretchen: Sure. Sure.

Riese: I would love for you to be able to do your art.

Gretchen: Yeah. I would love that. I freak out about what the future might look like because… I don’t know. If we want to get really into it… I get nervous about wanting things.

Riese: That you can’t really have?

Gretchen: Or that I might never have. And then I’m just wanting things that I never get. I’m trying to be happy with what I have in the moment and not wanting too many things because, I don’t know. It’s the same thing as being vulnerable. You have more to lose. I’ve always said I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to have kids. I don’t… I mean, for a while, we couldn’t legally get married, so I thought, what am I wanting this for? I shut that down. I don’t think that far in the future, and that might seem like a slight of us or of you, but I hope you can see that it’s not.

Riese: So maybe I can just kind of railroad you into my future.

Gretchen: Essentially, that’s what I’m looking for in our partnership, someone to railroad me into bed death.

Riese: That’s something that we want to try in bed is more railroading. If you want to get really personal, and I think that everyone does, it would be that.

Gretchen: It would be way more railroading.

Riese: I asked you once what your dream yard would be like, and you were so stressed out. You had a full breakdown.

Gretchen: I was like, “Some of us can’t really want a yard because maybe we’ll never get it!!!”

Riese: You make more money than I do!

Gretchen: You were like, “Just picture a fucking yard. Is it big? Is it small?” I was like, ahhhh—

Riese: I mean, I run my own business and it’s increasingly clear that it’s never going to make any amount of money ever.

Gretchen: Are you sure? Even after this interview?

Riese: Even after this interview, we’re just — if I’m gonna make money for a down payment on a house it won’t be through my job. It’ll be selling a book or movie or show or something. Which I have yet to have time to do. And yet I still am dreaming of owning a home!

Gretchen: Yeah. I think that’s the thing about dreaming — I get nervous these things might not ever happen for me. I’m opening to it more though, I’m different than the person I was when we were at the start of this relationship.

Riese: Yeah. You’ve thought about yards a little bit.

Gretchen: Yeah. I’ve opened up to the concept of a yard. Just having a yard with my best girl.

Riese: I think we’d both like to work less hours and to be less stressed out. And I’d like to publish a novel—

Gretchen: Yes.

Riese: And we want our… oh, we want to be screenwriters.

Gretchen: I mean, yeah.

Riese: We want to write movies together.

Gretchen: Yeah, we want to make stuff together without killing each other. And we’ll see if we can do it. But I think we’re both really creative and we like being creative together and we have some different rules around what creativity looks like, but ultimately I think we’re going to make some good shit together.

Riese: I think so too. And everyone’s going to be like, “Wow, look at these funny bitches. Who knew that once upon a time they kissed on New Year’s Eve, and the next day their friends on their group chat made a little video of tater tots on toothpicks to re-enact the kiss to make fun of how skinny and blonde they were.”

Gretchen: Put that in your pipe and smoke it—

Riese: Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, bed death.

---

What piece of pop culture do you share? Or what piece of pop culture reminds you of your relationship?

Gretchen: What I love to do is I love to cue up a show that is roughly 10 to 15 years old that we’ve both seen at least three times and say, “What about a little Battlestar Galactica tonight?”

Riese: And then we talk and think about Battlestar Galactica nonstop for a month.

Gretchen: And then we’ll watch a little bit of The Office. And then you’re like, “I am supposed to be a TV critic” and I say, “Have you thought about watching seasons 1 through 15 of ER?” It’s okay. I have an addiction and it’s nostalgia TV.

Riese: It’s ER?

Gretchen: Yeah. ER and all the TV that I grew up watching and want to watch a million times and don’t want to watch anything else. But I also watch all the mainstream stuff because we both work in film and TV, so a majority of our relationship is spent discussing pop culture.

Riese: Yeah. It’s hard to say what TV show reminds me of our relationship because every TV show—

Gretchen: We have more opinions of anybody I’ve ever…

Riese: We can talk about the same TV show that airs once a week for probably a month.

Gretchen: Yeah. I mean…

Riese: If we’re watching Love is Blind we can talk about Love is Blind every night for an hour.

Gretchen: Every night-

Riese: For a week until the next episode of Love is Blind.

Gretchen: Right. Because we don’t live with each other too, so we’ll cue it up at the same time and press play and then we’ll call each other and talk about it for three hours and then if I remember—

Riese: See, this is why we have to be writing our own stuff because obviously we have opinions.

Gretchen: We have opinions, whoo, boy. Opinions for sale. And if after those three hours we hang up and I think of another really strong opinion that I’ve had, I’ll text you or I’ll call you back and say, “There’s just one other thing I want to say about it….”

Riese: I did make you watch all of Gen Q. That’s really nice of me. We’re usually into whatever HBO prestige drama of the moment is on except the Game of Thrones stuff.

Gretchen: Yeah. We watch pretty much everything.

Riese: Also, we have to watch a lot of stuff for work, so we’ll watch each other’s work things.

Gretchen: We watch other’s work things.

Riese: Sometimes that’s a real treat. When I got the screeners for a League of their Own, and we got to know before everybody else that it was the best thing in the world? That everyone’s lives were about to change?

Gretchen: Yeah. That was so fun. Because of our work — film and TV almost our whole lives, so it would be weird to say, this one thing is our thing.

Riese: Ok, I think that’s it!

Gretchen: Yeah. Is that the whole interview?

Riese: Yeah.

Gretchen: That’s it? That’s the last question?

Riese: Yeah.

Gretchen: I thought there was one more question.

Riese: Did you?

Gretchen: You don’t want to do it?

Riese: What’s the last question?

Gretchen: Tell a funny story about your partner?

Riese: You’re right, it’s tell a funny story. I hate this question so I was pretending like it didn’t exist.

Gretchen: You don’t have to do it.

Riese: Tell a funny story.

Gretchen: The thing is, we can’t really answer this because we spent 15 minutes talking about how funny we are. So one, we’re going to have to cut that, all of that, because whatever we think is funny is going to totally bomb. And readers will think, “Oh man. A couple thinks that they’re funny together, but they’re not. They’re just annoying.”

Riese: A really funny story is how you got these really tiny T-shirts.

Gretchen: No, this isn’t funny. See, no one thinks this is funny.

Riese: TINY T-shirt!!!

Gretchen: No one is laughing.

Riese: I think what’s funny is everything.

Gretchen: We don’t have to do a funny story. We can just live our own lives and make our own rules.

Riese: We can.

Gretchen: Yeah. What was the tagline of Gen Q?

Riese: Hello again?

Gretchen: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: In conclusion, what was your favorite part of The L Word Generation Q?

Gretchen: Oh God. It was so bad.

Riese: Who’s your favorite character?

Gretchen: The only reason I want anything to do with that show is because of you.

Riese: Who’s your favorite character?

Gretchen: You. You’re my favorite character. I mean, Shane?

Riese: Shane? Really?

Gretchen: Sure.

Riese: I thought you were going to say Carrie.

Gretchen: Oh, Carrie’s my fave. Yeah. I mean, I love Rosie. She lights up the screen. She lights up my life. I’d watch anything with Rosie in it.

Riese: In conclusion, I love you.

Gretchen: Yeah. I love you too. I think we covered a lot of ground. That has to be the longest interview anyone’s ever done.

Riese: It’s probably not.

Gretchen: It’s most I’ve ever talked.

Riese: It is?

Gretchen: Okay. That’s our show.

Riese: That’s the episode!

Gretchen: Oh, I love it when you say that on the podcast.