Bro, I'm Trying to Love You
A Podcast Romance
Rachel runs the most popular man-bashing podcast on the internet. Not because she hates men. Because she understands them. Completely. Clinically. With receipts.
She has three years of therapy, a bisexual lens honed to surgical precision, and a co-host with a spreadsheet. She has heard every line, catalogued every red flag, and built a career helping women who should know better do better.
The show started as controlled demolition. Women gathering weekly to professionally dismantle male behavior with receipts, graphs, and crystal-based intuition. It was clean. It was righteous. It had a theme song.
And then Rachel gained three pounds, got a gym membership, and found Beau.
Rachel
Rachel is the realistic one. Sharp, dry, emotionally literate, and professionally exhausted by men who don't deserve her analysis. She built her podcast from a laptop and a bad breakup into something women across the country listen to while driving, crying, and eating cheese at eleven pm.
She is bisexual, self aware, and has never once in three years of broadcasting admitted to finding a man anything other than anthropologically interesting.
She is also, as of five months ago, a gym member. The cycling machine is directly behind the weight rep mirrors. Rachel is aware of this. Rachel has been aware of this since week one. Netflix has not been opened once.
"What can I say," she tells her listeners, five months later, from the booth, while Beau sits in the corner smiling like a golden retriever who just heard his name. "I was all about the Beau Show."
Beau
Beau is a personal trainer. Five hours a week he works the protein shake counter. He is big, warm, slightly confused by metaphors, and smells like cedar and optimism. He says things like "stillness is the final rep" with complete sincerity. He listens like he is earning a certificate. He is loyal as a labrador and accidentally poetic in ways that make everyone in the booth go quiet for a second.
He had Rachel's biometrics memorized by week three. When she finally walked up to his counter he slid a shake across before she said a word. Perfect. Exactly what she needed. Based on weeks of quietly paying attention.
Rachel, who can spot a manipulation tactic at four hundred yards, had absolutely no defense for being genuinely seen by someone who smelled like cedar and knew her macros.
He is eighty percent bro. Twenty percent perfect man. All of his friends are Dirk. Beau is not Dirk. Beau emerged from the bro ecosystem somehow emotionally functional, loyal, and capable of saying "I like you" without needing three beers and a dare.
His friends call him the most emotionally jacked of all of them. They mean it as the highest possible compliment. They are not wrong.
Tessa
Tessa is the precision instrument of the operation. Academic, blunt, afrocentric, woman-centric, and wearing glasses she does not need. She arrives to every broadcast in colorful long dresses with earrings so magnificent they require removal before air, like a boxer before a fight.
She has spreadsheets about men. She whispers things like "broacorn confirmed" like a medical diagnosis. She is only into men, which she considers an ongoing structural inconvenience given the quality of available specimens.
She is also, currently, not discussing what happened when the station's paper delivery guy walked through the door last Tuesday. She did a small wave. The broadcast stopped for four full seconds. Rachel noticed. Sky noticed. Tessa has issued a formal denial.
There is a laminated photo of Tessa taped to the mirror at seventeen gyms in four states. She is handling this with clinical detachment. She is not handling this.
Beau, helpfully, about the paper delivery guy: "Bro does squats. Hard to chisel those muscles like that."
Sky
Sky is short, red haired, full faced with makeup at all times, and in possession of more crystals than is strictly necessary for one person. She misquotes astrology but is occasionally terrifyingly accurate. She hosts lingerie and intimacy parties on weekends. She is the chaos engine that somehow holds the whole broadcast together because listeners adore her and nobody can fully explain why.
Sky identifies as straight. She also brought a gorgeous woman to Rachel's party last weekend, was found making out with her in the backyard, arrived to the next broadcast in the same clothes with one sock missing, and has formally described her orientation as bi-compatible.
"I can't help it if girls like me," she says, reasonably. Tessa writes something down. Rachel smiles into her coffee. A crystal falls off Sky's desk. Nobody mentions it.
*
PODCAST COLD OPEN
RACHEL (into mic): So. Today's episode is titled: The Time I Accidentally Dated a Bro.
CALLER #1: No. Absolutely not.
CALLER #2: I already need a drink.
CALLER #3 (aghast): Rachel, tell me you wore running shoes.
RACHEL: I thought I was immune. I thought my bisexual training and three years of therapy had made me bro-proof. Turns out? No one is immune to shoulders.
CALLER #1: He had shoulders?
RACHEL (sighing): Like moral weaknesses you could bench-press.
CALLER #2: OH GOD.
CALL-IN SEGMENT: BRO PHONE LINE
PHONE RINGS.
RACHEL: Okay... line two. Caller, you're on the air.
BRO CALLER #1: BROOOOOOOOOOO.
RACHEL: Oh no.
BEAU (in studio, excited): Bro?? Is that Kyle??
BRO CALLER #1: BRO. BRO!! Is that YOU?? The legend?? The myth??
Sound of wrapper crinkling.
BRO CALLER #1: Bro how's Clint doing? Still stacked? Bro he's SO stacked. Like... like beef jerky that's been doing squats.
SKY: snorts violently into her mic.
TESSA: Writing this down.
BRO CALLER #1: Bro he's so stacked he cast a SHADOW on my SOUL.
BEAU: That's my guy. Tell him I'm proud of him.
BRO CALLER #1: Of what, bro?
BEAU: Just... existing with density.
BRO CALLER #1: Bro... that's beautiful. Bro wait... what were we talking about?
BEAU: I dunno, bro. You called me.
BRO CALLER #1: ... Bro.
BEAU: Bro.
BRO CALLER #1: ... I love you, bro.
BEAU: Love you too, bro.
RACHEL: Okay! We're hanging up now before they propose.
SKY: They already did. Emotionally.
TESSA: Anthropologically, this is a mating ritual.
CALL-IN SEGMENT: THE SPONSORSHIP CALL
PHONE RINGS.
TRENT FROM MEGABRO PROSHAKES: Hi Rachel! This is Trent from MegaBro ProShakes, your number one source for powders, pump, and post-workout enlightenment. We love the show! We think your broacorn boyfriend is the PERFECT ambassador for our new flavor: Brain Berry Burst. Because thinking is the final rep.
RACHEL dead-stares into the mic.
BEAU (perking up): Wait... is it vegan?
TRENT: We don't like labels.
TESSA (whispering): Definitely a pyramid scheme.
CALL-IN SEGMENT: RACHEL GOES TO THE GYM NOW
RACHEL (mortified): Okay. So here's something I never thought I'd say on air. I go to the gym now.
SKY: OH MY GOD YOU DID NOT.
TESSA: You? Among bros? Is this a hostage situation?
RACHEL: He squats me.
PODCAST DEAD SILENCE.
SKY: HE WHAT?? LIKE A MEDIEVAL PRINCESS ON A CATAPULT??
TESSA (fanning herself, academically): That's excellent glute activation. Continue.
RACHEL: I sit on a padded board. He lifts me. With his legs. So he can look at me. While he works out. And we kiss at the top of each rep.
BEAU (proud, from the corner): It's motivational. Like stacking emotional gains on top of muscle gains.
SKY COLLAPSES OUT OF HER CHAIR.
RACHEL: And listen. I'm not innocent either. He does biceps, I pretend I can lift the twenties.
TESSA: You can't lift the twenties.
RACHEL: Correct. But I try so he flexes. And the view is... spiritual.
BEAU (soft): You make me want to lift slower.
CALL-IN SEGMENT: FOR SCIENCE
TESSA: Tessa asked. So I have to know. For science. Beau is like... three Rachels. And the hips on this man are comic book sized. I'm assuming, and only love to you Beau, that this man is...
RACHEL: TESSA.
TESSA: I was going to say substantial.
SKY: I was thinking super sized. But that's just me.
TESSA: See, you're watching the wrong girl Rach. Sky's the one you have to watch.
SKY: That's not what I -- I was just making a scientific observation.
BRO CALLER (sniffling): BROOO. This is the most romantic thing I've ever heard. Bro, you SQUAT your woman?? Bro I'm gonna call my ex.
TESSA: Do not do that.
*
Rachel has spent three years helping women who should know better do better.
She is now in love with a man who made her a protein shake before she said a word, squats her for motivation, and thinks stillness is the final rep.
The show that started as controlled demolition of men is now the most talked about romance podcast in the country. Women are flooding gyms. Bros are calling in weeping. Tessa has a fan base she refuses to acknowledge. Sky is bi-compatible with at least three people she met at her own lingerie party.
"What can I say," Rachel tells her listeners, blushing into the mic while Beau sits in the corner smiling like he always knew. "He's gorgeous, makes the perfect shake, and is the perfect guy."
Somewhere a bro calls in just to say he loves his girlfriend for the first time. Rachel takes full credit. Beau smiles. Tessa pretends not to cry. Sky is already planning the crystal ceremony.