Misseducated

Dear Wonderful Readers,

I was looking forward to updating you with the next part of my story. Until s**t went down on the internet. (See recent weeks here and here).

Given that this s**t went down in the last 48 hours, I haven’t had the chance to process things properly yet. However, I was still determined to write something for you today. Luckily, I also have one exciting update for you that I hope will be a strong metaphorical band-aid over this situation for us all.

Without meaning to, this week, my life turned into a very dramatic and scary telenovela. Perhaps I was asking for it by writing about my love life in Mexico with no filter and very thin guises of anonymity for the other characters. But to be honest, the Instagram harassment and the casual threat to my personal safety have put a downer on the whole situation. I had to confirm that these people don’t know where I live. Guess what that did to my nervous system and my latent PTSD? Not good things! Lol. Don’t worry, I know who they are and why they’re mad. But it’s a bummer because the story was just getting juicy!

Many of you have contacted me to say how much you loved my stories these last couple of weeks, and for that, I am truly grateful and inspired to keep going. However, when the haters mount up, the amount of b******t I am experiencing starts to tally and counteract the good. If this newsletter paid me a s**t ton of money, which I hope it will one day, then maybe I wouldn’t care. But right now, as a labor of love, it starts to hurt when people keep lobbing daggers at me through the screen with expert precision.  

I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect. My flaws include having far too much curiosity for my own good, a propensity to meddle in other people’s business, and publishing whatever I want without giving much thought to who is reading it. Yet the closer my stories reflect my personal life, the stranger these situations become. Do I go on a date with a weirdo so I can write something off-piste about it? Do I pursue people and experiences to sensationalize them with spice later?

This week was a hard lesson. I learned that I should not do things just for the story itself, especially if that would put me in danger. What happens when the characters confront me in real life? It’s a mindfuck. I have to develop a thicker skin while treading more carefully. As my woo-woo friends have suggested, this may be what the current full-moon-eclipse is trying to teach me (Still, don’t ask me about astrology; I know nothing about it.).

But ultimately, I do love writing for you all. Especially in recent weeks, I have absolutely loved these little serialized chapters. You get to read a bit more of the same story each week, and the momentum is exciting because I have a clear sense of what I’ll reveal next. That keeps me on my toes with all of you. I want to keep that cadence going, but as you can tell, I’ve had quite a rough week. So hopefully, next week we can start again with a new series of mischief I’ve been up to.

However, not all hope is lost. Here are some things that have been bringing me back to life:

* Reaching out to all my closest friends in Mexico. Thank you all for being an incredible source of emotional support and helping me through with your witty and sometimes ridiculous reflections.

* Getting drunk with said friends, catching up on all the gossip we’ve missed and laughing a lot to help take my mind off things.

* Hugging myself. It’s the best way I’ve found to give myself compassion thanks to Dr. Kristin Neff.

* Channeling the strength of my ancestors. Do you know how f*****g tough you have to be to survive the Irish winters? Before electricity and central heating? Part of my family has lived in Donegal for probably thousands of years. Those people, the women especially, are tough as nails. Their strength is part of me.

* Cleansing everything. I exorcised all the bad energy in my house by opening all the windows and burning copal, and then sage, which I originally got from the Taos pueblo in New Mexico. I feel witchy and lighter.  

Lastly, before I share the exciting update, I want to comment on how we treat women in our world. It is disappointing to me that some people like to blame women for men’s bad behavior. What about holding the men accountable for their actions? What about some self-reflection? Using a woman as a scapegoat, blaming her for everything and calling her a liar is old news, and it’s childish.

I used to blame women for things or think that they were just being inconvenient and difficult when they spoke their minds. That was until the Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar cases convinced me otherwise. It was shocking to me that while many young women in each case were assaulted by the same person, a big reason why they didn’t come forward is because they thought no one would believe them. However, false reporting for rape, for example, is estimated to be between 2-8% of accusations. That means we should believe other women about 92-98% of the time. So, let’s bend the moral arch of the universe a tiny bit. Let’s start believing other women, rather than blaming them. How about that?

Anyway, that’s more than enough of that. The good news is that my head is bloody but unbowed, probably because a quarter of my blood comes from generations of stalwart Irish women. Now we can move onto something much more interesting:

The Exciting Update: Launching “Ask Tash 💁‍♀️”

Today, I’m very excited to launch an experimental section of Misseducated called “Ask Tash.” It’s a new and special way that I can connect with all of you, and the concept is simple.

Like an advice column, you can email me any question to [email protected], and I will answer it for you as honestly and openly as possible. If you would like, with your permission and anonymization, you have the option of me publishing your question with my response on Misseducated as well.

You can also find “Ask Tash” on the Misseducated homepage.

Yay!

Love you all. Thank you, and we will start a new series next week, I hope,

Tash

💌 ✍️

Related Posts from Misseducated

My conversation with Jorge, the hot waiter, unfolds in Spanglish over WhatsApp. Of course, I leave healthy delays between messages, so I don’t come across as too keen.

Jorge: “Hi Tash. It’s Jorge. How are you?”

Tash: “Good morning. Do you work at Quintonil?”

Jorge: “Yes, haha.”

Tash: “Lol. Where are you from? How old are you?”

Jorge: “I’m 33 and I’m from Veracruz.”

Tash: “I’m from London, and I’m 29.”

Jorge: “Cool. I have to start my shift, but let’s chat soon! Do you have Instagram?”

We exchange Instagram handles. I tell him I’m traveling for the next few weeks, and he tells me to get in touch once I’m back. I’m lying around the house in LA on my family holiday one afternoon when I finally look at his Instagram profile. It’s private. But his profile picture tells me all I need to know.

I use my thumb and forefinger to zoom in closer on the tiny circle. There he is in the picture, smiling and stubbled, clad in full hiking gear. And then, undoubtedly, unavoidably, inconveniently, there is a girl in hiking gear standing next to him. Does he have his arm around her? Well, with their hiking poles, it’s hard to tell. It takes him a day or two to follow me back before I can finally see what I’m dealing with.

Most of Jorge’s Instagram pictures are of him and his colleagues brandishing extravagant pieces of fish or perfectly plated food alongside chefs and knives. I imagine that to work at a high-end place like Quintonil, you have to be a fiend for good food, and your job is your identity. Are there lots of pictures of the girl? No. But when I do find a picture of her from way-back when, there’s her Instagram handle, and her profile is public.

I discover that she is also Mexican and also from Veracruz. There are plenty of pictures of them together, dining out to exquisite meals and hiking trails along Popocatepetl and El Nevado de Toluca. And yes, there is a ring on her finger. I begin to read into things, dig into things, and project my limited and nervous thoughts all over things.

Here’s a lovely couple from Veracruz who moved to Mexico City together. This man is clearly obsessed with his work. His fiancé loves him dearly and cherishes the dinners he takes her to because he knows all the best restaurants in the city. But she wishes he wasn’t so dedicated to his work so they could spend more time together and start to build a family.

I think back to the dinner with my family at Quintonil. Did Jorge have a ring on his finger? I am pretty sure he didn’t. Otherwise, I never would have left him my number in the first place.

I pause. You see, in Mexican culture, the way I’m communicating with Jorge is not very appropriate. It’s not done for a married man to have many single female friends or to be friends with his wife’s friends, for example, and vice versa. So, I can’t help but wonder. If Jorge is engaged or married, why is he talking to me?

Summer this year has brought some of my most strange and confusing interactions with men. It is probably a complete coincidence, but soon after I got my Mexican residency in July, weird things started happening to me.

The first was when I met Lorenzo, a videographer from Los Bosques, a fancy suburb of Mexico City, at an art event. We talked for about three weeks before he took me out for a dinner date at a cantina. The dinner went well, except he took a very long time in the bathroom, so his food got cold. He also told me stories about how he often came home to find his uncle sleeping with other women and prostitutes while he was still married to his aunt. That should have been a red flag. Still, I’m a sucker for men who pay for dinner.

The morning after, I woke up with 6 missed calls from Lorenzo. At first, I excused it, thinking he had butt-dialed me, and we kept talking. Later, when I checked Instagram, I found that I had 13 missed video and audio calls from a girl called Luisa. She also shared a picture of her with him, in which he looked very guilty indeed, and she wrote,

Luisa: “Did you go to this cantina with Lorenzo? Tell me! I am with him.”

I then texted Lorenzo to ask who Luisa was. Lorenzo never responded again. As my old Economics teacher, Mr. Simpson used to say: “Extraordinary scenes!”

Tash: “Haha, your poor phone.”

Lorenzo: “Hi! How are you? How was your flight?”

Tash: “All good, thanks. I got to San Cristobal de Las Casas already. Did you want to talk last night, or was it your phone’s mistake? Also, who is Luisa?”

🦗

I was shocked. Lorenzo had a girlfriend who I had no idea about. I was bewildered. Yet, I’m very grateful that Luisa somehow found out and contacted me. Thanks to her, I only wasted 3 weeks of my life with Lorenzo, not 3 years or even 30.

My experience with Lorenzo left me rattled. As you know, I’ve dated multiple men in Mexico. I started to replay my past. While I was only exclusive with a few partners, my sense of trust began to shake. Had any of them had secret girlfriends? Had any of them cheated on me emotionally or physically, and I never found out? Here I was, on the verge of becoming a homewrecker without even knowing it. Why had Lorenzo embroiled me in his b******t?

I believe cheating is wrong. If you’re dating someone and want to sleep with other people, why not talk about it and open the relationship? But no. Lorenzo was a two-timing, dilly-dallying, willy-wallying loser who would play Luisa and me like a puppet in each hand for as long as he could. He had even continued to message me after it seemed like I might not have received Luisa’s messages. What a dick!  

As I walked away from the Lorenzo situation, I began to wonder to myself:

When I go on a date now, do I have to ask whether the guy has a girlfriend?

I pressed on in the dating world. Yet I didn’t get far enough.

That day, I had flown to San Cristobal de Las Casas, a cute pueblo in the mountains of Chiapas. I was onto new friends, live music, and better things, or so I thought.

At the Café Revolución, I met Marco, an interior designer from Tuxtla Gutierrez, the main city in Chiapas a couple hours’ drive away. We hit it off. Marco was short but very strong. He had round glasses, a cheeky smile, and a sleek style. He liked to tout his Mayan roots and the history of Zapatista political activism in his family. He told me he lived in Tuxtla Gutierrez during the weekends with his dogs, his cats, and his pet rabbits and donkeys. He spent his weekdays in San Cristobal designing interiors for hotels. What I liked about Marco was that he seemed genuinely curious about me. He listened to my stories in Spanish. He was interested. He was patient. I felt I could be myself around him.

The next evening, Marco treated me to dinner at a wholesome taco restaurant my friend had recommended. Marco insisted on paying and said he wanted to hold my bag. We would drop my bag off at the hotel before continuing for drinks. With the unfortunate recent memory of Lorenzo lingering in my mind, I felt I had to ask Marco,

“Tienes una novia?” (Do you have a girlfriend?)

Marco paused for a second. He shrugged. He grinned. Then this man had the stupidity or the audacity to tell me,

“Pues, sí.” (Well, yes.)

It stopped me in my tracks. I felt like a fool who had been taken for a joy ride. Yet again. Two dinner dates in the span of a week with men in relationships. What the f**k? How had I gotten entrenched in this garbage, s**t-filled stew? As we headed down the street towards my hotel, I quickly took my bag back from him. I couldn’t believe these men. I felt sick to my stomach. All my smiling, wide-eyed conversations with Marco over IPAs at the bar felt like they had been a lie. He had managed to tell me so much about his life. He had told me all about his pets. Queso and Nacho. Those were his cats’ f*****g adorable names. But Marco failed to leave out the tiny detail that his girlfriend of three years was in Tuxtla, living in that house they shared together, and that might soon be filled with a beautiful family and children and even more pets, or so I imagined.

I challenged him to message his girlfriend. If she allows us to sleep together, I’m okay with it. Marco told me he messaged her, but it still felt so icky. Who knows how many tourists he had taken around the block while his girlfriend was left completely unaware? I was evidently not the first girl, but it turned out that I was the first to seek permission from his girlfriend. I believed she deserved to know the truth.

Over the next few days, Marco was still keen to meet up with me, given the semi-okay-you-can-do-it-but-i-love-you text messages from his girlfriend. But at that point, I was bored of his shenanigans. I couldn’t trust him anymore. Plus, his girlfriend's permission in the mix left a sour taste in my mouth. Whatever brewing connection I felt with Marco had gone. And now it felt like we were kids in elementary school, like his mother (cough girlfriend cough) had given us the okay to have a playdate after school.

So yes, unfortunately, this summer has taught me that this question is now mandatory.

I have to ask whether a guy has a girlfriend before anything escalates.

Yet, this brings me back to Jorge. I message him when I’m back in Mexico City. Did he tell me his fiancé exists? Yes. Does this go against my principles of being anti-cheating? Yes. Am I going to message him anyway because he’s incredibly hot and I’m curious to see what he has in mind? Yes.

I flit off into my own fantasies of them having an open relationship and looking for a third as we text in Spanglish,

Jorge: “What’s the plan?”

Tash: “Haha, I don’t know. When are you free?”

Jorge: “Almost never, haha. Next weekend I’m taking my girl and friends to drink mezcal. Want to join?”

Tash: “Sure, sounds fun.”

💌 ✍️

From Misseducated’s Archive:

Written in Chiapas

On Dating Women

✨ I’ve missed writing for you! I think you’ll like this story… ✨

I will give my number to the hot waiter at this restaurant. But this dinner is not my typical Wednesday night, and it’s far from over.

The light in the restaurant is deep and gold. Low beams radiate out over the main dining area. Impeccably dressed people sit on wood-framed chairs and silently drag their spoons across plates of mole. My dark rouge lipstick stains the thin curve of my wine glass as I take a sip. After I put the glass down, I can’t help but run my hands over the hazelnut table, sturdy yet tantalizing. Five other glasses of various shapes, sizes, and colors sit there, waiting for me to work through them. I am sharing the wine pairing with my father. I had an early shot of tequila and a cocktail. I have the sneaking suspicion that I am a little too loose.

I am wearing all black. I wanted to look thin and be comfortable but also look hot. A short cashmere turtleneck dress and a blazer with gold buttons. High-laced boots. The top part of my hair is in a thin braid. I decorated myself with the trimmings of gold necklaces and rings, my fancy jewelry which I never wear in Mexico. But I am wearing them tonight and pulling out all the punches, because we are dining at Quintonil, one of the fanciest and most expensive restaurants in the whole of Mexico City.

I called, emailed, and confirmed our reservation over a month ago. Along with my father, my mother and aunt are also here to celebrate my aunt’s retirement. Everything has gone perfectly on their trip. The sexagenarians (i.e., the people in their sixties, my family members, lol) are ecstatic, yet I’m dwindling with the exhaustion of a five-day chaperone. All I have to do is make it through this dinner. It’s the peak of their trip. It’s the height of indulgence. And it’s the perfect second off.

Yet, from the moment I walked into Quintonil, what can I say? I was already on the prowl. My period finished last week, which means I am about to ovulate if I’m not ovulating already. As I sip my wine again, I shake my head silently to myself in knowing shame. I am drowning in the intensity of my baby fever. As we trundle over fond memories of summer holidays, I had to admit it to myself. I was not just hungry for the most delicious, exquisite meal in the city. I was hungry for the aftertaste of man. (Or woman).

I didn’t mean to get drunk. What happened was that my father wanted to order the wine pairing, but my mother insisted he can’t drink that much, or he will snore, and she won’t be able to sleep. My father passes me every half glass of wine he’s not allowed to finish. Across the pristine plates, well into the 6th course, my wine glasses look like the traffic jam we briefly got stuck in in the Uber on the way here. I sloppily joke with my aunt and my mother,

“K-Keep your eye out for any single men between the ages of 25 and 40.”

I guess my father pretends not to hear. My father places another thin glass of wine in my queue. The rain is pounding on the roof. I glance through the low, wide window at the lush, jungle-like garden beyond. The air is a balanced temperature. The trickling music, the elotes, and the lamb barbacoa melt together in front of me. I sit up straight. I try to keep it together.

I’m not sure when he first comes to my attention. I notice him holding a tray and standing by the wall, almost hidden in the shadowed corner of the room. He has black hair tucked behind his ears and crafted stubble on his chin. In the shadows, it is hard to tell if his hair is salt-and-pepper. But it is gelled, definitely.

The next moment, he is standing over me. He has brought me a gift. It is another plate of carefully manicured vegetables, this time with lush pink tuna, the catch of the day. The light salt of the fish. The creamy, spicy, lemony kick of yet another green sauce.

Well, that is his job, isn’t it? To explain the dishes. To serve us the food. Is it just my imagination, or is he serving me first? His hands are thin. His skin is tan, and his fingers are rounded and rough. He leans over me. Our shoulders are almost touching. I feel a short shiver at the base of my back. I prop up my chin, resting on my hand, pretending to be elegant and oblivious.

I’ve written about this before, but I can tell whether I want to have sex with a guy from the shape of his hands alone. And let me tell you: this waiter’s hands are incredibly f******e. There's no hair around the knuckles, but they look strong. He has the kind of hands that might lock me in the bathroom with him, I imagine. That might pour a 40-ingredient, 10-year-old warm, dark chocolate mole across the pale skin of my naked chest under the light of a single bulb. Before he pulls my hair back and f***s me, getting it everywhere. The ghost of my feigned innocence might lift out of my body. Because beneath all the pleasantries of the dinner table, I am a bad girl, and I know what I want.

I look up from my plate and remember I am in the strange company of my family. I chuckle in silent shame as I narrow in on my goal. I want his attention. I want to chat him up. I’m not sure what is so hot about this. Yes, he is attractive in his long, tucked-in black shirt. But there is also something forbidden about it. Forbidden, because this is his place of work. Forbidden, because I am still presenting as a young girl, surrounded by the pomp of some of the wealthiest people in the world. Yet none of the tax loopholes or client contracts or ETF investment portfolios matter now. I still need sex. I still want sex. And I want to have sex with him.

For me, the power dynamic sharpens the chemistry. It is his job to serve me. Not that I believe I deserve to be served. But this is the game we are playing. The societal game. I walk near him on the way to the bathroom (to freshen myself up and make sure I don’t look terrible). He is taller than me. We speak in Spanish as he shows me the way. Always on hand. Always there to please. Once I am alone, I gaze into the bathroom mirror. I confirm that my makeup is still on my face. My eyes are dark. My lips are still red. I think to myself,

“You’re hot, too. You’ve got this.”

When he serves the next meat course of wild boar, I tell him,

“Conseguí mi residencia en Hidalgo.” (I got my Mexican residency in Hidalgo.)

We have a 20-second conversation about the unique wild boar dishes of various Mexican states before he quickly excuses himself. He resumes his position, holding the tray beside the wall and standing in the shadows. I glance at him repeatedly when I can.

As my family shares the last bites of the special cake they prepared for my aunt’s retirement, I say to her,

“Here’s a phrase you might like. Chingatelo. As you know, chingar means to f**k. So if I tell you, chingatelo, it means f*****g finish the last bit on the plate.”

The hot waiter happens to be hovering at that moment. He seems to giggle a bit.

“You’re teaching them the slang,” he says to me, and I smile at him. Of course, I didn’t have the guts to tell him I learned that phrase from my barista ex-noviocitio (lover), another man of incredible talent and taste.

The hot waiter serves me. He serves me again. And I watch as he leans over me and wipes away the tiny crumbs and drops of alcohol that I had spilled on the table in front of me. Of course, he wipes my area of the table first. I notice the thickness of his fingers. Is he enjoying this also? Does it excite him? I sit up straighter and look away as he loyally makes his way around the table, wiping the spaces in front of my aunt, my mother, and my father.

As we finish up dessert, and he returns to the corner of the room, I catch the intensity of his gaze. Was that a slight grin? My heart quickens, chest pounding. I bite my lip. I know what I need to do. I reach into my tiny leather purse. I pull out a small white square of paper and a pen. I take the square of paper out a bit too early because my aunt and my parents need to keep talking about how marvelous their trip has been. And what a wonderful time they had. And I sit there like a fool with a blank square of paper in front of me.

“I’ll order the Uber,” my father offers kindly. They stand up to leave at last.

“One minute,” I say. I snag the pen and paper and head to the bathroom again. I stand at the round mirror beside the flickering Jasmin candle and the box of perfectly rolled-up hand towels. My hair is quite blonde in this light. Blonde enough. My makeup is still on my face. I’m not quite 30 years old. I still have some collagen, or so I hope. In the dim light of the sink, I scratch my pen across the tiny page. I write,

Tash. +52 55 7435 8932.

I fold the paper. I’m not sure how I am going to do this. I hesitate. Is this appropriate? Hitting on a man in his place of work? He’s not consenting to this. Am I just objectifying him, using him as my mental plaything? I am, aren’t I? Still, I’ve never been to Quintonil before. I have no intention of ever coming back. This is my only chance.

I leave the bathroom. My family is nowhere to be seen, already outside. My eyes scan the room. He’s not at our table. I follow the light flow of people who are leaving and the waiters, who are standing by.

Now he is standing right in front of me. He has just finished serving another table when he turns around.

“Es para ti,” I say (It’s for you), handing him the folded white paper.

“Gracias,” he says again. His dark eyes are smiling.

I skip out of the restaurant, giddy like a child, far too terrified to look back. I wiggle on the sidewalk as I wait with my family for the Uber. I have left my number with a couple of people before. But this time it feels daring.

We get caught in the rain and traffic on the way home. I go for a wet, late-night walk with my aunt while chewing on the time. There was no wedding ring on his finger. But I begin to wonder. Maybe, like some of the more secretive Mexican men who have taken me to dinner, he has a secret girlfriend lurking in the shadows?

I try to brush off those thoughts.

I get home.

I am brushing my teeth when my phone buzzes.

It is a WhatsApp message from a number I haven't saved.

“Hola Tash. It’s Jorge. Como estas?”

💌 ✍️

Hello there, This week, you felt liberated. You twirled to cumbia music barefoot in the sodden muddied grass at the backdoor DJ set in San Cristobal de Las Casas. You looked up at the deep pink bougainvillea against the construction site that surrounded the garden. You saw the water tank on the roof of the building next door and the clouded night sky, and you said to yourself,

“I don’t have to answer to anyone. Moving to Mexico was the best decision I ever made. I am free. I am still young.”

You returned to the city and called up all your girlfriends and invited them to go dancing. It is just passed your half birthday. You are inching closer to turning 30. You are still young, you try to tell yourself, so you must drink four different types of alcohol and dance in a club with a bunch of 24-year-old men on a Thursday night until 2 am to prove that you still have it in you. With each passing second, you’ll never be as young again as you are right now. Perhaps it doesn’t matter how old you are, you consider, as you notice your knee pain is acting up again on the dancefloor. The beats pound through your body. Perhaps all life is youth, or so says some cliched phrase.

Last month, when walking around in Polanco, you stopped in Santa Clara. You drank chocolate milk, fresh from the refrigerator, at 5 pm in the afternoon. You are convinced this is the height of adulting.

You can’t deny it. Spilling your feelings about a man you had been in love with for a year has left you weightless. The heaviness of well-kept secrets and feelings is no longer wearing you down. There are familiar male faces resurfacing with new messages to you on your phone. Did they know? It’s like the universe has shifted energetically and their spirits noticed the tiny space you’ve cleared for yourself. They immediately lurched in and grabbed an inch for each of themselves.

You discover a dirty pair of your polka-dotted socks buried in the pillows of your couch. You left them there, as you tend to do when you come home and take off your shoes after work. No one was around to tell you to pick them up because they ruined the clean aesthetic of your typical home. Instead, your dirty socks had faded into the distance of your daily passings, until now. It always bothers you to find dirty items of clothing you forget to send to the wash. It is always something. You are never perfect.

Prompt

Share with us:

What was a recent moment of liberation for you? What makes you feel liberated? What makes you feel young?

Do you like dancing? If so, when was the last time you danced and had fun? When is the next time you will dance? Mark a date, time, and place in your calendar for dancing, if you dare.

Tell us about a treat you like to eat, when you should be saving room for dinner. What are your guilty pleasures?

Is there a person in your life that makes you feel lighter and freer? Tell us about them.

Are there certain activities you only do in the privacy of your own home that you never tell anyone about?

Paid subscribers are invited to overshare in the comments 🤓.

Sending you good vibes for the weekend as always.

Love,

Tash Doherty

💌 ✍️

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things, a cuming-of-age teen romance novel 📚

Blogger at TashDoherty.com

Insta | LinkedIn | TikTok

A few weeks ago, I had a fantastic conversation with Dr. Amy Divaraniya, CEO of Oova, a hormonal health testing company. We talked all about how very few women have regular 28-day cycles (only 13%, and maybe even closer to 5% according to Oova’s latest data!) and what that means for those who are trying to conceive or who are hitting perimenopause.⁠⁠

I love a good #femtech story where a woman brings a product to market to solve her own health issue. Congratulations to Dr. Amy for raising a whopping $ 10.3 million for their Series A. That's big money in femtech! ⁠

Here's to taking our health into our hands, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Listeners of Misseducated get 10% off Oova.

Go to https://oova.life/misseducated and apply the promo code MISSOOVA10 when you checkout.

Episode Transcript

I apologize in advance for typos or misattribution of words. We'll gladly make any corrective updates that you identify. 

[Intro] [Dr. Amy Divaraniya] They say that if you have PCOS or irregular cycles, our data may not be reliable for you. And I was like, well, that's great because we know that 87 percent of women don't have a 28-day cycle. So, who are you trying to solve this problem for?

[Tash Doherty] Hello everyone. And welcome back to Misseducated with me, your host, Tash Doherty. And today my guest is Dr. Amy Diverania, the founder and CEO of Oova. A personalized at-home test to help females understand their unique hormone profile. There's been a lot of talk of hormonal health in Femtech over the last couple of years, and Oova is leading the way in measuring LH, estrogen, and progesterone, three key hormones in the menstrual cycle.

In 2023, Dr. Amy and her team raised a whopping $ 10.3 million Series A, which is big money in Femtech, so we're super excited to dive into all things hormonal health. So, Dr. Amy, welcome to Miseducated. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today. You got your PhD from the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai in Genetics and Genomic Sciences.

So what inspired you to get your PhD, and what did you discover in your thesis and your research? 

 [Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Before I did my Ph.D., I was actually working in the industry as a data scientist, and I've been really fortunate in my career to be surrounded by folks who are smarter than me and amazing mentors. I've never really disliked a boss; they've always pushed me.

To be better and move forward. My director actually took me out to lunch one day and was like, Amy, he was so mad. Right. It's really weird to see your manager mad. And it's not directed towards you, but he's like, I want to give you a promotion, but I can't because you either need a PhD or ten years of experience.

And at that point, I only had five years. So he was like, leave here. Go get your Ph.D., and then wherever you go, I'm coming, and I was like, all right, fine. Like, I'll invest in myself. Like, don't invest the time here invested in you and go and get your Ph.D., so I did, and I was really particular about where I wanted to go.

Who I wanted to work with. I was kind of a groupie of my 2 Ph.D. advisors, who were at the time also leaders in the genomic space, very visionary, and I was always that person in the audience listening to the same talk over and over again, just inspired beyond belief. I wanted them to be my mentors, and they both accepted me.

I got into the school. They agreed on my Ph.D. dissertation topic. We kind of hit the ground running from there. And believe it or not, my director that had advised me to do this actually came in as an investor in the company, too. So he did follow me, which is really exciting. But my Ph.D. work had nothing to do with what we're doing today.

It was really looking at genetic networks and figuring out why women or not women, why people were developing certain diseases in the inflammatory. Like, why were you getting lupus over cardiovascular disease when they're so related? What's that trigger that says you're going to get this disease versus another?

And we were able to actually model out various genetic networks by looking at different tissues and health records to validate everything, which is really cool. I had beautiful pictures throughout my dissertation. 

[Tash Doherty] Wow. So, you planned to go back to your industry job when you finished your PhD? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Well, yes and no, I wanted to go back to work. I wasn't really in this, like, I need to start my own company mentality at all, but I didn't really want to go back to big pharma because I felt like. Those companies are so big, and you have all these great ideas; you often get lost, and it takes so long for innovation to come to real life. At that point, it's not even innovative anymore.

My plan was either to go into a biotech or startup and my PhD advisors were really well connected there. So they were like, what kind of company do you want to go into? And at that point, I was going through infertility myself. And I was experiencing the gaps in women's health and not understanding what my body was doing.

And so what I unintentionally did was pitch Oova. I basically said, do you know any company that is monitoring hormones, helping women navigate various phases of life, and doing it in a nonblood form? And they both looked at me and were like, no, you need to build that. And I was like, okay, sure.

They're like, I have an investor coming tomorrow, get a pitch deck together, and I'll put you in front of them. I was like, all right, fine. I happily walked back to my desk, Google, like a good student. What is a pitch deck? And I put together an 87-page deck to put in front of this investor. 

[Tash Doherty] 87-pages. That's quite extensive.

I mean, I had just written a dissertation that was hundreds of pages long. So, 87 pages felt like nothing. He was very kind and tore that deck apart with so much grace and was like, you only need these seven slides, Amy. And I was like, Oh, okay. And that's really where it started. Wow. Well, I love the idea of having so many mentors that you can learn from, and he will just give you the honest truth.

Like nobody needs that many pages. This is Silicon Valley. Like people do not have time to sit through hours and hours of research. So that's really amazing.

[Tash Doherty] And so when you talk about your own experience with infertility, because you were trying to conceive like with your partner and was it like a question of like, Do you know anything about, you know, your unexplained infertility? Was it when you were cycling, or did you have PCOS or some other kind of like other condition that was affecting whether or not you could conceive? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah. So, I've always had irregular cycles since my first period. It's always been a regular, and I've kind of tried everything like I was misdiagnosed with PCOS for multiple years.

I was put on the hormone birth control, all of that to find out finally with like a sane OB that, okay, having an irregular period is just normal for you. So I kind of accepted that, and I let it go, but when it was time to start trying to conceive, I was doing everything right. I was using my fertility tracking apps.

I was peeing on sticks. I was tracking every symptom like I was a data scientist by training. So like, give me data, and I will find that golden nugget. But there was no pattern to be found in this data. All I was learning was that I'm irregular, and it's so frustrating because my train ride to work every day was literally dissecting all my data.

That's what I would do. Like, no one can sit on the seat. I have my stuff spread out. Like, this is my time to really dig in, and I couldn't find anything. The most frustrating part was when you were looking at the fine print of all these products. They say that if you have P. C. O. S. or irregular cycles, our data may not be reliable for you.

And I was like, well, that's great because we know that 87 percent of women don't have a 28-day cycle. So, who are you trying to solve this problem for? And that's really where the light bulb started coming up. I don't know if I'm ovulating or not. I can't not be ovulating in the 18 months it took me to conceive.

I have to be ovulating much more frequently than I am. And I just didn't have those answers. The breaking point for me was more so sitting on my bathroom floor. After getting another pregnancy test, it was four in the morning. I was bawling and crying, and I had my dad's magnifying glass in my hand, trying to find a double line on a pregnancy test, and I couldn't find it.

And I was like, my Ph.D. work is so innovative, and I'm doing such crazy things, yet I'm sitting here with a 60-year-old magnifying glass, trying to figure out if I'm pregnant or not. It just didn't feel like real life. And there was such a broken piece of the puzzle that I wanted to fix. These are the kinds of stories that I love to feature on this podcast because it's amazing how we now have so many women in STEM, so many women, OBs, you know, women doing PhDs.

There are nice, fancy things that we're all studying and researching. And yet, there's our lived experience of going to the doctor and trying to understand their own bodies. And we're so behind still on that. 

[Tash Doherty] I always get really excited and inspired when I'm like, okay, here's a person who is like STEM, literate, educated, and like enfranchised basically.

Like when you have a Ph.D., or you're assigned as like, you can do all these things and study these things. So that's really great that, you know, unfortunately, you have to take one for the team and put your own body on the line for the greater good. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] You bring up a really good point. Yes, there are a lot of women in STEM and making moves here, but it wasn't until I started this company that I actually felt like the only woman in a room.

And I don't know if I was just oblivious to it, or I don't know what it was. Still, I didn't feel like I was actually treated like a woman until I started this company in an environment like a group setting; I felt like I was always treated like a person. And now I'm feeling like, oh my God, like I, everyone is looking at me like I am the only woman in a room because I am defending a woman's health issue for a woman's health company being run by women.

[Tash Doherty] Yeah, it's crazy. I've had, um, Anna Lee as well from Lioness on the podcast, and she talks about like pitching sex toys to all male investor panels in Silicon Valley, and I'm like, oh wow, really respect for that girl. Yeah, to be a fly in the wall, right? Wow, and so did you end up discovering, you know, through your data and all your research, like, were you ovulating, or also it randomly, like, through your cycle?

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] So, no, I was ovulating every cycle, but the issue for me was that my luteinizing hormone search was just on the lower end. So when you look at these over-the-counter tests that are available, they're all threshold-based. So my LH just wasn't reaching their threshold. So, I was getting false negatives every month.

So, literally, I was missing my window because the test wasn't reading it. 

[Tash Doherty] That's crazy. Yeah. I've also interviewed Dr. Amy from Proov, and I would love to get into a little bit of Proov as well because it's kind of a similar market. Still, parts of Oova's applications, but yeah, she was just talking again about how, like, even with COVID vaccines, it's like, they were only testing it on female bodies that were, like, not cycling.

This is, again, of course, you're going to have outside effects on people who are cycling, which is the vast majority of people. Still, it's just like a really, a really difficult thing where I think, obviously, because so much of this medical history is like very patriarchal and like driven by men, it's like the added level of cycles is just too complicated, or women were assumed to be like too unintelligent, or we didn't have enough education to be able to figure out our cycles on our own.

So it's kind of just this, You know, clusterfuck medical issues. And I think that's why it's really starting to unravel now. And we have a chance of getting really great gains in this generation of women and beyond, which is awesome. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah, no, you bring up a great point. There are definitely those two aspects that you highlighted that women just aren't accepted to be able to handle this data and understand what's going on. But then you go to the other end of the spectrum, right? When your cycle stops. In science, there are very few things that you can say affect 100 percent of a population. Menopause is one. If a woman is to live to a certain age, 100 percent of those women will go through menopause. Yet we know nothing about it.

It is a mystery. I don't understand that. Like, why do we not understand this transition that is inevitable and are able to guide women through that? I understand everyone's different and everyone's going to have different symptoms, but the fact that no one has, there's no holy grail. Like, if I experienced this, it could be X, Y, or Z. There's none of that. And after generations of women going through this. We still don't have any sort of answers there. I think it's completely a disservice to women. Totally. I think perimenopause is a huge area that we need a lot more advancements in.

[Tash Doherty] And I think that's a great segue actually to some of the product questions that I was going to ask you about, and maybe we could give an example of a perimenopause user with Oova so far. So I think it's like digital urine tests; if I'm right, it's like the same test over and over again. So yeah, tell us a bit about the product and like how a woman who's experiencing perimenopause might want to use it.

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Sure. So I'll explain the product a little bit so people understand what it looks like. I can show it to you, but, um, I can describe it for your listeners. It's a urine-based test, so every kit comes with 30 strips. There are 15 strips to measure luteinizing hormone and progesterone and 15 that measure estrogen.

Each one of our cartridges has a QR code on it, so we know exactly what tests are measuring. You don't need to worry about, like, am I using LH or estrogen? Am I misrepresenting it? We work, we take care of all of it. But you basically provide a urine sample, and then you scan it with your phone. Very similar to how you would do a mobile deposit, right?

You're not entering data in. We get the data directly from the test strip, and then we interpret it all for you and let you know exactly what your hormone levels are every day that you use a test. Now, for perimenopause, we expect you to use it for 15 consecutive days. So we can really understand what your hormone profile looks like.

Oova's forte is not on a single time point measurement. We really value looking at the trend of your hormone over time. Because we're not robots. We don't stay stagnant. We have fluctuation. And you need to understand what that fluctuation is for every woman to really guide her. So what we're looking for on the perimenopause side is 1; how are the symptoms that you're experiencing relating to the hormone levels that you're having?

Is there a hormonal imbalance there? Can we help navigate you by giving you lifestyle recommendations to alleviate those symptoms or not? And really, are you in perimenopause or not? We have so many women who are using our perimenopause kit right now, thinking they are. But when you look at the data, they're still cycling.

It's just Irregular. And yeah, you could say that's a sign for perimenopause, but does that mean I've been in perimenopause for 20 years? No, it's just my norm. Right? So we're really trying to help navigate women through this transition because the biggest issue is that it's so unknown. And we just don't know what's going on.

[Tash Doherty] Yeah. So they're basically maybe experiencing some symptoms, but then they're still cycling, but basically the, I don't know, the hormones are winding down or they're irregular. And so, yeah, that's just helping them to measure that. And so is that also something that you really focus on is not having a threshold for these different types of hormones, just saying like, this is your level.

That doesn't mean you're over and above or below whatever; this is personalized to you as a kind of hormone package, in a way. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] That's exactly it. So, we don't have a threshold on our test at all. You're getting an actual level of all your hormones every day. We really focus on understanding every woman's unique hormone baseline.

So I get this question all the time. I understand these are my levels, but what's normal? And my answer is always, well, whatever is normal for you, like that 20-day cycle, which is not normal. We're not striving for that anymore. We're not 19, 18, 20, trying to get pregnant anymore. If that was great from the previous generation for us, now we're in our late 20s and early 30s, trying to get pregnant, and we're not following a 28-day cycle.

For the most part. So, how do we really embrace your uniqueness and understand what's happening in your body? So our answer is always like, it may be normal for you. Let's look at your historical data. And then we help women educate themselves on what their body is actually saying. Yeah, and I think that's just so powerful, like, because there's so much, as you've talked about in your experience, like even my experience getting birth control, whatever, and like having painful periods, there's so much shame that is built into like, what is the normal female body doing?

[Tash Doherty] And I just love that, you know, with personalized products like yours, you can just understand and be kind of proud and be like, yeah, I'm irregular and like, this is what happens to me. And like, this is how I deal with it. Or, you know, and then have more personalized, you know, recommendations around like health or nutrition or whatever it is.

Cause you guys have quite a holistic look at the fertility windows and things there. Um, yeah, so that's pretty, pretty crazy. Less shame, less guilt for being a female. Yeah, absolutely. And what I love as well about the product is that, like, you can just tell from the, from how it's made that, like, you don't even have to input any data.

You just scan the QR code. Like, that's kind of cool. I don't know if you can go into the details, but I like how that actually works. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah, sure. I'll be honest with you. We had the QR code way before COVID. So when we were thinking about the product learning curve, I was like, people are going to not know how to use the QR code. Well, thank you. COVID everything. Everyone knows what these things are now, and it's not a learning curve anymore, but we basically print a QR code on every cartridge. And we know it's embedded with a lot of data. It's not just there for. Positioning. It actually has data in it that we use internally to help interpret your results.

The test strip that's inside of that cartridge, it's designed to quantitatively measure your hormones. So, the intensities of the lines actually vary based on how much hormone is present in your sample. But I don't want a woman interpreting that by eye. So when she scans her test strip, not only do we understand what hormones she's testing, plus all of the backend information that we need.

But we're able to use our AI and image processing to really fine tune and get to two levels, two decimal places of accuracy in our hormone levels on a daily basis. So there's a lot of going on in that test strip. It's not just meant for you to visually interpret it. Wow. Yeah, that's kind of exactly what we need, though, is that there's the variations of levels, obviously the different types of hormones, but yeah, just having that level of accuracy is super important.

[Tash Doherty] And I mean, I'm also. I've studied a lot of statistics around birth control and stuff. And it's just like, if you're using something over a long period of time, it's like, we just want to remove human error and also make the user experience easier. That's super awesome. And maybe you can then tell us a little bit about the other daily action plan or like tips and recommendations that you include in the app experience. So, for nutritional, emotional, and physical health. Like what does that look like when you're in Oova? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah. When you're going through any of these transitions, whether it's trying to get pregnant or going through debating if you're in perimenopause or not, you're already stressed out, right? Like there's some level of stress that is pushing you to buy this product to get some answers. So we're not trying to layer on more work for you or add more to your checklist of things to do every day. But what we are trying to do is, as we're seeing your hormone patterns and understanding what's going on with your body, there are some lifestyle changes that you can implement to reduce some of the discomfort that you're experiencing. So we will try to give it to you in bite-sized pieces. For example, let's look at PCOS, which is a very common and one of the most common diagnoses that we have in our platform. If you notice that you are showing signs of PCOS because your hormones look a little unbalanced.

We're going to start implementing physical activity that is very lightweight. So giving you tips like, let's go for a 10-minute walk after a meal today, right? Or let's stand after eating our meal today for 5 minutes before we become sedentary because you want your insulin to be working; you need it to be like digesting your food properly.

So we start giving you these little habits. That will actually have a long-term impact rather than, say, you need to exercise after every meal. That's not going to happen. So we're really just trying to embrace healthy living and long-term healthy living. Right. 

[Tash Doherty] And do you see any other use cases for Oova, apart from trying to conceive and perimenopause in the future? We can go more into the future unless it can translate in the conversation to more like the business model stuff as well. So, yeah, what are you thinking for more use cases? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] So women aren't just like baby-making machines, right? Like our bodies are designed to have babies. Yes, but we go through so many transitions from our first period to the last, and it's all driven by hormones. So yes, Oova started with fertility. Yes, we moved into perimenopause, but we're really trying to scale across all the different sectors of a woman's life.

Using the hormones that we have plus additional ones that we're thinking of adding as well. My goal as a company is to ensure that we're providing women and people in general just all the information they need so they can navigate every transition with information and not Google articles. Right. 

I want to be able to empower a woman to advocate for her own health and have that two-way conversation with her doctor, which kind of moves into our business model, but that's kind of the long-term plan of Oova, helping women navigate through every phase of life. 

[Tash Doherty] Totally. And we want more data, and we need more data in order to do that. So yeah, part of your business model, in addition to the kits and stuff that you have, is a membership. So, I didn't look too much into this, but I would love to know what the membership consists of. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah. So it's kind of funny. What we ended up doing was we just had our one-time order and a subscription model for the longest time. And we always offered these free consults with our team. If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out. It was always a console with either our support team or me, but it was a face-to-face Zoom call. Um, and the questions that we got were pretty similar. Can you just talk me through my data?

Like, I understand everything that's happened, but I just need someone to verbalize it for me. So I was like, this is we're onto something because people are using this. Let's embed that into the product because it is so useful and it's such a distinguishing aspect of what we can offer. Since we have actual data, not just a bunch of yeses and nays or smiley faces like we have actual numbers to talk about.

So, with our membership model, what we did was we embedded these consultations that are available to all of our members monthly. We also have events that are. Secure for our members to be able to talk to clinicians in our network about their own data. It's a really safe forum. So, of course, we're always HIPAA compliant, but oftentimes, you don't want to go to your regular doctor to ask certain questions.

So, we offer these events where a patient can log in with one of our providers, and the provider can view their data once a patient gives them access and answer any specific questions they want. We also have office hours with these clinicians. So, if they want to talk to them one-on-one, don't feel comfortable in a group setting.

That's always available too. It's so clear that women are hungry for this information, and they're just not able to get it elsewhere. So if we're able to provide that trusted circle for them, it's an honor to be able to do that. 

[Tash Doherty] Totally. And super cool. And so through your experience, like building the product, like scaling, um, exploring all these different use cases, uh, what are some interesting features or insights that surprised you as you were going through the process?

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya]  Are you talking about building or just like after the product kind of got out there?

[Tash Doherty] Um, let's do building and then one example of, like, an insight from users as well. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Okay, so building, I think, it was an assumption for me. So, like, my husband always makes fun of me when I'm like, I think we want to add this feature in here like, how do you know people want this?

I'm like, well, I want it. And I'm assuming 10 other women want it. So I'm going to go with it. And so far, it's been right. So, one thing that I had a hunch about was. People are going to want to compare their data to normal, whatever is normal. So, we added this feature in our report where you can overlay a typical 28-day cycle on top of your own.

But then all the messaging that's associated with that is that it's okay. You're different from this, but this is why, and it's okay, right? So, really trying to embrace the fact that you're not normal. You're normal for you. And I was floored by how many women appreciated that because they felt like they were spiraling and not knowing what was wrong.

Yeah, and there's so many, like, undiagnosed people, even yourself, being misdiagnosed, and it's just like, without any understanding. I mean, the baselines are helpful. Um, but I think it's also the fact that we're not treating women, especially in the ways that you provide people with recommendations and stuff for their health.

[Tash Doherty] It's like, you're not treating them as, you know, different or like, You're just saying this is, you're actually personalizing the experience more. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya]  Yeah, but it is a fine balance. 

[Tash Doherty] And then what was something that surprised you about either the data or something else that was interesting?

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Well, I'll share two things. So one is we're so heavy on the data side and being sure that we're clear on research and backing all of our claims with doing the studies that we need to, um, there was a study that came out a couple of years ago saying that only 13 percent of women have a 28-day cycle. And I was like, let's, let's test that out.

How many women on our platform actually have a 28-day cycle? We found it was 5%. 

[Tash Doherty] Oh my gosh. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] And yet, everything is designed for a 28-day cycle. 

[Tash Doherty] Yeah. Well, it's also probably because, like, my grandmother, she's, like, 86, but she took part in the first nurses' health study, which was, again, only tested on, like, white women who were nurses in the 50s and 60s.

So, you know, whatever data set they were working with is probably, like, 100 years old, and was only testing, like, women in Indiana who were white Christian churchgoers or something under the age of 30, like. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah. So it's, it was amazing as we published that last year, and that's gotten a lot of traction, but then the, so I'm like, glad that we're starting to like myth bust some of the assumptions that we have about women's health and we're doing it with data.

But the 2nd thing that really surprised me, I know women want this information. I didn't know how badly. So when we launched our perimenopause product or our 3 hormone tests, I should say, in December of last year, we obviously had projections. We were prepared for whatever we wanted. We sold out of 15 weeks of inventory in 2 weeks.

[Tash Doherty] Oh, my God. That's crazy. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya]  And I was just like, what do we do now? Like this is a great problem, but it's not like it just really opened up my eyes to how badly women want this. Yeah. And we're solving a true need here. Yeah. I'm excited. There are other players that are really starting to navigate this.

[Tash Doherty] I've had a lot of other friends on here as well. Kristina from Kegg Tech is one of my best friends, um, in the fertility tracking space, and the same thing. It's like HSA approved suddenly, you know, all the stocks are gone, and you've got to order. But they have physical devices. So it's like, you have to have a six-month delay or something. And it's incredibly difficult. So, yeah, it's, uh, I'm, I'm glad it's like people, it's more accessible and yeah, better ramp up production because now that we, as Cindy Gallop also says, there's a lot of money that you can make from like believing women. So, as soon as you make a product that people are willing to use, it's incredible in that sense. And so, in June of 2023, you raised 10. 3 million to Series A. Congratulations. That is huge. So, what was your fundraising journey like? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] It was very interesting. Like I told you earlier, I've never felt like the only woman in a room. The first time, I felt that wasn't always fundraising, not specifically in this round, but just in general. I mean, the world is very different today than it was a year ago than it was a year before that. So it was a very unique experience of fundraising like the markets are crashing and whatnot. But what I had done.

I'm a big believer because I'm a first-time founder. Let's caveat everything with that. So I don't have a network of investors to tap into, Hey, guys, I have this new effort. Believe in me, put money in. Like, I don't have that. So, um, what I've always been really adamant about is.

Build a relationship with these people before you ask for money because. You never know. And what people are innately always willing to do is offer help and advice. If you're open to it. So I've always done that. So, when I closed my seed round, I actually started talking to Series A investors right away. The next day, I didn't even give myself a moment to celebrate that I closed my seed.

[Tash Doherty] I feel like you at least have a moment to celebrate, like just an inch. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] It was just, it was more of a breath of fresh air. It's like, all right, now what's next? Right. Um, but in that year and a half between our seed or whatever the time limit amount was, I spent so much time speaking with Series A investors and building relationships. So when it came time for our A. We were preempted, and then people jumped on very quickly, so it still took us time to close. But I had already built that trust with a lot of investors where we were able to bring in some amazing funds, and I'm just really proud of what we were able to build. Such a like, truncated amount of time.

[Tash Doherty] Yeah, that's huge. And also, it seems like you're quite well connected because you're, like, living in New York, right? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] The company's based in New York. I live in Connecticut, which is about 30 minutes north of New York City. But I think it's not so much about where you are physically. It's more so about being open to feedback, questions, and help. Because I've always been able to accept that. And I'm always hungry for it. And I feel like you can only grow when you surround yourself with folks that are smarter than you and more established and know things that you just haven't experienced before. Um, and I think that's really attractive to some of these people that just genuinely want to help founders. 

[Tash Doherty] Yeah, totally. That's actually something that I wrote down in my own journals recently. I'm doing all my own social media and platform building as an author as well. I had watched a talk about self publishing like over a year ago and then forgot about it. I didn't implement any action items from the talk. And then obviously the woman, I watched it again last week, and then she's like, yeah, you gotta go with like Ingram Spark. And I had gone with a different self-publishing platform, so I was like, oh man, if I had just actually taken these people's advice, you know, and again, it's a tricky balance because you wanna, you know, you have your own view of the product, right?

Like you have the features that you wanna build that you think, uh, the user's gonna need. But then, when it comes to stuff that you have no idea about, or I'm seeing myself when I don't know something. That's exactly what I need: just take the best advice that I can and then keep going with my own vision and my own thing that I'm working on.

Yeah, it's definitely an art, right? Like the advice is always out there. 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] And the thing that I've also learned is that people have so many ideas. It's all about the execution. So when you take a piece of advice, it is an idea. Now you have to go and execute on it, which is the hard part. So, if you do your diligence on all the ideas and advice that you're getting, you'll have a solid path forward.

But if you're closed off to that great resource, you're only going to be moving forward with what you think is best. And that may not be necessarily the most important choice. 

[Tash Doherty] Right, exactly that. And also, I'm somebody who's struggled to ask for help for various reasons, you know, depending on your upbringing and how you've managed to survive as a woman in the world thus far. I mean, being a trailblazer and doing your own thing as much as possible. It's like sometimes you're trained not to ask for help. So that's a good skill we can all implement in 2024. Yes, let's finish with a couple of more personal questions as we're wrapping up today. Um, if you were going to do a PhD again today, what would you do it in?

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] I would probably do something in education but tailor it a little bit. Um, if I could start another company, it would be focused on redefining what sexual wellness means when you're learning about sex and sex ed. Like I want to redefine that entire program across the world. We should not be teaching girls that their period is something to be ashamed of.

They need to understand what the biology of this is and why you're having a period. It is not true that if you have sex, you're going to get pregnant. That is absolutely not the case. And I'm living proof of that. What we do need to understand is why you have a cycle, that there are certain days that you can get pregnant, and what that means.

Yes. Like you, you can make the argument that when the kid's minds aren't developed yet, they won't understand those nuances. That is feeding into that entire scope of women not needing or being able to handle data about their bodies. It's just not true. I gave my nine-month-old a phone, an iPhone. He grabbed my phone.

He knew how to swipe. Yeah. Like, they know way more and are much more capable of handling information and knowledge than we give everyone credit for. And I'd want to redo what the entire program looks like. 

[Tash Doherty] Yeah, and I think an aspect of that is that, like, you know, it's kind of like when you're in that awkward puberty phase where you're like, am I going to sit at the adult's table or the kid's table at Thanksgiving?

Um, but the reality is that we treat young girls, you know, like children; they're already fertile and have been cycling since I was like 11 when I got my period. So, I probably should feel equipped, empowered, and enfranchised with the data that I can understand about my body.

So yeah, it's a very, it's a very strange, again I think that's like a patriarchal thing where it's like the infantilization of women, um, because that's what, you know, in our society people have historically found attractive. So changing that sounds like a great thing to do. And what are some other areas of research or women's health questions that you think people who are interested in STEM should be answering or trying to answer?

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] I would hope that anyone that's addressing any women's health issue is looking at objective data. I think a lot of the, like, conclusions that have been made or assumptions that have been made about women's health are based off of subjective things. Like, if you look at period tracking apps, it's all subjective data.

We're one of the first actually to bring objectivity to those symptoms. I mean, I have years of data and all these apps, but if I look at it, there really aren't many patterns there that I can draw conclusions from. Now, when I look at my three years of data, that's powerful. Cause I'm seeing what the hormone trends were.

I'm seeing the days that I was super stressed and that my cycle was completely off. And there are explanations that I can draw from looking at actual objective data. So, there are so many areas that are exciting right now. Like, I think menopause is having its moment finally, like, man, I guess women have started going through menopause, right?

It's finally having its moment. There are companies that are looking at the microbiome, the vaginal microbiome. I think that's fantastic too. Like, let's understand what cervical mucus is and really get to the bottom of why you're having that and other issues there; Priyanka Jain (at Evvy) is wonderful. Like, I love the way that they're approaching the vaginal microbiome, they're really normalizing this as a body part, and it's not something to be ashamed of, like. There's a purpose to having a vagina, and we shouldn't be shy about that. Um, so I'm really excited about some of the innovation that's happening and the way the conversation is shifting.

[Tash Doherty] Yes, exactly. And if you had any career advice for women interested in STEM and startups today, what would you tell them? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] The number one thing that has helped me get to where I am today is always asking questions. And I think when you do a Ph.D., you're kind of trained to ask questions, but I was doing it before I even did a Ph.D. because the more questions that you ask, the more doors that are open.

So if I'm talking to an investor about something, and I know this person isn't going to invest in us. We're not in there like round size or whatever, but they're going to know at least five other people that would be good fits for me. And that's how you build your network. And that's how you grow because you're going to have five more conversations that have so many more legs.

And I've always been open to that across every aspect of my life. And it's never hurt me. It's only kind of paying it forward in a way by always having a network to tap into. 

[Tash Doherty] Well, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Great advice all around. And, uh, speaking of these kinds of questions, what do you wish that I had asked you, or what should I have asked you in this interview?

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] You asked really good questions. But I think the one thing would be, what is a big gap that I'm seeing in this space? Right now. Yeah. I think we asked what areas we could; it was exciting, but we didn't really see what the big oversight was. I think there are a lot of players in the fem tech or women's health side, but people enrolled, like going off to the same investors, we're all like trying to show growth and things like that.

But I would hope that, especially when you're a female founder, that's like the companies that are really in the space, like all the female-founded ones, you know how you would want to get marketed to. And what information you would need to make, like, to be convinced to make this purchase. I would hope that companies just stay true to that and not do false advertising or bend the truth. Like, let's be honest and clear with our potential customers about what we're actually putting out there because I think we're just creating more noise and hurting our community so much by playing the marketing game. This should not be a marketing game. It should be providing value to a community that is desperately in need of it.

[Tash Doherty]  Yeah, totally. I mean, that's if they can get their ads published at all, you know, with the Facebook and Instagram ads, you know, like the banana penis can go on the subway in New York. But, uh, and then, I think her name is Alex, but anyway, yeah, the Dame had this huge thing about that as well.

Amazing and fascinating. Such a bummer because then you can't, even even if you raise a million dollars, it's like, well, if you can't advertise like you don't get any of that growth,

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] But we're still held to the same metrics that men are, right? 

[Tash Doherty]  So anyway, Dr. Amy, this has been an incredible conversation. I am so grateful that you could come and chat with us today, and yeah, best of luck with Oova and all of the great things in store for 2024.

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Thank you so much. It's wonderful to speak with you. 

[Outro] [Tash Doherty] Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Miseducated. If you'd like a special discount on Oova, I'm super excited to be able to share this promo code with you. You can go to Oova dot life slash miseducated, which is It's O O V A dot L I F E slash M I S S E D U C A T E D. And the discount code is, all caps, MissOova10, which is M I S S O O V A 1 0. Lots of love, everyone. Stay safe out there, and I hope that you'll join us for another episode of Miseducated again soon.

Bye!

How To Not Lose Yourself In A Relationship - By Tash Doherty

“Look into his angeleyes, one look and you’re hypnotized.” – ABBA

Introduction

I’ve been doing the “dating” thing recently, and a subtle but terrifying thing keeps happening. When I’m seeing a guy I like, I start reorienting my life around him in tiny ways. I leave my late evenings open in case he wants to message me. I only make tentative plans with my friends because he might ask me out. Soon, I find myself sleeping over at his house in the middle of the week, leaving sleep-deprived and with a poor performance at work the next day. This seems harmless at first, but soon it snowballs. Within a couple of weeks, I’ve become a clingy, needy mess, a shell of my former independent self. And unsurprisingly, the relationship doesn’t work out because of this.

Strangely, when I have just myself to contend with, one could say that I’m a “responsible adult” (big words). I exercise regularly. I live in a cute, clean apartment where I feel safe. I put food on my table. But things have changed since I’ve decided I want to have children and am now looking for a more serious, long-term partner. Once I start dating someone, my entire life routine goes out the window.

It's a painful and annoying trap to fall into again and again. So, in this piece, I explore what this is and share everything I’ve learned on how to avoid it. I hope that by reading this you can somehow sidestep this shitstorm altogether.

Why does this happen?

On one extreme, I sound lonely and desperate for this guy to fall in love with me. This is partly cultural. In our culture, we are obsessed with love, fairytales, and happily-ever-after. This leaves women totally screwed. Even though I’m a feminist, I was raised on a diet of Disney princess movies like Snow White and Cinderella. At some level, I’ve probably internalized the toxic narrative that I’ve been bombarded with since my childhood: men rescue women.

On the other extreme, we have modern feminist ideals where women are throwing the idea of babies out with the bathwater. It’s projected that 1 in 4 young women today wish to remain childless, and almost 40% of young single people are not interested in dating. This is great for them because, as Cindy Gallop says:  

“The moment you decide you don’t want to be in love, that just takes a whole layer of crap out of your life.”

Life for single, childless people is simpler and easier, and they’re probably happier for it. But some of us want to have kids someday. Some of us are dating to find the father of our future offspring. We can bang on the drum of being an independent career woman all day. That is, until our life goals suddenly suggest a man’s presence might be helpful. So we let the guy sleep over at our house, even if we have a lot of important s**t to do the next day, because we want him to like us. Ultimately, it’s like Cindy Gallop said,

“[As women, we] are taught to undervalue ourselves from the moment we are born.”

How can we get out of this? How can we learn to value ourselves, our routines, and our lives? Not just as some feminist theory, but in practice? Here is my non-exhaustive list of tips.

Please comment or reach out to me if you have additional ideas.

Tips

* Remember that it’s your hormones. This guy does not have a magic dick.

Besides culture, biology is not helping us either. The physical desire I regularly feel to want to get pregnant is intense. Especially around the time of my period, I can feel myself trying to finagle ways to keep this man around for at least another week or two before I ovulate. I’m not even kidding.

The solution here is to remember that any one guy, whoever he is, does not have a magic dick. If you can pause for a moment and hold onto your horses, you’ll remember that you are still young and fertile enough, and you probably live in a major metropolitan city where you could go on dates every night if you wanted to. You can meet someone else. This is not your only chance ever to f**k. This man is probably not exceptional. Your hormones are fashioning this fake mirage to get you to attach to him.

Here’s what my grandmother had to say about this:

“It’s part of a woman’s base of understanding that you have this romantic streak. Because that’s what gets you pregnant, and it keeps the race going.”

So, before you deprive yourself of a good night’s sleep for an average dude, remember that this is Mother Nature trying to f**k with you. She’s trying to get you to reproduce. You can take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back before you cancel your entire day tomorrow. This man is not in love with you. This is just a spark set alight by your hormones. Hormones that have been designed to hook you, just like they’ve hooked every single one of your ancestors over the last billion years.

You must resist Mother Nature at all costs or perish.

* Do A Reality Check

It can be fun to fantasize about our partners and our future lives together. But as we’re drawn out of our reality, eventually it will hurt a lot when we come back to Earth. As my grandmother said:

“It’s part of our nature to have this fantasy. You assume that the other party is going along with it, but they aren’t.”

For my entire relationship with Luís, I fantasized about him whisking me away to his family’s second home in Valle de Bravo (the Mexican equivalent of the Hamptons). Instead, he smoked too much weed and couldn’t plan more than lunch one day in advance. Another boyfriend I had spoke multiple languages and taught kids how to code. It took me months to realize he was not the future Amal Clooney on international peace-keeping missions. Instead, he was a software engineer with no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

So, let’s run a reality check on the person you are dating right now. Next time you have a moment away from your partner, ask yourself:

* Am I excited about dating this person as they are right now?

* What are they doing with their life right now? This is who they are.

* Am I happy with how they treat me and are they meeting my needs right now? (very important question)

This is hard. It means paying attention to the red flags. If this person has red flags, like a substance abuse issue of any kind, it means that no matter how you might feel about them, they’re probably not a healthy person for you to be with. Whoever this person is right now, that is who you are dating, not some idealized version of them.

* Stick To Your Routine

“You have a life. You have other priorities, some of which come before him.” – Sherry Argov

When I’m dating a guy, being with him feels more fun and exciting than anything I do alone. But in her book, “Why Men Love B*****s”, Sherry Argov warns us not to get swept up in this. Her book is a relationship guide for women who are “too nice”, where “b*****s” is more about her humorous tone than about men liking women who are cruel or mean.

Here is her advice for when you’re starting a relationship:

* “Don’t stop eating, sleeping, or exercising.”

* “If he wants to spend more time with you than you can comfortably do, invite him to join you in one of your activities.”

* “Force yourself to keep the routine you had before you met him. Once you lose your rhythm, you lose your psychological equilibrium, and you become needy.”

As much as possible, we must try to remember who we were before we met our partners.  

So, take a look at your calendar when you were last single. Do you have music, dance, or craft lessons scheduled in there? Do you have a favorite exercise class or friend activity that you do every week? Do you like to spend quality time with your dog, or at museums? These are the things that you like. They make you happy.

Even when we are in a relationship, we must keep doing these things.  

* Have Some Self-Respect

“The nice girl treats her interests as “little things” or secondary. The b***h doesn’t treat her interests as minor or little things. They are her things.” – Sherry Argov

“People value you at the value you are seen to put in yourself.” – Cindy Gallop

This is a tough pill for me to swallow. In my single life, I do whatever I want and have my own life that I’m excited about. And yet, when I’m dating, I have found myself shimmying across the city late at night in an Uber because a guy invited me over late to his house after he finished band practice with his friends. The guy did make time to see me…sometimes. But I was way more likely than him to drop everything and see him when, in hindsight, it was inconvenient for me. This is all because I thought I had to be a sacrificial lamb in order to make our relationship work.

When we value ourselves more highly, people will value us that way, too. We’re only as valuable to our companies as the salary or financial worth that we’ve negotiated for ourselves. We’re only as respectable as what we say no to. Writing this piece is making it even more clear to me that female pleasure and the orgasm gap in heterosexual relationships is not the only aspect of our lives where we are subordinating ourselves in service of male contentment. We must learn to value our interests, priorities, and what we like in many aspects of our lives. And we should value them just as much, if not more, than the guy we are dating and what he likes.

Instead, being a doormat makes us unhappy and does not make men like us or respect us more. If anything, when we’re better at standing up for ourselves and prioritizing our health and sanity, the guy will respect us more for it. As Argov says,

“Suppose a woman says to a guy she can’t go on a date with him that night because of her weekly pottery class. He scratches his head and thinks, “She’d rather go to a pottery class than be with me?” It not only attracts him; it blows his mind.”

Realizing this, I feel frustrated because I’ve been throwing myself under the bus and cancelling all my plans in each relationship for all this time. My only solace is that if the problem starts and ends with me, it’s pretty clear who needs to change.

* Set Boundaries, Even If It Feels Foreign And You Don’t Want To

“Power is the control you have over yourself.” – Sherry Argov

When it comes to seeing a guy, I can get very impulsive. “Love” feels fantastic. Why would I let “real life” get in the way when I’m forming an intense connection with someone so quickly? F**k it, I think to myself. Who cares about work? Being a responsible adult is boring! I want excitement, adventure, and fun.

But when I talk about this with my therapist, she has another theory: I’m letting the feelings in my body take over without thinking logically about what I need. In my head, I know the importance of a decent night’s sleep. But when my heart is all wrapped up in the attention I’m getting from my partner in the moment, I immediately neglect every other need I have. Sounds fucked up? That’s because it is.

To avoid this happening to you, when you’re having some alone time and thinking clearly,  list all the things that you need in any given day. Then, follow that list as a set of your boundaries, and try to enforce them (even if you do not want to!) when you are with your partner.

For example, on any given day, I need:

* Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep

* Three meals of relatively healthy food with no white bread

* A shower with warm water and a clean towel in the morning

* Time to work, meet with friends and follow my weekly schedule

If you’re like me and you struggle to know what you need, ask your close friends about it. They probably have some of your answers. Are you really into cleanliness, so you need your special shampoo and soap? Are you vegan, so you need to go to a restaurant with appropriate options? I recently ended things with Luís because he’d never message me in the evenings when I wanted to check in at the end of the day. Did I need him to message me? Kind of. It would have helped me to feel that he was interested in me and willing to put effort into our relationship.

* Stay At The Center Of Your Own Orbit

In my last relationship, I spent many weekday nights hanging by my phone in desperate purgatory, waiting for this guy to text me. Then, I’d complain about it to my therapist later about how abandoned I felt by him.

This week, after a month of torture, I had a breakthrough about this when I was journaling. This is what I discovered:

“Just because you meet a guy, you are still you. That’s what you need to realize. It’s not that these men are abandoning you. It is that you are abandoning yourself. So keep a hold on who you are. If you need sex, have sex. If you need physical touch, have physical touch. But do not change the orbit of your world to fit this other person. Your world is amazing. The world you are building for yourself is amazing. If the man is the Earth, well, then you are the Sun.”

Now I’m seeing that the work I need to do in a relationship starts way before the point where I feel abandoned by this guy. I need to go back to those tiny, seemingly insignificant ways that I am giving up myself and my time at the beginning of the relationship and stick to my priorities in my everyday life. This is how I will stop the cycle of abandoning myself.

Conclusion: Keep Learning From Your Mistakes

“Don’t look too deep into those angeleyes” – ABBA

For complex reasons that could take up many Ph.D. theses, as women, we may be subordinating ourselves in unhealthy ways when we get into relationships with men. So, if you can put even one of the tips I’ve mentioned here into practice, that’s something you can be proud of.

Finally, remember to be kind to yourself. You are learning. If you skip work calls because you had a late one with your lover last night, forgive yourself. Be compassionate towards yourself because it can be excruciating to learn these things while you’re dating someone and then the relationship doesn’t work out for whatever reason.

Because we have so few examples in our culture about what a healthy heterosexual partnership looks like, and because our hormones are so freaking persuasive, this is going to be hard. We’re bound to keep making mistakes. But there is one thing we can try to do. As one of my favorite business leaders, Christina Wodtke puts it:

"Make new mistakes." 

In this piece, I explore 10 Forms of Love, inspired by a conversation I had with my therapist.

“You’ve got this very narrow definition of love,” my therapist told me yesterday over the antics of my latest disastrous relationship. “What about your friend who you went on a walk with this week? What about your sponsor, who always calls you back? These people are giving you their time. Time is our most precious resource because you can never get your time back. You shouldn’t take them for granted.”

💌

I have indeed hosted a naked party. So, here’s what I’ve learned about how to host a fantastic naked party...

* Spread the word to like-minded people.

* Lead by example, i.e., Be naked. 

* Curate a safe yet exciting experience.

Warm, Comfortable Space

Technology & Privacy

No Hard Alcohol

Activities & Ambiance

* Consider a theme or designated phases of the evening.

* Try to reach a critical mass of nudity, with female bodies first

* Have a vetted guest list.

Conclusion

Hello everyone,

I’m super excited to share my interview with Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion expert, author, researcher, professor and TedX Speaker.

Check out her website and workshops at the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion: https://self-compassion.org/

Link to Dr. Neff’s TedX Talk (one of my personal favorites!)

Link to her latest book, Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power And Thrive

Stay up to date with her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neffselfcompassion/

I hope you find a self-compassion technique or practice that works for you! :)

Lots of love,

Tash 🤗 🌷

Hey friend,

Have you ever returned to a place, only to be flooded with memories from when you were there before? Maybe it was a small, forested park where you went on a date with a previous partner, at a time in your life when you were deeply in love with each other. Maybe it was a candlelit bar where you went drinking with friends you no longer keep in touch with. Yet returning there, after time has passed, feels both visceral and nostalgic. That’s the position I found myself in a couple weeks ago. I wrote this piece about my experience and performed it at the Spring Salon of my writing class, Notes on Your Notes, taught by Joshua and Adam. They are great writing teachers who have built a wonderful community. Paid subscribers will get to listen to the story. So, tell us: when did you go back somewhere, only to be flooded with memories? Who had you been there with? And where were you in life the time you went back? What was that like?

Lots of Love,

Tash 🤗