{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"What a Creep\u2019s Sonia Mansfield, Part 3 (S8E13)","description":"Part 3 picks up right where we left off in Part 2. While she was still working that real estate job, Sonia was treating dating like a part-time job. She signed up on several dating sites (this was before swipe apps like Bumble). She went on many awkward coffee dates. Then a friend introduced her to a guy, and the two hit it off right away. They were inseparable from the moment they met, in 2008. They moved in a couple months later. In 2010, they got married, and had a kid shortly after that. But in the middle of all this amazing life shit, Sonia was smacked with a breast cancer diagnosis. She was 38. Sonia had never necessarily wanted to be a mom. She was always happy for friends when they started having kids, but figured it just wasn\u2019t in her stars because she wanted a different kind of life. But her new partner and eventual husband told her it was a deal-breaker, and she figured, Why not? They moved from Dogpatch to Glen Park around this time, because they wanted to raise their kid in The City but needed more space to do that, and the options weren\u2019t great. Their son was born and they began raising him, eventually getting him into SF public schools. When the kid was about two-and-a-half, Sonia and her husband started to wonder whether he was on the autism spectrum. A positive diagnosis was made eventually. Sonia praises The City and its programs for kids with special needs. And, like some kids on the spectrum, he\u2019s obsessed with public transportation, so he\u2019s in the right place. (If you listen all the way through to the end of this episode, you\u2019ll hear his recording of a BART announcement.) Like most of us, the pandemic did a number on Sonia\u2019s little family. Their version went like this: The marriage did not survive. Ed note: We had Sonia and her then-husband on for our Valentine\u2019s 2019 episode. After the break-up, at Sonia\u2019s request, we took that episode down. She says that before the pandemic, she imagined that the relationship was as good as it gets. In hindsight, she thinks maybe her second breast cancer diagnosis, after her son was born, broke her husband. Up to that point, he\u2019d been a great partner and excellent dad and solid caretaker for his wife through her first bout. The second diagnosis, coupled with a worldwide pandemic, inspired him to do not great things. Sonia tried to save the marriage, but some of her girlfriends took her down to the Madonna Inn and, as she puts it, \u201cshook the shit out of\u201d her. Her new reality meant figuring out what to do every other weekend when she didn\u2019t have her son. It was a lot of going to movies solo and doing 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles while listening to podcasts. The road to healing involved early stints on dating apps, but usually only to wake up the next morning and immediately pull back. She\u2019s really learned to love her alone time. We rewind back to 2015 to talk about the origins of a big part of Sonia\u2019s life today\u2014podcasting. She and her now-ex-husband launched Old Movies, New Beer, a show where they\u2019d drink a beer that was new to them while chatting about some film from the past. She enjoyed it, but he fell off quickly. A friend from her movie theater days hit her up to do a show about movies, and so Dorking Out was born. It also didn\u2019t last long, but in that time, Sonia started discovering podcasts she liked. There was F This Movie and Book vs. Movie. One of the Book vs. Movie hosts was Margo Donahue, and Sonia was a fan. She reached out and the two started following each other. The love was mutual. Dorking Out had Margo on as a guest and she and Sonia gelled so well, her co-host essentially became a third wheel. When he left for unrelated reasons, she kept having Margo come back on the show. Margo slid in to become the show\u2019s new co-host. The two became as close as you can living across the continent from each other. One day, Margo shared an idea she had for a new show. She wanted to call it Seriously, Fuck That Guy. It was amid the Me Too Movement, and they\u2019d talk about whatever piece of shit man they wanted (think: Kevin Spacey or Harvey Weinstein). But every episode would end with someone who\u2019s not an asshole. Sonia was in, no question, but she thought maybe they needed a different name. It was early 2017, and What a Creep was born. Early episode creeps included Lance Armstrong and Newt Gingrich, someone Sonia considers an OG creep. When Sonia and her ex split up, Margo was her main support. They continued doing What a Creep until 2025, when Margo suddenly passed away. They were supposed to record one day last year and Margo didn\u2019t show up. Sonia called and texted mutual friends and eventually called NYC police. Sonia had to decide whether to keep What a Creep going. She settled on having rotating guest hosts on (Erin of Bitch Talk Podcast was on recently to talk about Dick Cheney; we\u2019re in talks to have me on soon as well, which I\u2019d be stoked to do). She appreciates the community that has developed over the years around the show. She loves it so much that it\u2019s what keeps up her presence on Facebook. I ask Sonia whether there are any San Francisco creeps we might hear more about in the future. She mentions our mayor and our governor while saying that the show leaves space for so-called roads to redemption. I like that. But I also suggest doing episodes on AI or the stupid-ass billboards all over The City. In contrast to that, we end the episode with Sonia talking about the kind of tech we do want. We recorded this episode at Rosamunde in The Mission in January 2026. Photography by Jeff Hunt ","author_name":"Storied: San Francisco","author_url":"http:\/\/www.storiedsf.com\/","html":"