DOD23: Young Love

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that used the right intro for this episode last week, oops, before, for,

0:00:32 Eli: Ha ha ha ha, interesting,

0:00:35 Thomas: You should have switched to the podcast that's death at a funeral, two deaths and a...I don't know. You do the other one.

0:00:41 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that brought a mannequin to a funeral.

0:00:46 Thomas: The podcast that tells their son to dig a hole where the dog used to live. Here we go.

0:00:49 Eli: The podcast that digs hole where the dog used to be, by the way, I don't know where our release schedule is, but if that t-shirt hasn't already sold a million copies, what are we doing, yes,

0:00:54 Tom: I hope this is nobody's first episode. It's the only T-shirt I'm ever going to wear. I'm going to wearing that to every business meeting. Wait, I'm time curry. I'm joined by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. There we go. All right.

0:01:05 Thomas: Yeah. Less important than our new catchphrase.

0:01:14 Tom: That is much less important.

0:01:10 Eli: I'm also here, yeah, just throwing out there that the Snoopy Doghouse is in the public domain, we could make a shirt with it, that everyone just the words we'll

0:01:20 Thomas: I don't, doesn't that throw it off a little bit? It won't, people think, is that a reference to like a comic that, you know what I mean, I feel like, don't there's gotta be we'll work on it

0:01:27 Eli: Put a poll up on Twitter Tim we

0:01:28 Tom: I I feel like it doesn't have to be the Snoopy dog house, it can be any dog house, the story's tragedy, the story's tragic arc works no matter what the fucking art is attached to the t-shirt.

0:01:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:01:40 Eli: Could make, we could make sympathy cards that just have that inside

0:01:41 Thomas: We could do one of those generic inspirational pictures, just because anything goes with it, you know, like the ocean or something. Go dig all the time just like yeah like that wave

0:01:49 Tom: Oh, take a hole where the dog used to live

0:01:48 Eli: Yeah. Yes. Inspirational poster, yes, oh, we're gonna have so much for merch in our first live show, yep.

0:01:53 Thomas: Yeah

0:01:56 Tom: Oh god I Love that it took however many episodes for you to bring out that story. Like you like you a million stories, Thomas, where you're trying to like really convey this, this essential character of who your dad was, and you only needed this story, this story sitting in your back pocket is microcosmically perfect.

0:02:04 Thomas: I have been waiting

0:02:16 Eli: Yeah.

0:02:12 Thomas: Well I've literally been waiting to tell you this story that whole time, I'm not even joking, that time, remember when I was like, can we just do another one that's like our basic biographies, because the first episode was actually really fun, it was, I like, I when I edited the first episode we did, I really enjoyed it, I think people liked it. I was like, oh, we could do a sequel to that. And 80% of why I said that was because I need to tell that story. I need another way, to time to tell the story.

0:02:45 Tom: A perfect story

0:02:45 Eli: Is there an opposite of the chicken soup series like a fucking bleach, bleach from under the sink for the soul, yeah, Tabasco sauce for the teenage soul, and it's just that story in different fonts throughout, over and over again

0:02:48 Tom: Tabasco sauce for your soul sriracha in your eyes for the soul away, okay, all right, last week we, we danced around the idea of maybe, perhaps, coming close to nearly talking, talking about nice guys, friend zone. And I think that's something that we both, that all of us on this show really wanted to explore. It's a, space, it's that I know I've spent a chunk of my teenage years living in.

And, um, Thomas, right before we recorded, you said something that struck me, and I didn't respond to you because I thought I'd do it on the show, you said, like, not for really luck and happenstance, you could have found yourself in some of that toxic space that sort of revolves around that idea, that trope of, of the Mr. Nice Guy and the friend zone and all, all that sort of bullshit that lives around there. And I'll tell you, I absolutely lived in that space for a short period of time, 100%. I think if the internet had been around, man, I will tell you man, I think of the fucking internet had around when I was a disaffected, confused, lonely, depressed 17-year-old boy, I would have been

0:03:00 Eli: Yeah

0:03:22 Thomas: Yeah? Yeah.

0:04:03 Tom: A fucking nightmare, like way more of nightmare than I was.

0:04:03 Thomas: Well you said that very thing when we were talking about the Nazi right right wing, whatever. And it's the same thing, really. Like it's, it's basically the same issue.

0:04:11 Tom: Yeah, yeah, yeah it is, it is yeah.

0:04:15 Eli: There are three hooks going up the same line, like they all Lead you To the same spot, oh,

0:04:17 Tom: Yes. Yep. Yeah. There's no woke incels, right? Like there's no, like, there's no like racially woke incel out there.

0:04:25 Eli: That'd be so dope,

0:04:22 Thomas: That'd Um, I wanted to ask you guys. It's kind of two different topics, but I think very related the whole nice guys and friend zone thing. The nice guys thing I always see on, there is a subreddit called Nice Guys, which I love. It'll come up time to time. Yeah. And it's just like, it's always the same thing. It's basically, in fact, yeah, I think it'll be valuable to go over what the archetypal nice guy is in this context. It's a guy trying to talk to a girl of some kind, either he knows her or doesn't really know her. And either way, you know, starting off is, oh, hi. Oh, I just want to get to know you. Oh. Are you friends? And then she, for whatever reason, either is busy or or doesn't want to talk or any reason doesn't respond immediately or in the way that he wants. And instantly the guy goes to like fucking whore, you know, it's

0:04:26 Eli: Yes.

0:04:37 Tom: Oh shit. Really?

0:04:47 Tom: Yeah. Right.

0:05:14 Thomas: Just like, that's the archetype of it. It's like his entire, I, and, and I don't know how, you Know, real or representative anything on the internet is like, we always have that problem, but this feels to me like pretty prevalent. Like I know a lot of women who've experienced this for real, you know, enough to know that this isn't just just like made up internet stuff like this, this happens all the time. And it's, it's hilarious to me. It's sad, but it's also, I think it's really useful to talk about as dudes, like this idea that there's a bunch of guys, like a bunch of them whose entire demeanor, if it's at all nice or respectful around women, is completely conditioned on the fact that they think they're going to like get something from the woman. And then when they're not, yeah, then when they're not, their obvious misogyny just like instantly shows way too fast too.

0:05:15 Tom: Yeah, right. Yep.

0:05:58 Tom: It's transactional.

0:06:04 Thomas: Like that's the comedy of it is like instantly they're like all right, fuck off whore.

0:06:07 Eli: Yeah.

0:06:07 Tom: Right, Because like, I think that in the, in the sort of the parlance or the language of the day, nice guy is really a coded phrase for misogyny and male entitlement that is sort of like encapsulated with this veneer of, and to get back to our, our episode on chivalry, it's encapsulated or surrounded by this like bullshit liar's veneers of the most basic politeness. And it's like, well, I tried being polite and that didn't immediately provide me with the results I was looking for, and so what really is going to happen next is the underlying misogyny that like is the truth of my core is immediately going to come out in my goblin speak bullshit, it's, and it's fucking horrible.

0:06:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yes.

0:06:52 Thomas: And the Other tie-in to the nice guy thing is it comes from them saying, I don't understand why girls don't like nice guys, they never go for nice guys when, in the same, you know, text screenshot, that he's like, "fucking whore." Like Like, instantly, you know, it's like, you're never going for the nice guys. They think they're, quote unquote, the nice guys, but they're actually not. That's the ultimate thing that I would love to also get your take on. Is I think girls actually do like nice guys. It's just the guys who think they are that never are.

0:06:59 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:07:28 Eli: That's so far down the road of someone's psychosis. Right, because, because by the time you get to the, like, "and girls all want a bad boy," like that person's so far removed from reality that if they're like, and if you watch them too close, they spread wings out of their shoulders and fly away, like that's how the level of not understanding interactions with women someone is at that point. Because, of course, everyone likes a nice blanks, right? There are very specific kinks for not niceness, and even then those people have ground rules, right?

0:07:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:07:59 Eli: Like, you know, they don't want that in their everyday life. Starring

0:07:59 Tom: Well, There's also, like, there's that problem of like creating this sort of like monolith of "this is what women like," this is what girls like. It, that, is that kind of language has these embedded misogynist assumptions because it assumes that like there is such a thing as what girls want, what women want, because they are a category of human being rather than like individuals that you need to meet and communicate with and decide if you have a connection with. It really speaks back to that sort of like, and kind of like, as part of it, I know farther afield, but that sort of like pickup artist, you fucking psychological trickster bullshit, where it's like, "well, you know what, uh, it turns out girls are human beings and human beings can be manipulated." And here are ways to manipulate other human beings in these excessively cruel ways. It has nothing to do. Anytime you have a conversation about like, well, here's how girls are, here's how women are, here's what ladies want, like, you already are speaking

0:08:08 Thomas: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:22 Eli: Starring Mel Gibson. Oh.

0:09:05 Tom: A misogynist language, right?

0:09:05 Thomas: Yeah. No, you're you're literally talking about over a 50 percent of all humans. Like it's pretty crazy. I mean, because imagine if you were like, oh, man, black people just want that. You're like, well, that's already absurd. And that's a lower overall percentage than like women. Like that's crazy.

0:09:12 Tom: Yes. Right.

0:09:22 Eli: Now I want to be a black, a person, nice, night guy, though, like, "hey, what's going on, black lives matter, am I right?" 20 seconds without a response, all right, fuck you. You just a bunch of swears, he

0:09:31 Thomas: Should we

0:09:33 Tom: So I, but I will tell you a story, like, and, and so this sort of like 21st century nice guy ism that we're talking about now, this is different than when I was a teenager. It was the 90s, right? So there was no like internet and all that nonsense that, that, is part of everyday culture her not in 1993

0:09:48 Thomas: Tell Tom there was the Internet, but he just didn't know. No, no,

0:09:50 Eli: Doesn't he wasn't he put the

0:09:51 Thomas: I'm just kidding.

0:09:51 Tom: 94 no one was using it. I'll tell you that much. Like

0:09:53 Eli: Jack in his mouth and couldn't see the matrix, and so he spat it out, and his dad threw the whole computer out every time he was done with it, so it was a whole, yeah.

0:09:57 Tom: Well there was no internet if somebody picked up the phone it wasn't as ubiquitous, but like, I'll tell you, like, I'm not, open up like, when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I grew up with just my dad, and so my my dad has the same long-term relationship, but they see each other once a week, and they have a, a very unconventional, oh

0:10:17 Thomas: What's a, hold on. This is, this, the, this the more this unfolds. No, you told, you told us.

0:10:20 Tom: Yeah, I've told you this, right?

0:10:20 Eli: Yeah. Once A Week that She comes to to toss Tom's room like A Prison warden.

0:10:25 Tom: Yeah. My dad's been in the same relationship now for 42 years. They've been in this same relationship. They're very much in love with each other. They talk every day on the phone, but they travel together. They talk Every single day on The Phone. They connect every day On The Phone, they live an hour we're apart and they see each other typically one day a week. So, my dad's partner will come over to his house. Typically. I mean, it's, it'S 99% one day, a week on Saturday, usually, and spend Saturday. It doesn't, it doesn't spend the night. And this has been going on my entire life.

0:10:35 Eli: No, they're not. Nope, they sure aren't.

0:10:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:02 Eli: Why would you? That would be uncouth.

0:11:05 Tom: Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because, and I don't want to like talk too much about my dad's relationship is his relationship. So it works for him and, you Know, he and I have talked about it And he knows it's unconventional, but he's like, it makes us happy. Like we're both happy. And one thing that I will say is very sweet. My dad says, like, when I see her car pull up, even after all these years, my heart beats faster knowing she's here. And I think that that's very sweet,

0:11:05 Thomas: Doesn't spend the night.

0:11:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:27 Thomas: I know I'm going to get nearly six and a half hours of joy. Before she drives home at 730 p.m.

0:11:30 Tom: I can tolerate another human being for nearly one workday, but

0:11:37 Thomas: And we see each other next week.

0:11:40 Eli: Oh, that handshake when she first walks in the door. The world spins around us, let me tell you.

0:11:44 Tom: Now I'm telling a genuinely sweet story about my dad. You're ruining it.

0:11:51 Thomas: You are, I'm so conflicted

0:11:53 Tom: You're ruining it.

0:11:52 Eli: You are not, you are not telling a

0:11:54 Tom: I'm trying

0:11:54 Eli: Sweet story, Tom.

0:11:54 Thomas: Because, I've so conflict it because like, I yeah, every, but love is love. Whatever, you know, whatever works for people.

0:11:57 Tom: No.

0:12:04 Thomas: Yeah, you're right. No, this isn't love. Actually, this is love isn't left.

0:12:00 Eli: It's not! You

0:12:05 Tom: It's it's on you, it is, but 42

0:12:09 Thomas: I mean, 42 years, like that's a long time.

0:12:11 Tom: Years, it's a long time, yeah, I, yeah, I've never been to her house either, but that's another story, but like, just

0:12:17 Eli: Should. If you go, Tom, you have to promise me, to start turning your shit out, you have to immediately search every drawer and book, I'll yeah, I'll fly to Illinois to do it, I'll fucking start, I'll come in with a pipe, podcast

0:12:26 Tom: Start tossing her shit, yeah, oh, what

0:12:34 Thomas: Goes in her house, he finds my dad's diaries, it's like, fuck, oh man, everything was there

0:12:37 Tom: The oh, what what? I'm going to, I thought these were buried next to the dog. So, but, so, but I will, I will admit, like, I'll be, I've been kind of open. Like I have fucking no idea how to girls at all. Like none whatsoever. It's me, my dad, my brother, my dad's got this very unconventional relationship. They're not terribly physically affectionate, like shock of shocks. Right? So when I move into my my teens, I have no fucking idea how to commute. I don't have any relationships. I don't know. Any like cousins even like I don'T have girls or women in my life in fucking any way at all. And so all of my ideas about like women dating girls, I got all of that shit from like TV, man, and

0:12:39 Eli: Averse, perfect perfect sure

0:13:26 Tom: Like movies and books. And So like I had ideas is about the grand gestures. And like, and I didn't have, I had, I like, I had pretty stunted social connections. So my friends, I the handful of friends I had they weren'T dating either. Right. So like,I didn'T Have anybody, any of my peers that were dating and I didn't have a strong social connection throughout high school.

0:13:26 Eli: This

0:13:49 Thomas: Just list the things you had, Tom, because this is starting to get a little long

0:13:52 Tom: I was so,

0:13:53 Eli: Is yeah that is a better

0:13:54 Tom: But I'm just saying, like, but, but I will tell you, I had a crush on a of girls my long way around just to give you some context, I had a crush on this girl, so, as I was working at a Burger King, there was this girl that that was working there, and she and I got along real well, like, made her laugh all the time, like, I thought we had this connection, and I had no idea how to act on that connection is my, and this is my point, because I was so socially awkward around girls, I had no idea how to express to her in a way that was like, and I was nervous about being respectful, and I was nervous about doing it wrong, and I just acted like very awkwardly and ended up feeling that really like isolated and like unsure and completely adrift when it came to like how to interact with girls and women and in this sort of dating sphere, and so I can understand, it didn't make me hate women, it made me like really unsure of myself, and I'm glad that that internalized rather than externalized.

0:14:50 Tom: But I recognize, too, that like that's just a psychological happenstance that it was internalized Rather than externalised. And so, like, I totally see how that like lack of social ability and really it's not something we should leave to chance. It's not not something I leave to chance with my boys. I explicitly talk to them and write to them about here. And I think my boys are heterosexual. They seem to be turning that way. Like I tell them, here's how we talk to girls that you're interested in romantically. Here's how you do that.

0:15:24 Thomas: Jeez.

0:15:24 Tom: And it may not work all the time. And here's how you handle rejection. And

0:15:25 Thomas: I don't Do you know how to do that, Tom? Do enlighten me, I don't know, is there a method, I really like, honestly, I don't, don't know. What What advice do you actually give?

0:15:34 Tom: I have, I have blog posts on it. I have like long blog posts and I could definitely like talk to you about it and they might be good episodes but

0:15:37 Thomas: Like, oh, I better read those. Yeah.

0:15:39 Eli: Bunch of our single listeners are checking Tom's blog for picking up girl advice pick

0:15:43 Thomas: Yeah, that,

0:15:42 Tom: Right. But like I don't know how to pick up a girl, but like, it's, it's like you have to do these things explicitly because I think if you leave them to chance, then we're leaving people to form, we're leading people to from their own ideas based on a conglomeration of like really poor sources, media, the internet, their peers. Like, I, I genuinely think like this is something you've got to say, like, "All right, look, if you're interested in somebody, here's how you talk to them, and here's how we handle rejection, and here you, like, find out and kind of like feel out and read the room." And like, you've gotta teach people that shit explicitly, because if you don't, and they just end up feeling alienated, then you're rolling the dice whether they internalize that or externalize that, and externalizing leads to misogyny.

0:15:46 Thomas: Yes.

0:16:31 Thomas: Yes, that's so interesting, Tom. We have independently in our lives come to the exact same conclusion. Cause when I think back on all this stuff, you I was going to ask you guys if you've ever felt like you were in your, in your past or whatever, felt like you were quote unquote friend zoned, you know, and I think that's a really good topic to talk about. And every time I reflect on this and I see these nice guy posts of these assholes, you know, that just like instantly turn into horrible insulting misogynist, you know. And the, every time I think about it, I'm like, well, I I'm glad in some ways that my my dad who, told us where to dig a hole, where the dog used to live.

I feel like I've got such a bad self-esteem that I couldn't ever imagine blaming a girl for not being interested in me. Isn't that the weirdest thing I've all like, if there's one thing that at least my weird upbringing has given me, it's, and I brought it up before. I'm very realistic. Like I, I'm not, I're not sitting out there.

Like when I was in high school and I was like, was interested in a girl, I wasn't like, I can't fucking believe that she's not interested in, you know, like, what are you talking about?

0:16:46 Tom: Yeah

0:17:32 Thomas: Out. How would you possibly think That is the weirdest thing. It's like, it's like your goal is to, maybe, you date this, this, whatever age you are, you know, go steady with the high school girl or whatever. It's weird to set that, to say like, "Okay, that's the objective I'm trying to get to here. This is the thing I would like is to have this girl's affection, you know, or be interested, or have her be interested in me." And then when it doesn't happen, be mad at the thing itself, you know, it's It's like if you were in a race and you, like, finished last and then you got mad at the finish line. You're like, the fucking finish line was in the wrong spot. It's, like. No, dude. Like, focus on what you need to do.

0:17:58 Tom: Yeah yeah

0:18:04 Eli: Up

0:18:11 Tom: Think about the sour grapes story, that whole phrase, that story of like, "I fucking didn't want them anyway, they're probably sour." Right, like that, that's psychology, that story like rings true over generations because that psychology is understandable and relatable. The the, yeah, but the problem is like, if we treat women as categorical, then we think of women as possessions rather than people. And so if it's like, I've gotten, and I think, I think it's really interesting how much of our language belies that idea of ownership when it comes to women. I got to get a girlfriend, like to get something to have. Not right, like I'd like to be in love with someone, right? And that's a longer way, but like, like, I do think our language kind of tells us a lot about, and there's many examples that are similar, but it's the first one that comes to mind. I think there's a lot of like examples of how we're sort of enculturated or socialized as men to think of girls as something to get, to have, to possess. And then if you don't get, have or possess, then it's fucking sour grapes,

0:18:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a protection method for your. Yeah.

0:18:43 Eli: A girl Yeah.

0:19:12 Thomas: Hmm.

0:19:12 Tom: That's that whole entitlement of toxic masculinity that just bleeds into that.

0:19:17 Eli: I I also think it's really important to point out that, like, like, you don't need the follow-up "fuck you" message for it to still be super toxic. Like, a lot of the toxic nice guy-ness I see is the like, "Well, I guess girls just don't like nice guys," right? It's not necessarily directed to the woman at the time, but something that people who struggle with romantic relationships deal with quite a bit is that they have created this societal structure that is preventing them from meeting someone, as opposed to their own faults. I mean, you know, you talk about incels, right?

So the whole thing about the incel community, and I've spent a tremendous amount of time reading about the incel community and even like reading their posts and reading their Reddit and reading their 4chan, and the driving message of the in cell community is that the world is shaped in such a way as you're never going to be loved. You're never going to get laid. You're never going to get a girlfriend. And, right, not all of them turn outwards. Not all of them are angry. A tremendous amount of that is just about sort of drowning in the negativity,

0:19:17 Tom: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:19:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:22 Eli: You know, giving air to the depression and the woe-is-me-ism. And I think that's equally toxic and also comes from a very similar mindset of, like Tom was saying, like possessing women, right, that idea of like women as objects, women as a thing to be gotten, forgotten, um, and more specifically, as whether or not someone sleeps with you as a judgment of your own personal, worth, wealth, and well being that's a big mistake a lot of men make, is like, if I'm not getting laid, I must be ugly. Right? If girls aren't interested in me, then I must be unlikable or unlovable or whatever the the case may be. And, that's so enforced by media, but it's also just completely and totally untrue.

0:20:28 Tom: Yeah.

0:21:01 Tom: Well, you machismo and like toxic masculinity culture demands a certain amount of male sexual success in order to be like proof of your masculinity and virility. That's a horrible fucking message for boys to internalize and for boys to like have and to hold, because, you, if you're just not at a place in your life where you're having, you're able to like make connections with girls that are like meaningful, and you're not able to, like, have a girlfriend, and you're not able to like make that, it could just be a developmental issue where you're just not emotionally, socially developed enough to where you are able to make those connections and to see people and to have those social interactions be mutually successful.

0:21:48 Tom: Successful. But if it's tied, and it is, if it is culturally tied to, like, wow, you know, like, if you're, if you're not sexually successful as a male, you're less of a man. Like, you're less masculine, you're desirability goes down overall with every failure within that sort of toxic masculine culture. So it's like this domino effect.

0:21:57 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:08 Eli: There's a thing that I say, to so I, I mentor a bunch of young men, right, because I, I run this magicians group in New York City, and there's all these people, are, I'm, surprise, magicians are awkward, a lot lot of awkward.

0:22:20 Thomas: No.

0:22:21 Tom: Wait a minute Hold Hold on, I got to get my pen and paper out. Magicians are awkward.

0:22:22 Eli: Yeah. I know what, magicians you say, what those charming fellows, but I

0:22:29 Tom: Next. You're going to tell me magic. The gathering players aren't fucking raking it in. That's a shot at you. Shot at me too. Thomas shot at me, too.

0:22:34 Thomas: Hey, now. Okay. No, I'm kidding.

0:22:33 Eli: Aren't Right, yeah. Come you use an example people will understand God. Um, but no, I mean, one of the things that I have told them for years that I really, really believe is that casual sex is like a backflip, right? Backflips are fucking awesome, right? Some people can do them, and the people who can do him are often pretty good at them, and it looks dope as shit. And when you see a back flip in a movie, you're like, that looks awesome, I wish I could do a backflow, but most people who try to do a black flip, especially without any kind of practice or knowledge, are just going to to hurt themselves, right?

0:23:09 Tom: Yep.

0:22:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good analogy, yeah.

0:23:12 Eli: Yeah, and every song and every movie is like, I'm doing a backflip, it's an easy, fun, super great way to do a backflip.

0:23:17 Thomas: God. You know what I hate so much is the movie trope, God, this happens all the time in shows and movies, of main character dude, like, comes upon a woman in any, God, it could be any fucking context, they share a bit of a look, and then cut to, like, bed the next morning, you know, you're just like, what the fuck, hot, what, that's, I mean, I like, I'm sure that happens on occasion, but like, it's weird that we just yada, yada, yada the part where you met a complete stranger in a totally, it'll often be a completely inappropriate context where you would actually be a total asshole if you started hitting on this person, you know, like, like they're your employee or some shit, or like, you know, there's all these horrible context, and it'll just do the smash cut till we woke up and she's naked or whatever thing. And I, like, I feel like that's part of the media message that is so fucking terrible and is, uh, creating a lot of this, there's countless examples of

0:23:20 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:36 Tom: Right. Yeah. But, to that same point, part of the media message there is that men, the, what's being taught is that the goal of interacting with women is to sleep with them, it cuts out. I think it's actually really important that it cuts out the part where two people connect and flirt. Because it doesn't, what it teaches you is that, okay, none of that shit was important. What's important is that the ultimate goal of interactions between men and women for men is sex.

0:24:13 Thomas: It yeah Yeah.

0:24:36 Eli: It's often it's not even showing the sex, it's just showing having, have gotten the sex, right. Well,

0:24:41 Tom: Right, because the sex is tangential. It's just like, yeah, it's literal scorekeeping is what men are being taught by media with respect to like sex and like desirability.

0:24:52 Thomas: And It's also, I think, another reason that it has to do this mash cut is because it would be very impossible to write what actually would happen in that

0:24:59 Eli: Yeah. I was gonna say, this is a A screenwriter's fantasy who, much like magicians, are not the most charming Lotharios. I don't know if you know a lot of screenwriters, but there's a lot of like crying about how you wrote the Community pilot before Community made it onto the air and not a lot of picking women up at bakery counters or whatever the fuck they wrote into their movie.

0:25:04 Thomas: Yeah. You know I gotta say, it's interesting, though, there's a component of what Tom's talking about that I, I'm sure is there, but it's, for, for, I don't know, for once it's like, I feel like I have no, no experience with the component. Like, when I was entering in the phase where I was interested in girls and trying to, like, date you, them, or whatever the fuck the equivalent is as your kids, like, go out with them in some way that doesn't involve actually doing anything, um, whatever, I just wanted to do that because that seemed great, you know? Like, I just really, I have, it's, it's weird that you say that you felt like it's, it's tied to, like, your worth as a dude, and I guess I get it

0:25:56 Tom: I'm saying that's what media portrays. Like I'm talking now about like kind of how culture and media really like deliver those stories, whether or not they're true for you individually or not. I think that they are narratively true socially. Do you not

0:25:57 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Hmm.

0:26:13 Thomas: Yeah, I, I'm not doubting that this may be how it is for people, I just, for me, like, it had nothing to do with being a man or something, for me it was like, if if I had gone through life and wasn't able to get a girlfriend, I wasn't sad about that because I'm less of a man, I'm sad about that because that means I'm a person people don't like, you know, like that's just a, that's a bad sign if I wasn't able to get anyone to go out with me. I don't, it's interesting. I didn't really tie it to like, quote unquote, manhood.

0:26:38 Eli: I think I mean, I may know the missing link here and the listeners might not be aware of this, but Thomas is like Like, crazy, crazy attractive. Were you always attractive?

0:26:53 Thomas: Nah, we, I, no, I didn'T have an easy time with girls, as you might think, Eli, from you're always bringing this up. Not at all.

0:27:01 Eli: Look, it's a unit. Look, Tim, you fucking tweet out a picture of Thomas and everyone's going to be like, fuck you, Thomas.

0:27:08 Thomas: No, I well, here's the other thing. I actually couldn't tell you for sure, because I could not tell you if I was at all desirable in high school.

0:27:16 Eli: Because of the self-esteem stuff,

0:27:18 Thomas: Well, couldn't. Yeah, exactly. Because I think that my psychological issues made made me so weird to talk to in ways that I'm sure would instantly be off putting for. I really don't know. I got no conception of how I was perceived before I kind of got a better handle on myself. You know, like I honestly couldn't tell you. But but for whatever reason, like, no, I didn't have like a super easy time getting getting girl. I wasn't popular or anything like that in high school.

0:27:18 Eli: Yeah.

0:27:36 Eli: No, no, I know you weren't popular, but my theory, believe me, I don't know. I know.

0:27:47 Tom: Yeah. No. Nobody would have assumed you were popular. To Thomas. Let's not be ridiculous.

0:27:50 Eli: You were, yeah,

0:27:50 Thomas: Yeah. I wasn't like a magician or anything you know. Yeah.

0:27:52 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:53 Eli: You were a prison accountant, man. We get it. You weren't in popular.

0:27:55 Thomas: In high school. I already

0:27:57 Eli: You were already a prison accountant

0:27:57 Thomas: Was, geez. Yeah. Yeah. Voted most likely to be a prison accountant in your book.

0:27:59 Eli: That's right, um, But yeah, for me, like, I know this is a weird thing to say, I've always been a pretty attractive person. I know I'm not very good looking, but I've always been an attractive person, which is a different thing. And so a lot of what I saw all my peers go through of like, am I lovable, am I likable, that was never really like a thing that I struggled with because not only was I very attractive to a lot of people, but I also was liked and I was popular and all that kind of stuff. So I was wondering if we were in the same boat there, but as usual, I'm alone in my in my happy

0:28:16 Tom: Right.

0:28:37 Thomas: No. You were the only fully, that's why I thought, I, I really, I think Tom and I probably had a different experience than you did, to be honest. Oh,

0:28:44 Tom: Yeah, I didn't even try to date in high school at all. I

0:28:47 Thomas: I did, you have, like, a bunch, you didn't have crushes and stuff though, like, yeah,

0:28:48 Tom: I I had that. I had a crush on that girl that I was telling you about before. Um, it's funny because, like, I, I that I actually knew that woman, like, I knew her for years and years after, and like, that was a total friend zone situation. Like, and it was very, I will say, like, that was very confusing friendship because, like, there were times where, like, she would grab my arm and put my arm around her. She was very physically touchy with me. Like, there were, moments of tension. I actually later found out that part of the reason nothing ever happened, she's like, you just were never assertive, you were so timid, and so she's like, like, we totally had a connection, but you were just so timide, and she's just, that it wasn't, that was not going to work for her. Right. So, just personally, she's not she's not a make the move girl.

0:28:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:11 Thomas: There. You. Yeah.

0:29:34 Thomas: And don't, you don't mean, like, in the fucking negging, pickup artist sense of whatever, being aggressive and like grabbing her, like Clark Gable, and making out with like, yeah, exactly.

0:29:38 Tom: No. No, it? Just, I never made a move because I didn't, I didn't have the social skills to understand when

0:29:46 Thomas: And and I wanted to just make, make that point because I think that was my problem. Like, I was, I was so unwilling to, like, be the assertive, and not even, again, not even in, like, some pick up the way, but just in basic, basic human way, you know, like basic human way, like you do with anything as a, a healthy developed adult, where you're like, oh, hey, like as a kid, if I'd had the emotional maturity in high school to just see, like, the girl I was interested in, and not, not turn it into this, like, monumental love story for the ages that had all these stakes, you know, and everything, and

0:29:46 Tom: It was appropriate. No,

0:29:46 Eli: Oh.

0:29:59 Tom: That's why I said assertive rather than aggressive. Right. Yeah. Right.

0:30:22 Tom: Yes.

0:30:22 Thomas: Just be like, oh, hey, I think you're cute, you know, you don't want to, you want to, like, I don't know if I can get a soda, whatever, the kids do. If yeah, and that looked like magic to me. Like, and, and in retrospect, it's so fucking basic and obvious that you should just be like, if you're interested in someone, just be like hey, you know, I think your really cool, maybe we should, you know, chat sometime. And if they don't want to, just be like, oh, okay. And then like, it doesn't have to be these giant stakes, you Know, for whatever reason, they're not interested. And it could be you, it could Be them, it could be the situation, could be the time. And if I'd had that ability, as a kid, or as a young man to do that, my life would have been a lot, a lot better, I think.

0:30:23 Tom: Thomas, same thing man like, yeah, right, yeah, you, you said something that totally resonated with me, is like, when I was, my whole life, I had a hard time understanding that, that any male, female relationship that had, like, a romantic piece to it was not a light, like didn't have these high stakes to it. Right. And that's because like, again, I think that I didn't have any modeling to go back to. So all this, all the modeling that I had, all the ideas I had in my head about men and women and how they interact romantically were these, like, stories, you know, they were shit, you're reading a book. They were shit. You watch on a movie. Well, those are all high stakes because they need to be high stakes to create drama in order for them to have proper protagonists and antagonists and, you know, denouement, all that shit. So, like, I didn't understand, and I didn't have anything to model it after. Right. So I didn't have buddies that were in relationships, and my friends, I never peer circle that was like casually dating.

0:31:18 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:31:54 Thomas: I'm not sure it would have mattered. For one, I also think it's pretty universal. Honestly, it's a common thing that the kids think they're in. A girlfriend at 12 and you think you're going to marry her and all that stuff.

0:31:58 Tom: Might've just been my personality. Personality

0:32:09 Thomas: That's pretty pretty common. I think it's, it's somewhat as a result, I think you're right, of the stories that we see and it sounds like your soulmate and you're all this, that we, we make everything into being this massively, you high-stakes thing, um, in all our media for that reason. And also there's a lot of like underlying kind of religion and other, I think, biases in our society that draw people toward this idea that like, no, you're not going to just, you know, date around and see what's, what's cool and what's not and have these casual experiences, you're gonna go directly into getting married and having kids at age 19 or whatever the fuck, like our

0:32:09 Eli: Yeah, and

0:32:09 Tom: Right, right, yeah,

0:32:46 Thomas: Conservative part of our society wants you to do that. That stuff I think that stuff leaks into everything, it's not just like, oh, that's the south, or that's, you know, this, the Mormons. Like, I really do think that leaks into a ton of our culture and media.

0:32:55 Tom: Right,

0:32:56 Eli: Well, you need to, to maintain monogamy, and look, I don't, I don't want to turn this into an Eli shits on monogamy podcast because that's all my other podcasts, but like, that's why you need it to be like, you will love her forever, she was the angel to your eye, because the other option is that maybe you will want to fuck other people sometimes, and that's okay, and you're not allowed to do that for reasons. If you, you fuck other people, the magic ring between you breaks, and the dragon that was born when you kissed dies and can't save the little boy anymore.

0:33:02 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah,

0:33:32 Tom: Well, well, I'll tell you what, like, I, I so internalize those ideas that I, I had it when I was like 17, oh, yeah, yeah,

0:33:42 Thomas: Me too. Oh, I'm so sorry, Tom. I wanted to just one thing I wanted to say, uh, because I, cause I started with, I don't know if role models would have mattered. My role models were my mom. It's not like I had some, So, you know, my mom and dad were like the couple in Princess Bride. And so I was like, okay, every romance is an, as you wish, you know, like it, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't think it, I think it's, there's a lot of factors, including, I think just it's natural. You have like hormones going crazy at that age. I think it really does affect your thinking and your, you don't have the experience. And so I don't think it's just you, Tom. I think it's pretty, that was how I felt too. And I think it's pretty universal. Mm.

0:34:02 Tom: When

0:34:03 Eli: As I wish.

0:34:24 Tom: When I wasn't, I was just kind of funny when I was 18. So the summer after my senior year, I dated for that summer. I dated a girl who is 21, um, because she was a little older. She made the first move. Right. So I like took all this fucking pressure off, but I wasn't really into her at all. Like I never would have like hit on, like, I just didn't feel it, but like she made the First Move and I was like, yeah, all right. Like I should try this out. Like, I've never, you know, yeah, it was like six, seven weeks, eight weeks, whatever it was into into dating her over the summer. Like she wanted to have sex. Like she was fairly insistent. And I totally didn't. And big part of the reason I didn't is because I was like, well, you can't have sex with somebody you don't love.

0:34:40 Thomas: God.

0:34:49 Eli: Sure. You

0:34:50 Thomas: Shit. Proof of concept right there.

0:35:07 Thomas: Mm.

0:35:07 Tom: And I don't have a this girl. So I'm not going to have sex with her. So like 18 year old hormone raging Tom was like I got to dump her. I don't she's going to want to have sex like she's she's coming over next week. Like she absolutely wants to fuck. And I'm like, not down with that because I don't like, I just like these, like these ideas were like, they were so hard coded and they're such conservative ideas.

0:35:17 Eli: Sweet angel.

0:35:20 Thomas: Yeah. I was going to say, how much was that? You were a janitor at a church until your dad killed God. How explicit was that for you? Like any religious messaging on that?

0:35:35 Tom: They weren't religious ideas. No, zero. Yeah,

0:35:41 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:35:41 Tom: Zero, I didn't.

0:35:42 Thomas: But in yet you still I'm the same way. Like I well, I'm not quite, I had a little bit of, obviously my, my mom said I had a lot of religious messaging, but I don't, I don't really even think that was it. You know, on some other level, too, it's just as a kid, you don't have the experience and you just don't have that wider context of living a bunch of years and being like, oh, actually, there's a billion people. And that's understatement, there's a gazillion people in the world and you're not, isn't it amazing that you happen to be born in the same small town as your soulmate, what

0:35:42 Tom: Yeah. Zero. Yeah? Yeah.

0:36:15 Eli: Angel

0:36:15 Thomas: Are the fucking odds of that, you know, and it's you just don't have that yeah, I wonder

0:36:17 Eli: You're telling me God put my soulmate in my homeroom in, sick, why, in mysterious ways Let me tell you, I've never really understood the concept of soul. Like, do the people who believe in soulmates believe that some people get matched with like Taiwanese people 30 years, years older than them sometimes? Right, like, is there a kid in California and a 72 year old woman in Laosong and they're just like, fuck, this is, ah, we missed them, we really fucked it up this time, guys, can we send them on vacation just

0:36:25 Tom: That's

0:36:46 Thomas: It would have to be I don't I guess it would have to be, or, or like maybe God's really into racial purity and it's like, no, I've, I've only paired you up based on, right, where you are, when like, yeah super white town, yeah, no soulmates

0:37:02 Eli: Towns full of soul mates yeah because then leaving your town would suck, right, because you if you don't believe right, if you don't believe that thing, or you have, have to believe that like all of fate is bending and twisting around you meeting I

0:37:09 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:37:17 Tom: What people believe though yeah, and yeah

0:37:17 Thomas: Whatever they do, ends up being a soulmate, like whatever happens

0:37:21 Tom: But to be more charitable, though, I do think, in generally speaking, like I think when you fall in love with somebody, you begin to tell a story together, and like part of that, part of the weaving of that tale, in many monogamous, in stories at the very least, part of the weaving of that tale involves a certain amount of romanticizing and and distancing yourself from reality, right, because reality is fucking weird and ugly and unpleasant and nobody wants to spend time in reality if you can spend time in like the wonderful fiction of your love together, that is a better, more, more like delightful place to spend your, your heart space, so I think it's entirely like reasonable to tell that story to yourself and with your partner, and I don't think, like, I'm not uncharitable about that idea at all, I actually, and a big shock, like, I enjoy the telling of that story, I think it's fun and and wonderful and like, do do I think like the math checks out, like I don't, man, it's like this isn't like my time

0:37:29 Thomas: Yeah yeah Yeah. Well,

0:38:21 Tom: To do math

0:38:22 Thomas: And I know and actually, even though this is more a masculinity thing, I think as a parent, I think it's kind of shitty if you see your, you know, 13 year old kid who feels like they're in a real Romeo and Juliet situation. And you're like, well, no, that's hey, kid, that'S dumb. That's meaning that'd be a bad you're being a bad parent if you're an asshole like that. You know?

0:38:22 Tom: Yeah I that's that sucks my my 16 year old is celebrating his, one, he celebrated a one-year anniversary with his 16 or 17 year old girlfriend. And they say, I love you. And I think the thing is that they mean it. I don't, do I think they love each other the same way that like Eli loves Anna or you love Lydia? Like, no, I don't. I think like their love is the same thing as adult love. Do I think it's less than, for them? I don't. And I think that like to shit on that would be, and be like, you know, actually, guys, you know, it wouldn't it be weird if all the rats that were in this particular cage happened to fall, like, I'm not gonna do that you know what I mean like that's a fucking mean spirited thing to do, yeah yeah

0:39:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's a shitty thing to do. And it's an easy human thing to do too. Like humans love doing that to each other, whatever the thing is. If they've already done it, then like the next person who does it's like, fuck off. And that's honestly, that's a lot of what my family did terribly, because I, again, I was a third kid, so that's one thing I've sort of separate topic, but I've told Lydia a million times, like, whatever we did for Phoebe, whatever we got excited about for Phoebe, we have to do for any other, any and all scumberts and are those that come after, because it's just shitty to be like, oh, well, I already did this milestone with my first kid, so, yeah, whatever, second kid who gives a shit, that's come

0:39:56 Tom: I already loved one of them, I'm not loving two or three

0:39:59 Thomas: On get original, graduating something, yeah, your, your older sibling already did that, like, do something fucking, do a flip, do something interesting, you know, like come on, it's, it's difficult, and I think it's easy as humans to downplay stuff like that, like if you've already seen it, you know, or if you've already done, but I think it's important as parents to not play, ruin that, like, like you're saying, Tom, to not kind of dismiss that and and poo-poo it, even, even though, like, you know, whatever, it's still odds are you're not gonna marry the person you met in high school, but like, whatever, maybe you will, who cares, I

0:40:00 Tom: Yeah yeah right yeah Haley and I don't look at and be like, oh, that's the same thing as our relationship, that's the same exact kind of, like, that's the same exact kind of love, yeah, but it's like, yeah, but it's it is for him, like, for him it's not the same, but it's his first love, like, how fucking great is that for him, I

0:40:44 Thomas: Would argue it's more intense, intense. Like, when you have all those brain chemicals going at that age, didn't you? It's just, me, like, I feel like I was insane back then. Like I just be, yeah,

0:40:53 Eli: Mean the word it it's definitely more intense, I wouldn't say it's deeper, but it's technically more, I mean you know I've

0:40:56 Thomas: I didn't say it was deeper. I think it's, I think its intense though. I think the, the, uh, the mental experience that that person is having at that edge is like super intense. You it's not, that's why Romeo and Juliet, nobody talks about it, but they're like fucking 11, what, did you, would know this, what is the actual ages?

0:41:15 Thomas: 11? And 13, oh my god, oh, that's disturbing oh

0:41:01 Eli: Yeah oh yeah and 13 first

0:41:19 Tom: That's not gross.

0:41:20 Eli: Folio first foliot gets updated and makes her 13 too, too. So you know, don't worry.

0:41:20 Tom: Yeah.

0:41:24 Thomas: Well, that's good wow, woke fucking, the woke

0:41:26 Eli: She's 13 now. Yeah.

0:41:27 Thomas: Left of the first folio

0:41:31 Eli: Fucking updated Juliet.

0:41:33 Thomas: Can't do anything anymore without being called a pedophile, that's the fucking America

0:41:38 Eli: There's actually an incredible show on Broadway right now called and Juliet, which is the premises. What if Juliet doesn't kill herself when she finds Romeo? It's a musical. It's fucking amazing.

0:41:39 Thomas: Oh

0:41:47 Tom: That is kind

0:41:51 Thomas: I don't see that I

0:41:51 Tom: Of great.

0:41:51 Eli: It is. It, it's really excellent, excellent,

0:41:53 Tom: So Thomas, I curious, have you given any thought to how will sort of guard Phoebe against the nice guys? Like the quote, the 21st century nice guys. I am curious if you've, if you thought about, about how to inoculate her from that, well

0:42:02 Eli: Cyber nice guys yeah

0:42:10 Thomas: Don't know that that's possible, I want to make sure, maybe I'm, I want to make sure I understand the question properly, but I think really it's I need to teach Arlo not to be the fucking douchebag nice guy, I don't know that Phoebe's behavior is going to do much either way, you know, or what do You mean To spot it

0:42:27 Tom: To spot it Like to to see red flags right yeah now, yeah, inoculate was exactly the wrong word, so I'm sorry I used it, but, but what I, what I more mean is to, is to, how to, how do you teach her to to see those red flags from the greatest, so when I think of, like, when I think of my stepdaughter, one of the things that I am always thinking of is like, I wanted to see the red flags from the furthest distance possible, you because if she sees the red flags when they're very, very close and intimate to her already, the damage is likely going to be done, so the, the trick is for all of us in any relationship to see red flags from the furthest distance on the timeline possible, so I, I'm, I'm curious if you've given any thought, because we all know on this, on this show, like my, I will teach my kids not to fall into that fucking nice guy trap, like, like I've thought about it, I will, I will teach them how to have good relationships with other human beings and, like, we'll have explicit conversations about how to do that

0:42:29 Thomas: Yeah yeah yes yeah

0:42:30 Eli: Yeah

0:43:00 Thomas: Well Yeah, I don't, man, I don't know. I, I, I do want to make sure that, to the best I can, yeah, I would want Phoebe to be able to recognize those things. I, I think that any sense of entitlement from a dude she's talking to, or from a, I don't know, any partner that she's interested in, I hope should be a red flag. I think it's a little tough because like a lot of these, these red flags are things that kids are just going to fucking do because they make the stakes so high, you know?

0:43:51 Thomas: So like as they're young, Yeah. Like if I were to warn of every red flag, it would have been everything I ever did in high school, of just like trying to be like monopolizing focus and attention and like, trying, you know, like it's just, to a certain extent, I think that's kids a little bit. And it may be hard to find like an amazingly emotionally mature, sure, dude at 14, um, or whatever age, but,

0:43:51 Eli: Because Teens Yeah Also, also, like, to what extent can you be honest with your kids? Because I do agree with you guys that like, it's not nice to shit on your stepson's, um, romance, but at the same time, it feels like you do owe them some modicum of honesty and truth. I, I had, an experience, experience, uh, this year. Um, one of my mentees is a 17 year old girl, um, who has come out of the closet as queer to us, um, and she's talked to me a little about relationships, um, she was talking about some like drama that was going on with her girlfriend, and it was like a jealousy thing, and I just like started to talk about, well, you know, monogamy is really just sexual slavery, right, everyone laughs at Mike Pence, but it's just the Mike Pince rule taken to one, one notch to the right, and this girl's eyes just like turned into, and I was like, right, this is not the conversation you, need to be having.

Sorry, let me try again. So, she's jealous, huh, well, what have you, how do you feel about, that. So, like, I, I worry sometimes about like how honest we can be with our kids, and when, like, because I do want to talk to Max about things like casual sex, and I do want to talk, um, Max about all those like important, I think, milestones, but I also think it's really important that you not get that information too early,

0:44:32 Thomas: Yeah,

0:45:04 Tom: I,

0:45:32 Eli: Son,

0:45:32 Thomas: It's, Tricky, it is. It's almost like a fucking Santa Claus situation, you know, you're just like, ah, do I try to tell my kids that like everything they care about now is, fucking nothing thing, yeah,

0:45:41 Eli: I, uh, I don't know how to tell you this, but you've, um, you've got to have sex with me, it's been, it's been me all along, just like Santa, yeah,

0:45:51 Tom: I, you know, I don't know if this cat, with, with Donovan, like, I would never talk to him about his relationship in a way that was like, yeah, yeah, it's, probably won't last. But what I do say sometimes is like, you know, a lot of a lot of teenage relationships don't make it the long haul. And so like and then you just keep talking. So Right. You sort of just prime the pump for that likely eventuality

0:46:03 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, Ideally, before they're in, the relationship, because I feel like it's a little, it's, little obvious if they're like, oh, I met someone, you're like, you know, statistically,

0:46:26 Tom: Just you just drop. Yeah, I'll just but I just did it the other day, just like just like drop because it was it was appropriate to the conversation. I mean, he's like getting ready to go to homecoming or something along those lines and he was talking about how like you know these other couples that he had seen or gone out on like a double date with, they're no longer couples, they've all broken up except for him and his girlfriend. I was like, well yeah, like a lot of teenage relationships just, you know, they're not bound to last, most of them don't last, and then you just move on, but you just sort of acknowledge like the fact that

0:46:26 Eli: I, Like, To think, that you paused for four solid, minutes making hard eye contact after you said that, and then, you moved on. I,

0:46:59 Tom: Like, Yeah, just, you know, it's uh, a farce, everything you're doing is a farse, so,

0:47:09 Thomas: Well, I think humans are really, uh, geared toward fucking making the most of wherever they are. And so whatever you've got, maybe I'm speaking as the small town kid, whoever was around at that time, like, I would make into my, like, my high school girlfriend, you know, who I really did love. And actually, we, you know, we ended up together after high school again for a bit. So it definitely wasn't a nothing relationship, but it certainly was a case of like, not realizing. And ultimately, the reason we broke up was realizing we weren't actually as compatible as, you You know, we should have been. And it's interesting to be like, well, you may be able to meet more people, and you might not feel like it now, you might feel like you're really compatible with this person, but like, once you can branch out and have more experiences and, you know, live a little more, you might understand different ways that you are compatible with different people.

0:48:03 Thomas: I don't know. It's it's hard. I don't know. I don't know if you can fucking bring it up. You know? No, I don't know if any way you bring it up will really work with kids. I'm not sure.

0:48:09 Eli: A quick story about my dad and homecoming, actually, that I love, which is, as we know, my dad had a clone of my phone, so he was aware of my text messages, and, before,

0:48:19 Thomas: Jesus fucking Christ. That's, yeah, that's,

0:48:22 Tom: Is insane, so, Go on,

0:48:22 Eli: Nope, It's, Brilliant, And everyone agrees, I love it, That's,

0:48:23 Tom: Yeah, Yeah,

0:48:23 Thomas: Wow. I would never forgive a parent if I found that out. I mean, I, I do not have a parent left to not forgive in my life.

0:48:30 Eli: Crazy, Because, When, I, Because,

0:48:35 Thomas: So this wouldn't really crack the list. But like, if I find out that my parent was privy to all my text conversations as a 16 16-year-old, I would never talk to them again.

0:48:47 Eli: I think, I think I would have been, upset as a teenager, for sure, man,

0:48:49 Tom: I, When, I, when I was in fourth, grade,

0:48:53 Thomas: No, forever. I would forever be upset about that.

0:48:55 Tom: Yeah, But, When I was in fourth and fifth grade, my, my dad and my mother had a custody battle, and my mom was fucking crazy and said insane shit, and so my dad had rigged up a tape recorder, so when my mom would call, my dad would, from another line, landline in the house, he would tape record the conversations, which, as a parent, I completely and totally sympathize with and was a hundred percent the right thing to do because she was saying crazy shit. I found that, though, and I ripped the phone lines out of that room with my hands, I was so pissed about it. I would be, it, to find out that like my, and I was like 10, like, the idea that like your privacy would be violated as a teenager, I'd have lost my fucking mind, I'd, lost my, absolute, fucking, mind,

0:49:39 Thomas: Yeah, I'm firmly with you, Tom. I'm not doing that to my kids. I don't understand it.

0:49:42 Tom: Yeah,

0:49:41 Eli: I, Oh, I, could not have, I found out as like a 20-something, and I was like, really, and dad was like, yeah, and I was like, ha, good one, like, genuinely, to, that day, I was just like, yeah, well, you know, it all worked out, for me, I don't know, I don't know know what to tell you, I just like, didn't have a big, I've told people before and they've been like, wow, like, that, that, was that a major,

0:49:56 Thomas: That would be so embarrassing. That's, wow.

0:49:52 Tom: Right, Yeah, But you, and your dad were so close, that you were, as you've described before, sometimes thought of as a couple, I, think, that, that is, right, that's,

0:50:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:09 Eli: Yeah, I, mean, maybe, maybe, that's, what it is is that me and my family, have so few secrets that the notion, of privacy to me is maybe very different than, the notion, of, to,

0:50:21 Thomas: Yeah. There's something to that. There is something to that. And I think that there may be a middle ground that I would like to reach, because I, I would like to, be way more, involved, not at all. I would, to be more involved voluntarily in my kids' lives if they feel like they want to talk to me and trust me with that. And that's not something my parents gave a single shit about, that. I think we've talked about this before, and Tom and I were in the same boat where it's like, my parents had no fucking idea anything that was happening. And I, any thought of telling them anything going on, was just the fucking weirdest thing.

0:50:32 Eli: Monitor, your, children's, technology, that's,

0:50:59 Thomas: I would never do it. Never do it crazy crazy idea. But I, I, think it would be cool, like, maybe that's because of who they were, you know, and maybe had they been different, like, completely fucking way different, you like Eli's dad, more like, maybe, maybe, That's a different situation and you would feel more comfortable with that. I still think it's insane to clone your kid's phone and go through all their texts. That's a crime and I would not do it.

0:50:59 Tom: Crazy, thing, to do, that's, a crazy, thing to do, Yeah, No, Right, In,

0:51:25 Eli: A league, that's actually illegal, just so- So, you know, that's a, it's a crime.

0:51:30 Thomas: I'm not even joking. Literally in this day and age, if you did that to your teen's phone and they got like a sext from another teen, like you are committing a crime. Like you, like I don't even, like that's not cool. I don'T think.

0:51:31 Eli: Oh yeah. That's a good question. Well, no, I guess a sext would be okay. But if someone sent your kid a nude and you have, yeah, that would be

0:51:46 Thomas: Well, whatever. A photo. Yeah. Yeah. The minute you're possessing it, it's like, yeah.

0:51:51 Eli: Right.

0:51:51 Tom: You just you have to you have to immediately smash your phone with a hammer and burn all the pieces, yeah, so, what's your homecoming story?

0:51:54 Eli: You'd have to destroy it. Yeah. That'd be a whole thing. Right. So, um, one of the couples that ended up getting married actually, um from my high school, uh he proposed at homecoming and so there was a lot of talk about it. Um, And I don't know if dad was just like speed reading or what the fuck, but he was under the impression that maybe I was gonna propose to my girlfriend at junior year homecoming. And so my dad sits me down and he's like, you know, how do you feel about things with Laura? And I was like, oh man, you know, and look, I had only had their relationship to model, so I was like, Oh, you, you know, she's beautiful as the sun and she's the song that the bird sings. And my dad did the exact opposite of what we've been talking about. He was like, gotta fucking

0:52:07 Thomas: Oh my God.

0:52:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:41 Tom: Yeah.

0:52:41 Eli: Stop, man. I'm sorry. You know, just, she'S just some, I was, you got, ah, fuck. Nope. You can't, you can't. She's just a lady. You gotta just fucking, you're going to go to school in two years. I don't even think you're gonna make it till next summer. Cause you're Going away for a couple of weeks. Like, I don't know, I just, I remember that. You want to talk about big dramatic moments of my teenagehood? Oh, I was, I was in a, my father insulted my relationship and my mate, my lady love, now I just really sympathize with his position. I really, I was

0:53:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:52:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, I did you. I, I guess the way I would try just thinking of how I might do it with my kids, I think it might be okay to talk about relationships, not working out or what, But, you know, like the stuff we're saying, but in a way that really doesn't personalize it towards your kid's partner at all. You know, I think if you go out of your way to make sure it's like, hey, we love Laura or whatever the fuck, you don't like Laura's great. Maybe it will work out. But, and if it doesn't work out, it won't be because Laura's horrible or there's anything wrong with you or her or anything. It's just that you have a lot more years to go in life and a lot of more things to experience. And that's okay. OK,

0:53:37 Tom: Yeah.

0:53:56 Tom: I, it's funny because like I have very atypical experiences here. So like, I, I can say honestly that I didn't have, I didn't fall in love with anybody as a teenager. I didn' have that. Like I didn't, I would say like, genuinely, I didn't really fall in love until my mid thirties. I had relationships, but they were

0:54:12 Thomas: Hold on. But but is that in retrospect, like at the time you didn't even think you fell in love with anyone?

0:54:13 Tom: No, I I Always was like, is this what this feels like? This doesn't feel like very much. Is this what this is supposed to feel like, this doesn't feel like very much. I didn't date very much, and then I dated like one girl for like a handful of weeks, like I mentioned before, and then, um, I got with the woman who is now my ex-wife, and I was with that person from the time I was 17 ish until one night, 18 or give or take, until like my mid-30s. You were there? You were there, but but I, you know, But

0:54:46 Thomas: I was there. Yeah.

0:54:44 Eli: There, Tom, doesn't live in his house anymore when

0:54:50 Tom: I will say, and this is kind of an aside topic, I got stuck in a bad relationship for an excessively long period of time because I had these big ideas about the outsized importance of relationships. I also had a strong and very toxic white knight kind of idea. My ex ex was unwell. And as a result of her being unwell, I never felt fully empowered to be like, this doesn't work for me. I was always like, I got to do something for you. Like I need to keep feeding you. Like this is like, and I, I never felt fully empowered to like self-examine and, and really understand like, man, this is like, I'm pretty unhappy always. That's probably not how it's supposed to feel. Um, so really really wasn't until like until Hayley, that like I really was like, holy shit, that's what love feels like, that's like amazing. And so I am, it is difficult for me not to be dismissive of teenagers because I don't, you know, like I'm like, yeah, you're probably getting it wrong.

0:55:06 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:55:54 Tom: You're probably getting it wrong

0:55:54 Thomas: There's so many parallels here. I love that Eli and I are just pouring with love all the time, you for all different people. And Tom's like, I don't know. You guys are idiots. I don'T what the fuck that is. Like, we're in love WITH our kids. We're in LOVE with our high school girlfriends, friends. Tom's over here like, I don't know, I just never did that. I don't, what the fuck you're talking about, it's so interesting.

0:56:04 Tom: What

0:56:04 Eli: Tom, broke up with his high school girlfriend. He actually gently placed her into a trash can the way his dad had taught him, you know, they broke up because she wanted to see him more than once a week, and he was like, whoa, whoa, okay, what are we in a relationship for? The last 40 years, relax. I will see you at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Like a good marriage, we

0:56:18 Tom: No absolutely not

0:56:32 Thomas: It's I think it's funny that we actually still didn't really get to nice guys. I think I think this, this is more like, this is more like high school relation and kid relationships. What I think is also a great topic, I have so many fucking thoughts on the friend zone that we didn't get to. I don't know, I think we have to

0:56:42 Eli: Did not let's leave it for part two part two

0:56:52 Tom: Do you want, yeah, we'll

0:56:52 Thomas: Yeah part two nice guys in the friend zone, we'll eventually get to it. Oh,

0:56:56 Eli: Oh

0:56:54 Tom: Do a part two next week we'll spend time in the friend zone, guys. I I have some points too I wanted to make too that didn't get made, so

0:56:59 Eli: Next week nice all

0:56:59 Thomas: Yeah, hey, well, okay, well, we're doing well, it's follow-up sequel.

0:57:05 Eli: Right, next week we'll be in the friend zone. Gentlemen, an important question, what vegetable is cool but, you know, not that cool? A radish, all so

0:57:06 Thomas: Yeah,

0:57:28 Tom: Oh,

0:57:28 Thomas: That's good. I here in a few episodes to plug the Patreon, but I'm going to do that now. Make sure to go to patreon.com/dearolddads. I'll give you some good reasons right now. First of all, the monthly bonuses. They're hilarious. They are a lot of fun. It's additional Dear Old Dads that you got to get a hold of. There are now three of them, there's going to be a fourth somewhat soon. That's great stuff. Second, you would be a week ahead.

And here's the thing, a week ahead doesn't just mean one episode ahead because we put out bonus episodes all the time. In fact, there may be a spooktacular in your future if in you become a patron sooner rather than later. Actually, the patrons don't even know that yet. They don't even know there's spookedacular coming. You know this first, isn't that weird?

But when it comes out they will get a hold of that thing a week ahead of the normies, so if you wanna listen, if you wanna be spooked, and who doesn't, as Arlo calls things, pookye, you wanna make sure to get on that Patreon. And finally, the bonus stories, each and every week there's a bonus segment of Dear Old Dads for patrons. This week, well, I'll tell you what, I won't spoil it, but if you listen through all the way to the end of this episode, there often is a little clip for you at the end, a little Easter egg, a little outtake, maybe.

This week's gives you a little preview of what the bonus story on the Patreon version is, and you'll just have to hear it for yourself. So all great reasons to become a patron at patreon.com/dearolddads. You, thank for considering, and if you can't do so, we understand, we totally get it, we love having you as a listener.

Please share the show, tell somebody about the show, it's the only way things grow these days because let's face it, there's so many podcasts, there's a million zillion, I have half of them, it's like a billion of them too. Too many.

0:59:15 Thomas: The only way people hear of them now is if you tell somebody, please share the show. Thank you so much. And we'll see you next time.

0:59:26 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle and the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

1:00:05 Thomas: Wait, are we keeping our audience in the friends zone about the friend zone episode? We're we're just always like, oh, no, yeah, we'll we're stringing them along. Yeah, we're gonna, we'll get to, what, yeah, keep, keep listening, keep listening to us, you know, keep pursuing us. We'll eventually give you the friend zone episode.

1:00:09 Eli: Maybe

1:00:09 Tom: I think we are we're just always just teasing it oh,

1:00:21 Eli: Become a patron and you'll get it a week early. Um, do you guys want to hear about me handing a stranger a cup of my cum, or do you guys have a do you have a kid's story

1:00:31 Tom: My god yes