DOD26: The Friend Zone... NO REALLY

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: This is Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's just getting into the zone. I'm Tom Curry, and I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Gentlemen, this is the last friendzone intro I'm going to write, that's it.

0:00:41 Thomas: Everyone shut up. Have you been in the friend zone? Has anybody been friend zoned? Just stop all other conversation. Nothing allowed. Have you ever been friend -zoned? Go.

0:00:44 Tom: No, Banter, Why, Don't.

0:00:53 Eli: Well, I mean, I guess if no one's got any sports stories they'd like to talk about from when they were in school, I

0:00:58 Thomas: Well, okay. Hold on, hold on.

0:00:59 Tom: We go on a 40 -minute

0:01:00 Thomas: Okay. So, my son.

0:01:00 Tom: Golf tangent tangent I

0:00:59 Eli: Just gently place a football into the center of the podcast room.

0:01:08 Thomas: You know what I can't resist. What's Tom's version of that, though?

0:01:12 Eli: Gently place some alone time away from his children in the...

0:01:13 Tom: Didn't

0:01:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. If nobody's got any tough, but stern truths that they need to talk about.

0:01:25 Eli: I was listening. I just want to say, I've been trying to keep up with our podcast. They try to listen to it and then I, I take notes, I write down, down, like, hey, I think this is a question that we left hanging. And I just want to point out that two weeks ago, or whatever the release schedule is at this point, Tom was like, oh, I have very explicit instructions on how to pick up women. I've written several blogs about it, and we just fucking moved on, Tom.

0:01:47 Tom: Say how to pick up women.

0:01:50 Eli: Was like, oh, I know the secret to women, winning a woman's heart. But tell me, you guys, what was your childhood like. Absolutely, the fact that we did not grind this podcast at a halt and shock him until he revealed that information

0:02:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:01:56 Thomas: Yeah. I came back to it later. I was like, wait, you do? I need. Yeah. It's also, he said like, I know where the fucking what's his face is gold is buried. Anyway. TV time.

0:02:03 Eli: Yes.

0:02:10 Tom: There the mystery of Oak Island is okay. You

0:02:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, It's funny you say the sports thing. My son, just, I'm going to do it. I've got to go to, think Arlo just got his review. We're actually moving. This was a hard one, actually, though, for, in all, we'll get to the friend zone of banter time. We are making the decision to move Arlo to a new school, even though we just moved him to this one. And it's hard because, like, we moved him into this one, we thought it was pretty good, but he has a teacher that we love and a teacher that's just kind of mean. I forget if I said this already on the show, but, oh, It's a teacher, it's nothing, it's not, it's, it's just, it's nothing abusive, it's something like she should be fired. It's, it's just, she's always in that annoyed mode.

0:02:48 Eli: No.

0:02:58 Thomas: Well, I don't know if I mentioned it to you offline or on the show. It might've been, oh,

0:02:56 Tom: Did mention this, yeah, oh, yeah, okay,

0:03:01 Eli: Oh, yeah, no, I didn't hear about this online.

0:03:03 Tom: Oh, Okay, a

0:03:03 Eli: Right.

0:03:03 Thomas: Okay. It might have been off the record And the other thing is, I dunno if you know this, we're having a scomber and we are having a Sconbert, and like this place, this school, if it was just Arlo, you know, he's only got another, what, a year and a half or so, whatever it is, until he's in kindergarten. Garden, it doesn't matter anymore, you know, but, like, he you know, so we would have finished it out, but this place is kind of institutional, it's kind of cold feeling, you know, it feels like a, like an old-timey school a little bit, and the, the final straw was like we asked for, hey, can I check out the infant room, you know, we're gonna have a fucking baby, we're gonna have a scomber, like, can we see it, they never responded, and like the fact is

0:03:09 Tom: Scomber. You don't say. What?

0:03:10 Eli: Of course.

0:03:20 Eli: I Thought

0:03:41 Thomas: Yeah, this no, yeah, They just never responded. They just like this. It's funny. We never know what's going on. Like I know we're probably, you know, it's, it's California privileged parents of whatever, but somewhere, look, I don't like the 18,000 emails I get from Phoebe's school. I hate that. I get, I get every, I'm not even joking. This is not even a joke. I get an email, a text, a voicemail at the same time for every single message, email, voice, a textbook every time. And I'm like, I don't, how did I sign up for this? I don't want this, whatever it is. I don't like that, but but zero is also bad. Like, we never have

0:03:41 Eli: You were gonna say they said no, I was like, Thomas, run.

0:04:14 Tom: Right,

0:04:14 Thomas: Any idea what's going on at Arlo's school. She asked for an infant tour. They didn't get back to us. It might just be that the front office kind of sucks. But, like, that was the last straw. We're like, hey, can we see where we're about to put our newborn, you know, and nobody emailed back. Meanwhile, she emailed that Arlo is leaving.

0:04:29 Tom: The cage isn't ready yet, sir, we can't show you, no.

0:04:32 Thomas: She emailed that arlo is living, and the next time I went in, they knew that. So it's not just like an email problem. Somebody's checking the emails and fucking not responding.

0:04:33 Eli: Yeah It's a, no.

0:04:40 Tom: Yeah, as soon as money's involved, then all of a sudden they're reading it, right, yeah, that's

0:04:42 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bring it up, is Arlo, I did the review, the teacher, little teacher reviews, and think it's some level of bullshit, you, like, they probably tell every parent their kid's the best, amazing. But Arlo—the teacher that we love, really loves Arlo as well. Like, he's just such a nice kid. Kid, he, like, just like latches on to whoever the authority figure is in a really positive way, hug and it's them, and just, be love Arlo, she just gives this rave review, not, she's like, yeah, he's the best, he's so smart, he's got all the stuff, maximum scores. And then the one thing she's like there's one score he didn't have, there's one thing, you know, because they do these little assessments or whatever, I was like, oh, I wonder what that's gonna be, she's like he wasn't able to catch a ball. I was like oh, fuck, I haven't, damn it.

0:05:24 Thomas: I didn't I, I haven't sportsed with him. I've neglected to sports with my child. How?

0:05:23 Tom: It just you guys keep them

0:05:28 Eli: Second, only to like, he's very sexually selfish, that is the worst thing you can accuse a very ungenerous lover. I,

0:05:45 Tom: Yeah,

0:05:38 Thomas: I just love the idea of that being at the end of your child's evaluation. Yeah, one more thing. Like it's a what's his face moment from that. Oh, I just thought I'd mention this detail. When I'm fucking your kid, he's not.

0:05:50 Tom: I really he can't even, just, I mean, he barely even reciprocates, I, yeah. Wait,

0:05:58 Thomas: Gosh. So, yeah, that's you, sports ball, you wrote me into it. Anyway, friendzone, have you ever been in the friendzone? Everybody you

0:06:03 Tom: Wait, I, I hold up.

0:06:04 Eli: Have So much about teachers that I want to talk about, what,

0:06:06 Tom: But I want to, I want to make a joke about throwing a ball. I just want to tell a quick, a quick adult. So, had I, a buddy of mine who was living with us for a short while, my buddy Jacob, he's a great guy, and so, like, for, I don't know, six, eight, nine months, something like that, he was kind of in between places, and I'm like, yeah, I got a spare room, you can, you can stay here, and so he was living with me, and one day he said these words which to this day are probably the most frightening fucking words anyone has ever said. He said, do you want to go play catch, and I looked at him, and, and I, and I was like, and I was, and I like, Jacob, he's a great guy, like, we do whatever, like, we'll go do whatever and

0:06:36 Thomas: Want to play catch oh, man, that's so great. But you had to throw him in the trash can that day, yeah, I get it.

0:06:52 Tom: I was like, play catch, like, with what, and he was like, well, I got you know, baseball gloves and a baseball. It,

0:06:57 Thomas: Oh, That sounds so great.

0:06:54 Eli: Is he at what age oh, and do you have a time machine to go back into the past when we were five on summer vacation, no, well, Not not according to Arlo. You fucking can't

0:07:05 Tom: Was like, yeah, yeah,

0:07:02 Thomas: Oh, come on, it's so fun, I could play catch forever, forever, ever, I know well, okay, here's the thing, here's the problem. Kids fucking Suck. Yeah, That's true, that's true, and also kids suck at catch, like it's hard to play a game where they can't, like it is really funny, if, if, any, I know we have like 20 of our listeners according to polling don't have kids, which I love, it's great, if you don't know if you have kids or you don't have experience with small children, you throw a ball to them and even though they think they're totally gonna catch it every time, they're like, yeah, throw the ball, they cannot focus on it.

0:07:16 Eli: Unplug from the editing station.

0:07:41 Thomas: It's like the bullshit thing they made up with the, the Native Americans not being able to see the ships, the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone make up of all time. It's like that, though, with the ball, they can't, they're like, throw the ball, Phoebe does this all the time, and they just, they're, they're ready for it, and then it's like, they, they haven't built that brain shit that just tells them the calculus of where the ball's gonna go, and just smacks them right in the face every time.

0:07:41 Eli: Can't do it. Yep.

0:07:45 Tom: Yeah, you

0:07:58 Eli: Yep. Yeah.

0:08:02 Tom: It turns out, Thomas, that doesn't necessarily go away. Like, that that can become a, like, we went out, I did, I wanted a humor mouse, like people I was like people, play catch, this is like a people thing, I'll go do the, I'll be like, I'll

0:08:05 Eli: Some people have that forever. Okay. This is insane.

0:08:04 Thomas: You did, oh, wow, this is the best. This is the best.

0:08:18 Tom: Do the, be a man's man, we'll go throw the old baseball around.

0:08:20 Eli: Not a man, a man's child. You were a man. Man's child?

0:08:24 Thomas: Oh, this is the, I can't believe you went through with it, I'd never would have predicted that in a million years and

0:08:27 Tom: It was it was terrifying, it was the whole time, it was a combination of a fucking baseball is hard, and it's like coming at you all, and you're just, you've got this tiny little leather thing, and you are trying to swat it away, it is a nightmare. It is an absolute nightmare.

0:08:36 Thomas: Oh,

0:08:41 Eli: Yes. Can't.

0:08:44 Thomas: My heart here's why my heart's breaking, Tom, cuz I know that within 2.8 seconds of your friend throwing you ball, I know your friend's heart just sunk. Just like, oh, oh

0:08:47 Tom: No, like I I I did like like some amount of of I think protective instinct kicked in and I did at some point start to catch the ball but like and the whole time like I'm trying to like play it off, you know, like like, oh, just a little rusty but

0:08:56 Thomas: Boy You can tell you can Yeah, oh, I just had double eye replacement surgery and also my arm is made out of a toothpick and I, yeah, just every excuse you can think of, oh,

0:09:13 Tom: But then the worst part, then, is then you've got to throw the fucking thing back to him. I haven't thrown a goddamn baseball ball since I was in first grade. I, why, why? I'm not throwing things to people like I hand things to people like a person

0:09:20 Eli: Yes. And there's a right. And

0:09:20 Thomas: That's the easier part oh

0:09:29 Eli: There's a right amount of hard you're allowed to throw it so you gotta be like, you throw too soft they're like, no, you gotta throw it, and then you throw too hard and they're, like, relax, and you're like you relax, this is the fucking knife game with Robert Redford, but with blunt force trauma, I don't want to do this, let's go inside and turn on the PlayStation and I'll shoot you in World War II, we have better things than this now at

0:09:47 Thomas: It's so great oh

0:09:32 Tom: Yes oh god still a thousand times better than football. I've never, I can't imagine I a

0:09:59 Thomas: That so that's funny, I was just gonna say, well, a football at least is, because I agree I, I hated baseball

0:10:02 Tom: Football is so much harder to catch, it's shaped all weird every time the ball comes to you, it's mad at you and like spinning and fucking hate it

0:10:04 Thomas: Really it's harder to throw but it's bigger and softer to catch, it's like, doesn't hurt as much, I would have thought yeah it is shaped all weird but I agree, like baseballs are too small. I actually, I didn't play a lot of baseball. I can still throw, I mean, I'm a man, I can still play catch, but no, I fucking love it, but it takes me a second to adjust because it's

0:10:28 Eli: Least my kid knows how to eat pussy, see how'd

0:10:29 Thomas: Oh so good, so the the end so

0:10:38 Eli: Your podcast get kicked off iTunes, well, I'll tell you

0:10:42 Tom: It's a family

0:10:41 Thomas: The end of that story Tom, wasn't your friend just leaving, just like, uh, I know, mail me my things, I know I'm staying in your house, for you, you're kind of, let me in your house, I can't be here anymore, and what, that wasn't the end of the story?

0:10:42 Tom: Show he, he was, he was good enough to pretend that it wasn't a total waste of his time and we, we, we played catch or whatever for however long that happens, and then I was so grateful to to be like, can we, be we just go inside when you, I'm not but, oh my

0:10:55 Thomas: Patreon goal the three of us play catch, that would be that would be the best friendzone

0:11:11 Tom: God

0:11:10 Eli: Oh no well then a dollar above it is that we stop

0:11:22 Thomas: So friendzone, has anybody ever been to friendzone?

0:11:23 Eli: Friendzone, yeah, so here's what I was thinking, this is what I'm excited to announce, is that my, the Eli Bosnick, because Tom is over there with his fucking treasure chest full of sex secrets that he's not going to tell us, I am going to give you the Eli Bosnick guide to the friend zone, because I, as as a person who looks like a marshmallow that fell under a furnace, have had many times where I've been attracted to someone and they haven't been attracted to me, but they have wanted to know me as a person, right, which all the misogyny aside is what the friend zone is, right, is you're like, you don't fuck, and someone's like, no, but I value you as a human, and most men's response to that is, oh god, God damn it. Mother fucker.

0:11:33 Thomas: Yeah fucking whore, god

0:12:05 Eli: Oh, no. You like me. She likes me. Oh, I gotta call my friends and say mean shit about you because you like me, but here's here's I

0:12:06 Thomas: I wish you were joking I wish there was an ounce of humor in that

0:12:19 Eli: Wish I was joking but so here's the Eli Bosnick secret to the friend zone, right, when you say, hey, I'm attracted to you, and someone says, I don't feel that way but I would like to be your friend, you just be their friend and stop trying to fuck them. I mean, look, don't get me wrong, I have very very close female friends who, they probably now are aware that at some point I was romantically interested in them, but now we're just buddies, right, like I'm sure at some point they're falling asleep and they're like, like, you know, that first week he did bring me flowers, I think Boz might've been

0:12:20 Thomas: No yeah yeah

0:12:57 Eli: Trying to bug me, but it's been six years and I haven't been gross. So it just sort of, the consequence of the Eli Bosnick method is that there are many women in my life who are like, that Eli turned out to be a nice fella.

0:13:02 Thomas: Yeah Yeah. Well, and your behavior is so outrageously different than the average dude that they're probably like, yeah, maybe he's gay or something. He didn't want to fuck me. You know, like they probably can't believe that you're like actually respecting them and being their friend. That's probably like hard for them to cope with.

0:13:20 Eli: Yeah.

0:13:25 Tom: Also, I do want to just throw out there, I also have plenty of female friends that are close female friends like I've never had any romantic connection to or attempt to date like

0:13:34 Thomas: Okay. Now I don't know. I'm just kidding.

0:13:36 Tom: That for real though, like, because and I don't know, you probably have as well

0:13:37 Thomas: Yeah. You just go, you toss a ball with them. I get it. You're just, you've taken me, you know? Yeah or

0:13:40 Tom: Right just we go out and throw the old pigskin around like you know, but I just, I like, a bizarre idea that like the only time men and women can like have friendships, and even like deep and meaningful friendships that last for decades plus, is it of that never has or had had any like romantic or sexual context at all, it's not like the only way to be friends with women is if you fail to be romantically connected to that woman and then you're just like, oh well, I guess since we're not fucking, I'll take the second best relationship so

0:14:10 Eli: Absolutely. Yeah. Right. And that's truly what a lot of people feel like is like, oh, I'll settle for friendship. Friendship

0:14:18 Tom: Right Which is fucking insane, like, and I know we were joking about like, like the blog stuff I wrote, but like vlog stuff I wrote, all boils down to like, you best way to like make people interested in you is to just be interested in other people, genuinely and personally. That's it. Just And if it turns out you're like not romantically inclined toward one another, like you still have a buddy.

0:14:40 Eli: Cut to me leaning up against a bar next to a woman, so how much do you weigh I really want to know, it's important, so

0:14:44 Thomas: Or well so yes you guys friends? I have plenty of friends where the friend is a couple and I'm friends with, you the wife of the couple. And that's like a totally, completely, obviously platonic thing. Like, it's not that foreign to just have a platonic female friend in a way that seems to be like to some segment of the internet do to sphere. That seems to me like an insane thing, right? I mean, mean it's weird, yeah

0:15:14 Eli: Yeah

0:15:14 Tom: It's it's an insane thing, and I think we touched on this last time we were talking, I think it's an insane thing because for a lot of men, women aren't people, women are things to fuck, and only an insane thing if the goal of having a relationship with a woman is to fuck that woman, like is just a nightmarishly misogynistic to start with, like, it said so, but I think that is for for many people their starting point when it comes to even, I think, I think that's a problematic starting point, even if that's like how you approach, and obviously if that's how you approach romantic relationships, that's, that is always, regardless of the context of the ultimate relationship, if the goal is the fucking and not like the connection with another person, I just think that's like a problematic like the fucking can

0:15:30 Eli: Yeah absolutely and

0:15:38 Thomas: Well

0:16:01 Tom: Be part of it, but if it's, if that's like the primary driver, like, people get lost in that, right

0:16:07 Eli: Men are told that that's the thing they should care about, right, you know, I, I can't tell you, and we, we've talked about this in the past, but you know, there's this, like, when you start dating a woman, your guy friends say, let me see a picture, right, don't say, do you like her, or or do you enjoy her company, and we also know, right, then there's that weird trope of men who hate their wives but stay with them anyways because they're younger and hotter, right, as we're getting older, I don't know if you guys have this, but, um, like some of my friends are gross and are now my age dating humiliating young women, legal women, but just what we all agree is gross. We just get these moments where I'm like, and he's like, yeah, man, she's actually a model in her spare time. And I'm like, cool. What's her middle name? And he's like, man.

0:16:21 Thomas: Yeah yeah the

0:16:21 Tom: Right yeah

0:16:31 Thomas: Weirdest thing yeah I want to like leave little caveats for all this stuff. I think there's exceptions to all this stuff because I think... honestly, think there is anything wrong, I'm not a fucking like Christian, I don't think there's anything wrong if your attitude towards towards a person is like, "Oh, I would really like to have sex with that person." Presuming like you're straightforward about it and you take no for an answer.

0:17:15 Tom: No. And I wasn't trying to suggest that I was talking more relationally, like, like an actual relationship.

0:17:16 Thomas: And yeah, right, right. Right. Right, right. Yeah. No, if you're pursuing, like, if that's your way of pursuing a relationship, then yeah, that's obviously an unhealthy attitude, but think that the key isn't necessarily the fact that there's an age difference.

I know, you know, I have a couple of friends who have a big age difference, which is the only reason I kind of like push back, it's more that like that age difference is because of that emptiness, and I know that's totally what you're talking about, Eli, and I know these people too, where on either side, could be, you know, on either site of the marriage, this wasn't ever a good relationship about people who cared about each other, it was something else, and for the dude often that's just an attraction thing, and then all of a sudden, you, when the years roll by, or maybe when kids are a factor, like all of a sudden they not into it anymore because that's all they cared about.

And it's horrible. And then if that's the reason they're just exchanging for the younger model, like I know a few of those guys, uh, coincidentally, a lot of them play hockey. I know them from hockey. I'm

0:18:13 Thomas: Not friends with anyone, but like, I know the dude who's like, all of the sudden he's in his forties and you see that like, he's got a, he'S totally freshened up his haircut and is wearing too much cologne to hockey. He's wearing. Yes. Yes, the shirt is unbuttoned. He's wearing too much cologne. To hockey.

0:18:03 Eli: Yeah. Yeah, and the shirt is unbuttoned.

0:18:29 Tom: They Smell.

0:18:29 Thomas: You don't, you don't. You go there and you instantly smell like shit. That's what hockey is. It's just there's no way around it because you sweat in the gears so badly. I keep mine nice and fresh, by the way. No one else does. So everybody smells like fucking shit except me in there. But like you don'T wear cologne Who are you trying to? You're trying to like ask out the goalie after you shoot on them? I don't know what that would be for.

0:18:29 Eli: Yep. And the plugs.

0:18:51 Eli: All right. Well, Thomas, I want you to take the hockey community. All right, you got the hockey community in your mind? I hang out with magicians. Magicians. Shirt is the standard. Right, exactly. They're all as sweaty as if they've been playing hockey, but they don't have the excuse of hockey. They shuffled a deck of cards twice.

0:18:53 Thomas: Okay, sure. Mm -hmm.

0:19:01 Tom: Just As Bad You I don't know that I'm pushing, but I do want to note, though, that like, I'll say that the age gap thing is, I think, very frequently, like to the point of being assumptively frequently problematic, like when the age cap is Enormous. Norm because The age gap almost always works like this. It almost never works in the reverse. It

0:19:25 Thomas: Mm -hmm, oh are the President of France, by the way, do you guys know about this? This Macron, he is with, he this is so French. He is married to a teacher he had.

0:19:33 Tom: No? Okay.

0:19:33 Eli: Yikes.

0:19:39 Thomas: And she's like a lot years older than him. And it's really interesting. I don't know how I feel about it, but I saw it on Reddit and I confirmed it. Very French. So unless you are Emmanuel Macron, yes, usually the age gap works the other way.

0:19:43 Eli: Okay.

0:19:40 Tom: Okay. That's Very French. That's Usually The age gap only works where the dude is a lot older than the woman. It almost never works in the reverse. I'm not saying it doesn't ever, but it almost never works in the inverse. And I do think that it is absolutely emblematic of exactly what you're describing, which is like, are dudes who see women not as people but as something to fuck, like that the most important, the thing about that person is the Fucking Of them.

0:20:20 Thomas: Do you guys want to know their ages? Do you want to their ages. He's 44.

0:20:22 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. What's their ages?

0:20:25 Eli: Nice.

0:20:25 Thomas: She's 69, that interesting, 25

0:20:27 Eli: He had no choice but to marry her, that's too much. That's the other

0:20:30 Tom: 25 years, 25 years.

0:20:32 Thomas: Years. She was his teacher. Okay, that's- that's weird, actually. That's beyond

0:20:36 Eli: Thing too, is if you're 25 years apart, I don't believe that you have great conversations about what do you remember when you were a zygote, and I was 20? No, remember when I was having a beer while your dad fucked you into your mom? No, you don't remember that. You don't remind me?

0:20:36 Tom: So like, no, I don't either. I'm side -eyeing that whole thing.

0:20:45 Thomas: Remember when I could rent a car when you were not born? Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:57 Tom: Yeah.

0:20:58 Eli: I don't know a single person who's like, "Ah yeah, I guess I prefer the movies of uh- to the ones when I'm younger." I just "Ah, what can I say, I really like today's music way more than that stuff I was growing up on." Let me tell you, I-

0:21:05 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:21:12 Tom: Yeah, I'm a thousand percent like, like I see that big age gap and I'm just like, fucking, that's the biggest red flag side -eyes shit ever for me. I'M JUST LIKE, Like, no, whatever. That's monstrous.

0:21:19 Thomas: Yeah true it it is interesting, if you're friends with those people, it's interesting. Thing- you yeah guys don't have any, like, close friends who have a big age gap? I- do?

0:21:28 Eli: Do.

0:21:29 Tom: No.

0:21:29 Thomas: Okay. It's I have. Okay, I have friends who are the uh, student, but they're together and they have a kid, so like high school high school teacher, male, uh- Yep. Nothing. Uh, as, as far as we know, nothing happened during the school time. It happened later. But that's, it's weird. Um. It's interesting. Yeah.

0:21:29 Eli: It's the worst, first. Dope, super dope, cool. Teacher, cool. Yeah.

0:21:38 Tom: Oof. Oof! Oof, oof! Was it like his first year out of college and she was a senior? Oof...

0:21:54 Eli: Yeah. Thomas, may I show your friends into this room where I keep Tom's dad and his friend, who he sees once a week for 22 minutes, into the relationships that make Eli go "yeah"?

0:22:08 Thomas: So, I, I Gotta say, though, the reason I've been really wanting to not, uh, do a practical joke and keep never talking about the friend zone is because I want to say, far as I can tell, the online kind of consensus has gone thusly.

Like, obviously, because the internet is a very young male piece of shit dominated space, the idea of the friend zone is like a common, the typical thing we're talking about, we're like, oh, the girl, the dude along, but just puts him in the friend zone, and it's because, and the shitty version is like, it's cause he's the nice guy, but the girl actually wants the dude on the motorcycle to blah blah, and then there was like the backlash to it, which was no, the friend zone does not exist, you just put that girl in the fuck zone, or whatever, like you put her in the relationship zone, and she wants to treat you as a person. And I want to say that I actually do think the friend zone exists, and I say it because I've Both Been in the friendzone and friendzoned people, and I, I wanted to talk about that because I think it's interesting.

0:22:10 Tom: Oof...! Right.

0:23:00 Tom: It does.

0:23:00 Eli: Of Course. Yeah. The pendulum does swing back too far the other way sometimes, where people will be like, there's no, sir, I don't know what you're talking about, like you and and that, no, of course the friend zone exists, we've, I think we've all found ourselves there. The question, the moral question for men, is just like, hey, what do you do when you're there?

0:23:18 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:23:28 Thomas: Yes, Yes. And I want to get to that. But what I'm describing in particular, and I think I, but probably the time when I was like least good as a person, was in college, when I was on the other end of that. Now, in high school, I was friend zoned by someone who I was just like madly, high school in love with. You know, I just like, oh, my God, this girl is like, fucking, I'm gonna marry this girl, she's the best. And she very much, I guess, was not that. Into, but something Tom said, the other one of the 18 times we try to do this, reminded me, I also think there's a component where humans tend to maybe take advantage in certain ways. And oftentimes, yeah, it's like this sort of self -esteem thing to maybe keep the person just enough engaged so that they, you know, want to like continue being interested. But then you're definitely still friends. And that can range from like totally, you and accidental to like downright abusive, like for sure.

0:23:28 Eli: Absolutely.

0:24:10 Eli: Of Course. Well, Look, Let

0:24:20 Tom: Yeah.

0:24:21 Eli: You You beat me exactly to the word I was going to say, let me take it a step further. There absolutely have been emotional abusers in my life who used the tropas of the friend zone to keep me behaved, right? They they would do and say emotionally abusive things. And then when I would be like, Hey, I don't think this is a good way to treat friends. They would sort of be like oh, are you a nice guy? Are you trapped in the friend zone.

0:24:46 Eli: And I was so worried about falling into those tropes that I didn't recognize that I was being abused or treated badly. And, and I think some a of the time, uh, men find themselves in what are just abusive relationships, right? Genuinely like abusive, manipulative relationships that really, really, really hurt them. Um, but because they don't have the language to express that because Because men are so often forbidden from saying I was treated badly or talking about their feelings and how it might feel to be rejected, right?

Especially if you're a quote-unquote good guy, you're supposed to take any kind of rejection or any kind OF treatment because you're A GOOD GUY and you're not the kind of guy who sends the shitty message at 3 in the morning, right. Right. But yeah, I have absolutely been on the end of some incredible manipulation and abuse throughout my life, both with people I was in relationships with and people I wanted to be in relationships with.

And I want to 100 percent give you credit, Thomas, because men don't talk enough about it. Right. We don't Talk enough about like, hey, no, no. That was abuse. That was wrong. You didn't deserve it. And it's not entitlement to say you didn't Deserve it.

0:24:32 Thomas: Like, mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm, yeah. Yeah.

0:25:54 Thomas: Yes. And, and specifically in the progressive end of things, I think it's just not a conversation anyone has. Like, people are really comfortable to just be like, "No, that doesn't happen. Men are shitty and put women in the relationship zone." And that's the end of the discussion. And the reason I do push back about that is, again, I can get into, but like, I was on the other end of that. And so I know that it exists. I've actually been on both ends of it.

I know it's a real thing that humans do because humans are flawed and they do these things. And think that what you need to do if you're ever in that situation is get your fucking bootstraps going and and realize that, like, in the same way, there are just like arsonists and robbers in the world or whatever, thieves who might steal your shit, if you, you know, whatever leave it out there, may be just emotionally abusive people, hypothetically, who would be willing to to like keep you in that like state of, oh, like, and maybe is there something here, is there not, so in order to kind of take advantage of you. And I think like you ought to do in that situation is like realize you just need to cut that person out of your life, and

0:26:53 Thomas: The answer isn't, they need to like unfriend zone, blah, blah, like, whatever. That's a, that's a situation where it's like, you need to do your best to recognize this. I know it's hard then. And it's not like, it's not, I don't want to be like blaming the victim or whatever, but like a case where you're dealing with a shitty person like that, the best thing you could do is get out of that relationship.

0:26:53 Tom: Oh, yeah.

0:26:53 Eli: Yes, absolutely.

0:27:11 Eli: Yes. Yes. No, I think that's so important.

0:27:11 Tom: Yeah. I think as a corollary to that is it, it a long time for some people. I just raised my hand, um, for myself at the very least, it took a long Time for me to realize that I had the same kind of veto power in a relationship as anybody else. And that veto power is complete and it's total, but it only works in one way. And what I mean is just like somebody can say, I, you veto a romantic relationship with you. I can say, neat, I veto a friendly relationship. That's not the kind of relationship I'd like to have here because I have these feelings and I know that I am not going to be served personally living in this space where I want something you don't want. That is a perfectly legitimate and reasonable and fair and not unkind thing to do as long as the way you communicate that is fair and reasonable and not unkind.

0:27:26 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah.

0:28:06 Thomas: A way, I think there is a danger, and I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but I've seen, you know, I've, I've read a lot of women writing about this very thing where it's like they are in a position where they're constantly feeling like they can't have any male friends because they get into that ultimatum like type scenario where it's like either you're going to be in a romantic thing or nothing. And I do think there is a danger of that, to where I don't know what the answer is, if it's just a problem you without a solution, but I agree with you both that that's a perfectly acceptable thing to be like, here's what I'm interested in, if that's not what you're into, then I mean, I, I just don't, I have these feelings that are totally reasonable, but then, like, if think there are women who get caught to where that's the only interaction they somehow have with men, I, I want, want to empathize with that, would feel really shitty to be like.

0:28:06 Tom: Right.

0:28:51 Eli: Sure.

0:28:51 Thomas: Oh, it's just men just want this, if not, you know, they just want to sleep with me, it's not even that much better to just be like, oh, they just wants some sort of relationship with me, and then if they, if I want to be friends, they won't ever do it. Like, I can imagine that being pretty shitty as well. Well.

0:28:51 Eli: Yeah.

0:29:05 Tom: And But For women that that are concerned about that, like, dudes suck and there are dudes that don't suck, you

0:29:10 Thomas: I, well, I was saying I don't even think they all suck, I think it might just be that, like, if, if maybe it's a Tom situation, I would do the same thing, where it's like, hey, gotcha, got cha.

0:29:17 Tom: No, I'm not Saying those dudes fuck. What I'm Saying is, like, like, if you're a woman who feels like, geez, every time I have a friendship with a guy, it turns into something sexual or ultimatum based. And now I feel like I'm in this catch 22 where I can't have male friends. I would just caution you to just keep like there are plenty of men out there. I know lots of men that have female friendships that have had no sexual or romantic component to them that have lasted. Like I said, I've got I've Got several female friends that I've been friends with for 10 plus years.

And there's never been any tension of any kind whatsoever. It's real. I don't think it's that rare or that hard to find. I don'T think it'S a big deal. I that a lot of shitty dudes, I think there are more shitty dudes. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't, like, keep trying to have friendships with men just because, like some men are bad at it. If that's what you want, because I do think itS very much like, again, I can think is my own anecdotes. But I have, I plenty of male friends that have female friends. And to the best of my knowledge, it's never been any like tension there.

0:29:26 Thomas: Mm hmm. Mm hm. Mm. Yeah.

0:30:23 Eli: Would say my closest friendship outside of podcasting, I think, in the real world is a girl, right? Is my friend Rachel, who Thomas, you've met. And Tom, you have met because she dated Pete. Is Rachel, we've been friends for nine years now, right. I met her when she was 19. And I will say, while our friendship has never had any romantic tension, we constantly deal with, uh, you guys sleeping together right when she was really young. It was like, gross, are you being victimized by him? Now that she's a little older, we were at a wedding.

I'm not kidding, we were in a wedding, and in someone's speech they mentioned that they thought, uh, my wife and I and Rachel were a thruple, because we we had come to this wedding together as friends, like if people project that romance on. Now, I will say, one of the things that I have had to do is I've had to make myself a safe person so that I have the privilege of that friendship, Right? When I met Rachel and she was 19 and I was the first adult grown-up male who was being her friend, I had to do and say and behave in a lot of ways so that she knew she was safe and so that she felt safe that I don't necessarily do with my male friends, right, so

0:30:32 Tom: Okay.

0:30:48 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, mm hmm. Right.

0:31:30 Eli: I'll give you a crazy example. Again, I've been buddies with Rachel for nine years. We've been all over the world together. She made my wife's wedding dress. But if I am reaching past Rachel to get a charger, I will say, hey, I'm going to reach my hand in front of you for a second just to get that charger, because I am never in her physical space without permission, mission whereas, as both of you are aware, I will jump onto my friends and be like, piggyback ride, if I feel like, um, and look, maybe, that's maybe I shouldn't do that for all genders, and I think there's a really valid points to be made for how you treat, book, but that's, that is how I view the world. Yes.

0:31:30 Thomas: Right.

0:32:09 Thomas: I think there would be nothing wrong with being, you cautious in situations that might, you know, dealing with like a 19 year old girl and you're an old dude where the perception is going to be like you're a creeper. Yeah, there's nothing wrong. There's nothing to be wrong with. Being, you in that relationship in a way that you say you wouldn't do it with your male friends. You might not even do it with like older female friends that are in a different context. And I think that's personally, I think there's nothing wrong with that.

0:32:18 Tom: Yeah. Right. Nine years into this friendship. Do you still do that? See, I, feel I where you're, I don't think I've ever been intentional. Like the the female friends that I've have that made, I was never intention because I was just never romantically interested. I but I never worried about that, I never had the presence of mind to worry if they were concerned about me, and that it clearly didn't, you hamper their ability for the friendship to occur, but it seems like that would be like for me, that would be a weird space. Now it would almost be like acknowledging something that isn't there.

0:32:33 Eli: Yeah.

0:32:34 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:33:03 Thomas: Hmm.

0:33:03 Eli: It is, it's definitely weird. Um, think I've never actually asked Rachel how she, she feels about those gestures. I think they are at least received by her as a sign of respect, like, because as a woman in a very male dominated profession, she's been treated super shittily a bunch of times.

0:33:19 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that as well. Yeah. That's important context. Yeah

0:33:24 Eli: Right. She's a magician for those who aren't familiar. She's so she's constantly surrounded by creepers. I also think that partly for me, it is I'm modeling behavior for the young people around me. So that they see.

0:33:16 Tom: Yeah. Sure, right that's that's fair too, yeah.

0:33:38 Eli: So like one of the examples is like there's a 15 year old girl who's part of my magicians group. Right. And she texted me something when she first joined. She was like, hey, are we going to the thing? And I was like. Like, do your parents know you are texting me?

0:33:24 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Yeah Yeah, no, that's that's a hundred percent a hundred per cent in this day and age

0:33:53 Tom: No. Yeah. That's because you're dealing with that, that age gap and everything else. I'm just thinking, I'm responding, I'm thinking in my own head, these friends I've had for 10 plus years, if I were to start doing that it would be so weird because we've already established for a decade that neither of us has ever been interested in the other person.

0:34:00 Thomas: Mm -hmm, totally Mm -hm. Well, you just might just be different context, you know, like I think it's it's perfectly fine to kind of change that Yeah.

0:34:13 Tom: Right. Yeah. Perfectly good either way. Yeah, sure.

0:34:17 Thomas: Yeah to change that context. Um, want to share this and I don't want to like universalize this to anyone else's experience as being a person who friend zoned people. But just speaking from my experience what I alluded to earlier was in before I had really figured myself out, you know, which was a long, long process and it's still ongoing probably, but I not a very good person in that way because, and I, in retrospect after reflecting on it a lot, lot. I think it was because of my psychological issues and my self -esteem issues that I, you know, I'm sure stem from my dad probably, or who knows, whatever. Um, felt like if anyone showed any interest in me, that was like an irreplaceable thing. Like it's like a scarcity mindset of attention.

0:35:01 Thomas: And so girls would show clear interest. I'd girls that I like I wasn't necessarily interested in being anything more than friends, you know, but I did the thing and it came from a very damaged place. I think of leading them on in that way to keep because I was afraid of losing that attention from them, but I didn't, I, but I don't want that relationship with them. And I think it caused me to be honestly a pretty bad person in college. College, um, think I probably hurt you least a handful of people in this way and it sucks. Like I feel really bad about it. And why, like, I wanted to talk about friend zone because I think it's, it is Something Real, like it's a real phenomenon that people like I was in college who are kind of damaged in a way can exploit those romantic feelings that someone has for you in a really negative way and in a way where you're taking advantage of them, you

0:35:00 Tom: Yeah yeah

0:35:09 Eli: Yeah.

0:35:49 Tom: It is. A lesser degree to, I think that there's a tendency that almost all people have at some point in their life to find themselves or to be the one who does it on the back burner. The idea of the back burner where you're confused, you don't know exactly what it is that you want. You know, people are, like, like you said, there's a scarcity of of attention, like in the in the sort of attention economy of romance. And it's like, well, I I'm not sure what I want, but I don't want to lose contact in case. And I think that that a lot of the friend zoning, so to speak, the quote unquote friend zoning. I don't think it comes from this explicitly intentionally bad place. I think a lot of times it comes From and I'm not excusing it experientially for the person who's in the friend zone.

But I just I just think a lot of it comes FROM this like less psychologically aware space where people are like, well, fuck, I don't don't know myself. I don't know what I want. But I know I don't want to lose that attention. I do' n't want to lose any value in

0:36:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:50 Tom: That attention economy. And so people get put on these sort of backburners. And it doesn' t, I think, for the people doing it, seem unfair. But for the people being put on the backburner, that can be a terribly insecure place to spend your time and to spend your feelings.

0:37:08 Eli: Yeah.

0:37:09 Thomas: And And the person is manipulative enough, it's hard for them to get out of it, you know, like, because like, honestly, it's People are capable of manipulating and being manipulated. Like people, like, it's, it's very easy to keep stringing that like fucking carrot along and being like, no, I mean, you know, this is something, this isn't something. And it's, like, I'm, I hope, I don't know in retrospect, like how bad it was for me or like how maybe bad of a person I was, but I know it was pretty bad.

And, thing that really fuels my desire to be a better parent is that scarcity mindset has really did ruin a lot of things in my life early on. Like it really did just this, this scarcity of attention and affection had such bad effect, not just romantically. Like even with friends, like I had that just fucking dearth of positive attention and feelings.

I, if was with friends, like I would just like just too much, like I would just be like demanding too much of people in a way that like was not, not only was not healthy, it just made me like not a fun friend to have and I didn't figure that out, out. It's funny, I did figure that one out toward the end of high school.

And I'm glad that that was a little earlier because I remember I talked to a friend who said like, oh man, you were so much, you know, like you've really changed and you're much more fun to be around. And they weren't sure why, you know? Like they weren't really, you know, as obviously up in my psychology as I was. And I eventually was like, I think I just stopped trying too hard. And they're like, no, that can't be what it is.

And then we were like reflecting on it and like, no, I, I think that's what it it is. I was just like really, I was so desperate for that that I would just try too hard. And that's why I really think the things I don't, don't know that I can psychologically, medically, whatever, pin that all on my dad or not or whatever, but I think it's got to be a fucking factor.

Like we just had such little of that positive attention that I needed, um, that's a big inspiration for me and a motivator to not do that to my kids, to like give them the positive attention that I think they need.

0:37:15 Tom: Oh, sure. Yeah.

0:39:05 Eli: Absolutely. And honestly, Thomas, I think it's actually really important that you're talking about this from the other end of the spectrum, because not only do we have men who have probably been in your shoes listening to this, but we probably have women who have been in Your Shoes listening to This and talking about what that's been like, Because one of the problems with the innate sexism of society is that women aren't allowed to admit those mistakes, right?

0:39:27 Eli: Because society is so punitive of women, right, exactly, the notion of admitting, hey, maybe I've been a little bit of a manipulator. Hey, maybe I've treated some people not nicely. That immediate backlash of like, wow, you're ruining it for every woman, And you're the reason that people can drown in wells. Else but like, I, I think it's, you know, super duper important. And again, like, one of the reasons why we started this show was to talk about how good Thomas's son was at eating ass, but the other reason, the other reason

0:39:27 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. It'll punish them so much harder than, yeah,

0:39:31 Tom: Oh, for sure. Yep. Yeah.

0:39:41 Thomas: Yeah yeah.

0:40:01 Eli: We started the show was like, here are the things men aren't talking about. And the truth is, men friend zoning women is real. We all have female friends who've been put there. We've all had female friends have been really damaged by it. So, I, I think it's super dupe important to talk about. Yeah.

0:40:13 Thomas: And the key to it. And the reason that I don't believe I've done that to anyone in hopefully decades is really getting in touch with what's going on. Like, I can't say, I was going to say healing. I don't know that I'm healed. I don't know I'm ever healed. I was having this conversation with my wife actually just last night. Certain psychological issues that I don't know that you cure. I self -esteem problems might be one of those things. I don't know. But you, what you need to do to function better. You know, and what I, what, what has changed is learning that I didn't, I didn't need to treat these positive feelings as that level of scarcity.

I didn't need to cling on to every, you know, iota of attention because it might be the last I get kind of thing. I don't need to do that. You know, you don't, like, you just don't um, being able to, like, feel that way, take someone who, you know, I want to be friends with, or I like in some way, and be honest and just take the relationship for what it can or can't be, and not try to make it something it isn't, or out of a sense of that scarcity, string it along so I'm getting, like, more attention out of, of it. Being able to not do that has been just so critical to me not sucking.

And I just wanted to talk about it, because I really think that's the path forward, is really, if you're anything like me, you know, listening, I think it's critical to be in touch with what's going on, to know, to be aware of where that's coming from and how it's manifesting,

0:40:46 Eli: Yeah

0:41:05 Tom: You know

0:41:46 Thomas: I Think.

0:41:46 Tom: Will say, I'll add to that, and I, and will admit it took me until my 30 somethings to figure a lot of stuff out, um, one of the things that's similar, that it took me a very painfully long time to figure, figure out, is that, like, I, I didn't have to focus exclusively all of my efforts on making sure that I was liked. I could also focus on whether or not I actually liked the other person that is.

0:42:14 Thomas: Yeah, that's actually, that'S a key component of it too. You're right. That's a good point.

0:42:16 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, that's a lesson that, that I took a painfully embarrassingly long time figuring out I would, I would I would go out and meet people. And this was true of many types of relationships, but it was particularly problematic romantically in terms of just not getting what I needed personally and making mistakes as a result of it, where I would be so diligently focused on making sure that I was as likable and lovable and presentable and all of these things. Because I was like, well, that's what I control. And for me, I was like, this is what I control. I control my ability to be good and a worthwhile partner and all of these likable elements. And so I would focus an enormous amount of time and attention and thought on how to do that. And I focused like no time, attention, energy, or thought on, yeah, but do I actually like this? Do I really actually like

0:42:23 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Right. I'm so

0:43:16 Tom: This person?

0:43:16 Thomas: Glad you brought that up, Tom, because I'm realizing I forgot that that's also a component it, which is I felt in a weird way, too. It feels like it's this of like selfless thing to do to be like, well, you know, in my situation, it was like, I don't know. Am I allowed to not like this person? Like, is this just what I need to do? You know, like, do I need to be into this? And I would try to be into it for some of these things. And I just like kind of wasn't. And even though it felt like this thing of, oh, I'll put my feelings aside, you for the sake of this but I don't want to hurt this person. It ended up being way more harmful than just being honest and being like, I'm just not into this. It way more harmful.

0:43:54 Tom: Well, When think that for sure, combined with the problem of the emotional scarcity, where you're like, geez, I spent most of my life, and again, embarrassingly saying this took me until my mid -30s to figure out, but you're Like, yeah, I didn't really get any significant amount of positive, loving validation for the majority of my Life here. And so any amount of that necessarily has this cascading, over -exaggerated trigger effect. And then if you're a reasonably empathetic person, you can find something to like in most people.

0:44:03 Thomas: Mm hmm. Mm-hmm that. Yep.

0:44:33 Tom: And so For me, it was intensely problematic. I focused all of my energy on being good enough for other people and then did not really have any good skills for an embarrassingly long time to figure out if in fact those people were good for me. And, and, and as a result, I made dumb fucking mistakes and I made sometimes the same mistake more than once. And I look back at that and it's like, I can't even understand. It's like a different person made those mistakes, but because that growth is so essential and that shift in focus is so much a part of that growth mindset that you have to like really embrace and do the work to get through. Especially if like Thomas, you and I similar, like we grew up without out a lot of positive validated like attention and so like can just get stuck in that rut.

0:44:33 Thomas: Totally. Totally Absolutely. Mm

0:45:23 Tom: Where you're like yeah any positive attention I'll take it ten percent of what I need that's exactly what I need for

0:45:24 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, absolutely.

0:45:29 Eli: And You know that lack of self-confidence that contributes so highly to the idea of trying to make yourself the person rather than considering whether or not you like someone, right? Is just getting someone to like you, right? Because that's, that lack of self confidence is something both of you guys have talked about, and like, that's a huge factor in it, is like, I don't, oh no, it's fine, I just, I just need anyone to like me, just please like, I just need someone to like me, that's how I'm gonna feel validated, yeah.

0:45:59 Thomas: Yeah, I do want to just take a second to emphasize, though, I to make sure I'm very clear that a massive amount of this problem, I don't know the scale of these things, but a massive amount of these issues are about the fact that a lot of this particular issue is shitty male entitlement. And I don't t want to take away from that. There's a tremendous amount of, oh, what, I was nice to you in class, so you owe me being in a relationship or having sex with me and men not being able to cope with that. That's, that is a tremendous amount of what this friend zone bullshit is. I don't want to take away from that. You know, I just think there's also like a nugget of real conversation to be had in there too.

0:46:12 Tom: Sure yeah

0:46:33 Eli: Sure.

0:46:29 Tom: I I also I also feel like I have to add I was it's funny because I was going to just do the same thing thomas but differently that like I also fucking important to spend a huge amount of time working on being likable I I don't so I don'T WANT TO LIKE TAKE THAT AWAY FROM MY PRIOR MESSAGE I THINK DOING THE WORK AND THIS IS WHAT I REALLY WRITE TO MY BOYS LIKE DOING the work to be worthy of being liked and loved and like having people spend their time and attention on you is important work it's just not all the work it'S JUST NOT the only piece of that work so

0:46:46 Eli: Yeah.

0:46:45 Thomas: Oh yeah. Yeah. Hmm. That, that's an area of the conversation, Tom, that I didn't quite feel, uh, I had the same kind of experience as you. I, I think I'm just probably a little more, I don't know, selfish or something. I did focus, I didn' focus on changing myself or anything to be more liked by the person. And I just focused on like, I ought to probably like this person. So I changed that component of it, of trying trying to make myself be interested in someone I wasn't. I did that a lot.

Actually agree with you that I do think it's important to work on yourself and to be, that is like, if you are in this fucking friend zone situation, and I want to make very clear, especially because I've admitted like how shitty I was in this instance, this is not a blaming the victim thing. This is just the like handling what you can control, you know, like obviously the major solution was me not sucking. Like that was the major solution to this problem. But like, if you're on the other end of that, and you're just talking about what you can control, if you are in that situation, having, having that self-esteem in yourself to be like, I don't need to be strung along like this. I, you know, I, I can,

0:47:32 Tom: Yeah no

0:47:50 Eli: Yeah. Of course. No, don't deserve to be treated this way.

0:48:10 Thomas: I do not deserve to be treated this way. I can focus on myself and not what this other person, you or what, like this impossible thing that I am trying to make happen.

0:48:10 Eli: Right.

0:48:20 Eli: I don't need to change myself into the person this person will love, because I probably can't do that. And B, I don't need to. Right. And that's, that's, I think that's important for all genders to hear, right? I don't, I, I, obviously we talk sort of from the, the lens of men, but I, I think we have, we definitely have people in our audience who are in the friend zone right now with good intentions, who are well-meaning and really need to hear that they are lovable just as they are.

0:48:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:50 Eli: Um, that you're not going to do that. You're not going to make the cool kids like you. I mean, god, if you want to spend another 19 hours talking about like, like you got to learn to be cool by your own metrics and nobody else's. But this is a little bit of that, right? The person who will love you right will probably love you right away.

0:49:05 Thomas: Yeah. Totally. I forgot, that's another component I wanted to discuss. A big problem with this friend zone thing is this, as I said, this entitlement thing and this idea that we need to get rid of in our society. I saw a good, you know, meme or tweet or whatever it was on this that I bet people have seen where it's like, oh, my, you, you know, nine year old said he asked a girl out and she said no. And so he's like, oh, you know what you need to do now, right? And the kid said, yeah, keep trying. And the parents like, no, you just respect that and move on. And that trope of like, oh no, what you needs to do is just keep pursuing harder, keep pursuing her.

That's been such a toxic message in all of fucking human history and our media of like, oh, you just need to pursue hard enough and then the person will, you know, whatever, it's such a bullshit message that's a major component of it too.

If we had less of that to where I think that would solve the problem in a lot of ways or help the problem, which is if you felt friend zoned, you would have more of a feeling of, oh, the answer is just to move on. It's not to like keep trying and keep trying, because I tell you what, like, harsh truth for people who've been in the friend zone, I'm including myself in this. Do you know any stories of that working out

0:50:17 Thomas: Of being completely friend zowned by this like, you know, beautiful woman that you're into that doesn't seem to be into you, and then like, after fucking five years of that, she's like, you know what? Yeah, do you have, you ever heard that story

0:50:29 Tom: You know the third time I helped her move that's when it really did it yeah right

0:50:31 Thomas: Yeah that story doesn't exist. I'm sorry. It's almost nowhere. And like, I think that's important to recognize that, like, you, you can, A, either just be the person's friend and stop expecting there's going to be more, that's a totally perfect acceptable way of dealing with it, or realize that you're not going to get there and cut that relationship off, if it's not if that person, if you feel like they're manipulating you or whatever, they're just, that story doesn't exist. Like, I'm sorry to be, it's like when we're telling our kids that the teen romance doesn't last. You know, harsh truth, that story doesn't end with you, you guys getting married or whatever. It just doesn't.

0:50:35 Tom: Yeah yeah and I I would add to that too that like if this is somebody that you have strong emotional feelings for and they and you you're you're stuck in the the friend zone, like don't try to be friends. If you have strong emotional, and I'm saying just like you've got a physical attraction to somebody, like set that aside.

0:51:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:51:23 Tom: But if you have strong emotional feelings for somebody, and like, you're kind of like in puppy love or infatuated with somebody and they do not return that favor, and the relationship type you want is a romantic, loving relationship, and just, it will be easier for you. Other people will be your friend. You is not a scarcity issue for all, for most people, for most, and that's going to contradict the next thing I'm going to say, but like but really, I don't think it's a healthy place to be in love with somebody that you're trying to like turn into your buddy. I don't think that that feels good. I don't think you should put, put yourself through that hell.

You can simply say, look, you vetoed me romantically. That's fair. I get it. I accept that. Cool. I don't want to have a friend relationship with you. I need to veto that for my own personal, like, wellbeing and my happiness and like my emotional safety. And that's, that's fucking fine. And I would recommend you do that. I don't think you can be in love with somebody fucking all sneaky style and like try to be their buddy. And then, you know, nothing ever happens. And then you're like emotionally and romantically stunted as a result. It's bad. I've seen that too. Like that's a fucking nightmare. Don't do your, don't do that to yourself. It it's a fucking mess.

0:51:47 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:51:56 Eli: Yes.

0:52:39 Eli: To say as someone who sort of had the healthy version of that right Because that's the origin story of me and Anna, is that we met, we were both involved in other things at the time, there was obviously a connection there, both of those other things ended. Told this story other places, but basically the first time we were supposed to just hang out as friends, she turned to me and said, like, is this a date? Are we dating? And I was like, yes, please, I would like to date. But what I actually said to her in that moment, and the key is that I meant it, I said, I just want to be nice to you. Right. And the truth of the matter is that Anna and I had an emotional connection very early, but I, look like, you know, a rabbi for an underground sort of people, right? Like if there were mole people that also had Jews, I would be their rabbi, right?

So my wife, I'm gonna be a little bit vulnerable here, wasn't physically attracted to me right away, and she let me know that. She was like, you no, I really like you, I really liked hanging out with you, I don't know that there's of physical attraction there.

And without lying or being like, yes, we are platonic pals of the, the friendly sort, a handshake to you, madam, like, I, we understood that there was an emotional connection there early, and then that physical connection and that attractiveness built, um, and last to this day.

And like, I, someone who could have been the resentful man, right, who, who says, oh gosh, I'm being friend zoned, and instead just stood my ground and said, hey, I really like you romantically, and I want to be nice to you, right? I enjoy being nice to you, I enjoy dating you, even if you don't necessarily see that physical future with me.

And worked out for me, holding my ground, holding mine, oh god, this is going to sound so heavy, but holding onto my truth in that scenario resulted in me marrying the love of my life, right? But it really wouldn't have if I had either been a jerk and stomped my feet and stormed away, or worse, sat there for a year and been like, well, maybe someday she'll

0:53:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:36 Tom: Right.

0:54:36 Eli: Like me, right? You know, both of those would have been the wrong decision.

0:54:39 Thomas: I'm so glad you mentioned that because I do think what Tom and I were saying was maybe suggesting that that isn't an outcome. I think the key in your scenario, Eli, the key is the honesty and the fact that you you genuinely were in that position. You genuinely were willing to be like, yeah, no, I, I am interested in more. If I don't get more, I'm not going to fucking go on a forum and call you a whore. Like you, you were comfortable with yourself. And I think to bring it back to the point of the show, I do think this comes from a more healthy upbringing that you had. You had the kind of this, maybe the self-confidence, if that's it, or the, whatever it is, the, the kind of comfort with your, who you are and what you want that you were able to say, no, I will stick this out to try to make this happen, because you were in a position where you honestly could do that.

I think the honesty is the key. You, I'm so glad you brought up that story, because that is kind of a, I don't know if you'd call it a friend's own story, but like, it is a story of, you can stick to your guns and try to making it happen. You just have to be honest and happening and not pushing boundaries, like pushing Anna's boundaries

0:54:39 Eli: Right,

0:55:03 Tom: Right? Yeah.

0:55:42 Thomas: In a a way that she wouldn't have wanted, you know, that's the unethical part.

0:55:45 Tom: Yeah. And I would add to that, like just self monitor whether or not that relationship is continuing to work for you or whether that relationship just hurts you, you Know, like if you've got strong feelings and it's been a year and they're not. And you find out, you know what?

0:55:50 Thomas: You've

0:55:58 Tom: I thought I could be friends.

0:55:58 Thomas: Helped her move 18 times right.

0:56:00 Tom: Yeah. Right. Or you're just like, you Know what? I thought it could be Friends, but it just hurts too much. Like, It's okay to be like, "I don't like that. That doesn't feel it's not your fault. But it doesn't feel good for me. And so I need to like, walk away from that." That's a perfectly fine thing. But you've got to do that self. My, I didn't do that. I just think about myself in high school. And this girl, you know, I had this, this friendzone thing. And, and to be to be very fair, like, she absolutely flirted with me all the time, she was slightly physically affectionate, like, without, it was just a whole thing, but like, it was confusing, and I tried to be her friend, but the whole time I was trying to be your friend, it hurt me.

0:55:59 Eli: Yes, Tom.

0:56:04 Thomas: Yeah, No,

0:56:36 Tom: And it would have been better if I was just like, yeah, I just this doesn't work for me. But you know, I didn't really have the the wherewithal at that time to do that. One, I do want to push on a little bit, and I'm probably going to sound like a huge huge dick from something that Eli said, which is like, someone will love you just as you are. I wrote that down. Do want to say, and this kind of comes back to be like the, the, yeah. Um, sometimes, yeah, well,

0:56:58 Eli: If You say no, they won't, I'm making a t-shirt with your face on it. Yes.

0:57:03 Thomas: I agree with time here, but I don't think that's what Eli said. Well, Let's get Eli, is that what you said? I thought you said if someone's going to love you for who you are, they will do it right away rather than like after five years of helping them move in frenzy.

0:57:13 Eli: Yes.

0:57:15 Tom: All right. So I, all right. So then I, maybe I misheard you. I'm sorry. I must've misheard. But I, I will I will use that as an excuse to make this point that nobody owes you love nobody. You are not necessarily, without any work being done to yourself, you are not necessarily a fucking catch. I do think it is important to do the work to make yourself attractive to other people. There, there, that is an important part of working on who you are in ways that like communicate important things about your value to other human beings. You have to do it. If you, if you say, well, I'm mad, and you see this in the incel community all the time, right? It's like, it's people who put no fucking effort into being likable, being pleasant, being good good conversationalists, being attractive. Yeah, I never shower and got a breath all the time and unpleasant to be around and I're belittling to women, but somebody should love me for who I am. And it's like, yeah, but who you are is shit.

0:57:16 Eli: Exactly. Yeah.

0:57:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I refer to them as females. Yeah,

0:58:22 Tom: But you know what I mean? If who you Are is unpleasant, that. Fix

0:58:24 Thomas: Yeah. I this your advice for how to we got to get you advice.

0:58:30 Tom: I have a long blog post on how to be likable.

0:58:33 Eli: This Is the blog this Is it's actually I I

0:58:34 Thomas: And it's available behind a paywall for ninety nine ninety nine.

0:58:36 Tom: Eli, have you read it?

0:58:38 Eli: Know. I just looked it up, it literally I clicked on it, just says, "Don't be an uggo," which is really, wow, Tom. I'm

0:58:44 Tom: Well, I mean, it helps. No, I.

0:58:50 Thomas: I, you know, we've gotten a little bit of pushback of like, "Oh, it's easy for us to say," is that somehow is Easy for us.

0:58:56 Eli: Sorry, what? Okay.

0:58:57 Thomas: Yeah, no, we did. We got a little bit of pushback.

0:58:59 Tom: Yeah, I saw that. It was like, have you listened to this show and the experiences we had growing up?

0:59:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

0:59:01 Eli: I Would I would like to officially challenge that person to an ugly off. Okay, I'll tell you what we'll

0:59:10 Thomas: That well then What they said was like, "Oh, it's easy for you to say, you know, the three of you are very like charismatic and interesting" or whatever kind of thing, and it's like, no, me in the park at night, I will ugly you better.

0:59:17 Eli: Oh, Charismatic? I thought they were gonna, like, it's good for lookers like you. I was like, how dare you, are you kidding? Yeah, I, we're having an ugly-off in town square, we're both taking off our shirts, whoever gets arrested first wins, going downtown. Downtown.

0:59:36 Thomas: That's a good objective metric. Yeah, I like that. No, but I think I wanted to kind of respond to that, because for one, it's not as though you, or I, or Tom in his $99 a month program that he's going to sell us at the end of this.

0:59:37 Tom: No, God damn it.

0:59:51 Thomas: It's not as though there's some answer for every single human being on the planet to be attractive to who they want to be attracted to, you. That doesn't exist. Like, that's not going to be it, but it's a question of what can you do? Like, honestly, and what you can do. And I truly mean this, is focus less on what you're wanting from someone else and the feelings you're trying to get from someone, and more on yourself. I really mean that it's, it's if you have an interest, um, here's the, here'S the downside. And this is speaking totally like CIS hetero right now. The good thing about the situation is men are so shitty that the bar is very low. Like if you're a dude out there

0:59:49 Eli: So

1:00:03 Tom: Right. Yep. Yep.

1:00:26 Eli: Low

1:00:26 Thomas: And you're wondering like, what can I do to be more attractive?

1:00:28 Tom: Fucking A. Yep.

1:00:29 Thomas: There, men are such assholes that all you have to do is a fucking ask a woman on a date about something in her profile that she likes once, and then you've already, you're ahead, you're in the top, like 1% of dudes. Like, if he just literally, did I tell this story where I was talking to my friend about the dating app and and she, yeah, and it's like literally ask one question in your message to the person related to something they put in their dating app, and like, you can't control it if that person is gonna like, look at your profile pic and be like, yeah, well, I mean, honestly, you could try to take a good profile, get a fucking professional photographer to take your profile, but like, you

1:00:26 Eli: Yeah yeah and just no, one asks her a question yeah

1:00:46 Tom: Yes. Yep.

1:01:07 Thomas: Focus on what you can do it's it's

1:01:08 Tom: Right.

1:01:08 Eli: Photos of Thomas, instead of yourself, take on his identity. Yeah.

1:01:13 Thomas: Not a guarantee of success, it's a question of what the fuck you can do. Like, cause what is the alternative? Well, I want to know what the alternative that, that don't know if anyone's like arguing with us is the alternative that someone should be mandated to be in a relationship with you. Is that the alternative is that the Jordan Peterson women should be punished for not marrying you?

1:01:18 Tom: Right?

1:01:27 Tom: That that's that mindset, man. Yeah.

1:01:27 Eli: Yeah. I think I think it is the alternative for a lot of people is, hey, I have this excuse, right? I have created this self-hatred cycle. You, I, I am blank, therefore I'm unlovable, I can't work on that, therefore don't you tell me anything else I should ever be doing, right? And a lot of the time when you see that kind of pushback, especially from men, right, you will see the men being like, well, it's easy for you to say, and it's like, I don't know, man, like, what are you doing?

It reminds me, the very first live show we ever did in Utah, it was just sort of a surreal moment. Moment, a teenage boy, um, us after the show, um, and he was like, can I talk to you for a second, and I was like, yeah, you were here doing the handshakes and pictures and mouth, and he was like, no, I have like a question for you guys, and we were like, sure, it was like a teenage kid, he waslike where do I meet girls, and I'm so grateful to have no illusions in my life. And And Noah went, well, what do you like to do?

And the kid was like, well I play soccer and I play this video game. I play This Video Game, which was like League of Legends or something. And he

1:01:31 Tom: Yeah,

1:01:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

1:02:37 Eli: Goes, well your interests seem like a good start. And I think like a year ago or maybe two years ago, he shot us an email and was like, I met my girlfriend playing This Video Game, and like we've been going steady for a couple of years. And like that initial thing of like, what if you started with you and the things you like and the things that you're interested in and allowed yourself to feel that rather than using them as an excuse, right? Well, no woman likes a board gamer. Yeah. Women like women love board gamers. Women love League of Legends people, right. Everyone. If I am proof that everyone out there humans

1:02:47 Thomas: Yeah, there you go. Yeah yeah.

1:02:48 Tom: Awesome. Yeah? Yes.

1:03:04 Thomas: No, they do. Look, I don't want to sound like a fucking pickup artist. Women love men having an interest in almost anything if you have a firm interest in it that's genuine and maybe you get good at it and you're genuinely trying to get good at something, be confident about it and you're interested in it. That's attractive, like it really is.

1:03:20 Eli: Yeah interested interested is interesting. Good.

1:03:30 Thomas: Yeah, they can tell if you're just doing it to fucking bullshit and like I might meet someone here. So I'll fucking you pose as a thing. No, that's not that's Not the same thing.

1:03:30 Tom: That. Yes. The, I really do believe like the same things that make you an attractive friend to men, the same qualities of like being reliable, being interested in other people's well-being.

There's the same thing because women are a people it's, don't need two divergent strategies here in terms of like how to connect with the humans, do things that allow you to connect, be genuine, sincerity is the, the most attractive quality in all people, so you are sincerely interested in this topic, other people will sense the sincerity and the genuineness and the authenticity of who you are, and there are some scenarios where it's going to be more of a fucking sausage party than others, that's just okay, fine, I mean it's a smaller pool, whatever, but guess what I'm saying is, it's, you don't need a separate like set of ideas or strategies on how to be likable to the opposite sex, it's, it's exactly the same things that make you likable to your friends, it's just that we feel fucking weird and internally we pathologize ourselves right out of the fucking, right out of existence, you know what I mean, because like we, we, we get fucking weird around the opposite sex or a lot of people do and they think they have to behave differently, you, in important and fundamental ways that make them inauthentic, it's authenticity and genuineness and sincerity that ultimately I think drive connection, so you don't have to have like, oh, what do you do around women, I don't know, what do your buddies, you play League of Legends, you really enjoy it, same shit

1:03:44 Thomas: Yeah.

1:03:50 Eli: Kisser yeah so

1:05:08 Tom: Oh same

1:05:09 Thomas: You do have to like make sure you flex your forearm as hard as you can at all times when you're reaching for something.

1:05:13 Eli: Hard it's just wrong constantly

1:05:16 Thomas: I mean, that's the first thing that women look at is like how flexed is your forearm and bicep as

1:05:11 Tom: Oh yeah that's the old is your forearm at

1:05:16 Eli: Forearms and calves it's juste forearms a calves that's

1:05:21 Tom: All times

1:05:21 Thomas: You reach out and you're like, oh, maybe we'll go that way. You really got it. I mean that goes without saying, but like that's number one.

1:05:28 Eli: Important yeah and that's that is the first lesson in Tom's 10 part video series which he is, that's there's a sale going on right right now right takes bitcoin you can pay he

1:05:29 Thomas: Yeah. Available. He takes every credit card. Yeah, Yeah.

1:05:39 Tom: I do not take bitcoin no, I like to be paid with money

1:05:42 Eli: Likes to be, well, if you pay now, it's actually cheaper, the longer Tom holds on to the bitcoin, so think about, you're getting a, a great deal, all before we go, important question, why is it so cheap to throw a party at a haunted, haunted house? Because the ghosts bring all the booze, all right

1:06:09 Tom: Oh, oh yeah

1:06:15 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 in 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.

1:06:55 Tom: And got a breath all the time and unpleasant to be around and I're belittling to women, but