DOD92: Watch Like No One Is Dancing

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's too cool for its own show. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Eli: Hello, Daddy-O. That was my coolness. Daddy-O.

0:00:38 Thomas: Hello. I have a single toothpick in my mouth. You can't see, but so fucking

0:00:47 Eli: Oh, but and he can flip it? He spits it out and it flips and then he catches it again?

0:00:49 Thomas: Cool. Yeah. Tooth care.

0:00:53 Tom: You sunglasses inside?

0:00:54 Eli: Oh, on the back of my bald head? Absolutely.

0:00:56 Tom: One of you guys wear baseball caps? You baseball cap guys? Guys? No.

0:01:00 Thomas: No, not at all.

0:01:01 Tom: Oh, see, I like this.

0:01:02 Eli: No, just what I'm trying to avoid, fans. You know, if I want to live like a normal person.

0:01:08 Tom: Were either of you guys cool in school? Were you guys like cool kids? Do they have like a popular clique in school. I'm just checking. I don't know, Thomas. Like, I don'T know. Like,

0:01:10 Thomas: Who do you think you're talking to?

0:01:15 Eli: I was Drama Kid cool. Kids, kids decided we were cool on our own, and so I was cool in there, yeah, exactly, you just need enough.

0:01:18 Thomas: Oh, yeah. If you have enough. Yeah. Yeah.

0:01:22 Tom: All right. So that yeah, that I would say that that counts like within the within the sort of niche because we're all the drama kids included. Oh. So there were no like there was

0:01:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:01:30 Thomas: Oh, then that doesn't count. You need to exclude the not cool.

0:01:31 Tom: No Yeah.

0:01:31 Eli: Oh, were there, not cool, of course there were not cool drama kids. I thought you meant was, was the hierarchy.

0:01:34 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, there's got to be exclusion. Otherwise, it's not. Yeah.

0:01:36 Eli: Yeah. No, the hierarchy included all drama kids, but the some of them were lower than others, and I was at the the top.

0:01:45 Thomas: Good. As long as there's subjugation of human. We're good. Coolness That's requires.

0:01:48 Eli: Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

0:01:50 Tom: Yeah. They've had, yeah, exactly, coolness, it's so funny, I have to like explain to Finn, not explain, but just sort of remind, he gets it, but it's reminder, a it's because Finn is struggling, I've mentioned before, he's struggling to find his people, he doesn't really have a like friend group, and in his junior year of high school.

0:02:05 Thomas: Jeez.

0:02:05 Tom: He's really not found, and he's probably not, at this point high school is pretty much going to be over for him fairly swiftly, being just real, unless he could a group maybe his senior year, but at this point, if he hasn't, he might not. I keep explaining to him this whole stratification system that school creates where there's this lunch table and that lunch table and these guys are in this window, and I'm like, all of that immediately goes away.

0:02:28 Thomas: It's eternal and it lasts for life.

0:02:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:02:31 Tom: It feels so big for like the first 12 years of your like life. It feels like it's like, oh, my God, I'm going to be like, I don't know. And then it's so funny how that just immediately drops off and doesn't exist ever again forever. It's just nonsense.

0:02:43 Eli: More importantly, the people who can can exist outside of those spaces like Finn do really well in the real world, right? Because they're not like, I don't know if you know about the Bayville Tigers. You know the Bayvale Tigers, Bayville, Indiana? Yeah, that's where I'm from, Bayvale Tigers. We went 26 and 0, my first season. And someone's like, hey man, I hope you like just sit in your garage for a little while after this interaction, just keep the car running. But normal guys who just sort of were like, I don't know how high school was. It was fine, I guess, Right. Right. Those guys do fine because that's ninety nine percent of humans. It's the fucking weirdos like me that we're like, why don't we do a yearly musical as adults? They're fucked, fucked by life.

0:03:04 Tom: Those are garage guys.

0:03:25 Tom: Of kind of what I want to talk about, because I wholeheartedly agree and disagree with you. Guys, like, that were like, they still have their fucking high school class ring, you guy 100% sits in his garage after work every day watching the TV unironically, like in a lawn chair. Like, that is who that guy has become. That just who he is. He sits alone in his garage watching TV and drinking beer in a lawn chair. He's just he's fucking nobody, but like when I went to school, I did not have a social circle. I always had like a best friend and it was kind of exclusive to like everybody else, my buddy, and that was kind of it. I had some like other acquaintances, but wasn't tight with anyone. But the 90s, at least when I was in high school, it was like, it was cool to be disengaged. Right. It was cool to be like high school dance. I would never go to high school. Dan's like, that's fine.

0:04:10 Eli: Sure, of course.

0:04:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Is that not still cool? Shit. Do I have to start going to high school dances? Damn it. I've been avoiding them, but now I guess I better go. I don't want to be uncool. All

0:04:14 Eli: It

0:04:16 Tom: But That wasn't cool. Like that was actually lame. Like, I don't actually want my kids to grow up thinking that not participating in social events and, you know, social opportunities is a cool thing to do that. It sets them apart in some meaningfully like beneficial way when I think it actually just does 100% the opposite. It just like reduces their opportunities to have experiences.

0:04:43 Eli: Turns you into a sports ball adult. Right. You ever meet an adult where someone in a conversation that was sane is talking about sports in a way they care about. And then one of the adults goes, I don't like sports. And you're like, what a fucking insane thing to do in this conversation just now. Those aren't my children in that picture. Like, what the fuck are you doing? And I remember this because, again, we were the drama kids and we were like, we're not cool. We're creating our own. We're artists. We're bohemians, blah, blah.

And there was a bunch of that, like I'm too cool for whatever. And I was lucky enough that I had some peers and especially my parents that were like, hey, you should probably just enjoy your childhood because you are, in fact, a child. But like a tremendous amount of that leaks through to adulthood. Right. That's where that sort of revenge of the nerds mindset comes in of like, yeah, the world rejected me and now I reject the world. I'm like, actually, the World's perfectly happy to play some board games if you want to not be an asshole.

0:04:45 Tom: Right. Yes. Yeah.

0:05:42 Eli: You want try that? Maybe me, but Tom, you know, the only thing worse than rejecting all social mores and living alone for the rest of your life, it's the auto ads, the "I don't like sports" comment on your sports Facebook status, of podcasting. But there's a way you can make those auto ads go away by heading over to patreon.com/dearolddads, all spelled out. You get a commercial-free version of every single show, with a parenting story at the end when Tom feels like it. And you can get all of that for as little as a dollar a show over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Yeah.

0:06:11 Tom: Yeah.

0:06:21 Tom: I've come to realize that one of the things I want to do for my kids is to raise them to be the kind of people that say yes to as many social opportunities as adults, to as much as they can. And I think that's a really good thing. I think it's a good thing to say yes to as many social opportunities as they possibly can, to say yes far more often to those opportunities than they say no. And you know, I figured that part out in my life, when I figured out that saying yes to things was just going to open me up to a world of experiences and new people and like networking and just social opportunities.

When I figured that out, my life just like became richer. It just instantly became this bigger, richer life with so many more people in it. When I was in high school, like I bought into that fucking like, uh, you know, like I would never go to a sports game or I would never go to a dance or I would never. And so I never did. Right.

I am at 45 and like my kids are going off and like, I'm encouraging them so hard to be different and to do different. And I'm like, yeah, you should go to that fucking homecoming dance. And I have to ask Kaylee, like, I don't know what involved in a

0:06:28 Thomas: Hmm.

0:07:19 Tom: Homecoming dance though. Like, can you or like, go, or to prom, she's like, oh, like the day of prom, like we're going to be busy. And I'm like, why? I'm not going to prom. She's like, I'll have to get the kids ready for prom. And I'm just like, I don't know what that means.

0:07:19 Eli: I don't have to get over, why would I be three two

0:07:31 Tom: Like, But just think, like, there's... there's a real advantage to raising participators just there is a enormous difficulty in raising participators, especially when it grinds up against the sort of bulwark of team apathy. And I'm curious how you guys feel about that.

0:07:31 Eli: One go dance, yes

0:07:32 Thomas: Jeez.

0:07:50 Eli: And I I also think, think that we can unfortunately model, um, for our kids, right, because we want our kids to have friends, we want our kids to have connections, but we, like, have our wives and, you know, very easy, especially for dads, to get lost in their own lives. Right, like, one of the things that's that's very interesting to me is that my dad had a lot of friends, and I did not realize how rare that was until I talked to other people about their dads, right, in which case at best 99% of people would go, "Oh, my dad has a best friend, they grew up together, that is why they are best friends they

0:08:25 Thomas: They see each other once every five years.

0:08:28 Eli: Go golfing once a year, and when he dies my dad will fly to Florida, the end." And so it's it's just important for us to encourage our kids to participate and encourage our kids to like socially engage with other people, because those are important skills to build. But we have to model it as well, even when it's uncomfortable for us. And I, I know for me, as someone who works from home and can be a little bit of a homebody, that was a very, a much a skill I had to learn, that I had to start actively collecting people and saying yes to things. That perfect person wasn't going to show up at my door and be like, "Like, hey, I am exactly the right amount of cool and I will be your grown-up friend now."

0:09:06 Thomas: No, I'm still waiting for that. I think it'll happen. I'm pretty sure. Here, I don't know what. When you said participators, Tom, I thought you were talking about like civic participation or just like in general, you know, now as the introvert, I'm being assaulted. This is discrimination.

0:09:06 Tom: Yeah.

0:09:16 Tom: Not social participation.

0:09:22 Eli: Yep.

0:09:23 Thomas: Oh yeah. Say yes to just blind social situations. That'll be fucking awesome.

0:09:29 Tom: Well, to talk me a little bit because I'm not an introvert, right? So I a, like a terrible ask for somebody that's an introverted? Is it something you still want to model for your kids? Is that just like terribly egregious? Like, honestly, as somebody who like is more of a homebody.

0:09:36 Thomas: I, um, I would say, I Mostly teasing. I actually do think, as much as I think, we're living in an extrovert's world, and, and also a morning person, morning person extroverts fucking just rule, they, they rule the land, they're actually emperors, that's the Illuminati, it's not lizards, it's actually just morning people, extroverted, and they're like, yeah, we're not lizards or aliens, we just get a bunch done while you're still asleep, and we talk to each other, and that's about it, and I I, yeah, and

0:10:07 Eli: Just use the daylight, you know, like from the beginning of time. And everyone's like, sounds like a trap to me.

0:10:15 Thomas: We talk to each other, like, we call each other on the phone to plan stuff, no, I can't do it, it's fucking Illuminati, it's lizards, I, never mind, I'm going back on this, it' impossible, you couldn't possibly do that, but anyway, yeah, I do think that personality as traits do exist, they're not just that, like, oh, I hate getting up in the morning. Like, no, this is actually, there's been some studies on it. Like, there are references between morning people, night people. Um, is, I still think that it's like Tom says, do we live in the world when it comes to some of the stuff that we're like, well, this is bullshit, but it is something that exists. So you do have to kind of do it. And I will say that even as an introvert, it is, especially as an extrovert, actually, I'll say it's even more important to make sure you don't get caught in the cycle of endless staying at home and saying no. Like it's just so easy to do, no

0:11:01 Eli: Right.

0:11:04 Tom: One of the things that helped me do that, and I don't know if this is just an extrovert thing or not, but like you, to evaluate whether I wanted to do something or not do something based on what the activity itself was, right? So, like, if you, Thomas, invited me to go to a hockey game, 20 year old Tom would be like, "I don't like hockey, why would I, why would I do that? That's an insane thing to do." But now I figured out, like, I'll be like, well, yeah, but I, I fucking like Thomas Smith, so I'm going to go, because I'm gonna enjoy the company, and the activity will be like, kind of like, yeah, that's cherry on the top. I If happen to like the thing that we're doing, if I like the company that I'm keeping, then that for me is something that has driven me out. But I'm, now I'm wondering if that advice doesn't really pertain as much, you're more of an introvert. In other words, like, would that be an inducement for somebody who's more of a homebody, or would that be like, "Yeah, that doesn't induce me,"

0:11:51 Tom: Obviously.

0:11:51 Thomas: I think that's great advice, I absolutely think that's great advice especially because, like, I don't want to like people on the same basis, you know, you want to meet people where they are, like, I need a certain amount of, you know, interaction, and it's less than probably you need, but I, I almost think, like I said a second ago, I almost think it's even more important, I didn't in any way want to to undermine your, your message, Tom. I actually think it's maybe even more important for someone like me to make sure I don't get caught in that trap, because it's so easy. So easy. If I'm not careful, so easy for me to just get in my routine of stuff I like to do by myself and not see anybody forever. Like, way too easy. In fact, so it's like even more important. And funny, I've come, I've a long way with that too, Tom, where I, I'm the same way, where I'm like, yeah, I don't care what the fuck we're doing, whatever,

0:11:53 Eli: Yeah, no, I think that's very helpful.

0:12:37 Tom: Yeah,

0:12:37 Thomas: Might you have a preference if I need to, but if it's somebody I haven't seen, and it's funny when you run into, I have some people who are not super close friends, but, for example, I made friends with a guy who I really like, he's a cool guy, newer friend, which, you know, well, I guess I say that now, it's been years, three by now probably, but like that still, as a 37-year-old dude, like newer friend kind of rare, you know, like in this day and age, and we got to be friends because we're playing video games together, like we just got to talking, we like the same, like, old weird video games, you know, from like fucking the 2000s, and I was like, no way, like that's where I learned, like, there's a whole world of people who now make their own servers for these old games and play them, it's fucking insane, so like I've gotten into that a little bit with him, and I don't have the time for that, but funny is he's an interesting quirky dude, and often I'm like, yeah, yeah, man, let's play.

0:12:37 Eli: Right. Yeah.

0:12:37 Tom: Right, Oh,

0:13:28 Thomas: And I thought, whatever, playing the game with him is we're just fucking, like you said, we're doing a thing. Like it's, I like the game, but like, yeah, I'm playing a game with a person. That's cool. I'm too old to be like spending significant game playing time just by myself. Like, I'm putting world of Warcraft in 2005. Like, I'm, that's, I'm past that. But if it's a new friend who I'm playing and chatting with, whatever, that's that's just doing a different thing, like you can say like, oh, you gamer nerds

0:13:42 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:53 Eli: Right. You could be golfing. You could do golfing, you could be whatevering.

0:13:54 Thomas: Yeah, exactly exactly truly but what's funny is, for, like, he's kind of a quirky guy, and he's like, "No, what are we doing in the game?" Like, he got to be really specific, and if we're not doing exactly the thing, like, he wants to do in the game, he has a hard time, like, keeping interest, I'm like, man, I'll, I don't care, like, whatever what's

0:13:56 Eli: Yeah.

0:13:57 Tom: The activity doesn't matter, yeah, yeah.

0:14:13 Eli: We can go kill some pigs you want to go kill some pigs, we can kill some pegs

0:14:15 Thomas: Yeah whatever you want to do, man, but he's like all particular about it. I keep, keep giving him that same, like, hint of like, man, I don't care, that like, whatever. I like, I want to hang out, chat, you, but, uh, it's funny, some people are really keyed in on that, you

0:14:30 Tom: And Think, like, if you are trying to encourage this, what, what I was thinking about with my, with kids, is like, if you want to encourage them to do something, you kind of have to give them both tools of perspective, be like, all right, is the activity going to be fun, and you don't know anybody, like, so this came up the other day, right, was a dance at the school, and Aislinn loves, absolutely loves going to like school dances. She went to the first dance, it was the coolest thing ever, she went through her first school dance, I think last year, I picked her up from it, and she was like vibrating with like 11-year- old kid energy. Like she was so excited. I don't think I've ever been that happy in my whole life.

0:14:58 Thomas: Hmm. Classic.

0:15:04 Tom: Right. She like was just like, vibrating, just, she was singing in the car, I mean I've never seen her so happy, she loves these dances, a dance came up this year and she was reluctant to go to the dance this year because she's at a new school and she wasn't sure if any of her friends were going to the dance, so, like, you kind of need both perspectives to try to like encourage that participatory mindset, right? You have to be like, all right, is the activity fun? Then it doesn't matter who's going to be there, let's go do it. Right, then it's like, is the activity going to be fun? No. Yeah.

But, like, friend, like going to be there, whatever, like, awesome, like let's hang out with Jesse, and the activity will just kind of be a thing you do, and if you like combine both perspectives, the only time you say no to anything is if the activity sucks and you hate everyone there, well, like, yeah, don't fucking go, right, but like that's going to be a de minimis number of social opportunities, and also we were just talking, I thought, like, you, Cecil, and I became very, very close friends, and our, our relationship really like blossomed, or deepened, when we started working on each other's homes. Like, we had been friends for years before, but, where like, we really became like real fast friends, and, where like, our first podcast started from the Genesis

0:15:26 Eli: Right yeah the SATs

0:16:09 Thomas: Oh,

0:16:09 Tom: Of it, et cetera, was from remodeling like our homes together. Like, we didn't hang out anywhere near as much before that. We both bought homes around the same time. We both needed help. Neither one of us was sure what to do. We're both, we're just like, yeah, Yeah. All right. Cool. And was fixing a bathroom a super fun thing to do? Really. But like hanging out with seesaws like, yeah, I can't wait for Saturday to roll around like we're going to hang out.

0:16:31 Thomas: Worked, you know, one awful summer of construction, truly the worst construction. I think I've talked about it insulation and the summer heat fucking, or delivering roofing was like the upgrade for that. But dude, that was the hardest thing. Anyway, that job, insulation, one of the worst truly that I've ever had. It's the fucking worst. But my, the reason I was even working there was it was my friend's dad's company. And my friend wasn't really working there. Like just, I got it. I needed a job. He was doing other shit, but he would work a couple of times, like in the summer he came and worked and it, it like turned the worst fucking job into like, it was fun. It's so funny how like actually can make a huge difference. If you have someone you like who you're joking with the whole time, like it makes even the shittiest job, not bad.

0:16:38 Tom: Oh, yeah.

0:17:19 Eli: I think that's something that doesn't get talked about enough when it comes to extroverts versus introverts, right? I think often that we talk about it in terms of like biological preference, right? I'm an introvert, right? I'm always gonna be, and I know, I know you like talking to people, but I, I took a test on BuzzFeed when I was 14 years old, and I'm pretty sure none of this talking people stuff is for me. And like, I think people don't often realize, especially men, because men are just so often socially punished for being introverted, that people don't realize that like, hey, a lot of the unpleasant things about your life become vastly more pleasant when you engage with other people.

0:18:01 Tom: Yeah.

0:18:01 Eli: Right. Something that I, I I don't

0:18:01 Thomas: Well, okay. Okay. No, There's a big difference. So here's the thing that isn't fun at all for me and never will be, um, in cold, to a social situation involving lots of people I DON'T know, that I, that I do not. Well, some people do, some people like I I love meeting new people. I love whatever. Like, even if it doesn't matter what activity it is, that's a nightmare for me. And I fucking hate it. Just hanging out with one person I like, that is actually called being introverted. Just liking talking to one specific person at a time. That, that is something that is harder for introverts to do just because often you haven't made the friends. You know what I mean? Like, it is the small talk, you, you don't know, bigger situations that you're on, like that's never fun for me and it never will be. I absolutely fucking hate it.

0:18:06 Tom: Cold nobody likes that. I will

0:18:20 Eli: I don' mind it well.

0:18:28 Tom: Yeah, yeah?

0:18:52 Eli: That's that's exactly the point that I was coming to, because I very much had, and it's funny, the thing that changed my mind on exactly that situation you're talking about was trying to be a professional magician. Now, to be fair, I was never particularly good at magic, but the thing you have to do if you're a professional magician is you have walk up to strangers at a party where you've been paid to be there and you have have to interrupt the existing conversation and make them watch a magic trick, which is second only to, "Would you like to watch me jerk off?"

0:19:14 Thomas: Yeah. I think I'd rather watch you jerk off, honestly, I think it's a cool magic trick I don't know yeah cutting

0:19:25 Eli: So the a vast, yes. And that's what I got a lot of the time is like, can we take you jerking off? One of the things that I learned relatively early, because again, I came in with this sort of high school chip on my shoulder. I'm an artist. I mean, but believe me, it's tough to be a magician and think I'm an artist, but I was doing it right. I'm a magician.

0:19:41 Thomas: A way I'm Keith's, I'm

0:19:42 Eli: I'm just an artist right. And exactly.

0:19:42 Thomas: Keith the magician magician you

0:19:44 Eli: I'm Keith, the magician, and these are normies and they won't possibly get me and they won't possible understand. And then what I realized after doing that job for a while, exactly.

0:19:45 Thomas: Don't even understand why you, want this to be your card, do you, you fucking that's

0:19:56 Eli: Yeah. Yeah, like truly you have no, like, thank goodness there wasn't enough Facebook and Twitter at the time so that you did not know, record the absolute pomposity of like those who don't appreciate the maestro at his piano or whatever the fuck I was thinking. Right. But like after I did enough work and I did end up doing quite a bit of work because I worked for cheap and I live in New New York City, or at least I lived in New York City at the time, I realized that like actually, like that small talk thing with complete and total strangers, 90-some percent of people are fine. They're fine. They're nice. They've got a cool story or two. They's got a good story. They've, they've got an interesting habit or two like

0:20:05 Thomas: So good yeah but there's always that guy who ends up being a magician who's trying to do a fucking magic trick

0:20:40 Eli: Well, yeah, no, sometimes you're the worst. Yeah. Sometimes you are the worst in the scenario. And you know, that's that's a different episode is how not to be the the worst. Um, but like that, that was so transformative for me because I was no longer going into scenario. And maybe this is not relevant to what you were saying at all, Thomas, but know I it was really relevant for me. I went into scenarios expecting to be disappointed by the people I was meeting until eventually I realized, you know what, that's going to happen really, really rarely, right?

0:20:41 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:20:44 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:12 Eli: 90% of the time, the people I meet are going to be fine. They're, they're going to be pleasant. They're gonna be interesting. They're going to be interested, and it's, it's just not that bad.

And now, as an adult, as I'm sort of making parent friends, right, because I have my, my magicians group who I've been friends with literally for a decade plus now at this point, who are like my core squad is what our fucking chat was called, and then I have my podcasting friends, which, you know, we all live in different places, but they're the people I talk to the most of the people.

I spend the most amount of my time with, but there's this middle range of friends now that, that I've developed as an adult that are like a combination of parenting and where I live, right?

It's just, when I first jumped into it, again, as being a dad, I had that same impulse that I had as a post high schooler of like, "Oh man, I don't want to make small talk with some asshole." And just finding as many people that I like as I have, right, feel over, over and over again like, "Well man, I got so lucky that this dude's here and that dude's there, and oh my gosh, all these cool people came to this board game night that I hold at my temple." Like, I am constantly surprised by how excellent most people are when you give them a chance.

0:22:23 Tom: Offer, too, I think, Thomas, I feel I would count myself as much more of an extrovert, I think, than you are. But I also hate going to a big event where I don't know anybody like it. I'll dread it all the day before, like in cold to a great big event, where I don't know anybody at all, that's tough. That's tough, I think, kind of for even most extroverts to do, right?

Helps in those situations and kind of what you're describing to some degree, Eli, is not relying on the standing around portion of the program. But if you know that there's going to be something like that, try to find any kind of an activity that you can engage if there's anything. And there's not always, right. Right. But if there's any kind of activity that you can engage, the amount of pressure that that takes off of the social situation is like unbelievable.

It is an enormous amount of pleasure that it takes off just to have something something to do with your hands. Play horseshoes, throw bags. If it's a backyard bag thing, if you're like at a bar, can we go play darts? Is there a pool table? Anything at all will take so much pressure off. And I'll tell you, my experience has been being the guy that suggests that you

0:23:32 Thomas: And then doesn't do it because you don't play sports. Yeah Yeah. Oh yeah.

0:23:34 Eli: Yeah.

0:23:35 Tom: Oh, I'll do that all day. I'll be like, let's go play darts. Like, let's go do this. You're like a fucking hero because everybody feels that same pressure. There is a tiny, tiny subsection of a subsection, even of introverts that can walk into a cold room and enjoy a cold room. Most people can like go with a buddy or two. Like I can go and have one person I know and 50 I don't know. And I'm going to have a good time. But if I walk in and there's 49 people I don't know in the room, that's an enormous amount of pressure. That's a lot of pressure for anybody. So like, what I do is try to find that, like I'll find something to do. Let's find an activity, even if that, like, find somebody we can help with something, you know, oh, is there somebody cleaning up somewhere? If it's like a house party, like Find anything to do and suggest it, and you would not believe how much pressure that takes off and how much, like, goodwill and grace you get from that, as a tip.

0:23:37 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:24:23 Thomas: Yeah. No, first off when I was, when Eli was talking, I was thinking, yeah I, how do I remember I made some conversation with a, with another dad that one time and then he, you know, started hitting his kid.

0:24:31 Tom: Beat his kid.

0:24:32 Thomas: It's like fucking cool.

0:24:31 Eli: Well, You know, sometimes you roll snake eyes, that's

0:24:36 Thomas: Uh, but it could have been worse. He could have started doing a magic trick, I guess. So it's not, you know, we're

0:24:40 Eli: True, he could have Started doing a magic trick or

0:24:43 Thomas: Playing an auto ad. I guess those are the two things that are, but, uh, but

0:24:45 Eli: Doing A magic Trick Are playing an auto And

0:24:48 Thomas: No, The other thing is like, I'm realizing it's even, it's situations, social situations with people I know also suck. There's exactly a few social situations I like, and it's specifically hanging out with like you guys. That's it. That's the only, that's it, pretty much you guys, Heath, meh, that'll do it. Anything Else I'm Like fucking Hate This, yeah So I hope You're not doing Anything for the rest of your lives, jeez

0:25:07 Tom: That's it. That's the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:05 Eli: That'll Do It, we Found The balance Yeah Not that much time when it comes to me, Thomas, so you know, it's pretty, I'm locked in for the next six months

0:25:20 Tom: Too, that since COVID personally, my life has dramatically shrunk socially. So COVID, last three years, I've gone ahead to do an opposite thing. I've had to figure out how to spend time by myself, which I've never had to figure out, how to do any like meaningful amount of time by myself. Now working out alone, working at home alone. Kids are at school. I am just by myself a lot. Whereas before pandemic, I was never alone. The only time I was alone was in my car. Used to relish that time, but it was always this transition time.

So the only time I was by myself was when I was traveling. I'd be like, oh, I love my car because this is kind of my point of transition and my point of isolated solitude. And I kind of like that. And do a lot of my best thinking or what passes for best thinking for me in my car, because I was able to be alone. And since the pandemic, the last three years, everything is different. And I had to go and become an extrovert living an introvert's existence. And that's been an interesting transition.

And it has made it harder for me, I think, to model to my kids that participatory lifestyle lifestyle that I want them to actually grab onto. And I push them so hard. I will say, because I the kids so hard to do everything that they can possibly do. And don't know if it's for every kid, but there's that moment where kids go from into those teenage years where they either go, it seems like, one of two directions. Either they just fully engage the social systems that are available to to them or they fully disengaged. It doesn't seem to be a whole lot of middle ground

0:25:50 Eli: Yeah Oh Yeah Yep Yep

0:25:51 Thomas: Yeah I

0:26:54 Tom: For kids. And it's tough. Cause like, if they ask me, dad, what did you do? You know, I'm just like, well, I fucking didn't do anything, but and I'll tell him that I was like, look, I didn't, I was an asshole and I just missed out. And I'll tell them that frankly, just, I said, I wasn't, that was the asshole who missed out, point to Haley. I'm like Haley went to every dance and she has nothing but but happy memories from it. I don't have any memories from not doing stuff.

0:27:01 Eli: Mm -hmm, yeah

0:27:18 Tom: You don't build a memory called, remember that time I was too awesome to have fun.

0:27:20 Thomas: I But I feel shame about it, like Man, I remember that time I just, just played that video game all night. God, that ruled, fucking great.

0:27:24 Eli: And It's Is so hard to to convince someone to be interested, right? This is something that I've dealt with with a lot of younger people in my family is that sort of like, hey, what do you want to do? What do you wanna be? And there's sort of that like, mm, and you're just like, okay, well, I have no way to relate to you as a human being right now.

0:27:51 Tom: Yes.

0:27:52 Eli: The human experience. I can't relate to on anything outside of that. Are you God? And in the column cosmological argument, because that is the way you Seem to be existing right now, and it's it's tough because I know a lot of those people now have grown up, my younger cousin and just younger family members in my life who have grown up now, who are interesting and interested people, but who deeply regret that part of their life. And as a dad, again, Max doesn't have um yet, and I don't think it's gonna be a problem finding a couple of interests Uh I Was Going to say, things that move in circles, baby.

0:28:04 Tom: No.

0:28:26 Thomas: Trains, baby. Yeah. All aboard the interest train.

0:28:27 Tom: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:28:35 Eli: One there, that obligation as a parent to let your kid have it better than you did. To make sure that your kid has a better shot, a sweeter existence than you. And when that is self-inflicted, it's really fucking hard. When it's other-inflicted, you're like, yeah, let's switch schools, I'll kill that kid, whatever you need to do. But when your kid is the one doing the isolating, you're like, I beat, I beat you up, what do I do to make you stop harming you of

0:29:04 Thomas: That's, I think that that's where it really is, like modeling for the kids. Nobody, no matter how introverted I am, I do not really like the idea of my kids being like, yeah, my dad is kind of a friendless loser. So like I do, I do. Uh, and I'm glad cause we do have friends and we have friends, you know, as a couple as well. And that's, I got none of that as a kid. Like my dad was, you, agoraphobic, like horribly anxious, horribly, go agoraphobe.

We couldn't have people over much, you know, like it was not any such thing as like, they had friends. My parents had friends, my mom had a few friends, but like not in a way that was like healthy, or a whole different thing, um Modeling that, I think is good. I mean, we had friends over for New Year's two years ago now, it's going on, and had like a adult, like sleepover, like everybody stayed the night, and it was the most fun thing ever, and the kids loved it, like they woke up the next morning And it was like Christmas for them, they couldn't even believe it, and we've been wanting to like do that again, but everybody's too fucking busy, it's always a problem

0:29:42 Tom: Well

0:29:57 Eli: Course Yeah There

0:30:05 Tom: And the punch fishbowl broke You know, after everything, so you gotta get a new one for the keys It's a whole, well

0:30:06 Thomas: Yeah

0:30:08 Eli: See I was, I was gonna find, I was waiting to make The tasteful, we all fucked each other joke, and you found it, Tom, you've, you found the classy way Of putting it in There I

0:30:12 Tom: I Gotcha I Got You, I can bring, I can bring the Class

0:30:19 Eli: I Was busy constructing what afterlife punishment it would be to inflict on Tom and Hayley, for me and Anna to say, they, you know, when someone has like a shitty dog that they bring to your house, and they bring like a weird fence, and they're like, it's okay, do you have an area where we could just fence off our very obviously dangerous and awful dog, that's what Tom and Haley would have to do to me, just put me in a car, like, Anna, you can see the rest of the house, Eli, you stay, you're right, the fridge is inside the little circle, and You'll be fine In

0:30:24 Tom: Overnight Eli You Are welcome to my home anytime, I'll buy all the soy hot dog, well, I'll buy some of the soy hot dogs You can eat. I don't want to say all. And then you are welcome to sleep in a fine hotel nearby. I just don't like overnight guests. I'm just like, yeah, cool. We call it a day at some point. Even if it's three in the morning, that's fine. Wake up, you should be gone. That's how I just don't Like it,

0:30:55 Eli: Your Bed Oh Overnight Guests Who have a different morning routine than you are a war crime, a

0:31:16 Tom: Everybody has a day. Unless your routine is I come downstairs in my underwear and make myself coffee and then like fumble around for my robe for an hour, like, like, what is your routine? Your routine is not My right?

0:31:26 Eli: Right

0:31:27 Thomas: Unless I Come down in your underwear and make myself Your coffee, that's my routine, then it works out, yeah

0:31:29 Tom: Like Don't wake up like excited to see friends, like, that's not how I wake up.

0:31:36 Eli: You Need at least an hour to just be the worst version of yourself puttering around a kitchen doing errands If I like to think that I'm an okay human being, but if anyone ever entered my house between the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. when I wake my son, they would find truly a monster, like a world dictator genocidal monster, I'm not saying I harm anyone, that's all, my intentions are that, there's just a tea kettle and I can't do much to it, so I'm just Like Cheerios, we Had, had some friends over, I don't think they'll mind us telling this story, and they are morning joggers, and this

0:31:44 Tom: Right. Oh, that is disgusting.

0:32:18 Thomas: Have Fun, that's, that's awesome, yeah, I'll be up at 10, you will have already jogged a marathon, what's, no skin off, off my back, what's the problem

0:32:25 Eli: It was actually worse, because this was pre-kids, so both Anna and I were still of the we-sleep-until-10-or-11-a.m. tradition at that time, before I learned to wake up with the baby, so they had had three quarters of a day when we came downstairs like just sort of adjusting to the sunlight, they were like, "You, you know, that brunch place down the street is amazing." And I was like, "I'll kill you both. Drinks poison. Let me put some poison in your coffee. The energy is fucking insane in here. It we came downstairs and found them making violent love on the kitchen table. I honestly think it would have been better. I honestly thing I would have be more comfortable than them in their matching, like, running outfits.

0:32:41 Thomas: Yeah Yeah

0:32:57 Tom: Right,

0:33:11 Eli: That's definitely more perverted.

0:33:10 Thomas: That's More perverted than matching Running out And Not In a good way, yeah That's a perversion, you don't tell people about that, and run matching running jogging Um Here's the thing, I, you need to accept you're not waking up in the morning person, it's actually fine to not wake up in the morning, now. Not, not anymore. Now you're, you're a morning person in my mind, Eli. I don't know, I guess you were just posing as a, not a morning person, but like, yep.

0:33:13 Eli: Yeah. Keep it to yourself.

0:33:32 Eli: Oh, here's my thing. I think I'm not a morning person, but I think that when my son was born, my anxiety thought won. Like, I They say like anxiety is just a perpetual thing, but I think my brain was just Like, if you don't wake up early, he'll be dead. And so, My brain was just like, like it flipped hemispheres and now I'm a morning person.

0:33:46 Tom: But

0:33:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But funny because I work late into the night. So it really is funny that like, I know I've, I probably said it before, but it really is hilarious. It's like, if you, if your, if you're not, I work probably a lot more than a lot of people, honestly, but if I'm not doing it at the precise when the clock arms are a certain direction then I'm a lazy piece of shit because I did it late at night while you were fucking sleeping. It's

0:34:17 Eli: Looks the worst, it looks The worst, my poor, my sweet cousin is the same way. He works for a firm and that is on a different time zone, and so for the first two years of his marriage to my cousin, who I'm related to, we were just like, this sack of shit wakes Up at noon and then fucking at eight o'clock he goes into his office and doesn't come back out again, end. And it literally wasn't until he started working for a new company that worked on a different schedule that we were like, oh, he's actually a pretty good dude. He just works a lot.

0:34:18 Thomas: So funny.

0:34:45 Eli: Yeah, he works a little bit. He works a whole lot. We like him a lot, you know?

0:34:31 Thomas: Exactly. Yeah. So Much Bigotry So Much anti-night person bigotery. Oh,

0:34:49 Tom: Want to add to that that culturally there's... there's a weird like sleep deprivation Olympics virtue game that At least Gets played like constantly. Yeah, I only sleep 20 minutes a week, I Sleep 20 Minute, and Is like, they're about how like fantastic and like, probably me too, like how fantastically sleep deprived they are, as if that's like a positive virtue. It's Like I

0:34:55 Thomas: God. Yeah. Oh.

0:34:59 Eli: Oh, that's insane. Yeah.

0:35:11 Thomas: Is That what People are, are doing. Cause

0:35:12 Tom: Oh I, at least in corporate, corporate Culture,

0:35:14 Thomas: Cause I'm doing it. Like literally I have cancer or something. Like I'm like, yeah, I fucking, I got six hours of sleep last night. Like it's not even, I can't even, I know that was something.

0:35:21 Tom: It's a big deal. Oh, I would, I said,

0:35:26 Thomas: Now Tom's going to go into it. He's goingto start doing. I'll be like, I've got six Hours of sleep. Last night. I want people to be like. Oh, Oh, oh my God. Are you okay? Can you, do you, do you need anything? I'll be, I, maybe.

0:35:29 Tom: Probably me like a, probably me for sure. Yeah. I recognize that

0:35:40 Eli: Can I make a recommendation, Thomas? Befriend some Jews. Because if you tell a Jew you got less than eight hours of sleep, they as though your house burned down last night.

0:35:49 Thomas: Oh, good. Yes, I do need that. Okay.

0:35:50 Eli: Yeah. Oh.

0:35:53 Tom: My, Like in corporate structure, at least it is a pretty big deal to always be working, right? Like everybody wants to show Off that that they are are constantly working, that they never take a minute off, that they take their laptop with them on vacation, that they never unplug. Like, that's a big deal in a competitive corporate culture, which is kind of what I'm what mean for my day job. And so embedded in that is this like, I got an email from the boss and answered at 530 in the morning. I sort of like braggadocious, you kind of bullshit, you know, where it's like, hey, I sleep from 3 a.m. to 341 a.m. And, you know, I'm pretty much rise and grind the rest of the time. You know what I means? Guys, you know what I Mean and

0:35:57 Eli: Of Course. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:58 Thomas: Yep.

0:36:27 Thomas: Don't know my kids' names. I'll probably die before they reach the age of 18 of a heart attack from working too much, but God damn it, I am a productive member of this company.

0:36:33 Eli: Yep

0:36:31 Tom: It's It For real Like it's it like oh he answered an email at you know one in the morning like he's really he's really putting in the hours and you're just like yeah like he should be fucking asleep that guilty of it like I Am absolutely guilty of it because like I recognize that there is a sort of like corporate hierarchical utility to it at a certain level right so you have to play that game but the the whole time I'm playing it, I'm like, we're exhausted. We're all exhausted. Everybody is so tired all the time. None of us are making optimal decisions. Like, we should just be asleep.

0:36:37 Eli: Yeah.

0:36:45 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I know. And it doesn't even correlate with who does good work like It's just like No who can like fucking show that they're there at a time or like attentive at a time doesn't even have any correlation like well who's actually you know producing good ideas like it doesn't matter but Okay, I want to say back to this more participation thing which I, I wanted to say I totally agree with this message Tom. I also think when I think back it's not just the people who went to the dance, you know what I was thinking in this episode was, was of more about is the people who fucking organized the dance. Like, know, those people, can you think of, or remember those people at your high school? They like are fucking the president now. You, I'm

0:37:09 Tom: No. Yeah, no, no.

0:37:45 Eli: Yeah.

0:37:45 Thomas: So jealous of those people. You honestly, know it Was usually girls for my school. They, they organized kind of everything, but they were so organized. They were so, um, interested in stuff. They would do, you Know, fundraisers, causes, whatever. And those are all amazing amazing skills that do absolutely translate for your whole life. And there in high school, sometimes there's a bit of a like, oh, this person, there's like a jealousy, negative reaction to them. But in a lot of other contexts, there is an incredibly positive reaction to those people. They are getting stuff done. Like most people like them a lot because kind of person is great.

0:37:46 Tom: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

0:38:20 Eli: Hey.

0:38:20 Thomas: I wish, I have 0% of that DNA and I don't know how to model

0:38:23 Eli: Man, we all like Lydia, you don't have to do a weird, great person we're lets

0:38:25 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. Wow.

0:38:30 Tom: Will tell you just, like, how, ,like, wildly – it's funny you say that. I was like a wildly disconnected from my like high school experience, like of participation. I was. As kids have been navigating different, like my kids are getting senior pictures. Donovan was getting his senior pictures done. And in my head, I was, like, oh, this whole senior picture thing is super weird. I don't think we did senior pictures as like an event that was like separate than any other school picture. I couldn't understand. I was , like, what is even happening? Like changes of outfits in a separate package and pictures. And so I have one friend from high school on Facebook. Book. So I don't have a contact with anyone else. And I reached out to my, I have friends in high school. So, I got my, he was more of an acquaintance than a friend, but I have one friend from high school on Facebook, but yeah, whatever.

0:39:03 Thomas: That's funny, yeah.

0:39:07 Eli: Me know if it burned down don't oversell it, Tom, you're fucking weird preggy.

0:39:15 Tom: I was pretty isolated, like I said. So my dad helped kind of create some of that isolation for me too. But I up to him. I'm like, hey man, did we do senior pictures? I've had to do this three or four times. And I'm like Like, hey, is this something our high school did? And he's like, yeah. What? Yeah, we've seen your pictures.

0:39:31 Tom: Like a big, he's, like, and yeah, for real.

0:39:31 Thomas: Tom, it's been 30 years and you message me once a decade to be like did we

0:39:36 Tom: And real, I keep having to ask him. I was like, did we have that? And he was like. Yeah, man, we fucking had that.

0:39:36 Thomas: Have yearbook club, that's the only message you get from him Yeah we

0:39:43 Eli: Yeah, we had that.

0:39:44 Tom: That's normal shit.

0:39:44 Thomas: Also had running water Watered, what else do you need to know?

0:39:46 Tom: Yeah.

0:39:45 Eli: You didn't have that. Your dad was making you tile the sidewalk outside your house. That's why you didn't notice.

0:39:52 Tom: But I think, like, refusing to participate, it not only isolates you, but then like when your kids grow up and they are having these experiences, you can't guide them through it, you have no idea like I like, I have no ideia how to help my kids like go to a dance because I don't know what the fuck is involved with going to a dancer, I've, know it's not like it is on TV, that's all I know, you know, I don't know what it's actually like

0:40:03 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. They don't slow dance anymore. They don'T slow, I know that.

0:40:14 Eli: They don't slow dance anymore?

0:40:15 Tom: That

0:40:15 Thomas: No, no, I actually heard a whole podcast on this. It was Decoder Ring.

0:40:18 Eli: How do you fall madly in love with someone in the fourth grade?

0:40:21 Thomas: I know they don'T, they do the, like, the slow romantic ballad. Yeah, they DON'T.

0:40:24 Eli: Arms out, back and forward. Refuse. I

0:40:28 Tom: How does your hand start gently moving south of the equator that's It's not.

0:40:31 Eli: Yeah.

0:40:30 Thomas: Exactly. Well, I think they're already just out and out fucking, I think, is mainly, because they do the grinding.

0:40:33 Tom: Okay. All right. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:36 Thomas: And they have two modes, grinding or they have like a solo dance. It was a really funny, interesting podcast. Like they genuinely, like nobody does that anymore, apparently. I don't know. The fucking kids these days.

0:40:34 Eli: Well, yeah, no, that would

0:40:43 Tom: That's crazy.

0:40:44 Eli: Be insane to me. And can I say, hey, I want to throw out an apology to Dave Bosnick up in heaven. Real big one for him, because my dad always complained about grinding when he was a school teacher and a chaperone. He was like, ah, that's gross. Don't do that. And I was like my dad. He's a fucking prude. And like he doesn't understand. We're cool now. And, you know, things are different now. But the key that needed to be communicated that I now wholeheartedly agree with is that it's children.

0:40:58 Thomas: Yeah, Jesus.

0:41:09 Thomas: Right. Yep.

0:41:11 Eli: Children. It is children doing the sexy dances on each other. I'm perfectly fine with fully grown adults getting to just clap your cheeks around each other's noses. It's the fact that you're fucking sixth graders rubbing your genin excrescences against each other, that is the problem. You don't know all the math. If I give this room long division, you will fail me. That's why you can't rub your genitals against each another. You have other terms of focus I

0:41:12 Tom: Yes. Yep.

0:41:13 Thomas: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, geez. Oh, geez, so you don't get to have sex either then, huh? You shouldn't set standards that you can't meet, Eli.

0:41:46 Eli: A calculator on my phone, all right, gentlemen, last night I spent one thousand dollars on a bowl of pasta, but can I tell you, it's worth every penny.

0:41:49 Tom: Okay.

0:42:05 Tom: I like that one. I like that one that That was good.

0:42:05 Thomas: I like that. That's good. That gets the dad seal of approval.

0:42:08 Tom: That was good.

0:42:13 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.