DOD220: Are You Mad at Me?

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's recording at 9 a.m. California time. We have probably our sleepiest bear, Thomas, joining us today, as well as Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:40 Thomas: I worked the midnight shift.

0:00:43 Eli: Woo, Tom! However, the problem with introducing this, like this is especially early, is that when we recorded our usual time, Thomas answers the phone as though we medically woke him up from some kind of surgery slash comma, so there's no actual difference between recording at 6 a.m. California time and recording at 5 p.m in the evening, Thomas will still get on the line like he has the giant cartoon beard and is about to explore the town and find out

0:00:56 Thomas: It's because you did.

0:00:57 Tom: Oh yeah, 100 % true. Oh my god. I don't

0:01:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's not true. If we record it around 11, then that's the time when I start being alive.

0:01:19 Eli: I won't say this for my

0:01:19 Thomas: That's the schedule that I do.

0:01:21 Eli: Whole heart to see

0:01:21 Tom: Believe that for a second.

0:01:22 Eli: Thank you, Tom. I don't believe you, I do not believe

0:01:24 Tom: No, no, no. No.

0:01:23 Thomas: Do well Relative to me, I'm not saying I turn into a whole different person

0:01:28 Eli: You sure. Yeah, obviously. But, gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than the sleep denial we put Tom, what

0:01:35 Thomas: But well, hold on, I want to hear about the experimentation that your wives have done with

0:01:40 Eli: Oh yeah, let's talk little spoon. Yeah.

0:01:41 Tom: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah, we got to talk. We got to talk. So we have a little spoon. It's spoon gate. It spoon gate. Yeah little spoon talk. So listeners wrote in and thought I think they were lumping my experience in with Eli's. I'm not anti my wife being the big spoon. I am fine with that. It's just wildly impractical. It was actually so impractic. Like Haley and I were like laughing and she's like, well, let me try being the Big Spoon. So I'm fairly broad of shoulder and my wife is fairly slender of everything and so like I laid on my side and she curled up behind me and then in order for her to put her arm over my shoulder, yeah

0:01:45 Thomas: You spoon

0:01:46 Eli: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:02:12 Thomas: Talk and It was fine, and then you didn't know she was in the room

0:02:23 Tom: She's like, okay, all right, I'm I'm in position. I'm like, oh, this is actually quite nice, like it feels good. And she's, okay, slither out and I want you to see my position. So like as best as she could without moving, I like kind of slithered out and ducked under and kind of, you know, wiggled my way and I turned around. I almost wish I'd taken a picture because she was at this crazy fucking angle propping herself up on her elbow. It was absurd.

0:02:23 Eli: Of course, yeah. Balancing on seven yoga blocks to throw an arm over

0:02:50 Tom: It was ridiculous. She's like, this is wildly uncomfortable. To add to that, I always thought it was really nice when like she would like curl up on me and put her head on my chest. That feels really nice. I like to cuddle her that way. Like it feels really good. And she's like, all right, same thing. I'm going to get in that position. I want you to see why we don't do this for very long. So like she gets on and she like puts her head on my chest and I, you know, put my arms around. I am like, oh, this is really nice and she is like, alright, slither out. And so I slither out. Her neck, her neck is at this terrible, terrible angle.

0:02:51 Eli: Yeah.

0:02:51 Thomas: Ha, ha, ha. Yeah.

0:03:25 Tom: It looks so uncomfortable.

0:03:27 Eli: She's everyone who got touched by the girl from the ring who crawls out of the TV. Now, I want to clarify my position because I feel like some people misunderstood it. I think if you are the little spoon, you should not be allowed to vote. I think that right should be taken away from you. I think you shouldn't be able to drive a car.

I think the lots, whatever we can do to remove you from society, if we could put you in some some kind of tank, and then just dribble food down until you're able to snuggle like a human being. Now, I want to point out the difference between Tom's partner and mine, because this is such a great example of the difference zwischen my wife and every other wife in the universe.

Because my wife listens to our show and she heard that part and she goes, "You're the little spoon all the time." And I go, "No, I'm not, because I'm fucking not." But she just decided whenever I have a take that's hot and spicy, my wife goes, "That's not true," and I have to go, "Yes, it's fucking true," and she goes, "No, it's not. Sure, you're the little spoon all the time," and I'm like, "Okay, cool. Yes."

0:03:30 Tom: Yes!

0:03:40 Thomas: No, that came through. That came through I think people got that. Ha, ho, ho. Ha, oh.

0:04:17 Thomas: Ha, ah, ha ha ha. Ha, aah.

0:04:28 Thomas: Is this the skit where Dave Chappelle is a white supremacist who finds out he's black? Is that? Yeah, black clans.

0:04:36 Eli: That's what I did. I'm going through the Black Klansman situation, so I'm sitting there and we, you know, we have that conversation. "I'm not going to do that." She's like, "You have a little spoon on the time." Like, "No, I'm a crazy person." Last night we finish our good American pre-bedtime snuggle. There's a bald eagle perched on both of our hands, a flag fluttering in the breeze behind us.

0:04:57 Thomas: The flag, yeah, the blanket, yeah.

0:05:00 Tom: Clutching your AR-15s, each one of you.

0:05:02 Eli: But look, once you've been married for long enough, you understand that snuggle time must end because my neck and shoulders don't do that anymore. I don't know if it's a result of getting older or if it is you stop loving each other as much. We'll leave that to the scienticians. I know that you snuggle for a little bit and then you're like, all right, get your head off of me. I'm going to go to sleep. I go to say I roll over, go to start to begin my sleep. And she tries to spoon me from behind like I'm not going to notice.

0:05:30 Eli: Genuinely, she could have pegged me and I would have objected less vociferously and less instantly. And she acted like I didn't catch her. She was like, see, you like that? And I was like what are you? I screamed and shot you in the head with a gun. She was, like, no, no. You liked it. So just to be clear, to be clear about our different partners, Haley is like, "Allow me to show you the scientific diorama of why Eli is correct and should be the president," and my wife tried to little spoon me against my will, so pray for me.

0:05:47 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:06:00 Thomas: Don't try to piggyback on Tom's experimentation. That's not you correct.

0:06:08 Eli: Me spoon, me spoon is what I have to say to that.

0:06:11 Thomas: If Tom's right, that doesn't mean I should lose my right to vote. That is not your thing is a different sort of insanity.

0:06:15 Eli: Yes, no.

0:06:16 Tom: Yes. It is, it's, yeah, we're still gonna get lumped together. We are 100 still gonna, gonna get lumped

0:06:18 Eli: I Yeah, me and Tom, brothers in arms. But gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than the little spoons and their little spoon apologetics? Why, it's the auto ads, the sniveling tiny spoons of your podcast experience. But you can take away an auto ad's right to vote on what you're hearing in your ears over at patreon.com/dear old dads, where you'll get a commercial-free version of every single show plus bonus episodes whenever Lydia feels like waking up to edit them there.

0:06:35 Thomas: Okay.

0:06:49 Tom: Together we

0:06:48 Thomas: Hey, shut up. We had that out on Tuesday. That was out. So we're on time and early. It was good. It Was Great. It WAS the regular episode that got fucked up.

0:06:59 Eli: You go, "Yeah, no, you'll get your regular show." You'll get whatever combination of our shows whenever some combination of the Smiths are awake, right? It's just that whenever the particles align, you'll get those shows over at patreon

0:07:01 Thomas: Fucking end of the month. God damn it.

0:07:12 Eli: .com/dear old dads, like the Smyth sleep schedule. Rip into it.

0:07:18 Tom: Did

0:07:25 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:26 Thomas: So I was doing my hate listen to The Daily the other day, as I always do, except they've been playing the Modern Love podcast. Oh yeah, we did one of these, right? We did the other one.

0:07:35 Tom: We talked about the location.

0:07:35 Thomas: Yeah, it's been, I guess, pretty good. This one was, they had someone on who was me, but in a, I don't know, a different human suit. This person, whoever this is, has a book coming out about, well, the topic was about stop asking if someone's mad at you. And so that was kind of interesting. It's a Meg Josephson, I guess, which was an interesting part. I was like, okay, that's fine.

And then it turned out all of her, like, origin story of that and how she is and whatever is based on her having my dad, I guess, like, the exact same situation as my dad. Like, it's funny because if you listen to it, it's everything Eli says about my family all the time too, where it's like the mom is like not, it's a little bit like Eli's version of it.

But anyway, I just found it so absolutely just astonishing how much this person said everything that is like my exact situation. And then she read an essay from 2007. I guess they do that. They read like someone else's essay. And that was the most heartbreaking essay ever called My Three Years as a Beloved Daughter, because it's like someone with a similar kind of family situation where, you know, people whose families are like, you Know, they're fine with them, but they're not big fans. You know,

0:08:50 Eli: Yeah.

0:08:50 Thomas: That's that's a I don't know. Maybe Tom can rely on Eli can't. Eli's family has a fan club for Eli. Eli is.

0:08:57 Eli: Oh yeah, big time.

0:08:57 Thomas: But, you know, for those of us whose families are kind of meh on them, this essay is about someone who spent, I guess, three years like with their friend and their best friends, like parents, like doting on her.

And it's so heartbreaking of a story because in the end there's, there's some falling outs, but just that, like that discussion of how this person's parents, the, the friend's parents being so supportive, knowing everything about their family, you know, like one part is like, my friend's parents knew the names of all of her friends since Montessori. They knew the name of the girls who had slighted her in the sixth grade. They casually shunned those girls' parents at dinner parties and farmer's markets. Kids.

My parents were more egalitarian when it came to the dramas of my life. If there was a rift, they would be certain that I had done my part to widen it. And they would tilt their heads and raise their eyebrows whenever I described an argument. And why do you think she might feel this way? They would ask. This was not the kind of support I was looking for. In a way, though, it was what I wanted my friend's parents to offer her.

And that's about the falling out. So it might be interesting to talk about like we've talked about like being in your kid's corner, being in Your Child's Corner in terms of like, I think we've talks about in school, maybe I've I've talked about how my dad was always, like, on the other side of whatever the argument was.

If I came home, and eventually I just stopped doing it, but if I came home and said, ah, this happened at school, this teacher, this coach, whatever, then my dad, well, both my parents, but, you know, my dad was more, like... Actively, I talked about this stuff with him.

0:08:54 Tom: Sharing, there's

0:10:28 Eli: Right, right. And the thing that you voiced to us is like, you were then in double trouble. You'd be like, oh, this teacher's giving me a hard time, and be like, fuck you for. Yes, exactly, right.

0:10:37 Thomas: Yeah, it's like, what did you do then? You know, that's the question. Okay, what'd you do? Which, I think some amount of that is fine, mine, but the ultimate, uh, and people should maybe read this essay or whatever, but it's really heartbreaking story because ultimately the author doesn't say exactly what happened, but she describes a falling out. Then she's with this knowledge that these parents that she, like, is almost her adopted parents, she just had these three years of, like, getting all this attention. She knows now that those parents are going to be one million percent in the friend's corner now that they had a falling out, and we'll never talk to her again, and it's the most, like, heartbreaking thing.

0:11:12 Tom: So much in this, in this episode and in this transcript that I thought was really interesting and worth talking about. I want to grab a couple of quotes right from the transcript. But it was actually funny, Thomas, because, like, for me, one of the least problematic things taken on its own right, so in context it's problematic, but, like, taken on its own, one of the least problematic pieces of behavior cited in this episode was that question that you just quoted, "And why do you think they might feel this way?" I thought, like, that's actually, in the right context, that's a really good and legitimate and decent way to approach a conflict that, like, your kid might be having with one of their peers or with somebody that they love and say, hey, like, let's use this.

Let's not just automatically assume you're right, they're wrong. That's maybe the case, may not. Let's dig into it. But let's use this as an opportunity for introspection. That only works, though, if the context is a safe context where everybody can have this conversation that digs at, hey, why do you think they feel this way? Well, and then they start getting into it and then you can have some reflection and say, well, do you own some part of this falling out? Do you own somepart of this drama? Let's reflect if you do on how we can do better next time? Or is this worth patching up?

All of that is fine when it's in a place that has like built on safety, when it is built on this like mutual respect and love and trust and all of that. But if every time your kid comes to you, you are just like, yeah, you probably fucked that up, huh? What did you do to fuck it up? It is like, well, one, I am never coming to you with my

0:11:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:12:10 Eli: I

0:12:47 Tom: Problems again. That is fucking hard luck guaranteed. And more than that, I'm going to hide my problems from you. I am going to go out of my way also to find, and this, there was so much of this that resonated for me. I brought this up on the show before, like, I went out of my way to try to find sort of like surrogate parents for me and surrogat families because they filled a gap, right? They filled a need that I, and I didn't even know I was doing it entirely, but I also didn't not know.

0:13:06 Thomas: I want to talk about that too. Yeah.

0:13:16 Thomas: Exactly, you don't have to, um, even be trying to find it because when you come from a place like, I think this person is describing, like I'm describing. And another thing I really connected with, not with the author of this 2007 essay so much, but with the person who read it that has that book coming out, she was like, yeah, I, it took me a while to realize that, like, you didn't have to be, like, physically abused or, or it didn't even have to be, like, unpleasant all the time for it to have a bad effect on you.

And I was like, oh my God, I connect that so much. She's like, Oh yeah, my dad was funny. There's all this stuff, but like, there's that coldness that, uh, and she actually, gosh, if you listen to it, it's so many fucking things I've said on the show. She was like yeah, there was never the part where he'd apologize for his temper. It was always just his temper and then he was cold and whatever. Uh, sorry.

Uh, the reason I interrupted you, Tom, I'll get like, get back to it was when you have some of that kind of upbringing, you can't help but glom on to other families because just their base level, like run of the mill room temperature kindness of those people comes across as like, do you want to adopt me?

0:14:14 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:14:14 Thomas: Like, are you, there's just so much more warmth and stuff that like, you can'T help but think that like are we, is there a connection here? Are we like, are you my family now?

0:14:23 Tom: Yeah, it sets up, like, I think there's, I'm going to read directly from this transcript in a second because I think there's some really interesting stuff that we should dig into. But I think part of the problem is if the environment you're growing up in makes you feel insecure in some way, like makes you feel like, OK, like I have these insecurities around being loved or being accepted or about why I would be loved or why I'd be accepted or why it wouldn't feel that way.

And then you are put in an environment where you see somebody else that receives that same, that that kind of affection that you're like, well, that looks really good. You will not only, like, search that out, but I think at least, you know, in my case, you might do things that maybe are inappropriate in order to have that. So for me, I maintained friendships with people that probably were not good for me, looking back, in part because I thought their families were great.

Because when I went to, like, my buddy's house and his mom was super nice, they just had this, like, warmth and this energy, and somebody was always home, and there was just this different kind of vibe. It's like, well, yeah, of course I want to go hang out over there. Like, of course I do. Like, it's not that this friendship is necessarily good for me. In fact,

0:15:33 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:33 Tom: This friendship isn't good for me at all, but, like, I fucking think Debbie is awesome, you know? Like, oh

0:15:38 Thomas: Well, and that's what another question I have for you guys. And sorry, Eli, but, you know, you want to take away my right to vote. So I guess I can't be that mad. But.

0:15:46 Eli: Do want to take away your right to vote, and I think they're connected. I think if you had gotten enough love, you wouldn't need to be Uh, a little, you wouldn't have the need to, like, molest children or be a little spoon.

0:15:55 Thomas: Okay. All right. Excalating.

0:15:56 Eli: So I think those two urges are very connected. I think, like, racism and being a little spoon and being a fucking cuck.

0:15:51 Tom: My God. Oh, Jesus Christ.

0:16:09 Thomas: Kind of somebody cut him off. These guys.

0:16:09 Eli: You guys were having such a beautiful, like, tender conversation that so many of our listening sometimes I, it's just, can I go swimming?

0:16:17 Thomas: Well, now that Eli's helped justify. Now that, now that Eli's helped justify, uh, the hate crime I'm gonna pull on him, I wonder if this is not good for your kids. Like, I wonder if being this level of supportive, because it made me think of it, Tom, when you're like, oh, even if the friendship is not that great, it's like, well, was the friendship not that good because that promotes a little bit of narcissism among whoever the kid is, and then they're not that grade because they have a life of their parents and their family being their fan club, being their, you know, celebrity fucking fan fan club.

I don't know. What is the line there? On one hand, I connected so much and I was brought to tears by listening to like, oh yeah, I want to know the names of all my kids' friends. I want to know what they're doing. I will know what their doing. Partly because my fucking brain is shot and everything feels like it's yesterday. I'll remember everything they had in grade school and all that when they were little. But on the other hand, there's my alarm to record dance.

0:16:35 Eli: Is

0:17:16 Thomas: I'm gonna wake up, uh, on the other hand

0:17:17 Eli: Bad

0:17:19 Tom: 25 minutes before the record.

0:17:21 Eli: Head, Jesus, that's

0:17:21 Thomas: Oh, that's way early. That's like my first of, like, seven alarms. That's the pre-pre-pre-light, the first torch of Gondor. Oh yeah. Do

0:17:29 Eli: The gentle suggestion that you might wake up. Yeah.

0:17:30 Tom: Oh, my God. That's amazing. That is a peek behind the curtain that is extremely explanatory.

0:17:33 Thomas: You think I drive to work? What do you

0:17:35 Eli: Yeah, yeah, the only thing the audience needs to see now is you trying to decide in real time what we're going to be talking about today, and let me read these emails here that we've been getting. Actually, uh, Thomas, Tom's on fire. One second, I'm reading

0:17:41 Thomas: Thinking. Yeah, it's all on me. Yeah.

0:17:54 Eli: Just, you have the fire extinguisher over there. One second, and I'm

0:17:54 Thomas: This, this, uh, this, as we discussed, this topic that I sent you ahead of time Anyway, yeah, is it bad to be that supportive of your kids? Well, does that lead them down? No, I, I, it says the guy. Okay, so that's Eli's opinion. Tom, what do you

0:18:01 Eli: Reading. No Definitely not. What Do you think, Tom? You think there's a thing, is too much love turn your kid into an emotion pussy? That's what you're gonna do.

0:18:18 Thomas: Think

0:18:23 Tom: Well, yes, like, not too much love, but I think if you're on your kid's side when they're wrong, that's not great. Like, I'm thinking back to, like, my buddy Dave, right? So my buddy Dave, that was not a good friendship. That was not a, that was not good for me.

0:18:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:35 Eli: It's just the one who shot your eye out?

0:18:36 Tom: This is not the guy who shot my eye out. No, that was Rick. That was also not, not ideal.

0:18:39 Eli: It's crazy that you have multiple bad friends, and you're

0:18:40 Thomas: Is this the one who chopped your balls off? Is this one who broke your leg? Yeah, I'm just, we Could say a bunch of stuff. Is this someone who took your

0:18:44 Tom: Yeah, I know, right? Yeah.

0:18:42 Eli: Not Is this the one who you clung to the back of a car in a highway?

0:18:48 Thomas: Kidney? Oh, okay, Rick sucks.

0:18:49 Tom: That was also Rick. That was actually also Rick. Yeah, no, that was also, look, Rick. Okay. That's a different, anyway, so yeah, I think he's a, he's alive somewhere, so I don't, dude, I both of these guys, who knows? So yeah, was that a good relationship? No, it was a bad friendship. It was toxic as fuck. I look back on some of the stuff that, that he and I did and I'm like, oof, that's, that's not great. But like, yeah, his mom defended him when he was wrong all the time. We, he never got in

0:18:53 Thomas: May he rest in piece. Oh, that's how when I fell off the back of his truck and was in the hospital, guess who defended

0:19:18 Eli: Speed it

0:19:19 Tom: Trouble. Well, I'll give you a couple of quick stories. When we were kids, we were like 13 or 14 years old. We had a job delivering flyers, right? So we're delivering flyers for the real estate company that his mom worked for. And we're delivering flyers also for the pizza company that we had gotten a job for. So we had this tactic for the real-estate company. I thought this was pretty good for 14. We would make sure to deliver some of the flyers of course, but we always made sure to delivery flyers to any house that had a sign that that was being sold by a different realtor because they would call and complain and say, hey, I'm fucking selling with Thomas Smith and you put an Eli Bosnick advertisement on my fucking house, right? So they would sometimes call and complaint, which meant that we delivered that flyer. And what we mostly did is we delivered 20 or 30 % of them. We threw the rest of them in a creek or we threw them in the garbage can or whatever, because I'm not delivering thousands of flyers. That's crazy.

0:20:03 Thomas: Him you know how Thomas climbed to the top of the corporate ladder, and uh, it's, it's this

0:20:13 Eli: Was this. Yeah, it's straight all the way up to whatever kind of real estate something

0:20:14 Tom: Yeah.

0:20:14 Thomas: Kind of personality. Just fraud, really. It's mostly fraud.

0:20:25 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:20:27 Tom: So Dave and I were out, we're 13 or 14 and we're delivering these flyers, as we walked past this so like there was a baseball field, the baseball field had like this little hut thing that was like for concessions and we walked over to it and we tried the door and the door was open and we went in and like somebody just forgot to lock the door and we fucking raided that thing of like candy and soda and all this shit because we're 13 or 14 and so like we fucking filled our pocket, I mean we stole like, like all of the candy that we could carry, like literally all of it because we were fucking 13

0:20:44 Thomas: Oh god, this is not good. Oh Wow, you were one of the bad kids. Jesus.

0:20:59 Tom: Year-old boys, right? And somebody saw us and, and we're walking around delivering flyers with phone numbers on it that my buddy's mom worked at. We were caught and we got confronted because they called. Right. So and then Debbie finds out about it. She confronts us and we just say, no, we didn't do it. She's like, OK, I trust you guys.

0:21:05 Thomas: Oh god. Wow.

0:21:21 Thomas: Oh, that, see, that's terrible.

0:21:21 Tom: And that was it. And that wasn't it. That was bullshit. And that's emblematic of like she was always on his side.

0:21:26 Thomas: That's so bad. That's not

0:21:27 Eli: Yeah, but I think that's not being on your kid's side.

0:21:30 Tom: I would agree with that. Right. So that's that's kind of what I'm saying. Right. Right, is that there's a level of which that kind of support is not helpful for your kid. That kind of sport is lying. That kind is support is working against your kid's success.

0:21:31 Thomas: Okay.

0:21:42 Eli: Yeah, blind loyalty is definitely a bad idea.

0:21:44 Thomas: That's what we're talking about, you know, like the kind that you have with Max. Yeah.

0:21:49 Eli: Yeah.

0:21:49 Tom: But that's why I was saying in the beginning, Thomas, like when your kid has a conflict in the right context, asking them, and why do you think they feel that way is a wonderful question. It's a great question to open up an introspective conversation where you really get to interrogate what happened. Yeah.

0:21:59 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that's why the key is like, and, and like so many things, I think if we put ourselves as parents who actually care and love our kids in the same situation, the way we would ask it and the, the way we would go about it would be so much different. And it's not necessarily just the act of like, you know, posing questions about the other side as it is the entire attitude of like, you could tell when someone's not fucking supporting you at all, you know, like you can tell when someone asks a question like, all right, well, what did you do, you piece of shit? Like what is, what, you know, how is this your fault? You can tell that. It's pretty easy. It might not be about just the mere words, and it might be about the entire demeanor and relationship otherwise.

0:22:45 Tom: Well, and like my dad said when we first moved in with him, and I think this was insane because like I moved in with my dad in the middle of first grade. So February of first grader. So you're like six, seven years old. It's a pretty young kid, like a little kid. But we moved in ve with him and he said, you know, do not get in trouble. I still remember he said do not ge in trouble at school. If you get in trouble at school, any trouble you get in at school is double when you get home.

0:23:07 Thomas: Wise.

0:23:08 Tom: So like there was no sense from my dad from that saying, but this was like classic my dad. My dad would say stuff like that, but when the chips were down, he would dig into it and support you. But the problem was he'd ever said I'll support you if you're right. That's

0:23:25 Eli: Right.

0:23:24 Thomas: Right. It's like the thing with your brother where he said like, I'm not bailing you out of jail or whatever. Yeah.

0:23:29 Tom: Exactly, right. Like my dad always used to say like, if you ever go to jail, don't call me, right? So my brother went to jail and didn't call him And Nobody could find him for weeks.

0:23:37 Thomas: Who could have predicted this. Yeah.

0:23:29 Eli: Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think a lot of boomers parented through, like, expressions they had heard but didn't believe in and are now just like, well, I never meant I put you into this world, I could take you out of it. I obviously. Well,

0:23:47 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Right. I was doing a bit.

0:23:54 Eli: I mean, I said it to you all the time, starting at a young age when you were establishing your values and beliefs, but I didn't mean it.

0:24:00 Thomas: And laughed at you while I said

0:24:03 Tom: Yeah.

0:24:04 Eli: Bill Cosby told me to say that. Well, that sounds worse.

0:24:04 Thomas: It, but back then it was

0:24:10 Tom: I remember the opposite thing where my dad, like, in fifth grade I got in trouble trouble because I was not paying attention in class, like at all. And when I say not paying attention, I mean, I literally, I didn't get up and go do stuff. I just sat and read a book. Like all I did is sit and I'd fucking read a book. I read a book constantly. I did not participate in class and pay attention. And so the teacher called my dad in for a conference or whatever. And you know, my dad came in and he was like, I'm kind of dubious about this. So he came in and like, he sat down and she's like, yeah, you know he doesn't do this. He doesn't do that. He just sits and reads a book and my dad said, well, how are his grades? And she's He's like, oh, he's doing fine. He's getting a laser or whatever. And my dad said, well, I think we're done here.

0:24:46 Thomas: Fine.

0:24:46 Tom: And he just stood up and we left. He did back me up there. He's, like, you're probably boring him. Like, we're down here. Like, this is, there's nothing here. And so, like he just got up. It was literally a five minute or less conversation. He just was not going to hear that shit. So he did back me up.

0:25:00 Thomas: Yeah, right.

0:25:01 Tom: But he never said, I'll back you up. Instead, he gave literally the opposite message. So it promoted this sense of insecurity. And that, I will say, that translated into, and to get to this article, that translated into my whole life growing up. Until I got divorced and I needed somewhere to stay for a little while, I didn't really know and believe that my dad was a backup plan for me after I moved out. So I moved out at 22, right after I graduated college. I graduated graduated college in May. I moved out in June. So I had an apartment and like, I struggled like crazy. I struggled, like crazy. Couldn't afford that life. I was dying out there. Like I was not prepared financially at all to be on my own, but I didn't believe I could go back home. And so I didn'T believe I had a safety net. I didn' t believe I hAD a backup plan. That sense of insecurity came from the things my dad would say in order to keep us in line. Right.

0:25:04 Thomas: Right. Hmm. Right.

0:26:02 Tom: I think they were well meant. I do. I look back, I'm like, my dad never meant bad, they were well meant, and every time I've asked my dad for help, he's been fucking Johnny on the spot. But the problem is I never felt like I could ask

0:26:11 Thomas: Oh, okay. See, my parents actually did mean all this. They, uh, there was no, I didn't have that benefit. My parents were still not on my side when the shit hit the fan. They would abandon me faster.

0:26:16 Tom: Yeah. But that messaging is super important, because like the, the thrust of this article, let me read a couple of things from it, because I think I want, I want listeners to get a few things from growing up with a sense of insecurity around, like, who has your back and around, like, whether or not, like, you're valued. Yeah.

0:26:40 Thomas: Oh no, Tom. I was very secure about them not having my back. I knew precisely that they didn't have my back?

0:26:42 Eli: No, he knew. He knew straight up.

0:26:45 Tom: Just Very briefly, just to set this tone, because I think this stuff is really interesting.

0:26:45 Thomas: No question.

0:26:55 Thomas: Hmm,

0:27:17 Tom: Hour was different. Let me go downstairs and see what mood he's in. And that will determine my strategy for the next hour. And this fear of authority was really big. Like growing up, it was this fear of my dad, but now it became this fear of my boss. And I just, like, when I heard that, like that instinct to believe that the people that love you are mad at you, I think that's huge. I think that comes from all kinds of different places. I Think that comes comes from, insecurity with our parents. I think that can be built out of insecurity in our relationships. If we have insecure relationships, you can develop an insecure attachment that develops into that sort of thing. That responsiveness, that knee -jerk reactionary, are you mad? Are you mad?" That's something I think a lot more people live with than are willing to admit or that maybe even consciously realize. Yeah.

0:27:22 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah, yeah.

0:28:09 Eli: And I think a lot of maladaptive things we know about people are to protect themselves from that fear, right? Right. I think it's why people tend to behave badly, get cold, pathologically lie. Right. Manipulate. Right. Is that that underlying fear? And then they developed a maladaptive behavior on top of it.

0:28:30 Tom: Yeah, I think, dude, that's exactly it. Most of our maladaptive behaviors and defense mechanisms and all of that stuff, they arise from a place, I think, of like, hey, I have often felt out of control. I have oftentimes felt insecure. I need to control for these things. And maybe like one of the things that we have to learn is like, one, I can't control for all the variables because the variables include other people.

0:28:31 Thomas: Hmm.

0:28:56 Tom: And I think it's hard to learn that, like, if I'm going to be in relationships with other people honestly and openly and vulnerably, I may get hurt. I think there's a huge amount of people who are trying to build relationships where they are immune to any hurt, and by trying to build relationships where they are immune to hurt, it leads them to controlling behaviors because they're trying to control how hurt they can get and under what circumstances, etc., et cetera. And like, it leads to a lot of people not feeling comfortable ever in their relationship.

0:28:56 Eli: Yeah.

0:29:28 Tom: Are you mad at me? Why are you doing that? What's going on?

0:29:31 Eli: I also think it means that people can't evolve as life evolves. Like, I don't know about you guys, but I know a lot of married couples who like they were great when they were two single people dating. And then like they got married and they went wherever they wanted and they did whatever they wanted, and then the second life got hard they just fucking imploded because the secret agreement that one of them had about the relationship is it will never be hard or both of them had about their relationship right I think about that movie Ordinary People you know that movie Ordinary People got an incredible movie Mary Tyler Moore is so good in that movie that it destroyed her career that everyone saw Mary Tyler more play this emotionally abusive mother.

And they were like, that's a mean lady. And nobody, nobody ever let this darling of cinema act again. But yeah, it's incredible. It's about this family. One of their kids has died and the kid who survived has just come home from a psychiatric stay in the hospital. Uh, and there's this amazing confrontation moment between the parents at the end of the movie. It is the ultimate scene of the move where the father says, I think we would have been okay if there hadn't been any mess.

0:29:51 Thomas: Ah. Interesting. No.

0:29:57 Tom: Yeah. No.

0:30:09 Thomas: Why?

0:30:09 Tom: What?

0:30:18 Thomas: Oh Wow. Hmm.

0:30:39 Eli: And I think that's what a lot of people do, is they make these agreements that I am in this relationship to be comfortable and happy all the time, and when life makes them unhappy, they can't deal, they can't adjust, and it shows up in those relationships as well.

0:30:46 Tom: Right.

0:30:54 Thomas: Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think gender might take a big part in this too, because or it could just be personality quirks, because like I've never given a shit about like authority particularly, you know, I have sort of had the opposite. I don't know what's going on here, but I do think that what happened with my upbringing is that the toxic independence is more a part of it. You know, maybe that's another way to go because I don't really have the, are you mad at me thing. I'm trying to think, like, I don't really, I don't really have that.

0:31:22 Eli: People can't be mad at you if you never ask them for anything, right? So I think that's that's another example of the

0:31:25 Tom: Yeah.

0:31:25 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. I think that creating that independence is the other way. I also really connected, and by the way, so just wanted to point out, so Tom, that was from the podcast interview. That wasn't like the essay part, right? That was just the podcast, and we just wanted point out to people, yeah? Because that person is really interesting too. Another thing she said that I really connected with was when she was like, yeah, when I got my first major relationship, and I guess she, she sort of just like met her husband in college, like instantly they were kind of together, and she's like, yeah, he was just safe, and I didn't even know how to handle it, like I would always think

0:31:39 Tom: Right. Right. That was the interview portion of the program.

0:31:59 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:31:59 Thomas: That the other she was going to drop, kind of thing, and I do very much connect to that, not in the like are you mad at me way, but in that like I still to this day have a hard time adjusting to the fact that Lydia is just a kind person. And it's funny too, because my previous long relationship, so that was a person who was just very kind as well. And there was never any, but my brain it's, it sucks how much it gets cemented into your brain. I always expect the sarcastic comment, or I always expect like the passive aggressive sniping about something. And it's never there.

It's been, how fucking old am I? A hundred? It's been, I'm 39. I just turned 39, which God, they should, they They need to, oh God, yeah. Turn my back and shoulders, I'm 80. And my brain, I am 130. And like, I've lived more of my life with Lydia. Let's see, am I to that point? Not quite to that, but I'm not quite to the point. But like, I'll get to a point where I've live more of my life of Lydia than anything else. And I certainly live more my life with Lydia at this point than like the major formative years of my childhood. But they are formative for a reason. Like it's, they're formative.

0:32:36 Eli: Response.

0:32:31 Tom: Yeah we think you're going to multiply that by Smith years. I don't know what the multiplier is, but yeah, it's not good.

0:33:06 Tom: Yeah

0:33:06 Thomas: And I will still expect there's going to be some like, um, point system. I'll still expect, like somewhere in my brain now, I manage that and I don't, I try very hard to not let it actually affect our interactions, but still in my head is this worthless calculus that's like, oh well, she's gonna have thought that that was, uh, you know, that she earned some points there, and so I lost some points for doing that, like just a little bit of the back of my mind, and not in that literal sense, but in that like it's not collaborative, it's just a bad fucking relationship. It's just that in my mind, it's this like tit for tat kind of thing that's still part of me still expects. And it never is there. It's never there.

0:33:30 Tom: Some

0:33:51 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:33:52 Tom: Of this like maladaptive stuff. Like we talk about it a lot from like your experience, like coming from formative years, but I think it can come from any set of formative relationships. That's my experience. So my dad was not emotionally volatile at all, he was just a single dad who worked a lot, you know, so like there just wasn't a lot of interaction to be had, right? Like, you know, like he woke up, he went to, we got us off to school and to work, he came home, made dinner, but there was never emotional volatility ever. My dad was steady as a rock, but like I will say my ex-wife was incredibly emotionally volatile, to the point where I got into the habit, which seemed entirely normal for me for years. I got in the habit of checking Facebook multiple times a day to see what she would post, to see how she would be feeling when I came home, to see like, what am I going to be walking into today?

0:34:42 Thomas: Jeez.

0:34:43 Tom: And that was my first major relationship. And it was this intensely emotionally volatile experience constantly. And so I think I did very much from that formative relationship, because the first relationship I had in that formative relationship, develop a sense of like ownership over somebody else's emotional state.

0:34:39 Eli: Of

0:34:44 Thomas: Yeah, that's awful.

0:35:04 Eli: Course.

0:35:05 Tom: That's not good. Like that's and I've had to do some work. But like my initial internal reaction, like if I like if Haley's having a rough day or whatever, or like feeling bad or whatever's going on, the likelihood of that having something to do with me and I'm not explicitly already aware of that is essentially zero.

0:35:06 Thomas: That's really bad.

0:35:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:25 Eli: Right.

0:35:25 Tom: Right. But in my head, my initial reaction is like, like, what did I do?

0:35:31 Eli: What did I do?

0:35:32 Tom: What did I did? Did I fuck something up? Like, how can I make this? Because because I know what I did, I can make it better. Right? If I'm responsible for it, I'm also able to potentially fix it and then things will feel lighter and better together and none of that's my responsibility. That has taken me some time to work through, not externalizing that insecurity, but I still sometimes will feel it and then I'll have to chide myself and be like, dude, fucking calm down, this has nothing to do with you, dumbass. Like, people get to have an internal experience that is not reflective of you, right? Now, it's actually like a really weirdly narcissistic tendency to. Right.

0:36:00 Eli: Yeah, right.

0:35:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, boy. Yeah. Now that you say that, too, it's like I connect to that a little bit where it's tough because it probably makes someone a less supportive partner if they're too busy being defensive. And I think that that could be me as well sometimes, where it's like, now it also is hard because I struggle when someone can't articulate what's bothering them at all like that. That's something I struggle with. But I do think that it is also, as you say, Tom, someone's right to be able to have a bad day and not have their partner then think that it's their fault.

0:36:43 Tom: Right, yeah.

0:36:43 Thomas: And it's interesting how much that, that's like a profoundly difficult thing. If you do have this insecurity about it, you know, it's, it's really hard to be there for your spouse. Like imagine how much more supportive I would probably be as a partner. If I didn't have, I wasn't busy having any feelings of like, shit, did I do something wrong? Do I do something wrong or I don't know. On the other hand, I do tend to channel that, you you know, and that does give me the drive to want to be attentive at least. So I don't know if there's a fine line, you know? Like, is, is too much security also coming out the other end where you're like, ah, guess they're in a bad mood or something. Anyway, I'm going to go do what I want to do. You know, like, is there, does it go too far the other way?

0:37:22 Eli: Yeah, I, I've always found that that. Cause I have the same impulse, not necessarily to blame myself, but to connect very deeply to what my partner is going through and to not be able to move on from it. And I've had lots of people, partners, psychiatrists, therapists throughout the years be like, "Hey, you need to be able to separate yourself from that." And I think the defense for that has always been like, what am I supposed to do? Just walk away whistling, just like, "All right, well, it seems like you're having a hard day."

But like, you know, one of the things that, that is important is like learning to dip in and out of the stream. I'm reading a lot of acceptance cognitive therapy right now, including the Happiness Trap. And one of the things that they talk about is like, it's not necessarily about being able to change those emotions, but it is about changing the control those emotions have over you. And so that to me, I think is the healthy balance, right? It's not, "Oh, my wife's weeping because something terrible happened, but, you know, I had a great day at work, the boss said the TPS reports look fantastic."

0:37:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:20 Tom: Yeah.

0:38:20 Eli: But it's about understanding that you are in those emotions, but having the ability to decide how much control they have over your thoughts, feelings, and actions, the

0:38:30 Tom: Which I will say that's a great thing to say out loud. And I think like it will probably be the work of my lifetime to try to do that. Right? Because like it is impossible for me to feel content or happy if I know somebody that I love is miserable. Like if somebody I love is miserable and like having a bad day and it feels wrong, I will also say it feels wrong for me to be content while somebody else is in discontent, is unhappy, is like, I don't have that separation because for me, that's part of how love works, right? Is that I am emotionally and empathetically connected to that person. And I understand that like there's a healthy way to to both be connected and empathize and be real. But like, again, I feel like that's the work of a fucking lifetime. I

0:38:45 Eli: End.

0:38:47 Thomas: Yeah. It does. It wears on me. Yeah.

0:38:53 Eli: Right.

0:39:23 Thomas: Yeah,

0:39:23 Tom: Have no idea how to be like, well, settle that.

0:39:25 Eli: Early.

0:39:26 Tom: You're miserable and I'm both empathizing, but I have a healthy disconnect from it. Like I'll probably never get there. Like I will probably never, ever, ever get there I do want to ask because Thomas, I know you've got ADHD and this is something that like pops up with a lot of people with ADHD, But are you familiar with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, RSD?

0:39:46 Thomas: Yeah, I think we've talked about it.

0:39:48 Tom: Yeah. So I do think this kind of all of this sort of touches at least to some degree on that idea. I don't know if that's like clinically recognized or not.

0:39:59 Thomas: I think it is.

0:39:59 Tom: So if it is great, if not, whatever. I think there is also that element for a lot of people who have rejection sensitivity issues where like the unhappiness of somebody else, whether it's real or imagined, triggers this larger response. It kicks this thing into high gear where you're like, whoa, you're unhappy, you're mad, we're having conflict, whatever it is, the entirety of myself is now in question. Like the entirety of this connection is now in question.

The entirety of our relationship is now in question, like everything sort of eats at the foundation for that when you're struggling with those issues too. So I think like all of those things are built into the same piece.

And I think when we're like talking about how we raise our kids, which is, you know, like the thrust of this whole thing, like how we raised our kids making sure that they never feel that sense of like emotional instability and insecurity might help safeguard them from some of this. But I do think that it can also happen from other formative relationships. Friendships, I think you could have friendship issues that could cause or exacerbate this problem. I think romantic relationships could also do it.

0:41:12 Eli: Romantic relationships, absolutely, yeah. I think it's all part of

0:41:14 Tom: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:41:16 Thomas: Yeah, I think it's like also our responsibility, I think, to not do the thing that is the thing that I expect is going to happen every time, to not do the, like, "Oh, I'm fine." "Yeah, no, everything's fine."

0:41:27 Eli: It, yeah.

0:41:27 Thomas: And then it's actually you're not fine and you have a thing that you're, I do actually think that's an extremely toxic thing that our society for some reason promotes sometimes, like that, like. Like if you have a problem with your partner, the thing to do is to be like, "No, I'm fine." This is now a test for you. Do you really think I'm fine? Or do you think that I just said I'm fine? Yeah, yeah.

0:41:44 Tom: Can you pull this out of me? Yeah.

0:41:47 Eli: Right, yeah.

0:41:47 Thomas: And it's such an unhealthy thing. And I think that is also what I'm expecting Lydia is doing, but she's not, you know? And it is getting better. I have realized that, oh, no. I can just trust that like, oh no, she's just kind of feeling off and it's not an emergency I need to take care of right now. It's tough though. And I don't think I'll ever get rid of like these thought patterns fully. It's just about recognizing them and trying to deal with them. But I think the best you can do is forming those, that history of trust in these interactions where it's like, "Oh, she said she was fine and she actually was fine." And it wasn't you actually needed to do this. She never has done that. Not once in our entire marriage, relationship, anything in the fucking, fucking we've been together exactly as long as George R.R. Martin hasn't written his next book because

0:41:55 Tom: Right. Nope.

0:42:10 Tom: Nope right

0:42:36 Thomas: I bought the last one when we were on one of our, like, our second date because I saw it, I was like, "Oh, that's out, I'm the new one." So whatever that is, 14 years, 15 years, not one single time has she ever been like, "Oh, I'm fine," and then, like, "Actually, you didn't even ask how I was." "Oh, it was actually this, there was this thing, you know." Not once has she done that. Not a single time, because people who don't do that don't do that, you know, like it's just not in their DNA, in the same way that my DNA is what, shut up.

0:43:00 Tom: Yeah

0:42:59 Eli: Right. Unless she's saving it up.

0:43:07 Thomas: I knew it was going to be some, some sort of gaslighting.

0:43:08 Eli: Saving up for one last score, she tells me, she tells me about all the things you missed, and it's a lot, Thomas, it's a lot. Keep your head in a swivel.

0:43:11 Tom: Oh

0:43:12 Thomas: What am I score?

0:43:18 Clip: DEAR OLD DADS

0:43:25 Eli: All right, gentlemen, before we go, why was the farmer mad at the animals in the barn? Too much horseplay.

0:43:32 Thomas: I like it.

0:43:33 Tom: My

0:44:23 Eli: Our good American pre-bedtime

0:44:25 Tom: God, that's fucking terrible. I fucking think Debbie is awesome.

0:44:29 Eli: Snuggle. All right, gentleman, before we

0:44:36 Thomas: I'm starting to think his programming is, is really something's happening.

0:44:38 Tom: That didn't work out that's not he's finally yeah who's surprised anybody no nobody's surprised yeah

0:44:38 Eli: Go. It's going bad yet. One second. Losing it. Not me. No. I'm not, because, because I'm fucking not.

0:44:50 Thomas: All right. Well, what did you do? You piece of shit.