Sue Johnson (on emotionally focused couples therapy)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair, expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dan Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

[3] Hello.

[4] We had a great guest on by the name of Dr. Sue Johnson.

[5] Oh, before I tell you about Dr. Sue Johnson.

[6] Yes.

[7] So now I am a little nervous that this is going to, the problem we're trying to solve is going to create it again.

[8] But here we go.

[9] A lot of people were bummed out.

[10] They didn't get a robot sweatshirt.

[11] Understandably.

[12] And we did announce it was a limited edition.

[13] We did.

[14] And so some people didn't get them.

[15] And they were really bummed.

[16] I could feel it in the comments.

[17] They were bummed.

[18] And some people had even like set timers and stuff.

[19] And then they were just sold out.

[20] And such a bummer.

[21] So then we had a moral conundrum on our hand.

[22] We're like, should we offer more?

[23] And then we're like, well, then that violates the original premise that they were limited edition.

[24] So I don't know if there's a good or bad solution.

[25] We made 500 more.

[26] So now this is really yet.

[27] Yeah.

[28] can't, this is, we're, we don't know what to do.

[29] We just, we decided we didn't make enough even for limited edition.

[30] Yeah.

[31] So we're just finishing.

[32] We're hoping that this is, everyone that was sad, we hope this is the exact number of people that were really.

[33] Right.

[34] But also, some of you, we're going to have to still be sad because that's the whole point of limited edition.

[35] Oh, okay.

[36] So that's the, that's the hard light of day.

[37] But we're going to give them a little more time and heads up.

[38] Yes.

[39] Okay.

[40] So they go on sale tomorrow, Friday, 10 a .m. Pacific time tomorrow Friday if you missed out on it and then I'm just going to not read comments because then we're just going to infinity yeah and if we don't sell these out that we deserve that oh I was going to say we'll be mad at you guys no I'll go okay well good we cause this whole thing in that we're okay okay so yeah if they don't sell out then we'll you know we'll be changing tires in them for years to come they're really nice sweatshirt they really are this is another thing I did read of some people that are really critical of the price and I just want to say we're not selling these make any money we buy really expensive sweatshirts we do yeah and the cost of print all of it and we're not this isn't at all just trust us a money making endeavor no yeah we're getting paid from Spotify it's a really really nice sweater sweatshirt the first thing I said when I got it was like I like the cruneck yeah and the material really nice heavy dense it is beautiful okay Dr. Sue Johnson Dr. Sue Johnson is a clinical psychologist and best -selling author.

[41] She had a wildly successful book called Hold Me Tight.

[42] And she has a great book called Love Sense.

[43] Well, she has a new book, and it's a workbook for Hold Me Tight.

[44] It's called The Hold Me Tight Workbook, A Couple's Guide for a Lifetime of Love.

[45] She's so fun and spunky.

[46] Yeah.

[47] Real lots of spunk, right?

[48] Oh, yeah.

[49] We like them spunky.

[50] Sure.

[51] Also, very, I don't want to, maybe she wouldn't love this, But just from my point of view, beautiful message in the way John Gottman was in the Gottman Institute, very, very in keeping with that same pursuit of working in a relationship and very beautiful approach.

[52] I agree.

[53] So please enjoy Dr. Sue Johnson.

[54] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

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[56] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your.

[57] podcasts.

[58] How are you?

[59] I'm fine.

[60] How are you?

[61] Nice to meet you.

[62] I hear that you're in L .A. I am in L .A. It's not the most Christmassy of scenes.

[63] We're compensating with too much exterior illumination.

[64] We've got a lot of lights everywhere to remind us tis the season.

[65] Right.

[66] I used to go down to California just after Christmas every year to San Diego to teach for a week, and they'd have some of their Christmas decks up and bit like palm trees.

[67] We'd say, no, no, this doesn't work.

[68] Whereas here, outside my house, we have enormous huge fir and pine and a huge juniper tree.

[69] The trouble is they're too big to put lights in, so we just put lights around the house.

[70] You just need one of those incredible buckets with the extending arm that the power company has.

[71] You just need to rent one.

[72] Oh, all right, then.

[73] I'll ask the local council to send me one.

[74] You're up in Vancouver Island?

[75] Is that where you're at?

[76] Yes.

[77] They've just made the most incredible movie that's on Netflix.

[78] It's three parts, actually.

[79] And it's called The Island of the Seawolf.

[80] It's about Vancouver Island, and it is so good.

[81] It is so stunning.

[82] Well, yeah, Rob hit me with one of the headlines.

[83] So the wolves are swimming back and forth between the mainland and the island.

[84] It's the only place in the world where the wolves swim long distances.

[85] Yeah.

[86] This is Monarch.

[87] Hi, sorry.

[88] I am frazzled this morning.

[89] Nice to see you.

[90] Nice to see you.

[91] But the point is that it's quite something.

[92] And it blows my mind and I live here.

[93] What it really shows is the beauty of this place that we live in.

[94] And when I first moved here four years ago, moved from England or from where?

[95] Ottawa, where I was at the university.

[96] Okay.

[97] When I first moved here, very bad tempered.

[98] It was my husband's idea.

[99] I was out in my garden.

[100] In January.

[101] with no snow, so I was still bad tempered, but people would walk by and say, oh, you're new.

[102] And I would say, oh, yes, nice to meet you, which is different already, because everyone on the island talks to you.

[103] And they'd say, oh, welcome to paradise.

[104] And at first of all, I thought, that's cheesy.

[105] Or maybe even slash air again.

[106] But then, after a few weeks, I thought, that's right.

[107] Now does the dampness get to you ever?

[108] No. If I'm feeling down, I go down on the beach, It's about four minutes from my house, and I look across at the Olympic mountains in your country with the snow, and there's always a line of cloud, and there's sea.

[109] I think this is a sacred, blessed place.

[110] So people here are very protective of the environment.

[111] Sure.

[112] When did you leave England?

[113] I'm presuming you're from England.

[114] Your accent seems the ring of Englishness.

[115] I can't get rid of it.

[116] I left when I was 22.

[117] I escaped, actually.

[118] I didn't leave.

[119] Would that be escaping under the rule of Margaret Thatcher?

[120] Is that the regime you were escaping?

[121] No, it was more than that.

[122] It was escaping from my experience of English culture.

[123] You know, I was an English working class kid born in a pub.

[124] No, I'm born in a pub.

[125] Yeah, and I didn't speak like this.

[126] By a series of accidents we won't go into, I was a poor English working class kid sent to a posh Catholic school where I didn't fit, and not only that, but I'll spoke about that.

[127] I'll spoke cockney, you know.

[128] I like that.

[129] I like that.

[130] Like that, right?

[131] Yeah, that's good.

[132] And my mother wanted me to go to this posh school to lose my accent.

[133] Okay.

[134] She had aspirations for you.

[135] The aspiration was that I could marry a man with a suit.

[136] Uh -huh.

[137] Sure, sure, sure.

[138] Okay, what year did you graduate high school?

[139] What year did I graduate high school?

[140] You're asking me a difficult question.

[141] Yeah.

[142] No, this is a landmark date in your head.

[143] This should be an easy one.

[144] I left university in 68.

[145] I was too young.

[146] My headmistress, who was this six -foot -five nun, who was the most terrifying human being I've ever met, told me, you will wait two years and take the entrance exams to Oxford.

[147] And the bravest thing I've ever done my life is say, no, sister.

[148] The only university it would take me because I was too young was Hal, which is the most horrible place.

[149] It's a fishing port halfway up the east side of England.

[150] But you probably fit in better there.

[151] I did actually because the working class students who were on scholarship all kind of got together and helped each other fit in more.

[152] But my experience of England was that it was restrictive and I felt like I was in a prison as an English working class woman.

[153] I just wanted out.

[154] And so it was Australia or Canada.

[155] Presumably you majored in psychology?

[156] No. I didn't even know psychology existed.

[157] The world was different.

[158] that nun said to me, now you may choose.

[159] You will study English literature or history.

[160] So in this case, I said, I'm English literature.

[161] I'll take English lit.

[162] And I didn't know anything about psychology.

[163] I knew nothing.

[164] But the best way to learn about people in psychology is to read thousands of novels.

[165] Yes.

[166] A great author is one that somehow mastered psychology without maybe even learning about it.

[167] That's right.

[168] Let's geek out for one second.

[169] What's the high watermark for you?

[170] I remember being obsessed with George Elliott and Middlemarch.

[171] But to tell you the truth, I think the reason I was obsessed with her was because in Victorian England, she was a relatively ugly woman.

[172] She was tall and she was not good looking.

[173] She broke all the rules.

[174] She lived with a man for years and years and years.

[175] Then when he died, she married a much younger man. Scandalous.

[176] No. And she always wore black.

[177] And just before I left, I used to walk through the woods in Guilford and go to the pub she used to go to and sit in her seat beside the fire.

[178] Oh, wonderful.

[179] So in a way, she was a model.

[180] She said to me, you don't have to obey the rules.

[181] You can make your own rules.

[182] And for me, that was like, oh, because when my father announced to people that I would go to university, my relatives all got together and all agreed that this was.

[183] was exceedingly foolish.

[184] Yeah, at that time, completely pointless.

[185] All you'll do is amasculate your future husband with your knowledge.

[186] Dax, that's much too sophisticated.

[187] My uncle didn't say that.

[188] They said, that's a stupid idea.

[189] What's all this book learning going to get you?

[190] What you need is to get married.

[191] And the only one who supported it to talk was my father, who, I don't know where he got his, whatever you want to call it.

[192] Progressiveness at that point.

[193] That's right.

[194] Where he got his wisdom, I don't know.

[195] But he always told me, you can be whoever you want to be.

[196] You can do whatever you want.

[197] God bless him.

[198] They have the ability to change the world.

[199] Yeah, yeah, one little girl at time.

[200] I came to Canada in my 20s.

[201] Were you serious?

[202] No. I was having fun.

[203] And I met all these people who told me that they were something called hippies.

[204] Oh, yeah, okay.

[205] And I said, what's a hippie?

[206] And they all rolled around roaring with laughter and said, you're cute.

[207] Do you want to come and live in the basement of our student house for $10 a month?

[208] And I said, sure.

[209] Everyone was dropping acid.

[210] Yes, free love.

[211] Yeah.

[212] And for me, coming from England, it was like, what?

[213] Oh, that's a 180 right there.

[214] Yeah.

[215] And I got bored with English literature really fast.

[216] I was doing an MA.

[217] I told the head of department, I couldn't do a thing.

[218] it bored me to death.

[219] He got very angry.

[220] And I did some acting with a company that's still happening in Vancouver.

[221] And I then needed a job.

[222] I saw this ad and it said that this residential treatment center in the middle of the city for disturbed adolescents needed something called a childcare counsellor.

[223] I had no idea what it was.

[224] I applied.

[225] I got the job.

[226] And I walked into this place where there were three cottages with about 10 kids in each cottage.

[227] They were the most traumatized, the most acting out kids in the province that nobody else could handle.

[228] All 10 on the ACE scorecard?

[229] Oh yeah.

[230] Like you wouldn't believe.

[231] And we were given just a little bit of training and then said, okay, start to run groups, work with families and counsel these kids.

[232] I had no idea what I was doing.

[233] Right.

[234] You got this literature degree.

[235] And then I started going in my spare time to school and doing psychology.

[236] But you know, the training I had was that I was an English working class kid.

[237] And when I was four years old, I wasn't playing.

[238] I was put on a stool behind the bar.

[239] And I was told, you rinse the glasses.

[240] I can still do it in my sleep.

[241] Rinse the glasses three times.

[242] Wipe it on a towel, look and see if it's good, put it on the shell.

[243] So I used to stand and do this.

[244] But of course, what I did was watch.

[245] Yes.

[246] You had the best show in town.

[247] People might say now, oh my God, that's so inappropriate for a kid.

[248] But I was totally safe because my father was there, my mother was there.

[249] I never felt at risk.

[250] But I watched men and women flirt.

[251] Everyone was auntie and uncle.

[252] My favorite auntie was the pub prostitute, Auntie Nancy.

[253] She was lovely.

[254] I loved her.

[255] And she was so pretty.

[256] But I understood that she was sort of different with the guys.

[257] Ironically, let's pause at the prostitute.

[258] Again, this will be dicey to say, but potentially the most liberated woman you were observing.

[259] Maybe.

[260] All I know is she was lovely.

[261] And I watched men fight.

[262] I watched men trigger each other.

[263] I watched men who I realized now had PTSD from the war, get a nittle drunk and suddenly start to cry.

[264] My father was like a therapist.

[265] I don't know where he got all this from.

[266] He was very calm and big and he used to put his hands on somebody's hands and say, okay now, okay now Pete, you are going to come with me into the back room and we're going to just talk for a little bit.

[267] Okay, let's do that.

[268] And if he couldn't do that, sometimes on a Friday night, when a big fight happened, he'd walk around, he'd try to calm everyone down if he couldn't.

[269] This sounds funny, but this is the way I experienced it.

[270] He would look at the person who was being the most belligerent, and he would sort of hold him gently by the shoulder and pop him.

[271] Yeah, yeah.

[272] Nice gentleman's night night.

[273] As a child, I would go, ween, because the man would go splat.

[274] And then my father would pick him up, take him into the back room and I watched the emotional music and the dances they were caught in and I learned to tune in to that and not the content of the conversations because the pub was like a community.

[275] The same people would come in every day, okay, and talk to my dad and they'd say basically the same thing, exactly the same thing sometimes.

[276] And I remember listening to this.

[277] And so I realized very young that the content wasn't the point.

[278] The content was like, oh, hello, Sid, how are you?

[279] I'm fine, Arthur, I'm fine.

[280] Oh, nice day, isn't it?

[281] Yes, it's a nice day.

[282] So this is an English conversation, but Sid had lost his wife and he was alone and Sid's face would change after a drink and he'd start to sort of rub his hand round his glass and my father would reach across and touch his elbow and say, they're there.

[283] It's okay.

[284] Right.

[285] And, And so I watched this emotional dance.

[286] I think I was safe because I was behind the bar.

[287] My father was there.

[288] So I could look in safety.

[289] Right.

[290] It wasn't directed at you.

[291] So you could observe without the heightened adrenaline arousal state.

[292] And I bet half of your gift that you picked up there was everything that's not being said, everything that's in the air, everything that's transferring mirror neuron to mirror and all this invisible stuff, you actually get quite articulate in.

[293] And when you're talking to a young man in this home, who certainly doesn't have the verbiage to communicate with you, you're probably seeing much of the story without his help.

[294] The first young man I was given to work with, believe it or not, wouldn't talk at all.

[295] So I talk and then gradually, Lee started to talk.

[296] But at first, I thought, what on earth do I do with this?

[297] Right.

[298] But then, when I went and decided to do my doctorate, I'd be sitting in these formal classes with these professors putting out these theories.

[299] And I, from my experience with these kids and in the pub, I was the rebel student who would say, excuse me, that doesn't make any sense.

[300] I mean, the theory is interesting, but that's not what people do.

[301] Yeah, you started in reverse almost.

[302] People generally grab the theoretical and then they put it into practice and they start discovering stuff.

[303] but you had done it practically, then we're learning the theories.

[304] That's right.

[305] I still love doing therapy with individuals, not so much with couples.

[306] I did so many couples over the years.

[307] The thing I learned was to listen and learn from my clients.

[308] And every client I see expands me as a human being.

[309] Every client I see I learn from.

[310] And I think those kids taught me that because I didn't know what I was doing.

[311] So I had to say to them, what's happening for you right now?

[312] How do you fight the urge to not categorize?

[313] As you have a patient, to me, it would be quite tempting to go, oh, right, this is that thing.

[314] I know how that works.

[315] How are you open to each one potentially having something new when our brains are so categorical?

[316] You must fight it, right?

[317] No, I don't have to fight that.

[318] But that's a very profound question because our approach, which, you know, is now 40 years old and I think has revolutionized the field of couple therapy.

[319] I know it has.

[320] And now we're doing a whole bunch of things with individuals.

[321] therapy and families, which we always did, but we never wrote about it.

[322] Our approach is to always step past categories to look at the process.

[323] For example, a client came to me and she said, well, I'm depressed.

[324] Everyone agrees I'm depressed.

[325] I'm chronically depressed.

[326] I'm also this and that.

[327] And I also have been told I'm borderline.

[328] I'm OCD.

[329] And so I start talking to her about her life and her story and how she feels.

[330] And as I go into deeper into her emotions, what we come up with together is that when she uses that word, depression, which is just a label.

[331] It's an adjective, really.

[332] Yeah, it's her prefrontal cortex giving me a label.

[333] She's just talking about her experience.

[334] She's on the surface.

[335] When she uses that word, if she tunes into her emotions, the tangible reality, she's heartbroken.

[336] That's different than depressed.

[337] And we go into that heartbreak and I say, because this is what my clients have taught me, you start where people are, you don't tell them you should be somewhere else.

[338] That's the biggest mistake in couples counseling, in teaching people anything.

[339] You start where people are.

[340] There's a structure to emotions.

[341] And if we understand it, we can tune in.

[342] What you do when you're heartbroken is you touch the pain, you make it more specific, which makes it more manageable, and you weep.

[343] So this lady who says to me, I don't feel, I've come to you because I'm numb.

[344] My life is meaning this.

[345] I'm empty.

[346] I'm numb.

[347] And she said, I don't do feelings.

[348] Well, this lady, session six, I teach therapists right now with this.

[349] She sits and she weeps.

[350] Now she can't tolerate it for long because it's still new for her.

[351] But she sits and she weeps, And I say, yes, that's worth weeping for, isn't it?

[352] All those longings and feeling so invisible and unseen, that's worth weeping for.

[353] And she weeps.

[354] And right here right now, I'm telling her something powerful.

[355] I'm telling her, I see you and you make sense.

[356] You exist and you have a right to these feelings.

[357] There's nothing strange about them.

[358] As I do that, she starts to grow.

[359] And all our work is based on John Bolby's attachment science.

[360] He died in 1990 before his science could be applied to adults.

[361] He mostly talked about mothers and children.

[362] Yeah, that's a big section of, I think, what we'll talk about in regards to your new workbook, the Holme -Tite workbook.

[363] Just before we moved to there, I think labels are very useful.

[364] But I do think people can hear these labels and believe it's the same as learning your diabetic.

[365] And they can forget that these labels were just recently created.

[366] These labels of borderline personality disorder, all these things are brand new, and somehow they're given the weight and the importance of your pancreas not making insulin, and the permanence.

[367] You're right, and that's a real problem.

[368] They're descriptive labels that overlap, and that are put together by a committee.

[369] They're a generalization, and they can help you sometimes.

[370] But, for example, when I teach, I tell my therapists and my counselors, you know, have you ever seen a client who's really depressed who isn't also anxious.

[371] Basically, they have an emotional problem and they're either down and numb and hiding out and shut down or they're agitated.

[372] And actually down and numb feels better than agitated most of the time they swing.

[373] What they don't have is any emotional balance.

[374] The point is we focus on the process and how people put their experience together and put their view of self together.

[375] And the labels can be useful, but they can also get in the way and they're very stigmatizing like the newest one prolonged grief i don't even heard of that no everyone's talking about prolonged grief the implication is you're supposed to get over the loss of a spouse in a year don't you know that's the time frame that seems a little quick well i'm sorry but it's very silly and people don't fit into those nice little boxes to be empathetic and i myself have a label that i've ascribed to which i'm an addict right i'm an alcoholic And to me, that is a condition like diabetes.

[376] I don't actually believe I'll ever not be an addict.

[377] So, you know, I have my own relationship with it.

[378] But I do see the initial appeal of the label.

[379] I've experienced it with loved ones who enter therapy, which is, you are this.

[380] Okay, so you are this immediately makes me feel, ooh, okay, I'm not alone, A, I'm not alone.

[381] There's others, right?

[382] Number two is, oh, there's an explanation.

[383] I have this thing.

[384] I'm not uniquely broken, and perhaps even some of this isn't my fault.

[385] That's a very functional use of the label.

[386] From my point of view, if it helps you feel not alone, that's fantastic.

[387] Because from our point of view, most of problems in distressed relationships and in people's hearts, in all kinds of mental health and emotional problems, is isolation.

[388] People feel cut off from themselves, but they feel cut off from other people.

[389] belonging and becoming a two sides of the same coin.

[390] So we focus a lot on a loan because we're not wide for a loan.

[391] Okay, great.

[392] So I'm going to hit you with something I've been ruminating on a lot lately.

[393] And then as I pick up your book, I realize, oh, you have the exact same concern, but it's through a different lens.

[394] So, Dr. Sue, my pitch to you is through the anthropological lens.

[395] This is what worries me. A hundred thousand years ago, you needed minimally.

[396] 50 to 100 people that you were dependent on interrelated with to survive.

[397] You couldn't live on planet Earth 100 ,000 years ago if you were not entwined and dependent on 50 to 100 other people.

[398] And then over the course of our inventions of agriculture and civilization, that got whittled down to two people could do it.

[399] For several hundred years, two people could survive on their own.

[400] But they still were interdependent on one another.

[401] became the model, right?

[402] Husband and wife.

[403] We no longer needed a clan to feed ourselves, house ourselves, clothe ourselves.

[404] We could survive by only being dependent on one other human being, which is already radically different from how we were designed.

[405] And I think currently, and this is an evolution you've watched in your lifetime, and I too have seen, we live in an era where you actually could be by yourself.

[406] An individual can survive and meet all their needs without ever being dependent or interwoven with another human being.

[407] As we watch this trajectory, we see the rates of being single in Manhattan.

[408] There's great dad on Manhattan, like marriage rates in 1950 versus now.

[409] How many people live by themselves now in Manhattan versus 1950?

[410] It's staggering.

[411] Such a small percentage of people even join that union now.

[412] Part of it's wonderful, women don't have to marry men to survive.

[413] That's fantastic.

[414] I have daughters.

[415] I love that.

[416] But, the overarching concern I have is where this highly social mammal that has figured out how to live individually.

[417] Yes, I'm totally with you.

[418] For me, it's the crux of so much.

[419] We can now survive alone.

[420] However, the issue is, and I think you're putting your finger on it, we can.

[421] We're able.

[422] And in lots of ways, you know, our society has said, oh, that's great.

[423] That's great.

[424] means you're independent, that means you're free.

[425] The tricky part is on an emotional level, that has some real limits because whether you can survive on your own physically, emotionally, all the evidence is you need to be emotionally connected with at least one or two human beings who will come when you call.

[426] And that is not the same as social intimacy.

[427] You know, There's some lovely research on grief that talks about how widows can have a community of other widows, and that helps.

[428] It helps a lot.

[429] Of course it does.

[430] It helps if they have a supportive environment.

[431] We do better in villages and communities, right?

[432] But there is another level of emotional isolation that is just devastating for people.

[433] And what Bolby's research basically said, which came out of pure observation, pure science, he observed much, others and infants, hundreds of them and videotaping them and watch them.

[434] And that's how I found out how to work with couples.

[435] I didn't know how to do it.

[436] It wasn't in the books.

[437] I taped couples and I watched.

[438] And what he basically said is for human beings to thrive, to really grow, to grow into what they can be, to deal, especially with their vulnerability, they need at least one or two close people that they can call on.

[439] and we're very inventive as human beings.

[440] As adults, we don't need that like a baby does.

[441] If I'm very distressed about something, I don't need my husband right beside me like a baby does.

[442] I have my husband in my mind.

[443] And what blows my mind, because science is one thing and clinical practice is another thing, that I also have my father in my head, who is my main attachment figure.

[444] And you talked at the beginning of this chat about key moments in your life.

[445] One of the key moments in my life a few years ago was I was awarded the Order of Canada.

[446] I wept for three weeks.

[447] That's so sweet.

[448] But what was fascinating, I stood up to get the order.

[449] I was completely out of body.

[450] You were disassociated.

[451] Yeah, yeah, I was out of body.

[452] And my wonderful husband was there and my family were there.

[453] But as I walked up, I heard my father's voice very clearly.

[454] And my father said what he always said to me. He used to call me squiggle clip.

[455] Who knows why?

[456] I don't know.

[457] And he said, well done, squiggle clip.

[458] So we carry these images of hopefully secure attachment around with us.

[459] We use them to deal with our vulnerability, our emotions.

[460] When we're celebrating, we use them to say, look at me and you saw me and I'm blessed.

[461] And if we're distressed, we say, where are you?

[462] Come to me?

[463] And couples don't know how to listen to the emotional music.

[464] So sometimes when they're getting into fights, what they're really doing, and I think I'll learn this in the pub, is trying to call to each other and say, where are you?

[465] Where are you?

[466] But it all gets garbled.

[467] It doesn't sound like, where are you?

[468] It sounds like, why aren't you?

[469] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[470] Why don't you ever tell me?

[471] Well, then the other guy feels attacked.

[472] And he doesn't hear, where are you?

[473] I'm scared.

[474] No, they hear a character assessment.

[475] That's right.

[476] He is.

[477] You've blown it, buddy.

[478] Oh, yeah.

[479] You failed at this.

[480] That's right.

[481] And women are especially vulnerable, it seems to me, to being abandoned and feeling they don't matter and they're not seen and they're alone.

[482] And men are especially vulnerable because the way we condition them to some message that they failed their partner, they're not who they should be.

[483] And everyone, they come feeling vulnerable and then they spark each other into more vulnerability and they get stuck.

[484] And that's what happens.

[485] And if you know that, you can see a really distressed couple and say, this is the dance you're caught in.

[486] It's so human.

[487] We all get caught here sometimes.

[488] The dance is the problem.

[489] Not that you don't love each other, not that love is mysteriously impossible.

[490] It is not.

[491] We've cracked the code of love.

[492] Balby did it for God's sake.

[493] We just keep ignoring him.

[494] And here's the dance you're caught in.

[495] And people go, oh, I was on the exercise.

[496] bike this morning.

[497] I was listening to this 70s thing.

[498] Steely Dan.

[499] Love Steely Dan.

[500] Favorite band.

[501] Steely Dan has a song called Go Back.

[502] Jack.

[503] Do it again.

[504] We'll go in round.

[505] Well, that's what we get caught in in relationships.

[506] And my family, I have a weird family because of all the work we've done.

[507] So I have these wonderful fights with my son who's very opinionated about everything.

[508] I'm not, of course, I'm just, you know, totally open.

[509] And we have these wonderful fights, and it's not always me that does it.

[510] I can remember one enormous fight in the middle of Starbucks.

[511] If you're quite a well -known therapist, don't fight with you something.

[512] It's just stupid, okay.

[513] But anyway, after we'd had this fight, we sat down and bless his heart, he was about 17.

[514] He said to me, hey, Mom, that didn't go too well, did it?

[515] We got stuck.

[516] I felt pushed, and you felt you weren't listened to and you didn't matter, so we got stuck.

[517] didn't we?

[518] I said, um, yes.

[519] But I'll tell you that.

[520] You don't tell me that.

[521] Yes, I could have said that.

[522] But instead, instead, I think it's profound what I said, because this is what couples do in these bonding conversations that makes our research so fascinating and creates these bonds.

[523] I took a risk and went into my vulnerability and said, well, Tim, I started in the wrong place.

[524] I started telling you that you'd failed grade 12.

[525] And I started it in a literary way when what I should have said was I'm getting really scared.

[526] Yeah.

[527] Because I'm your mom and I know something's really off with you and I don't know what it is and I can't help and I'm getting really scared.

[528] So then he looks at me and says, oh, well, that's different from.

[529] I don't think you're working out.

[530] And then he says, you're right, I'm lost.

[531] And I've blown it and I don't know what to do.

[532] And then by the time we've walked home five blocks to the house that I had in Ottawa, we've created a plan, a problem -solving plan.

[533] When people start to feel connected and safe with each other, they can get balance, and then they can cooperate, and they can solve problems like mad.

[534] They can come up with all kinds of solutions.

[535] I mean, we know physiologically once you are in that area of your brain.

[536] We could watch you and your son at Starbucks, if you were in fMRI monitoring devices.

[537] And we would know that the area of your brain you're in isn't the make -a -plan area.

[538] It's not the frontal lobe.

[539] That's right.

[540] No one can think their way out of that.

[541] Once you're there, you're there.

[542] That's right.

[543] And I've never got over the thrill of watching a couple move from just being stuck in a fight and framing each other as the enemy.

[544] And they're both alone.

[545] They're triggering each other.

[546] Then they can start to see the dance.

[547] They get their balance.

[548] and they start to be able to tune into what they're longing for and what they need, I've never got over the thrill of people being able to recognize that they're in their amygdala, they're just caught, and to be able to say to each other, something like, we're stuck, aren't we?

[549] We're stuck.

[550] Rather than you're or I'm not doing this, they say, oh, we're doing that thing again.

[551] It's doing us.

[552] Oh, okay.

[553] Then we can step back.

[554] But the real thing that happens, which is why we get such amazing results in the field and why our results last over three years of follow -up, which is amazing too.

[555] I wrote, Hold Me Tight, and we started groups for Hold Me Tight groups all over the world and made an online program is to tell people about this.

[556] The real thing happens when they can not only do that, but they can change the level of emotional music, and they can actually touch a name their needs and their very vulnerabilities and their fears, and they can reach for each other and comfort each other.

[557] Then you get this amazing hold -me -tight conversation.

[558] And we've done a brain scan study with my wonderful colleague in the University of Virginia, where we found that very distressed, very insecure couples, they weren't just distressed, they didn't trust each other, they didn't confide.

[559] And what we found was that after they had these bonding conversations, that when the woman was put in an MRI and she was told she was going to be shocked.

[560] on her ankles.

[561] This is Jim Cohen.

[562] It's impossible to read, by the way.

[563] I phoned up and said, I can't understand one word of this study.

[564] He said, no, neither can I, but it's published now.

[565] It was a brilliant study.

[566] I was so proud of it.

[567] And these women's brains, in the beginning, before the bonding conversations, if they were alone, if a stranger held their hand, or if their partner held their hand, when they got the trigger that they might be shocked, their brain lit up into alarm.

[568] and they said the shock really hurt.

[569] After the bonding conversations, when they were alone or when the stranger held their hand, same thing happened.

[570] But after the bonding conversations, when their partner held their hand, and they got the threat, their brain looks completely calm.

[571] It doesn't get hijacked by the amygdala at that point.

[572] I said, it's not red, it's blue.

[573] What does that mean?

[574] And he said, this is a neuroscientist talking to me. He said, it means they're not dead, Sue.

[575] I said, oh, all right, Johnny, If you ask them if the shock hurts, if it happens, they say it was uncomfortable.

[576] We're not just social.

[577] We're bonding animals.

[578] This is our brain saying, if I have this ultimate resource of somebody here who sees me, cares about me and will be there for me, I'm grounded.

[579] I am safe.

[580] And that changes the triggers that are coming towards you.

[581] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[582] If you dare.

[583] We've all been there.

[584] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[585] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[586] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[587] Hey, listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[588] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[589] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[590] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[591] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[592] What's up, guys, this is your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[593] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[594] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[595] And I don't mean just friends.

[596] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[597] The list goes on.

[598] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[599] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[600] Doctor, can I add?

[601] Docs do call me Sue.

[602] Can I call you, Sue?

[603] He likes calling it, Doc.

[604] I don't know.

[605] I never know what these doctors are saying.

[606] Oh, no, no, no. He wants you to call him doctor.

[607] Yeah, yeah, I've not earned that, but please do.

[608] I was just writing about this the other day.

[609] We understand broadly that we need water food shelter.

[610] We know that.

[611] These are our needs.

[612] What people don't realize is that the need above that is being social because being social is what gives you the other three.

[613] You actually can't in order prioritize the first three over the socialness.

[614] because the socialness is what gets you those three.

[615] So if you're excluded from your tribe 100 ,000 years ago, you're fucking dead.

[616] There's no water.

[617] There's no food.

[618] There's no shelter.

[619] So the strength of it is so under assessed by people.

[620] I agree with you.

[621] And in our world, which is all about getting goodies and more and more sensations and everything is commercialized, that has just got completely lost.

[622] Yeah, because now you just get all the food, water, shelter and whatever.

[623] form you want without any.

[624] And the excitement, and everyone talks about freedom.

[625] What's that amazing song by the Eagles?

[626] Desperado.

[627] I've been on my button, just tell I came from my bicycle, amazing song.

[628] And it says, freedom's just enough word for nothing left to lose.

[629] Nothing, ain't worth nothing, but it's free.

[630] So that's a huge generalization.

[631] We all need autonomy.

[632] The point is the best autonomy, the autonomy that's real is that the more connected you are, the more securely connected you are to another human being, the more you can explore, the more confident you are, the more grounded you are, the more you can go out into the world and be really free.

[633] Yeah, actually be who you are through the safe foundation of this connection.

[634] That's absolutely right.

[635] And my most fun thing about working with couples, first of all, I was blown away by our research results and I got all high, and that high lasted for about 15 years.

[636] And then I got into watching how when people had these bonding conversations, it was just that their relationship completely shifted.

[637] They grew each other.

[638] They grew each other.

[639] You could almost see the guy who suddenly realized, oh, she needs me. I'm not the big disappointment.

[640] I'm so important to her.

[641] Yeah, as flawed as I am, she actually wants this.

[642] That's right.

[643] She wants me. And you can see him get bigger.

[644] and suddenly he goes for the job interview and he gets the job instead of blowing it.

[645] You can see couples grow each other and that's what people do in good relationships.

[646] This is the greatest resource of human beings is to be able to turn to each other.

[647] This is why we survived.

[648] Yes, we needed a village.

[649] This is a funny image, but if you were out hunting a mammoth and we're three together hunting a mammoth, we don't just need a village.

[650] You need to be able to look at my face and read the cues on my face that I'm going to go in now and run towards the mammoth.

[651] And I need to know that when you see me do that, you're going to respond.

[652] You're not going to run the other way.

[653] Yeah, you're coming around the back of that mammoth and giving the death blow so I don't get trampled.

[654] We need to count on each other in that very intimate kind of way.

[655] Yeah.

[656] Also, when you're talking about these bonding conversations and you said, we're stuck, the word we is so powerful.

[657] Yes, yes, yes.

[658] It's extremely powerful because it immediately puts you on the same team, regardless of the fight or whatever you're saying, we had somebody in who was talking about reading people, mind reading, kind of.

[659] Oh, right, yeah, yeah.

[660] Kind of.

[661] And he was talking about nonverbal cues.

[662] And he also said he can learn so much about people in the way they talk if they say, I, me versus we, us.

[663] Yeah, he was saying it's kind of how to know if this thing you're pursuing is going anywhere.

[664] If your date says we parked over there or I, like even those little, And I think about it all the time, even in this show, when it's a we versus I statement.

[665] It's like isolation or togetherness immediately.

[666] I agree with you.

[667] I mean, we can look at this at lots of different levels.

[668] We can look at it as in interpersonal relationships.

[669] We can look at it in groups.

[670] We can look at it as a society.

[671] It's kind of like in capitalism, you're an eye.

[672] I'm going to sell you this and I'm going to try and appeal to everything about you that you find attractive.

[673] And I'm going to sell you that.

[674] So you're an eye.

[675] But in fact, that's not the way we're wired and that's not what we need to survive.

[676] We have to be a we.

[677] And who said this, not me, somebody profound, it might have been Ticknap Han, the Buddhist monk.

[678] Basically, we have to recognize our need for connection and we have to come together into a we or we as a race, as a species are not going to survive because the problems that are coming into our world are not solvable by any eye, no matter how brilliant, we have to come together to work on creating something called civilization that is real civilization that nurtures people.

[679] We have to come together to take care of the planet.

[680] We have to come together to not blow ourselves up.

[681] We're so powerful now, and I don't think we can handle our power, really.

[682] We're lazy.

[683] We're all lazy.

[684] And without a common threat, common threats bond us.

[685] So the common threat of thirst, the common threat of hunger, the common threat of the environment, the common threat of another government.

[686] These things are so bonding because we recognize in those moments, oh shit, we need each other.

[687] COVID, you're like, oh, fuck, it's not like only one country can decide to do it correctly.

[688] It's like everyone's got to get on board.

[689] The great gift of safety, all of our inventions have given us, have actually also taken away that common enemy that we kind of need storywise to bond with each other.

[690] It's like we're the beneficiaries and the victims of our success in that way.

[691] And so much of our world takes us away from that.

[692] I mean, when I'm talking about sharing vulnerability and honoring, strength is, from my point of view, knowing your vulnerability, accepting it, and knowing how to handle it and walk through it, right, and continually grow.

[693] That's strength.

[694] But really, if you look at a lot of, especially what kids watch, they watch superhero movies, they watch games.

[695] And what is the message there?

[696] It's all about invulnerability.

[697] It's all about, you know, the fantasy of immortality, invulnerability.

[698] Aloneness doesn't come into it because you're so powerful.

[699] You can do anything.

[700] We have the adoration of the world, which will fill you.

[701] Yes.

[702] I remember having fights with my kids about social media.

[703] And my daughter would say, I have 300 friends.

[704] And I would say, no, you don't.

[705] You have two friends.

[706] And I know their names.

[707] Hit them up when the next time you have a flat, tire on the side of the road, see how many arrive.

[708] Okay, I want to praise the workbook because, look, if you're in a relationship, you have problems.

[709] That's the given.

[710] If you're in a relationship, it's going to require compromise.

[711] It's going to require communication.

[712] It's going to be challenging.

[713] And I think the way out often feels either overwhelming or to abstract, not step -based, not actionable things.

[714] It's so abstract.

[715] It's so out of your hands.

[716] You can't get it under control.

[717] You feel like you've tried everything.

[718] You're hopeless.

[719] And so what I like about the workbook, right out of the gates, the first thing I look at in the workbook is demand and withdrawal, identifying your primal panic.

[720] And so within the demand category and the withdrawal, there's some statements.

[721] And by God, if I don't start identifying immediately with everything in the withdrawal category.

[722] And I go, oh, okay, not only is that me, There must be a lot of me if this fucking category is hitting home so much.

[723] There's a lot of you.

[724] And what we have done, which is a huge disservice, is I think, systematically teach men in particular.

[725] What you are expected to do is shut down and shut people out.

[726] And if you are feeling vulnerable or uncertain, you are expected to just get past that.

[727] There's a tape that I use that I teach from sometimes where the man. is very shut down and the woman's getting angry and angrier and more and more depressed and he just doesn't understand he loves her to death you can see it but he just doesn't understand so he says well I don't know how to make it better I'm supposed to know how to make it better I feel like everything I say is going to make it worse I'm messing up so I just stop think of how small this is really and how simple I say could you tell her right now and I get specific and concrete when I see that look on your face when you're getting angry or real sad, I don't know what to do.

[728] I don't know what to say and I should know what to say.

[729] And he says, yes, I should know what to say, but I don't know what to say, good, can you tell her that?

[730] And he turns to her and he says, and he adds to it.

[731] People always add because they're in the emotional groove then.

[732] I just open the door to the emotion.

[733] He adds to it and he says, when you look sad, I get scared and I don't know how to fix it.

[734] I can't fix it.

[735] I don't know what to say.

[736] And she weeps and he looks at me. What do I do now?

[737] Yeah, why am I seeing this kind side of her?

[738] She weeps and she says, what you just did was perfect.

[739] I don't need you to fix it.

[740] I need you just be there with me. I'm going to pat ourselves on the back, and I want you to incorporate this in your next book.

[741] So, Monica, last week, Monica started getting suspicious that she had left a tampon in herself.

[742] Okay?

[743] She didn't have a ton of concrete proof.

[744] It's just all of a sudden she came into work.

[745] She goes, oh, my God, I'm getting nervous.

[746] I have a tampon stuck in me, and I may have had it stuck in me at this point for six days.

[747] Now, I'm a man. Oh, no. Hold on.

[748] I know.

[749] It's scary.

[750] Now, listen, listen.

[751] So I say, well, what proof do you have?

[752] If you're noticing any discomfort, you know, is there any early symptoms of TSS?

[753] Right, I'm a man, I'm going to fix this.

[754] I'm going to solve this problem.

[755] It's escalating and escalating.

[756] And I finally said to her, because I kind of went quiet for a while.

[757] And she looked at me like, what, you're just done with this conversation?

[758] And I said, Monica, I don't know what to do.

[759] Part of me thinks I should talk you out of this fear, that that's my job as your friend, is to comfort you and convince you that this is not happening.

[760] or do I stop this recording and we go to the emergency room?

[761] Like, I don't know what my role is here.

[762] I don't know how to be your friend right now.

[763] Is it rush you to the emergency room or try to assuage your fears that this is happening?

[764] I don't know.

[765] But you see, if I was sitting in front of you, I would say to you, that's brilliant.

[766] Well, that's why I said I'm bragging.

[767] I just want to, I know I was bragging.

[768] Because you show up emotionally and that's really what Monica needs.

[769] I'm presuming, Monica, but I must say I'm caught.

[770] You're in my shoes now.

[771] No, she's like, did you go to the hospital?

[772] Did that help?

[773] It helped in that I felt like he wasn't being adversarial.

[774] Because at first, a part you skipped.

[775] Okay.

[776] Is you were really trying to convince me that there's no way.

[777] You would have not noticed this.

[778] I could have possibly had a tampon in for six days because you're in a rational mindset.

[779] So you were trying very hard to convince me, and obviously that's not going to work.

[780] You don't know, and I could die tonight, and you obviously don't care enough.

[781] Right.

[782] And then when you said, I don't know how to handle it, then, yeah, it's like, it's fine.

[783] You can just listen.

[784] And that's so significant because you didn't need him to fix it.

[785] What you needed was for him to be with you and listen.

[786] And the issue is that when he's with you and listens, it's like the problem shrinks because your amygdala stops firing, the problem shrinks and you don't feel alone.

[787] You can talk about it and you can say, oh, you know, and in a good relationship, this is what happens.

[788] The couple come together.

[789] I'm just thinking about my husband.

[790] I mean, it happens all the time because I've got more of an imagination than he has.

[791] He's more solid.

[792] I catastrophize.

[793] I say, oh, we're out in this new boat, I absolutely hated, but I couldn't figure out why he bought.

[794] And suddenly we're caught in this current and I'm into like, we're going to the trail, we're going to get the trail, we're going to drive.

[795] And he's into, Sue, you're scared because you're scared of the water.

[796] I said, yes, stupid.

[797] Because I'm not an aquatic animal.

[798] Yes, dingus.

[799] And then he says, and see, listen to the emotional message here.

[800] It doesn't make me sense intellectually.

[801] Perhaps he says, it's okay, sweetie, I've got you.

[802] Immediately I go, oh.

[803] Oh.

[804] Okay.

[805] We're out of the current now.

[806] That was dumb.

[807] But it's about going to the right level.

[808] We teach people communication skills.

[809] For the listener, you are doing air quotes.

[810] When I'm really vulnerable, they go out the window because I'm a human being.

[811] Right.

[812] And the amygdala's not great at your storing your communication skills.

[813] That's right.

[814] They're irrelevant, actually.

[815] When my feet are over a cliff, guess what?

[816] Your skills go out the window.

[817] Okay.

[818] So going to the emotional level and being able to just, say, I'm with you.

[819] That's what we call biologically prepared learning.

[820] Your nervous system hears that and goes, oh, okay.

[821] And that changes everything, just like those women lying in the MRI machine.

[822] It changes the nature of threat.

[823] We are more vulnerable for longer than almost any other species.

[824] And we know when our brain starts to develop, if we really are alone and no one comes, we die.

[825] That's what's triggered.

[826] People don't get.

[827] give it the credit it deserves.

[828] It's an existential crisis.

[829] These stupid things are actually existential.

[830] Back to without it, you starve, dehydrate and don't have shelter.

[831] And the other one that hits me a lot, maybe it's just the clients I'm seeing right now, is, you know, you can listen to the philosophers talk about meaning and man is a meaning -making animal and you need to have your life meaning.

[832] When you really come down to, in concrete terms, everyday life, what does that mean.

[833] It means that you have to feel that you matter to someone else and that you exist in someone else's mind.

[834] So when my client says to me, I've always been empty and numb.

[835] And then I start to talk to her about how she can close her eyes and imagine saying to her husband some of these things that she's telling me about.

[836] And suddenly she's not empty or numb.

[837] She's scared, but she's not empty and numb.

[838] Meaning is all tied up with our relationship.

[839] She wants.

[840] to matter to other people.

[841] We want to make a difference.

[842] These types, demand type or withdraw type, instinctually, it seems like it would lined up pretty nicely along gender lines, or no, is that not the case?

[843] Not always.

[844] Every place we get stuck started as a response that saved our life somewhere, right?

[845] Started as a functional response and then it got stuck and generalized, okay?

[846] So some women, if they've been traumatized, when you listen to their stories, they have no reason on earth to ever trust another human being and let another human get close and get hurt again.

[847] And it blows my mind that they do.

[848] They still long for a connection somewhere and they still will risk if you help them move slowly towards their partner.

[849] But, you know, some women shut down, but it's not really types.

[850] It's an emotional pattern and a dance with other people that is familiar to you.

[851] So when the chips are down, you naturally go there.

[852] And it can either be real rigid or not so rigid.

[853] And it can be influenced by culture too.

[854] I worked with an Inuit couple on Zoom.

[855] When this Inuit gentleman withdrew, it wasn't like my husband might withdraw.

[856] Withdrawal for him was he'd go out on the ice and fish all by himself for six days.

[857] Sounds heavenly at times, yeah.

[858] This is kind of different withdrawal, right?

[859] because this is his culture.

[860] Yeah.

[861] I'm a pursuer.

[862] I like connection.

[863] I move towards.

[864] But in certain situations, if I'm really overwhelmed or I'm somehow going to some really dark space, I also shut down and withdraw.

[865] And what's fascinating after 35 years is that as your relationship grows, you feel safer, those familiar dances become more flexible and more open and more shared and not as stuck.

[866] Well, more visible, right?

[867] The more you identify them, the quicker you spot them.

[868] Yeah.

[869] And so now my sweet husband comes to me and says, what's happening soon?

[870] And I say, nothing.

[871] Yeah, of course.

[872] Nothing.

[873] I'm fine.

[874] None of his business.

[875] If he knocks on the door twice, it's like, all right, okay, okay.

[876] What am I doing?

[877] By the way, there's a hack in there.

[878] What's happening beats my approach quite often.

[879] Are you upset about something?

[880] That'll be my question.

[881] are you sad about something that's easy to get defensive about like well you don't know how i feel i'm not upset i'm not this but what's happening is really innocuous that's a really kind of safe starting point yes when i teach therapists and counselors what i say to them is yes learn all kinds of theories and ideas and everything but the bottom line is you are an emotional human being sitting with another emotional human being tune into their face listen to them be curious You ask them, could you take me into your world?

[882] What's happening for you right now?

[883] You know, I have a huge guess as to what's happening for you most of the time, especially if I'm working with couples.

[884] But it's a guess.

[885] I need you to tell me. And you have your own version, right?

[886] And then I listen and then together we piece it together and make sense of your experience.

[887] And I also make sense of it from all the attachment science that says, we need other people to be accessible and responsive to us.

[888] And if we don't have that, that is alarming for our mammalian brain.

[889] And that's the way it is.

[890] Yeah.

[891] So for me, I immediately am like, oh, God, okay, so this book pertains to me because I see myself, these thoughts I just read, I have these thoughts.

[892] You have these demon dialogues, these examples of different dialogue dances.

[893] people get caught in.

[894] And all of them, I've experienced all of them, but the protest polka.

[895] That's the most common.

[896] Okay, so this is ambiguous messages such as, well, maybe I don't want to be here.

[897] So, or perhaps I'm just not enough for you.

[898] So I should just give up a friend and I, we're talking about the shittiest things we've kind of said in fights with our wives.

[899] And I at one point said, this guy, whoever this guy is who does all the shit I do, and then also does the list you leave on the counter, I can't wait to meet him.

[900] Like, I literally want to shake his hand.

[901] When you find him, please introduce him to me because I'm going to be blown away with this guy.

[902] Basically, good luck going to get him.

[903] It's backhanded.

[904] There's a big thread in there.

[905] I'm posing it as you're going to leave me for this person, this theoretical person.

[906] But really, I'm saying what you want can't be gotten.

[907] And so I'm fucking done trying to be this.

[908] mythical guy.

[909] You go get them.

[910] And it's saying, I'm the best you can get.

[911] Which is true.

[912] And I'm doing plenty.

[913] Yeah.

[914] Yes.

[915] There's a lot in that statement.

[916] Well, that's kind of a funny one, though, because I don't think we want to feel like we're the best that we could possibly be for our partners and with our partners, right?

[917] Exactly.

[918] Yeah.

[919] What I've learned from all those couples and all those studies is what is possible.

[920] I mean, I've seen so many couples come together and create this bond that some of them had never even seen this bond.

[921] They didn't even know it was possible.

[922] And they come together and they grow each other.

[923] And it's like, we didn't know that you could do this.

[924] And somehow it still drives me crazy that in this modern world, from my point of view, we've cracked the code of romantic love.

[925] This is attachment science.

[926] We know what happens.

[927] We know how people get stuck.

[928] We know what creates relationships.

[929] And it still drives me crazy somehow that this isn't on the front of the New York Times.

[930] I remember talking to some New York journalist.

[931] And they wanted me to do some funny article on some crazy topic.

[932] And I lost my call and said, I want to know why you don't have it all over your damn newspaper.

[933] Hey, love isn't a mystery.

[934] Hey, we can do it.

[935] We know how to do it.

[936] Can I guess while you were angry and you cracked?

[937] Sure.

[938] some skeptical side of you knew that a solution would end their job the perpetuation of this mystery is what sells everything it's a trip to kay's jeweler that'll fix it it's this restaurant it's this holiday you have to have some skepticism that by actually acknowledging what the path is it dismantles about 80 fucking industries and probably 30 % of what's in the paper hey jacks you're more cynical limit me. I didn't go there.

[939] But maybe intuitively your frustration was you guys, you're going to come at this from 80 different angles.

[940] There's going to be an article every week about getting flowers, doing this, when you could just print this and you're not doing it.

[941] You know, it's quite interesting because the way Hold Me Tight came into being was that before COVID, I used to dance Argentine tango.

[942] Argentine tango is all about tuning into another human being and reading their cues and then listening to the emotional music together and allowing the process to take you somewhere.

[943] Okay, so it's quite a trip.

[944] So I used to go to my tango lessons.

[945] I used to walk through the big bookstore in Ottawa.

[946] And I used to walk past the relationship section.

[947] And I used to walk past, I used to go, look at that.

[948] I've never seen such crap in all my, oh, my God.

[949] Then one day I'm walking through, and another part of me says, well, hey, Johnson, get over yourself.

[950] If you think all this stuff is nonsense, why don't you write up all this stuff you've been doing for the public?

[951] Well, I don't know how to do that because I write academic articles.

[952] And then my other brain said, well, tough.

[953] Then you don't walk through here and point and all those other ones.

[954] So it took me four years to figure out how to write, hold me tight.

[955] It's blowing my mind what's happened to that book.

[956] And there's all kinds of programs that come out of it.

[957] One of the ones I'm proudest of is that at the huge hospital in office, Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada, the huge heart hospital.

[958] Some of the cardiologists came and said, what we notice is that the patients who say they're not close to their wives and they're distressed, they're much more likely to have another heart attack because they don't take them as they don't go to the gym, they don't take care of themselves, they don't share.

[959] And what we notice is that the couples are distressed so they get more distressed after heart attack.

[960] If they can't connect around the vulnerability, it drives them apart, right?

[961] Yeah.

[962] And then you're alone and then you're more vulnerable.

[963] And they said, will you do this program?

[964] Well, half of the cardiologists were mad.

[965] They said, this is ridiculous.

[966] I don't care about my patient's relationships.

[967] I want them to go to the gym.

[968] I said, well, we could come in and take this book and turn it into a program for you guys.

[969] The guys who didn't want us there said, nobody wants to do that.

[970] Well, we put it up in the hospital and it was full by the evening it was up.

[971] And we started doing them.

[972] And now we have a huge for Canada research grant to look at the results.

[973] Because even the cardiologist started to say, my patient's going to the gym and his blood pressure is down and his cholesterol's lower because he's eating.

[974] Oh, you know, he's off his antidepressants.

[975] So I'm so proud of healing hearts together, which came from Hold Me Tight.

[976] And I'm so proud because my whole hometown when I was a child was a naval town.

[977] The U .S. military and the Canadian military use our program, our Hold Me Tight Online program and our book.

[978] And hopefully this workbook for their soldiers and their partners, that makes me feel really, really proud.

[979] Yeah, as it should.

[980] By the way, it's so obvious how that heart thing would fall immediately into this demand -withdraw paradigm, which is instead of seeing someone's efforts as help, it would be seen as reminding you of your failures.

[981] That's perfect.

[982] I worked with a couple where she had said to him, you've got too much wine in your glass.

[983] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[984] And he blew up and said, are you going to remind me every minute of the fact that I had a heart attack at 60 and men aren't supposed to have heart attacks at 60 and I'm not the man I was?

[985] Is that what you're going to do?

[986] What are you talking about?

[987] But this matters because he's got a new heart in his chest.

[988] Yeah.

[989] He storms out of the house in the middle of night without his cell phone by himself.

[990] I hasn't taken his meds.

[991] He drives around all night in a rural area.

[992] without his nitroglycerin, and he's gone all night, and then he comes back and he misses all his appointments the next day.

[993] That was classic, classic, right?

[994] And when they started to deal with his heart problem together, that all changed.

[995] And when you show people the possibility, real connection with another human being is more magical, more essential, more incredible than anything that Disney ever came, up with and it always will be and this is how you do it and like duh you know come on people we should teach people this shouldn't we yes that's a great summation i really truly encourage people to get the hold me tight workbook a couple's guide for a lifetime of love because like i said it's such a little ask i guarantee if you sit down you start reading through these questions you're going to start identifying immediately with these patterns you're doing it to Together, it's we, we're going to learn about this.

[996] Whatever member of this duo suggest this book, I would lead with, I'm curious for me and for us, not you need to learn this.

[997] Yeah, yeah, shall we?

[998] Yeah.

[999] Yeah, shall we check this out?

[1000] Again, there's also a magic in it that exists in AA, I'll just say, which is it's depersonalized because it's on this piece of paper and these statements exist from someone else.

[1001] and you're free to just identify, not to even generate them, just to identify.

[1002] And that's so powerful.

[1003] And it's about us all.

[1004] Yes, we're different, we're different, but we're not.

[1005] We all have the same longings.

[1006] We all have the same fears.

[1007] We all get stuck.

[1008] We all mess up because we're scared, and so we either numb out or we get angry.

[1009] This is about us all.

[1010] It's not about somebody's admitting that there's something wrong with them.

[1011] It's not about learning cognitive skills.

[1012] It's about connecting with your humanity.

[1013] It's about connecting with what's common to all of us.

[1014] And that's what I learned at the pub.

[1015] You know, I learned it on some very basic level.

[1016] We're all the same.

[1017] We need to hold each other.

[1018] Yeah.

[1019] Dr. Sue, I really enjoyed this tremendously.

[1020] You guys are fun.

[1021] You're fun.

[1022] Thank you.

[1023] Thank you.

[1024] This is great.

[1025] Do you ever get told you've got a Meryl Street vibe?

[1026] I do.

[1027] And I don't have a...

[1028] Dan, what you're talking about, I feel very flattered.

[1029] Well, you don't need to understand, just the viewer needs to understand.

[1030] I might prefer somebody amazingly sexy and live and all the things I'm not.

[1031] Funny enough, the other vibes I was getting was Scarlett Johansson.

[1032] So it's like kind of a mashup between Scarlet Johans and Merrill Street.

[1033] Oh, okay.

[1034] You wanted it, but now you're too flustered when you got it.

[1035] I know.

[1036] Yeah, I can't.

[1037] Yeah, all right.

[1038] Jolly Go.

[1039] Lovely, lovely, lovely to talk to you guys.

[1040] Thank you so much for inviting me. I appreciate you.

[1041] Oh, us too.

[1042] It's been a real pleasure.

[1043] Bye.

[1044] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1045] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1046] Do do, do, do.

[1047] Okay, do.

[1048] Do they sleep in the same bed when they're at your house?

[1049] No, I think someone's staying on the couch.

[1050] Okay, probably Neil.

[1051] I hope.

[1052] I would hope that your dad's in the bed.

[1053] Me too.

[1054] And I also put out an air mattress in case that was more appealing than the couch.

[1055] Than the couch.

[1056] Yeah.

[1057] What would you pick?

[1058] Couch?

[1059] I said air mattress, but I think couch was going to be what happened.

[1060] The preferred method.

[1061] Yeah.

[1062] Okay.

[1063] I'll tell you, Aaron and I fucking loved living there.

[1064] It's a good apartment.

[1065] It's one of my favorite memories of Aaron and I living there for a week.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] God, was it fun.

[1068] Was he on the couch?

[1069] He must have been.

[1070] I can't even remember.

[1071] Or the air mattress.

[1072] No, I think he was in the couch.

[1073] But Aaron's also a lifelong couch sleeper.

[1074] Right.

[1075] I don't do well on a couch.

[1076] My back is destroyed if I sleep on a couch.

[1077] And they're rarely long enough for me, too.

[1078] Yeah, I could see that being a big problem.

[1079] Like even though when you sit atop right now, I'll occasionally.

[1080] When I'm in here riding, I'll go, oh, I'll take a 20 minute nap on there.

[1081] And the crown of my head is pushed into the armrest and my heels are pushed into the other armrest.

[1082] Wow.

[1083] It's not comfy.

[1084] Yeah, I'm just about an inch longer than that couch.

[1085] I can really lay down on this couch.

[1086] You could ride around.

[1087] Let me show you.

[1088] Let's do a little demonstration.

[1089] Isn't there a bed in there, too?

[1090] There is.

[1091] It seems crazy to pull the bed up for a nap, though.

[1092] Oh, my God.

[1093] Too much space.

[1094] Wow, you look so much.

[1095] comfortable.

[1096] I'm really comfortable.

[1097] Night, night, money.

[1098] And it's time for bed.

[1099] Bed time for baby.

[1100] Oops.

[1101] Yeah.

[1102] So my dad and my brother at my apartment.

[1103] Well, right now they're at, they're at a tailgate.

[1104] The tailgate's already begun, do you think?

[1105] It started at 1230.

[1106] Oh, my God, they're hammered.

[1107] Probably.

[1108] Oh, great.

[1109] I'm so jealous.

[1110] Are they in rain gear?

[1111] They brought umbrellas, but I'm there.

[1112] It's hard to party with an umbrella, isn't it?

[1113] I know.

[1114] I hope that the tailgate probably is some tense would be my guess.

[1115] Yeah, you got to assume.

[1116] And then thank God the stadium is covered.

[1117] But I have a good karma story.

[1118] Oh, wonderful.

[1119] So they got in yesterday and my brother was like, this girl next to me had a voucher or something, had like free drinks for the whole flight.

[1120] Oh, unlimited drinks?

[1121] Yeah, I don't know how she got that.

[1122] So she was getting my brother drinks.

[1123] Oh, wonderful.

[1124] What are what kind he was having?

[1125] Jack and Cokes.

[1126] That's he what he drank?

[1127] I guess he said.

[1128] Oh, he and I could have partied.

[1129] You could have.

[1130] Yeah, he said he had like four Jack and Cokes.

[1131] Oh, good.

[1132] I know.

[1133] He didn't seem drunk even, so I was happy.

[1134] He can hold his liquor.

[1135] He's a Padman.

[1136] Yeah, exactly.

[1137] Was your dad slamming two?

[1138] Were they seated together?

[1139] Okay, so this is part of it.

[1140] Oh.

[1141] So their seats were booked an aisle and another aisle, but next to each other, right?

[1142] Right.

[1143] Because no one wants a middle seat, right?

[1144] Oh, that's smart.

[1145] I would have thought like, oh, maybe I'll put one in the window, one on the aisle, hope no one's in the middle, but that's too risky.

[1146] Too risky.

[1147] You go aisle, aisle, you're certain they'll be next to each other.

[1148] Exactly.

[1149] Clever.

[1150] And it was a really booked up flight, so there weren't that many options.

[1151] So the guy sitting next to my dad asked Neil if he could switch because his wife was sitting.

[1152] Oh, my middle seat for an aisle?

[1153] So at first, he said, hey, do you think?

[1154] I think I could sit there.

[1155] We could switch.

[1156] That's my wife.

[1157] And then Neil said, where's your seat?

[1158] And then he pointed to the aisle.

[1159] Oh.

[1160] So then my brother was like, okay.

[1161] I mean, that's like separating my dad in him.

[1162] But he was like, that's fine.

[1163] Whatever.

[1164] So he sits in that seat.

[1165] And then this girl came up and was like, oh, that's my seat.

[1166] And then the guy was like, oh, I guess that was my seat.

[1167] The middle.

[1168] I know.

[1169] I was like, that's really fucking.

[1170] up.

[1171] That's unethical.

[1172] And you can't ask, if you're a middle seat, you're stuck.

[1173] Unless it's with another middle seat.

[1174] Exactly.

[1175] So my brother was kind of like, but he, you know, he did it.

[1176] And then he got good, yes.

[1177] Then the girl and him talked to the whole flight and just serving him.

[1178] I hope my dad was like, yeah, she was a nice girl.

[1179] Like as if like he was like, yeah.

[1180] Do you think she's going to come to Christmas?

[1181] Maybe.

[1182] See, I don't know.

[1183] Well, he said she was 30, and then I said, well, that's great.

[1184] And he was like, women don't like younger men.

[1185] And I was like, that's true.

[1186] But there's a lot of women married.

[1187] We just interviewed someone who was married to someone like 12.

[1188] Gabrielle Union.

[1189] Yeah.

[1190] An NBA player.

[1191] I guess all he needs to do is become an NBA player.

[1192] Yeah, world class NBA player.

[1193] Become Dwayne Wade.

[1194] By the way, did you see the picture of him in his gold suit with no shirt on?

[1195] No. It's worth me. I'm gonna I can look it up Yeah look it up You're gonna have a raging boner It's incredible He's so that He's so fine Couple is the most beautiful Couple I've ever seen I'm gonna look at it too Even though I've already seen it Oh Wow Can you even believe Wow Yeah he's so hot Look at his nice feet Oh I I passed those I went straight to his abs.

[1196] It's hard to have abs like that when you're sitting down in a chair.

[1197] I like looking at zooming on all the parts.

[1198] Yeah, sure.

[1199] You got to take it one piece at a time.

[1200] Anywho.

[1201] That's a nice sidebar, right?

[1202] Yeah, it was.

[1203] So that was good karma for him.

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] She might come to Christmas.

[1206] Oh, my God.

[1207] They didn't exchange numbers or anything.

[1208] Instagrams.

[1209] They did?

[1210] Mm -hmm.

[1211] Wait, is she single?

[1212] I don't know.

[1213] I'm excited about it.

[1214] Me too.

[1215] There's a love connection.

[1216] at 30 ,000 p. Meek Q. That's a meet cute.

[1217] Big time.

[1218] Yeah, what if they would have joined the Mile High Club together?

[1219] I don't want to hear.

[1220] I don't like that.

[1221] I mean, I do in theory, but I don't need details about that.

[1222] Also, a Mile High Club on a daytime flight is very unlikely.

[1223] There's going to be a lot of traffic.

[1224] You do the Mile High Clye on a Red, Mile High Clive.

[1225] A Mile High Club on a Red Eye.

[1226] Oh.

[1227] And nobody in there.

[1228] Everyone's asleep.

[1229] Oh, that makes sense.

[1230] Yeah.

[1231] It's just disgusting.

[1232] It's to be missed.

[1233] I can't believe you're saying that.

[1234] I know.

[1235] That says everything.

[1236] I'm fucking an outhouse.

[1237] Like, it's rough.

[1238] So they're in the rain at a tailgate right now.

[1239] The game is in two and a half hours.

[1240] Whoa.

[1241] Well, no. Monica, the game's over.

[1242] Oh, it already happened.

[1243] You're a champion.

[1244] You're a world team.

[1245] Oh, I don't know how to do this.

[1246] I don't either.

[1247] Roll tide.

[1248] No. No, yeah, because that's what's been working.

[1249] How dare you?

[1250] Don't you dare.

[1251] Someone got on the speaker and said, Go dogs.

[1252] Do you remember that story?

[1253] Wait, they did?

[1254] Oh, that's great.

[1255] A bunch of Georgians.

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] Do you remember when we interviewed T .I. Uh -huh.

[1258] And he had rescued a guy who jumped off like the fifth floor balcony of a hotel.

[1259] No, no, no. He was threatening to.

[1260] He was threatening to, right?

[1261] A guy from like Nickelback, right?

[1262] Some band, you know, a nickelback type band.

[1263] Did he actually jump?

[1264] I don't remember.

[1265] I think he jumped.

[1266] Really?

[1267] And I think.

[1268] He walked by.

[1269] I think T .I. came to his rescue.

[1270] Or he fell or jumped.

[1271] And the guy was on the ground and he yelled Roll Tide.

[1272] Don't you remember that far?

[1273] Wait.

[1274] Wait.

[1275] I don't.

[1276] I do now.

[1277] Because T .I. I was wearing a Georgia hat.

[1278] And so this dude all fucked up was like, Roll Tide.

[1279] I swear that's how the story went.

[1280] Maybe he was wearing like an Atlanta hat.

[1281] So it probably had an A. Okay.

[1282] Or he was just fucking with him because he's a Roll Tide guy.

[1283] And in his delirium.

[1284] It was the singer from Creed, Scott Stapp.

[1285] There you go.

[1286] He helped police persuade a man not to jump off the roof.

[1287] Oh, you're right.

[1288] Not to jump.

[1289] No, that's a separate thing.

[1290] The separate?

[1291] Yeah, in downtown Atlanta, he intervened with a guy that was going to commit suicide.

[1292] That's one thing.

[1293] Then another thing is he was somewhere in this, in the guy fell out of the balcony, the Creed guy or the, whatever you just said.

[1294] Creed, yeah.

[1295] Scott Stap.

[1296] We need to go back and listen.

[1297] Yeah, I don't know.

[1298] Anywho, that's a bad time to be pulling out rival talk.

[1299] And also really funny.

[1300] Like, you're dying from falling off of a thing.

[1301] That's real loyalty to your team.

[1302] It really is.

[1303] And a real good sense of humor.

[1304] Can you see a guy from a rival team and you're embarrassed?

[1305] You've just fallen out and or jumped out.

[1306] And you're on the ground.

[1307] You go, roll tide.

[1308] Oh, my God.

[1309] I think he misunderstood the hat.

[1310] That's possible.

[1311] Well, that was like when DeCastro, who almost beat me at go carts the other day, he delivered a knockout joke.

[1312] Oh.

[1313] In the worst possible scenario.

[1314] What happened?

[1315] Well, you know, remember he was famously driven over by Tom Seismore.

[1316] Yes.

[1317] On a set.

[1318] Yes.

[1319] Should have never happened.

[1320] And drug by a car.

[1321] Earlier in the day, he was talking to stunt coordinator.

[1322] And they were debating because DeCastro was a black belt in jujitsu.

[1323] Yeah.

[1324] And the stunt coordinator was a boxer.

[1325] and he was razz and Steve that he could take him.

[1326] Oh.

[1327] And he said, well, you know, all this jihadism is not going to matter when I knock you out.

[1328] And DeCaster goes, yeah, I'm pretty hard to knock out.

[1329] He said that earlier in the day.

[1330] Now DeCastro is trapped under a car.

[1331] I mean, he is as fucked up as you can get.

[1332] His arms broken.

[1333] His ribs are broken.

[1334] His heads tore open.

[1335] He's like, it is gnarly.

[1336] The stunt coordinator runs, gets under the car to see if he's alive.

[1337] Yeah.

[1338] He's like, oh, my God, Steve, are you okay?

[1339] Steve goes, told you it was hard to knock out.

[1340] Oh, shit.

[1341] I mean, that's hot.

[1342] It is hot.

[1343] Yeah.

[1344] And talk about a commitment to lighten the mood.

[1345] Like, you know how panic everyone is?

[1346] That's, I like that.

[1347] You know a little horny?

[1348] I don't want to talk about it.

[1349] Okay.

[1350] So I'm thinking of Roll Tide as being a little bit in that vein.

[1351] I see.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] Like maybe they had just lost.

[1354] I don't know.

[1355] Now I'm making up a lot of backstory.

[1356] You really are.

[1357] Yeah.

[1358] Did you get to the bottom of it?

[1359] Yeah, Rob?

[1360] No, I gave up.

[1361] I gave off.

[1362] I threw in the towel.

[1363] Decided not to participate.

[1364] Who's this about?

[1365] Sue Johnson.

[1366] Yes, she has beautiful messages.

[1367] Yeah.

[1368] Yeah, I really like that.

[1369] Harmony.

[1370] Harmony, yes.

[1371] Let's see.

[1372] What did you do this weekend?

[1373] Not that much.

[1374] I just baked a stew.

[1375] I quartered a chicken.

[1376] I fell off a roof.

[1377] No, but I. Remember you end done?

[1378] Oh, by update.

[1379] Yeah.

[1380] No, go ahead.

[1381] You're about to sponge.

[1382] No, go ahead.

[1383] I love Wednesday.

[1384] It's the best.

[1385] I love it.

[1386] And I'm obsessed now with that actor, and we need to get her on.

[1387] Jenna Ortega.

[1388] Wow.

[1389] She's going to be the biggest star in the world.

[1390] Well, she's really big.

[1391] She is already.

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] But I mean, she's going to be the lead of these great movies and stuff.

[1394] That's all on the horizon.

[1395] It's very obvious.

[1396] Yeah, she's fantastic.

[1397] So fun to watch.

[1398] She's 20.

[1399] She is?

[1400] Yeah, she's so young.

[1401] Yeah.

[1402] Sky is the limit.

[1403] Whole life.

[1404] in front of us and she's a fashion icon is she yeah like she's one to watch in fashion okay because my prediction was there's going to be a huge revival of goth i made that prediction episode two i'm like every young girl's going to start dressing like wednesday how could they not that's going to be great oh it's not for me wednesday looks so cool i know but the striped black and white shirt i want it okay we'll get it you know i've just never liked goth like goth like it's because you're a good girl You're cheerleaders.

[1405] No, that's not why.

[1406] Great colors.

[1407] Don't do, don't make me the enemy.

[1408] I'm not.

[1409] I'm just saying.

[1410] But golfs and cheerleaders were on different sides of the aisle.

[1411] Well, because to me, goth was trying.

[1412] But there's going to be a version of golf now that's not linked to depression and Depeche mode.

[1413] The band.

[1414] Okay.

[1415] There's going to be like a new, fun, sexy golf thing that's not the train.

[1416] French coat mafia.

[1417] I don't like this idea that happiness is not cool.

[1418] But that's what I'm saying.

[1419] It's going to be the style without the theme.

[1420] Don't you think that's like baked in?

[1421] That's what it is.

[1422] No, it's adjacent to like 60s French mod or not French, English mod, which is it wasn't, didn't have the gothic connotations.

[1423] Okay.

[1424] There's a lot of black and white and boots and.

[1425] Okay, that's black and white is so different.

[1426] Right.

[1427] That we can't.

[1428] That's not goth at all.

[1429] Or whatever Wednesday style is it, you don't want to have to call it.

[1430] It's God.

[1431] It is.

[1432] Okay.

[1433] Good.

[1434] No, that's right.

[1435] That's going to be huge.

[1436] But hers is, is not baked in happiness.

[1437] That's her full character.

[1438] It's going to bust right out of that now.

[1439] Mark my words.

[1440] Okay.

[1441] One year from now we're going to be talking.

[1442] You know so much more about fashion than I do.

[1443] Yeah.

[1444] I always have and I always will.

[1445] Yeah.

[1446] We all know this.

[1447] My box water.

[1448] This right here.

[1449] Look at it.

[1450] It's already Wednesday.

[1451] Okay.

[1452] Look at it.

[1453] It's simple.

[1454] It's just black and white.

[1455] I love black and white.

[1456] That's kind of like New York style often.

[1457] It's very minimal black.

[1458] Black and white, God.

[1459] But that's not, nope, it's not God at all.

[1460] Although, well, New York City is always called Gotham in the comics.

[1461] What are you going to do with that piece of narration?

[1462] You're right.

[1463] Mm -hmm.

[1464] Thank you.

[1465] You are right.

[1466] That man defends Gotham.

[1467] He does.

[1468] Yeah.

[1469] Sometimes it's Chicago, though.

[1470] Sometimes Gotham is Chicago?

[1471] Well, they shot a lot of, like, Batman in.

[1472] Okay, Rob.

[1473] Oh, God.

[1474] Everyone's got their pet project.

[1475] Yours is like hating Alabama.

[1476] Yours is Chicago.

[1477] Mine is goth, I guess.

[1478] I guess.

[1479] I mean, I could also see you defending Goths because you were punk.

[1480] They were adjacent to punk.

[1481] But I wasn't into goth, like, being melancholy.

[1482] Right.

[1483] My punk rock was like most of them were straight edge.

[1484] A lot of them were vegan before that was a thing.

[1485] Yeah.

[1486] They're politically active visiting the murderer in Chicago.

[1487] Ding, ding, ding, ding.

[1488] Who is the clown?

[1489] Bozo?

[1490] Gasey.

[1491] Yeah, John Wayne Gacy.

[1492] That was like a thing.

[1493] A lot of punks in that scene were making pilgrimages to go see John and Gacy in prison.

[1494] He was a clown?

[1495] He dressed as a clown when he killed little boys.

[1496] Yeah.

[1497] Wait, what?

[1498] And he buried him in his basement.

[1499] John Wayne Gacey, very famous.

[1500] He's up there.

[1501] You don't know John Wayne Gasey?

[1502] He's up there with Donald.

[1503] He's like one of the most famous, yeah, and he would volunteer at all these different youth things, and he was a pedophile.

[1504] But he's also, he likes young men.

[1505] So any young man, he'd see anyone in prison while he's still alive, if you were a boy.

[1506] No. Oh, yeah.

[1507] So a lot of different punks I knew would go in.

[1508] Visit?

[1509] Yes, go see him.

[1510] Why?

[1511] For the story.

[1512] Oh.

[1513] Yeah.

[1514] I mean, he's already in prison.

[1515] They're not condoning his murder.

[1516] They're just like, it's a wild experience.

[1517] Okay, so she said, we talked about Christmas at the front of it.

[1518] And she was saying how California isn't really Christmassy.

[1519] Right.

[1520] She had some.

[1521] I understand.

[1522] Yeah, people hate California.

[1523] What do you go?

[1524] Well, no, I think.

[1525] They're always coming for us.

[1526] I get it because I feel that about Australia.

[1527] Like, it's summer at Christmas.

[1528] I don't understand that.

[1529] That is really weird.

[1530] Let's go to the beach, Mike.

[1531] Yeah.

[1532] And then what?

[1533] Like, I guess what I wonder is...

[1534] Let's throw a shrimp on the tree.

[1535] When they go to Target, is the imagery still of snow and...

[1536] Like, is it like little Santa's in snow?

[1537] Great question.

[1538] Or is Santa in a swimwear?

[1539] Exactly.

[1540] With a big round belly.

[1541] I know.

[1542] I want to know.

[1543] Jiggle, jiggle.

[1544] But he still lives in the North Pole, Santa.

[1545] So maybe you still see the snow.

[1546] Yeah, that would make sense.

[1547] But it's confusing.

[1548] I've asked David that.

[1549] He said he's normally at the beach.

[1550] He is?

[1551] Yeah.

[1552] They're like New Zealand.

[1553] Christmas stuff.

[1554] Santa's at the beach.

[1555] Oh.

[1556] That's so weird.

[1557] Wow.

[1558] Surf's up, Santa.

[1559] Is he in his Santa outfit, though?

[1560] I didn't get that specific.

[1561] Do you think there's a lot of shirts that is like Santa holding a surfboard and it says Hang 10 surfs up Santa?

[1562] Maybe.

[1563] Okay, marriage rates in 1950 versus now.

[1564] 70 years ago, a large majority of U .S. households, approximately 80 % were made up of married couples.

[1565] In 2020, the proportion of households consisting of married couples fell to 49%.

[1566] Oh my gosh, almost half.

[1567] Yeah.

[1568] Some of the major factors behind the long -term decline in the marriage rate have been female education and labor force participation, women's economic independence and gender equality.

[1569] America is always experiencing growing numbers of women and men living alone, as well as increasing unmarried cohabitation.

[1570] In addition to the 15 % of the U .S. adults living alone, no less than one quarter of those age 25 to 34 are living with an unmarried partner.

[1571] Can you believe you're out of that demographic now?

[1572] Did that just sting a little bit?

[1573] I didn't catch it, but thank you.

[1574] But yeah, I sure am.

[1575] Yeah, I'm starting to leave demographics and it's crazy.

[1576] Like even the main TV demographic, I think, is 18 to 49.

[1577] Isn't that what it is?

[1578] Oh, I think.

[1579] Like whenever I say your share and I go, well, it's the only thing that they care.

[1580] Yeah, the demo is, I think, 18 to 49.

[1581] I've got like two years left.

[1582] I got to vote with my dollar wallet counts because they'll stop monitoring me here shortly.

[1583] You're right.

[1584] American attitudes about childbearing and marriage have also changed markedly.

[1585] For example, whereas in 2006, about half of U .S. adults said it was very important for couples having children together to legally marry.

[1586] By 2020, that proportion had fallen to 29%.

[1587] From what percent?

[1588] 50 percent.

[1589] Okay, yeah.

[1590] Today, the proportion of U .S. births to unmarried mothers is about 40 percent, double the percentage in 1980.

[1591] Mm. Yeah.

[1592] Yes, so we're clearly on a trajectory.

[1593] It'll be interesting to see in 100 years what the results of the trajectory were.

[1594] It will be.

[1595] Yeah, I'm quite curious about it.

[1596] I won't live to see it.

[1597] Although I did read an interesting, you know, occasionally I'll do my Apple News.

[1598] Do you ever follow?

[1599] Very rarely, but yeah.

[1600] Very rarely, only on the toilet.

[1601] But it's like when I'm not interested in Instagram, so I check that out.

[1602] And I read an article in the National Geographic yesterday.

[1603] I almost thought we should get the journalists on because it was all about aging and the breakthroughs that are happening.

[1604] Ooh.

[1605] You know, I might live long enough to see.

[1606] Oh, really?

[1607] Things are happening.

[1608] 300?

[1609] Well, they're saying like 125.

[1610] Wow.

[1611] But like healthfully?

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] Yeah.

[1614] Part of it is like kind of arresting the aging process.

[1615] Wow.

[1616] And so, you know, I already know I'm more than halfway through life, which is a very bizarre thing that you're still.

[1617] Not necessarily.

[1618] Not necessarily, but odds are, you know, 96.

[1619] That would be an eternity for me to hit 96, especially given genealogical history.

[1620] Knock on.

[1621] So I'm pretty mentally prepared that I'm already on, you know, the back half and less than the back half, you know.

[1622] And then I was like, well, hold on.

[1623] And if I lived a 125, I'm like only a third of the way through.

[1624] That's exciting.

[1625] Yeah, that was like, whoa, I went from like, I'm 60 % in the way through to maybe a 30 % of the way through.

[1626] That's enormous.

[1627] I was like, I got to go back to work.

[1628] I was only planning to have money until I was like, you know, 85, but now I got to think about.

[1629] I think you'll be all right.

[1630] But that's interesting.

[1631] Yeah, it's interesting.

[1632] And by the way, this is a reputable.

[1633] This is National Geographic.

[1634] This is no bullshit.

[1635] This is a dot -org.

[1636] It wasn't inquirer or something.

[1637] Yeah.

[1638] Or whoever said I'm in the hen pack -to -pack.

[1639] Right.

[1640] They all keep using like 10 years out.

[1641] If we arrest my aging at 58, that's not terrible.

[1642] No. I'm okay with that.

[1643] You'll be arrested at 45.

[1644] That's ideal.

[1645] Yeah.

[1646] Wow.

[1647] Yeah.

[1648] It's three years ago for me. Yeah.

[1649] I think it made me three years ago.

[1650] I was virile.

[1651] I know.

[1652] That's what I mean.

[1653] Yeah.

[1654] It was ideal.

[1655] That would have been great.

[1656] I wish I could have arrested it then.

[1657] Then I was having the fantasy.

[1658] So what they can do in mice, which is insane.

[1659] Yeah.

[1660] They can make mice rapidly age or they can stop their aging and they can erase their aging, which is insane.

[1661] Wait.

[1662] Oh, go back in time.

[1663] You're going to be a baby?

[1664] Well, okay, great.

[1665] Great point, Rob.

[1666] So initially when they were doing the.

[1667] trials, that was the problem.

[1668] They would erase it so far that their organs would start growing like they were a baby and they would get acromegaly really quick.

[1669] So they had to figure out how to erase it specifically.

[1670] And they have done that in mice.

[1671] So then I was thinking like, okay, let's say I could go back to an age.

[1672] A, would I want to do that?

[1673] 12.

[1674] 7th grade.

[1675] And enroll at Muir Jr. Yeah.

[1676] Oh, my God.

[1677] This is ethically, what do we do about that?

[1678] What if somebody does go back to 12?

[1679] A pervert?

[1680] Yeah, but actually they're 50.

[1681] But what if they're fucking a 12 year old that's 70?

[1682] Now it's even murgier.

[1683] Right.

[1684] But you know what I mean?

[1685] I do know what you mean.

[1686] Pedophiles undercover.

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] Yeah.

[1689] But if the pedophiles undercover in there, I mean, sex with another pedophile under cover, like, so it's a 7 -year -old woman as a 12 -year -old and a 65 -year -year -old man is a 12 year old.

[1690] Now we're in a fun Jonathan Hyde world.

[1691] I think either way it's fun.

[1692] Because even if it's a regular 12 year old who hasn't done anything with their age Oh right.

[1693] And then there's a Their boyfriend's 12 but he's 65.

[1694] Right, but is he 65?

[1695] Like is his brain?

[1696] Yeah, he's been alive for 65 years and he has memories of 6.

[1697] Yeah, it doesn't erase your memory.

[1698] Right, and your brain.

[1699] It's just your physicality.

[1700] Yeah.

[1701] Oh my God.

[1702] What a good sci -fi movie.

[1703] Wow.

[1704] then I started thinking this is all in the toilet it's amazing I don't have hemorrhoids I'm on there for so long thinking No I've never had a hemorrhoid I thought you said you had one I had an anal fissure once I had an anal fissure which is a tear up in your asshole well not on the asshole in the rectum I made a couple inches up oh it's the worst they're very hard to heal you have to basically not poo which you have to poo especially you have to poo You're in your metamuse.

[1705] We're in the weeds.

[1706] This is pre -metamusal.

[1707] I should have been on menomusil.

[1708] Probably would never have had a fissure.

[1709] Oh, wow.

[1710] It was when I was, God, here we go.

[1711] It was when I, now we're really talking about my fissure.

[1712] That's what my exasperation was.

[1713] It was when I had done one in Rome and I had to get in crazy shape.

[1714] And I was eating virtually just protein.

[1715] Right.

[1716] Which meant my stool.

[1717] Oof.

[1718] Not loose.

[1719] Had the density of an anvil.

[1720] Ah.

[1721] And I gave myself.

[1722] fissure okay how many uh i don't know it was a rough ride it was this was a three -month ordeal oh yeah it was it was gnarly i actually went to the doctor which you know me i won't go yeah what do they do for that after a couple put put their nose up my ass i mean not their nose but you know they're sniffing around it ew fingers and looking and stuff and that's he's a yeah you have a fissure he saw the tear in my i was bent over like what did he how do you fix it he can't fix He just diagnosed it.

[1723] That's the worst kind.

[1724] Yeah, totally.

[1725] Anyways, I got through that.

[1726] That was decades ago.

[1727] But then I was like, would I want to go back to a younger age?

[1728] What do you think I should do?

[1729] No, I don't want to do.

[1730] Do you think I should go back to 35?

[1731] No, I think that's weird.

[1732] I do too.

[1733] I think you should just stop when it happens.

[1734] Yeah.

[1735] What about going back?

[1736] I might go back five years.

[1737] Actually, I'd like to go back.

[1738] Oh, there we go.

[1739] Now you got the wheels turning.

[1740] What age are you going back to?

[1741] High Flyer?

[1742] No, no. I'll go back to 28.

[1743] Physically.

[1744] 27 or 28?

[1745] Well, 27 is what Stutz said.

[1746] I know.

[1747] I do think physically that was at my best at 27.

[1748] Although I wasn't.

[1749] I didn't, I wasn't as muscular.

[1750] Right.

[1751] I wasn't as in good shape.

[1752] 28 or 29 or 28 and a half.

[1753] 28 and three quarters.

[1754] I think that was my physical peak.

[1755] Okay.

[1756] What about you, Rob?

[1757] You're going to stay put or are you going to dial it back?

[1758] I would stay put, I think.

[1759] Yeah, you're handsome as far.

[1760] You shouldn't mess with anything.

[1761] You should just freeze whatever you.

[1762] Every time I post pictures of Robb, there's so many comments are like, whoa, Rob's a babe.

[1763] I'm like, yeah, get on the train.

[1764] Knuckleheads, he's a fucking smoke show.

[1765] Would you have considered yourself a smoke show in high school?

[1766] No. I was always very short, too.

[1767] You were short?

[1768] Oh, short.

[1769] You were a late bloomer?

[1770] Yep.

[1771] How cute.

[1772] I would have been friends with you and made sure no one stepped on you, Rob.

[1773] Did people step on you?

[1774] No. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it.

[1775] I don't remember friends with you.

[1776] I was throwing you way the fuck up in the air.

[1777] I wonder if you would have been friends with me. Of course.

[1778] You're clever.

[1779] I was friends with a lot of popular overachievers like you.

[1780] As long as someone who had a sense of humor, I was friends with him.

[1781] Right.

[1782] Like, Sassy was a cheerleader, and she got great grades, and she was popular.

[1783] But she was funny.

[1784] She liked the laughing class.

[1785] Did you like the laugh in class?

[1786] I passed notes.

[1787] There you go.

[1788] But were you a little bit of a rascal?

[1789] Like, not enough to get in trouble, but were you, like, making fun of things and...

[1790] Not to the teacher.

[1791] Like, not...

[1792] I mean, to my friends.

[1793] Right, like, you had a substitute and they had a fucking weird cowlach and they were...

[1794] Right?

[1795] Would you let them have it?

[1796] Between your friends.

[1797] Yeah, but now I'm getting...

[1798] Now you feel bad.

[1799] Yeah.

[1800] But tough shit.

[1801] This is what you do in high school.

[1802] Okay.

[1803] So if you would have been up for, you know, taking some shots.

[1804] We, you know, we would have been friends because I could have been friends with anyone in high school.

[1805] That's not what I want to hear.

[1806] Is that what you want to hear?

[1807] I could be friends with anybody.

[1808] Mine had a criteria.

[1809] You got to be clever and funny.

[1810] And if you were funny and clever, then I was friends with you.

[1811] You're not understanding.

[1812] You took that the wrong way.

[1813] I sure did.

[1814] I just saying if I wanted to be friends with someone.

[1815] You could.

[1816] So if like we were in wood shop.

[1817] Yeah.

[1818] Then yeah, we would have been friends.

[1819] You would have been my wood shop friends.

[1820] That's right.

[1821] And we would have fucked around.

[1822] Like we would have like.

[1823] shot pencils off the sander and i would have been excited to go to woodshop to hang out with you you know what i think you would have liked about me because you are a rascal and you went into comedy this guy's like living out my id like this guy's my id i get to watch him he'll say the thing and he'll do the thing i think you would have got a kick out of that because it would make you so nervous to do the stuff probably yourself but you had the thoughts but i wonder if at that time in my life i would have been like that person has no control Like because they can't stop themselves from saying the thing.

[1824] Well, I could.

[1825] I know, but then you weren't.

[1826] No, well, I just made a calculated risk.

[1827] I would argue.

[1828] Risk reward.

[1829] If me and you were talking and you were doing it, that I would like.

[1830] But then if you, like, raised your hand and then said something ridiculous, I might have been like...

[1831] What if it straight made you laugh your ass off, though?

[1832] Well, then I would probably like it.

[1833] And that's the thing, like, you know, I wasn't unaware.

[1834] I had a good track record I like you were great at assessing friends I was really good at assessing the breaking point of my teachers and I just hovered upon and then the things I said had to be funny enough that I got away with that.

[1835] I think I was a bit of a surgeon with it yeah I bet you were I'm I also got in trouble so you know I wasn't always well we were just learning but by high school I had more figured out junior I was a mess I apologized to all those teachers I was straight up disruptive right You know, I valued making Aaron happy more than any other thing.

[1836] Yeah.

[1837] But in high school, I wasn't getting thrown out of class.

[1838] Let me do.

[1839] I just want to be really clear so that you know who I was.

[1840] I remember the burnout going, fuck you.

[1841] Like, I went.

[1842] I know that.

[1843] Okay, great.

[1844] I know that.

[1845] Although sometimes I do imagine it like that.

[1846] In junior high, yeah.

[1847] But also you told a story like you were smoked by the window.

[1848] There was no teacher in that class.

[1849] I know, but like, you know, you're telling me one thing.

[1850] I'm dancing on razor place.

[1851] You are.

[1852] You are.

[1853] I don't think I can be in trouble for being confused.

[1854] Smoking pot on the way to school sometimes.

[1855] That was a tornado.

[1856] I think when I'm here, well, I hope, in fact, this is where my sensitivity comes.

[1857] What I'm telling you is I would like to have been friends with you.

[1858] Oh, I would.

[1859] Would you have wanted to be?

[1860] Yeah.

[1861] I'm telling you we'd be my wood shop friend.

[1862] Yes.

[1863] We're such good friends now.

[1864] I would think we could have a blast.

[1865] What I like to think, oh, I would have been your friend that's completely out of your friendship circle.

[1866] Mm -hmm.

[1867] And in a bunch of.

[1868] different wild stuff.

[1869] Yeah.

[1870] And that we would have been bound together by cleverness and comedy.

[1871] I'm sure.

[1872] I love that fantasy.

[1873] I think that's fun and possible.

[1874] And I ought to beat that kid up who said the thing about Dairy Queen.

[1875] Yeah, I definitely didn't have anyone ready to throw down for me. Yeah.

[1876] So that would have been a great pleasure.

[1877] You did?

[1878] No, I didn't.

[1879] There was this one guy.

[1880] everyone was so hot for him.

[1881] Okay.

[1882] And he was tall and he was kind of gangly, I think.

[1883] Dufacy like me. No, you're way more handsome.

[1884] Although I wonder what he looks like now.

[1885] I'm curious.

[1886] I bet he's gorgeous.

[1887] He might be.

[1888] He should not go back in time.

[1889] No. But I remember thinking I'm not understanding this.

[1890] Like how everyone's into this guy.

[1891] Yes, because it wasn't just everyone was into it.

[1892] huge fights over him.

[1893] Was he popular?

[1894] No, that's what's interesting.

[1895] He was like a little bit of an outlier.

[1896] He was and a little bit scary.

[1897] A rebel, rebel.

[1898] He was a rebel.

[1899] And maybe that's why I didn't understand.

[1900] Because I was like, that feels unsafe to me or something.

[1901] But it really feels unsafe because you had an opposite approach.

[1902] Yeah.

[1903] Which is like blend and blend and blend.

[1904] Of course.

[1905] What the person was doing was your nightmare.

[1906] Yeah.

[1907] But he also like drank and stuff.

[1908] And I'm getting hotter.

[1909] for him as you more you tell me about like all my friends dated you know what he drove no i don't know all my friends dated him and they all got in fights over him did other popular did football team boys want to fight him because the girls liked him and he wasn't popular that's kind of that was my my cross to bear maybe yeah i'm sure they were thinking that i don't know if they um he didn't even play football he's supposed to play football yeah his name was matt anyway but but So I bet you, you would be like him.

[1910] But then, so when he was dating all my friends, and I became friends with him because of this.

[1911] Okay.

[1912] And, you know, you're standing outside the movie theater and then you talk.

[1913] Like, I got it.

[1914] Okay.

[1915] It's like, oh, he's like, he's funny and charming.

[1916] Yeah.

[1917] What was his name?

[1918] Matt.

[1919] Good job, Matt.

[1920] Yeah.

[1921] I would love to get up day on him.

[1922] Oh, oops.

[1923] He went a little too far.

[1924] He didn't, he wasn't as good at evaluating the breaking of the critical mass. And then Wabi Wobby Wab, you and I would have been friends because you were super into bands.

[1925] And I was super into bands.

[1926] Yeah.

[1927] Yeah, I love it.

[1928] We would all have been friends.

[1929] I wonder if Wavi Wob and I would have been friends.

[1930] Nope, you guys wouldn't have been friends.

[1931] I'm sorry.

[1932] I hate to say.

[1933] Well, were you goth?

[1934] No. Not in high school, no. I thought we would have.

[1935] I was like an art kid.

[1936] Well, maybe because theater.

[1937] Like, maybe we would have crossed paths.

[1938] He wasn't in a theater.

[1939] You were you in a theater?

[1940] No, but there was crossover with it.

[1941] Yeah, sometimes there's crossovers.

[1942] Yeah, yeah.

[1943] They're outcast.

[1944] Well.

[1945] The theater kids and the art kids and the punk rock kids, those are outcasts.

[1946] Yeah, but that's so cliche.

[1947] I was straight up cliche.

[1948] I mean, any movies like Breakfast Club, that was my school to a tea.

[1949] Yeah.

[1950] Yeah, there's no jocks in art class.

[1951] I mean, we definitely had jocks, but we all, the theater, the theater, um, had all kinds, like popular kids.

[1952] Oh, wow.

[1953] Not in my.

[1954] Some indie art. It was a unifier.

[1955] Yeah, and there was this cute boy.

[1956] He was on the wrestling team.

[1957] Oh, and he was our...

[1958] And then his mom died.

[1959] And you loved that.

[1960] Yeah.

[1961] I mean, I hated it.

[1962] I know, but you loved it.

[1963] Yeah.

[1964] Because I already like, I already, and he was a couple of grades up on me. It was really funny.

[1965] Oh, my God.

[1966] And he got really sad.

[1967] And he was so sad.

[1968] Of course.

[1969] And strong.

[1970] Wrestlers are the strongest.

[1971] Those football players don't know what they're talking about.

[1972] Wrestling were the...

[1973] Actions are.

[1974] My friend Robbie was on the wrestling.

[1975] Oh, and he's in town, right?

[1976] I'd love to wrestle him.

[1977] Okay.

[1978] Tell him.

[1979] Okay, one thing.

[1980] She says that there's a line from Desperado, but I think she is mistaken.

[1981] The line that she's referring to is from Bobby McGee, Janice Joplin's song, written by Chris Christopherson.

[1982] One of the highwaymen.

[1983] The line about freedom and desperado is freedom.

[1984] That's just some people.

[1985] talking your prison is walking through this world all alone.

[1986] But this one she said is freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

[1987] Freedom just another word for another left to lose.

[1988] Nothing and a nothing around they do.

[1989] Is that from Bobby McGee?

[1990] Yeah, Bobby McGee.

[1991] Yeah.

[1992] I never heard.

[1993] You know, Christofferson had a lot of songs that he sang him and they weren't hits and then they gave them to people and they were huge hits.

[1994] Yeah, it's so weird.

[1995] Yeah, I always think, I wonder how that feels when you're a singer -songwriter.

[1996] and there never hits when you sing them.

[1997] But it's like you write it, you sing it.

[1998] It's not a hit.

[1999] Then you give it to somebody and then it's an enormous hit.

[2000] And you're like, I guess it's me. Yes, that's what you have to conclude is I guess it's me. As a singer or a performer.

[2001] Huh.

[2002] Interesting.

[2003] Now, there's obviously cases, or it goes the other way where the person's already so esteemed.

[2004] Then they give it to somebody and it's really cool.

[2005] Like Prince giving nothing compares to Sheney O 'Connor and it becoming the biggest song in the world.

[2006] He wrote it, he wrote it.

[2007] Yeah.

[2008] He did?

[2009] I didn't know that.

[2010] Yeah.

[2011] He has a version of it, too.

[2012] I would not have been friends with him in high school.

[2013] Yeah.

[2014] Yeah, I'm answering you.

[2015] I don't know if anyone could be friends with him.

[2016] I think I wouldn't have because I would have been afraid his otherness would make me look other.

[2017] Sure.

[2018] And he is so sexual.

[2019] I mean, he's the most sexual man to ever live other than Rick James.

[2020] And ironically, they hated each other.

[2021] And they two were together.

[2022] Do you think at that age he was?

[2023] Oh, yeah.

[2024] Really?

[2025] Oh, yeah.

[2026] Are you thinking about having sex with Prince?

[2027] No, I just don't know where you're at right now.

[2028] I was just thinking about all of us in high school with Prince there.

[2029] Oh, yes, wild.

[2030] Like, on a high school, you know?

[2031] What an experience.

[2032] I would love to find out who he was in high school.

[2033] Because you know, I mean, look, he was one foot tall.

[2034] Like, he was so tiny.

[2035] He was like, Robbie Rock.

[2036] He was like, no. No, no, no. He was like 96 pounds or something.

[2037] Right.

[2038] He had a full afro.

[2039] Yeah, in high school?

[2040] Yeah, he played basketball.

[2041] He put, no, wait.

[2042] At five foot tall, he played basketball.

[2043] And junior high.

[2044] Oh, in junior high.

[2045] Oh, in junior high.

[2046] Not in high school.

[2047] You got to be spud webb to be able to play at five foot in high school.

[2048] But, you know, I think a lot of people like Prince.

[2049] They make a goddamn decision at one point, right?

[2050] Like, like, um, like Machine Gun Kelly.

[2051] Yeah.

[2052] Remember, like you create.

[2053] an image and so I wonder like pre him being prince I bet it was a you know who was he and who were his parents that's curious yeah the way he sings about them they sounded addicty and stuff like but I don't I shouldn't say that I don't really know um any who uh and go dogs go dogs go wildcats too that's my high school oh yeah what was your mascot I don't want to say go Vikings.

[2054] You know, like, I loved to like, you were Vikings too.

[2055] And that was Wildcats for junior high.

[2056] Wow.

[2057] So go Wildcats, go Vikings.

[2058] Why don't you want to say it?

[2059] I mean, obviously at this point, I should be over it.

[2060] But I'm not, I don't, you're not over it.

[2061] I don't like my high school.

[2062] I mean, I was against my high school.

[2063] Love her.

[2064] Well, that's what I'm about to say.

[2065] I loved so many people I went to high school with.

[2066] I really did.

[2067] Yeah.

[2068] But I didn't like, A, I left Milford and went to Wald Lake Central.

[2069] It was much richer.

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] And yeah, it just really had the job.

[2072] prom culture I'm rooting for the Vikings I agree I'm kind of the same way Are you kind of fuck the Vikings but Yeah I it's so weird You guys are so got Like I don't have a single yearbook from High School I never got one Didn't want one I don't want to be on that yearbook I have all my junior high ones And I look at them still I just I always felt like a fish out of water there I didn't feel like I was a Viking or yeah The pep rallies I was sitting there going like oh my guy well And, you know, I participated that time.

[2073] I had that big incident.

[2074] Well, you...

[2075] Hold on.

[2076] I know.

[2077] I like what you did.

[2078] Okay.

[2079] I think you were about to say I deserved it.

[2080] No. I wasn't going to say you deserved it, but you definitely didn't deserve it.

[2081] But you did do the incident.

[2082] Well, the inciting incident was that I played Tinkerbell in the school.

[2083] like my grade's little skit.

[2084] Yeah.

[2085] Now, that should be no problem.

[2086] It shouldn't.

[2087] Me with wings on and headband on and a tutu and tights.

[2088] Yeah.

[2089] That's why I'm saying fuck those people because it was just me doing that that had the football team screaming, you fucking faggot as I ran by.

[2090] Yeah.

[2091] And then I dumped the whole bag of glitter on the football team.

[2092] And they all chased me. And it was an incident.

[2093] It was an instant.

[2094] So, yes.

[2095] So my reaction to it, I feel proud of.

[2096] Great.

[2097] Yeah, a bunch of dudes yelling at Ford at me. I'm, yeah.

[2098] But that was the environment where, like, if you played Tinkerbell in the school skit, they were going to scream.

[2099] Yeah.

[2100] That would have also happened at my school, most likely.

[2101] Yeah, probably.

[2102] I know, it's bad.

[2103] Yeah.

[2104] It's bad.

[2105] I mean, don't get me wrong.

[2106] Don't get me started.

[2107] It's bad.

[2108] Um, but.

[2109] And get real.

[2110] That's what it's like.

[2111] Kind of.

[2112] Yeah, sure.

[2113] Sure.

[2114] But that doesn't mean you have to root for them.

[2115] So we'll only root for the wildcats.

[2116] And just think, though, like, and think of, like, think of the hate I was receiving with that.

[2117] And then you just think of the kids that were hiding their homosexuality in that school and they were watching that whole thing.

[2118] Yeah.

[2119] And, like, what it confirmed exactly what they're afraid, you know.

[2120] Of course.

[2121] I am not saying everyone should like high school.

[2122] Yeah, no. And I'm not saying.

[2123] everyone should hate high school i just that to me that perfectly exemplifies the school is that experience for me yeah all the fucking jocks sitting in the front two rows yeah everyone's celebrating them we've everyone's putting on skits for them like there's kids that are going to the fucking finals for the art festival no no one gives a fuck there's people in plays there's kids in auto shop that are geniuses and yet there's these fucking 16 dodoes on roids and that's who we're celebrating i hated it yeah because they're colliding into each other on Friday night and I love football so it's complicated it's all perspective it is it is well I love you go dogs go dogs go wild cats and we'll leave it there okay great we'll stop there Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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