Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Swipeout

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Conan chats with Avril in Dublin about working in reality tv, the typical Irish dating app experience, and how Conan would market himself for online dating.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hi, Avril. Welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan. Hi. Hi, Avril.

How are you? Hi, Conan. I'm good. Thank you. Avril, what is your... You're coming to us from Ireland, is that right? Yeah. Dublin, Ireland.

Yeah. You're in Dublin. Yes, Dublin. What is your last name? Berkley. Okay. I'm just curious. I like...

That's a weird question. Oh, it's fine. And also, I'd like your phone number. And I'd like to know where you're going to be exactly in four hours. Anything. You can have any of my information. Avril, I am an internationally known creep. Yeah.

So none of this should be shocking you. Oh, no. Yeah, yes. So, Avril, lovely, lovely to meet you. And I love always speaking to people from Ireland because even though... And I've said this before, even though I've been in America, my people have for 150 years, I'm still 100% Irish. Right.

Because, yes, we just married each other. Okay. You never lost the accent. I never... I never lost the accent, no. But I'm... It's very nice to talk to you and tell us a little bit about yourself. So, I'm originally from Galway, which is west of Ireland.

I'm from a farm there. And then I moved to Dublin because you can't do... I work in film editing, so I can't really do anything with that in Galway. So, I had to move to the big city. So, Shocker, if you're on a farm in Galway, there's not a lot of film editing jobs. Weirdly, no. There's not. No.

There's like three sheep that are setting up a studio. Yeah, and they're not very good. You know, sheep are not. They don't... Their edits are very... Really sloppy. Really sloppy work. Very sloppy edits.

Yeah. So, you've... And you say you work in editing. Is that what you do? Yes. What kind of editing? What kind of work are you doing? Well, up to lately, I've been doing mostly Irish reality TV, which is a lot of building

houses. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize. So, An... Do you have Irish...

I mean, Irish reality TV is, you said, is mostly building houses? Yeah. For some reason, we have an obsession with filming the process of building a house or building... Or fixing a house. Anything to do with houses, we love it. Or we're told we love it. Well, yeah. Now, a lot of our reality shows are people hooking up sex.

Yeah. And so, what is it? Is it because Ireland, they're too repressed that all the... Every single reality show is about building a house or improving a house? Yes. We couldn't possibly tell you that we actually feel things. That's ridiculous. Avril, thank you so much for saying that because I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah. Home shows, they don't even show the bedroom. No. No, no, no. Oh, there's no bedroom. No. No. It's like, well, welcome back to the...

We're going to build another Irish home. There'll be no bedroom. Magically, there will be children's rooms, but no bedroom. Many, many children's rooms, yes. So, okay. Well, there is, I believe, a shortage of housing, especially in Dublin. It's very hard to find a place to live. There is, yeah.

I'm lucky to have a roof, so... Well, I mean, you just might be standing in a very nice phone booth for all we know. I mean, but it looks like you have... Here's what I know. Here's what I know. I know I have friends that have tried to find a place to live in Dublin and there's nothing. There is no place to live. Yep.

Incredible housing shortage right now. There's nothing. Our rental app is called Daft.ie, which is kind of ironic because it does send you Daft looking at it because it's just... Send you Daft because there's nothing available. There's nothing. It's impossible. Well, I'm glad they...

How did you find your place? How did you find this apartment that you're in? With great... I just stuck my face to that app for days, weeks on end. I found this place during the pandemic, so it was even harder back then. Right. But it's... Yeah, it's pretty impossible.

So when you get a place, you just hold on to it for your life and spend all of your money on it. You're never going to leave. No. Don't leave because some other Irish person might come in and squat. Exactly. You can't stay there. That happens all the time.

I come home and I have to shoe people out of the... out of the... Sounds like my relatives, to be honest with you. So tell me a little bit about your life. What's going on? I mean, tell us a little bit about yourself, Avril. So at the moment, I'm working most days. I'm working on a Hulu show at the moment, which is pretty cool. I mean, your social life.

My social life. Yeah. Tell us about... I mean, it can't all be work, you know? No. Yeah. Is there a... you know... Yeah.

Do you have a tick? Do I have a tick? You went... I didn't even know what that means. Is there a horse living with you? Is there a... Yeah. You know what I mean?

Is there a... Are you seeing anybody right now? Are you married? I'm just curious. These are... because this isn't a job interview, I'm allowed to ask. Yeah. Of course you are. No, there is not.

I am alone. Okay. Yeah. No, it's going pretty slowly. The old... Going slowly. ...dating life. Do people use the apps in Ireland?

I imagine they do, just like they do here in America. Yes. They do. Yes. I use them in the wrong way, though, because I look for people that I already know before. What? What? You're going on the apps for a date.

Yeah. But you exclude yourself to people you already know. Yes. Which is... Why do you do that? I just... I'm afraid of strangers. I don't...

I don't like strangers. And... Right. I feel like if I already know them, you know, I don't have to do that awkward get to know you date. I get to, like, skip to the second one. Right. You know what I mean?

Right. Sure. Yeah. What happens if on the app you express your interest in them and you already know them? And what if they don't, like, you know, reciprocate or vice versa, and then you see each other again and you're like, uh-oh. Yeah. Well, that's the trick.

You can't do that. I don't do that. I let them come to me, but if they don't come to me, then I forget about it because that's too risky. Okay. I got you. Okay, Avril. I'm going to really bore down here with some questions because, first of all, tell me what

kind of person you're looking for. What's your type? So funny, hopefully musical kind of, lots of hair. I like lots of hair on the on the head. Yeah. And just not you're like, you have to get through a lot of the same man on dating apps in Ireland. I don't know if it's the same in US, but especially in Dublin, it's just that this one guy who's

just over and over again, the same, the same guy. He's literally just one creep who keeps multiple profiles. I get what you're saying. You know what I mean? Type. It's the same type. Yeah. I got it.

The fish guy. Yeah. Well, tell us what is the type? The gym world. What is the Irish, the typical Irish guy on an app? Tell me, describe him. So we have loves sea swimming and I'm just guessing means loves to swim in the sea. Yes.

But it's a thing here and it's sea swimming and they were like, what do you mean it's a thing? So over the over the pandemic, people started doing it a lot because it was the only thing that people could do to meet other people because it was literally in the sea. And then people kept it going afterwards and they've made it their entire personality. So there are a bunch of dudes out there that are all into sea swimming. Yes. And that's fine.

But I seem to be getting the same answers every time to like the prompts on hinge. So it's like, if you're into sea swimming, we'll get along. If you like drinking Guinness, we'll get along. And I don't know if those are enough to like start a relationship. I like swimming. No, it doesn't sound. I mean, it sounds a little if a guy is saying, if you if you're asking someone essentially who are you and he says, I like to jump into the cold Irish sea.

Yeah. I like drinking Guinness. I don't know if you're hearing that again and again and again. Yeah. It's not a lot to go on. It doesn't sound like an interesting person. No, it's not. It's not a lot to go on.

So to combat that, I am. So I photoshop my head onto a picture of someone being interviewed by you on your show. And I used that. This sounds very deceitful. You took your head and you put it on the body of someone I was interviewing. Yes. And who was it? I was interviewing.

Um, body. Did you steal? It was the guy from Bill and Ted Keanu Reeves, not Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter. Yes, Alex Winter. What? What is Alex Winter's body? Why did you do that? I thought you meant it would be another woman that kind of looked like.

Yes. No. That was because that's what I don't want to trick people like genuinely trick people. But I want people to stop and go, wait a second. And they're like, oh, wait. No, she didn't. But she did this weird thing. No, but that's a real fetish out there.

Someone who's got the face of an attractive young woman and the body of Alex Winter. That's a known, I mean, I've spent a lot of time on fetish sites and that's a big one. Right. Because it doesn't exist in nature. Yeah. So it's a real hot commodity. Very, very difficult to find. Yeah.

I could only wish to have the body of Alex Winter. Well, I do. It's in the trunk of my car. I killed him weeks ago. Oh, no. Listen, that took a turn. Avril, I'm going to try and pull this together here, okay? You're living in Dublin.

You are a very funny, cool person and you've got a good job and I think you've got everything going for you and I feel that it's my mission now to find you the right person and I worry if you're old, if you're not taking any chances, if you're only talking to guys who are already your friend, I don't know. I think you're trapping yourself in the friend zone. Don't you agree so? I think, well, I think there's a reason maybe there wasn't anything romantic in the first place, right?

Yeah. So maybe if you're going back to that well, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe that's dry. Okay. So you may have to take a little bit of a risk and risk maybe a not a great first date and then there's no other date. I think you need to risk.

Bad first dates are fun. Yeah. Yeah, they can be fun. Yeah. They're a fun story. Yeah. I've had so many bad first dates. Oh, let me tell you, Sona was a disaster for years when she was working for me.

She would go on these terrible dates with these complete losers and then be humiliated and it happened again and again and again and again and again and again. Okay. Yeah, we get it. Well, I noticed when you were listing off the things that you wanted, you didn't say that he needs to have a job and that was my thing was that they didn't really have to have a job. I was all about floppy hair, music.

Yeah. In Sona's case, they couldn't have a job because they were right out of prison or currently in prison. A few of them, right? Yeah. A few of them. They would get a job. They would get a job in the prison bakery or something.

Yeah. Or laundry. But you think a prison has a bakery? Yeah. A lot of people from... Are you thinking of... ...Had a pebble penitentiary in Danbury, Connecticut. It makes a great corn muffin.

The Cinnabon is a prison's least. Are you thinking of Paddington 2? Oh, yeah. My God, I love Paddington 2. Best movie ever. Yeah. It's good. I honestly love Paddington 2.

Yeah, it's incredible. Avril, I'm telling you, you need to take some chances. I do. I'm telling, I'm your life coach right now. Oh, yeah. It's awesome. And I'm your dating coach. What if you were to go there and wingman her?

You guys go out together and you just kind of, you know, hyper up a hype man and a wingman for her. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe one of those sea swimmers is actually a cool guy. Yeah. Maybe. You know, it's just that there's like a such a row of them and just like you're flicking

through and there's just like a million of them and you can't decipher from which one is... So, they just... So, you're saying that every single man in Ireland right now pretty much has a couple of Guinness and then jumps into the ocean and swims around for a while. Yes. I'm not exaggerating. Is that reflected in other ways?

Like how they dress or talk so that you can really identify them on the street as well? Well, they're also horribly wrinkled. And they have gills. Yeah. They do. Everything is shriveled and wrinkled. Yeah. They look like...

They actually look like albino prunes walking around. Yeah. Very pruney. Very pruney. Yeah. They're very loud. Oh. Yeah.

That's tough. I'm asking a question, let's say I did walk around with you and I was your wingman and we went places. Yes. Do you think I'd be... People would punch me in the face and would it go badly for me? You know? I don't...

I don't... I'm not good with my fists and I just think there'd be a lot of Irish blokes who just came out of the sea and then they see Conan O'Brien walking in with his kooky hair and they want to take me down a peg. Well, listen, it depends on what you say. Like if you insult their swimming technique or say you don't like Guinness, then yeah, you will have to fight. I'll just say, hey prune body, why are you drinking...

Why are you drinking maple syrup instead of real beer? You know? And then I would probably preemptively try and hit them with a stick or a plate. That's a pretty good strategy. I don't think they'll expect a plate. I fight dirty. I always use any kind of utensil or kitchenware that's around me. You have a question for Conan?

I do. So if you were to go on hinge, what would your selling point be? What would your go-to move be? I think international celebrity. No. It should be a picture of you interviewing yourself on Alex Winter's body. Yes. No, that's too complicated.

That's too bad. I'm not going to do that. Wait, what would my profile picture be or what's the... International celebrity? But that's not you. What is it about you? That it's me. Okay.

No, I mean... That's just... No, no, no. What if you were at you? Like, what would you do? Well, okay, because I want to hear it from Avril. Avril, what is the... Say the question again, because I probably didn't hear it right the first time.

So if you were to be... Say if you were me on hinge, what would you use as a unique selling point for yourself? I have an apartment in Dublin and we get so many people that would be like, oh my God, how did she do that? So that's good, right? Yeah. Maybe you should use the Daft app for dating, because you get people to interest in your apartment.

That's so grim. I'm going to be completely honest with you, Avril, I don't see... You are a very attractive, cool person. I think the world's your oyster and I think... I honestly feel and I mean this, that you should be picky, but you should take a little... Put yourself out there a little more, do you know what I mean? But I honestly believe that if you do that, the right guy is going to materialize. They're going to materialize?

That sounds kind of scary. Well, he'll be a magician is what I mean. Oh, no. Incredible magician. What's wrong with a magician? That's stepped down from Seaguy. That's not. Yeah.

I don't know. He's a magician who's big trick is he goes, I can't make my side, he just jumps into the ocean. He throws down a powder pallet, they did no way disguises, and then he takes off his robe and jumps in the ocean. But he's 40 feet from the ocean, so you still see him running into the ocean. You see him running and then you see in the sand his footprints. Oh my God.

And then you hear him scream when he hits the cold Irish sea, because that doesn't sound too inviting. No, it doesn't. And I like, I did a lot of comedians, so that's like a musician is stop that. Do you really do date comedians? I do. Almost exclusively. Damaged people.

No wonder. Yeah. No. Is that what I'm going wrong? I think that's a big mistake. I think that's a big mistake. Yeah. I think you might want to try insurance salesman or something like that.

Oh. Irish comedians. Yeah. That's rough. Isn't kind of everyone in Ireland a comedian? That's what I've found is whenever I go to Ireland and I go to the library, the person who checks out the book is really funny. The person driving the cab is really funny.

The person, you know, working in the sewer is really funny. Oh. It just feels like everyone there is kind of a comedian. Yeah. I suppose everyone is funny. Taxi men in particular are very funny. I will say that. Yes.

Yeah. They've got the gift of gab. They do. They just keep talking and you just sit there and listen to there. And they've always got the best really strong double accent, which is just really kind of soothing. And they're not even driving, but the meter's running. Exactly.

So you're paying the whole time while they tell a story that goes nowhere. Yeah. Well, Avril, I'm rooting for you. I think that you're going to be just fine. Yeah. Thank you. Here's my advice in a nutshell. Stop dating comedians.

Okay. Okay. Find someone who was not damaged in childhood, if that's possible in Ireland. Perfect. I'm speaking from, trust me, I know a thing or two about DNA and take a couple of chances, you know? Okay. What is it?

Swipe right? Swipe left? Which one is the good one? Which one? I can't remember. I can't remember. It's been a while for me, but I think you go push towards the right when you're into them.

Yeah. I'm trying to remember. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long way this whole time. Oh my God. I think we just realized what's been going wrong. I don't know.

It's like, oh, another lonely night. I swiped left and nothing happened. I do not know my left from my right. So I, yeah. Well it was nice talking to you, Avril, very, very lovely talking to you. And I love you. You have the most professional microphone. Yeah.

I'm just kidding. Your microphone is, your microphone is 10 times better than mine. Thanks a lot, Eduardo. But yeah. Are you a podcaster? I'm afraid to ask. No. My roommate is, he raps a little bit.

So he, this is his. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So that's a rapping mic. He's one of those Irish rappers. Yeah. You know, one of those. Yeah.

He does jump around exclusively. Yeah. Just one song. They're Tana Penny around here. All right, Avril. Thank you so much. Really nice talking to you. Thank you so much, Conan.

Take care. Bye. Bye. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Salateroff and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vavino.

Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Producing by Eduardo Perez, please rate, review and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.