Dear Hank & John - 36: Grief Is Super Weird

Episode Date: February 23, 2016

Is there a secret planet opposite ours? Is strawberry flavor fooling us all? How can we be better listeners? Why do people ghost other people?

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is that the first thing of a Dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where me and my brother John answer all your questions, give you to be advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hi John, how are you? I'm already here, you're so sad. That was the saddest intro I've ever heard. I'm asked. You know, it's never a funny comedy podcast, but this particular episode of Dear Hank

and John is going to be particularly unfunny because Hank's beloved dog, Lemon, has just died. And also because I have just learned in the last hour that the brilliant novelist Harper Lee has died, one of my favorite writers. And yeah, so don't expect any funny today. Yeah, it was always a comedy podcast about death. Now it is just a death comedy,

a death podcast about death. Now it's just a death podcast about death. Now it's just all death all the time. Speaking of which, before we even get to how we're doing, which I think the answer is universally terribly, I have to say that there is an important correction to one of our previous episodes.

And this comes from Matt, who would like to inform us that in fact, despite it being the shortest month, February is not the deadliest month, at least in the United States. August and September share the title for the least deadly month with the August death rate being the lowest while September is the lowest by total deaths. February is fourth in total deaths and third in deaths per day. So we are still in the thick of the death season. One of the things you said didn't make any sense there at the end. It's fourth in death rate and third in deaths per day. Oh. No, it's fourth in total deaths and third in death rate.

This is too confusing for my brain right now. And any case. And any case. All I can tell you is that February is a terrible time to be alive. Well, it is because your chances of dying are exceptionally high. Yeah, yeah.

It seems very unlikely to me, and I would like to know why, except that it's cold, and people are like, eh. How'd enough of this? Living thing. No, I mean, I am inclined to agree. The best time to be alive is probably August, maybe September, depending on how you calculate it.

But January and February are just overwhelmingly the worst, to give you a little bit of context. In February, the average number of deaths per day in the United States is 7,081. In September, it's 6,051. It's more than 1,000 deaths per day less. Wow. That's a big difference. That is not just a big difference in numbers. I know. It's a big difference in actual numbers of people. I know.

Sorry. Not just in numbers, but in percentage. That's very strange. And also I'm kind of surprised by how few people die per month. Well, in the United States. But still, that's, I don't know. There's 300 million of us. It's surprising that only 6,000 people die in any month.

Well. What do all the people who work for funeral homes even do? All I can tell you Hank is that I cannot wait for August. All right. Well, my favorite month is September. So I guess that plays out in the stats as well. So we just have to pause briefly to commemorate the life of Harper Lee author of Tequila Mockingbird. Harper Lee, who wrote,

there are just some kind of men who are so busy worrying about the next world. They've never learned to live in this one. And who wrote, Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corn cribs. They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird and Harper Lee who also wrote the single greatest line of dialogue in American literature

Miss Jean Louise stand up your father's passing Hank she was one of my favorite writers Especially when I was a young person and when my son was born, we gave him the middle name Atticus partly because of the historical Atticus, but partly because of Atticus Finch, the great hero in the novel to Killamockingbird. And my publisher, Julie Straskable, after Henry was born, sent some copies of my books and Miss Lee very kindly sent one of them back a first printing of looking for Alaska that she signed on the title page. Welcome to the world, Henriaticus, Harper Lee. I feel like that was our short poem already. I hope you don't have another one because I have a short poem about dog death. Oh really? You found a short poem about dog death?

Of course I did Hank. I'm going to take my headphones out and you do it. And I'll be back to sort of yell when you're done. Okay. Today's short poem is by Mary Oliver, a great lover of dogs and also a wonderful poet. This is from her book Dog Songs. And the title of the poem is if you are holding this book, you may not agree, you may not care, but if you are holding this book, you should know that

of all the sites I love in this world, and there are plenty, very near the top of the list is this one, Dogs Without Leashes. If you are holding this book from Mary Oliver's book, Dog Songs. I can handle that one. Alright, I tried, there are some sadder ones, but I didn't want to make you cry in our comedy podcast. It's so funny. It's such a funny podcast, John. Oh man. I'll tell you what, it's such a funny podcast John oh man I'll tell you what it's it's weird

it's it's very my my emotions make no sense and and they continue to surprise me and I am learning about myself through this process. And what I'm learning is, I ain't no rational being. That's not what humans are. So it's, yeah, something else. And it sucks. Yeah, I'm really sorry. She was a great dog. And it is, I mean, it's just a grieving process.

And I think no matter what kind of grief you experience, the main, one of my main conclusions from grief is that grief is super weird. That if you try to judge yourself within the process of grief, you're only going to complicate matters because it's complex and weird. And I would argue that there aren't a lot of wrong ways to do it, but instead you just kind of got to let yourself be yourself. All right, well I will take that advice, John. Do you want to talk about anything else before we answer a question?

No, maybe we should start off with a question about death. All right, that sounds like the kind of thing that might happen here on Dear Anconjohn. All right, so our first question of the day comes from Abby, who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm the only child of a single parent who is dead. My father and I were extremely close, and his death two years ago was without doubt

the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but it does mean that in this terrible economy, I am a 26 year old with a low paid artsy job who owns a beautiful home in Inner London, outright, and lives alone. I sometimes struggle to deal with other people's reactions to this. Many people are confused by my rare situation and ask me how it happened, and answering is very awkward, and I've also found that some of my friends struggle not to sound jealous or bitter about it.

As you host the best comedy podcast about death on the whole internet, thank you Abby. I thought you might be able to help. Do you have any dubious advice for me? Oh my god. It's well it's good to answer questions that are you know universal. Everyone deals with these issues of just of having this particular situation. It's a very it's a very it's a very surprising and unusual circumstance you find yourself in, but I think in a lot of ways, one that actually isn't that unusual. The ridiculousness of capital, you know,

of course, like I believe to some extent in the market and in the existence of capital, I understand that it needs to exist. But it is very strange how we all have very different amounts of things. And that allows, you know, it makes, well, I think that the easy way to say it is like, and you have more stuff when you have more assets, your life is easier, and you can make different choices. You can, you know, it is easier to do the things

that you wanna do. Right, but of course, I'm sure that also Abby would, in a heartbeat, you know, give up her house in Inner London to have her relationship with her father back or to have her father be living again. And I think that's one of the things that makes it so complicated. I mean, when we were talking earlier about how grief is inherently complicated, that's one of the things that's complicated about it, right, is that, you know, it's, you know,

when you talk about someone who's died leaving you a legacy, you know, part of that legacy is a physical house. And that is a great blessing. It doesn't make the death any less horrible. It doesn't make the loss any less horrible. I think the only way to deal with those awkward situations is to acknowledge that they are awkward, like just to be like, yeah, I know it's, it is weird, and I feel weird about it too, but this is, this is what happened.

Right, right. And it's almost as if, like, it's all a thing that we know. Like, it's a thing that we all know to say, like, I wouldn't give up a loved one for wealth, obviously. Like, that's a thing that we, we all know. But to have gone through it is a different thing and to have learned that lesson the hard way. So there is also some awkwardness in not just in inequality, in material wealth, but in inequality in experience. And it can feel very scary and very uncomfortable to talk to someone who has lost something that is unusual to have lost at the age that you are.

And that other people do not have that shared experience. And sadly, that will get more or less common. But it will be less the case as you get older. Yeah, it will become progressively less weird. But yeah, I think that it's, I always feel like with those awkward situations, really the only way to deal with it is to acknowledge the awkwardness.

Yeah, you say like, okay, well, it is funny actually that the, it's funny actually is how I started the sentence. But the night before we were taking them and into the vet to say goodbye, we went to get doughnuts because that's how we were feeling. And so we went to Krispy Kreme. We were actually out to get, we were just picking up some food to take home and we were like, oh God, we're right next to Krispy Kreme. So we went to Krispy Kreme and the guy gave us a donut and he said, so how's your night going? And we were like, oh, we're not, I'm not gonna answer that question.

Okay. Okay. And he said, he, he looked, this is a very nice guy. He looked to me and he was like, well, I hope it goes better. And I was like, thank you. Because like, like, it's very strange to,

like, you know, the vast majority of the time people are like, how you do and you're like it's very strange to like you know the fast majority of the time people are like how you do and you're like good But I could not I could not bring myself to say good and He handled it very well. I felt like in a way I handled it well, but I was also a little bit like do I look like the kind of person who goes to crispy cream at nine o'clock at night? Because I'm having a good day That's just not I don't know I am. I don't think there's anything wrong. I don't think that like it's inherently depressive to go to crispy cream in the evening. I don't think there's any right time to go to crispy cream. I suppose, I suppose. I definitely

did feel like, well, this is not a thing that I would normally do, but it did not make me feel better. I'll tell you that. It's funny how that works. I find that when I eat poorly, it makes me feel better only while I am swallowing the food. And then within five minutes, it makes me feel much, much worse. All right, I have another question, John,

if you're up for that. I'm ready. This one's from Daniel who asks, dear Hank and John, whenever I'm having conversations that. I'm ready. This one's from Daniel who asks, Dear Hank and John, whenever I'm having conversations with a friend about a problem they're having, I often find myself suggesting solutions to the problem instead of just listening.

I find it difficult to tell the difference between when someone wants me to suggest solutions and when someone just wants to be listened to. What are some tips to become a better listener? I feel like I do this a lot and John has given me advice on this very topic, and so I am going to shush. Yeah, because God knows you talk too much on this comedy podcast. Yeah, I mean, I can only give you the advice that my chaplaincy supervisor gave me many

years ago, and that I've tried to hold close to me ever since, which is don't just do something, stand there. It is incredibly powerful to listen and to listen empathetically. And so when I'm trying to listen to someone, I'm always trying to pay close attention and then also to reflect their feelings and experiences back to them. So we've talked about this in past comedy podcasts, but empathetic listening can sound a little bit stupid when you're talking about it in the abstract. So for instance, if you have a friend who's saying, you know, I'm feeling really afraid

of abandonment because my boyfriend is talking about moving to Korea, you might respond by saying, it sounds like you're feeling afraid of abandonment. Ideally, you'll do it in a slightly more sophisticated way than that. So the person who you're talking to isn't like, did you just literally repeat what I said? But in my experience, even if you just literally repeat what they say, it's still helpful. They'll be like, yes, exactly. And there's just something about having someone else validate your feelings that's very powerful. Yeah. And I think that a lot of times people are talking about their problems because they need to hear them. They almost need you to be there

so that they can feel okay talking to themselves. And that's really, that's really weird. But we don't feel okay talking to ourselves a lot of the time. And also just to help tease the feelings out because as I have found in the last few days, it's very difficult to know what you feel all the time. And so sometimes you just need to talk about it just so that you can know. And sometimes I want to get a therapy, even though I'm pretty, pretty

well adjusted person, just so I can have a person with a blank slate and be like, okay, I'm just going to hit you with all this stuff. You know, you don't know anything about me. I don't think about you. Let me hit you with all this stuff. You don't know anything about me, I don't think about you. Let me hit you with all this stuff so that I could just at least hear what this sounds like to a person who isn't in the middle of it. Right. Yeah. No. That's one of the big benefits of having a therapist. I don't think that you have to have mental problems to go to therapy. I think, you know, going to a psychologist is very different from going to a psychiatrist. Yeah, I would recommend it Hank. I have been in therapy since pretty consistently since the year 2000.

And my life has gotten consistently better over those 16 years. Sure. Correlation and causation. Always the same. Yeah, but then again, like, I don't want to mess around with anything because the correlation is so strong. Yeah, yeah, totally. That's, but it's, I know it's magical thinking to some extent. I have a question Hank. It's from Mallory. It is a fascinating question. I do not know if you will be able to answer it, but I find it very beautiful. She writes, dear John and Hank, my grandpa and I have been in a very heated argument for about two years. He believes there is a possibility that

another planet exactly like Earth could be in our orbit on the opposite side of the Sun making it impossible for us to ever see it, and for it to ever see us. He saw this in an old movie once. I'm no astronomer, but I did take some courses in college, and I don't think this could happen. Could this fictional planet exist? What a great question. Well, first of all, I have to say,

I'm glad to hear you took at least some courses in college. Yeah, she didn't. She's not saying that you took astronomy courses, but she did take some courses. There was at least one course, maybe two that were taken during college. Oh, man, I took anthropology. I took pre-cowke. Those two. I took some courses. I, I, first I'm glad that

your grandfather and you are able to have this spirited debate. I hope that it's a pleasant one. And it's also nice, I think, when you're having a debate to know that you're right, which, in this case, you are. But it is also important to recognize, sometimes, you're like, I know I'm right. I know I'm right. I don't know why I'm right. But I know I'm right. And yes, Mallory is right. Oh, I'm dead. I was hoping for a secret planet.

It's unfortunate. But the reason I know I'm right is not because I know faith, I trust that the people who study the universe have thought of this thing that was apparently in a movie a long time ago and have checked. So you don't actually know that it's impossible. I do know that it's impossible, impossible. But Mallory doesn't, because she only took some courses in college. Can you explain to me why it's impossible, please? We have a pretty good grasp on the gravitational effects that all of the planets have on each other. It is true that its gravitational effects on Earth would be basically invisible.

So there's a bunch of different reasons, as with lots of cool things in science that we figure out, a bunch of different arrows all point to the same things. So we know how planets form, and we know that it would be extremely difficult for a planet to form this way. It would for for two globs to perfectly pull all of the stuff from the planetary accretion disk into into these opposite points.

If it was even if they were even very slightly different masses, they would eventually come together Which is what happens and why there is only one planet in each of the orbits If they were even very slightly different masses, they would eventually come together, which is what happens and why there is only one planet in each of the orbits. Just by the fact there is a gravitational point at which you could put another Earth, and that they would go around each other. So there's that reason.

There's also just sort of like, we have studied the Earth. We also have things that sense like that are not on Earth. So you say, yes, it could be there and we wouldn't be able to see it. But we have eyes and other points in the solar system. So there's lots of different reasons why this is not a thing that could be. But it's a fun thought experiment. And also, you know, like we do, we do, there are a number of weird gravitational points

like that. And we do utilize those to their gravitationally stable points and there are asteroids in those places that are sort of like stably following us around. But no big no big no yeah no other no other earth which would be amazing because it would be really easy to get to. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. We could get to our secret earth. Well, Mallory, I don't think you should tell your grandfather about this.

I think you should just continue the argument. Yeah. Well, it's a lot better than the arguments that I have with my family members who I disagree with things on. I was like, are you gonna say that we are having arguments with our grandparents because they're all dead? But Hank's still fighting it out.

He's still fighting it out with Danny and Papa about whether or not gay people are willing to get married. They may be dead, but Hank is not done with that argument. I'm kind of not. You know, I will say at the end of her life, the New York Times started posting, back then it was like civil union ceremonies for LGBT couples in the wedding section. And at the end of her life, my grandmother did say, well, I think that's a nice thing.

Wow. So that's a long journey to travel for 87 year old woman. All right, this one is, this one's from Ori, who asks, dear Hank and John, how do artificial slavers, dear Hank and John, how do artificial flavors, such as strawberry flavor, pass as strawberry flavor, when they taste nothing like strawberries?

Does something trick, does something in it trick our brains into thinking that strawberries taste like that, or are we just used to calling it strawberry flavor because everybody does? I have a surprisingly complicated answer to this question. John, do you? I have a theory about it. Okay.

So this is my theory. Sometimes, when I am drinking an ice cold refreshing, I don't understand why they continue to refuse to sponsor me, Diet Dr. Pepper, I will take a sip of that Diet Dr. Pepper, and I will enjoy it greatly for a moment until I realize that it is in fact Diet Mountain Dew. Mmm. But my brain is so heavily expecting the flavor that it knows to be Diet Dr. Pepper, that my brain initially is like, that's some good diet, Dr. Wait! Wait, that isn't diet, Dr. Pepper at all!

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that's my theory, is that you are essentially tricking your brain with the color, and then you're also tricking your brain with the sweetness. Yeah, you're tricking your brain with a bunch of things, and I think that absolutely does happen, and I also, for me, it is a guess that it's not something that I know anything about. But I do know some things about flavor chemistry because it is something that I studied some when I was in college. I

took some courses. And remarkably, so when we first were isolating all of these artificial flavors which are the things that we use in candy almost exclusively We pulled out these all these flavor compounds that have very strong smells and they smell very good to us and So we pulled them all out and a lot of them tasted like oh this tastes like a thing. We'll do you as it is the thing But a lot of them didn't taste like anything, though. They just tasted good. So it was a flavor that we liked, but it was one of, you know, a dozen different compounds that was in a strawberry or in a watermelon or in a blueberry or something. So it was one of many compounds. And it was just part of the subtlety of the flavor. But when we concentrated it and stuck it with some citric acid and some sugar, which is the stuff that makes, that it was like the primary flavor components of sugar, of course, are like the actual

tastes of sweetness and sourness, and then you have these smells that go along with it to enhance, that are enhanced by those things. You get all of these chemicals that taste good, but don't taste like anything. So we have them. They're inexpensive to synthesize, and we like them. And they, but like, they're just chemicals. So like, they're named by the international union of pure and applied chemistry. They're not named by, you know, the long history of people naming things, being like, that that berry grows in straw. So let's call it a strawberry or whatever. So like, they didn't want to call it like ethyl methyl phenylglyside flavored candy. So they called it strawberry flavored candy. Today's podcast is brought to you by Ethel-Methal-Glissle-Rye-Candy.

What is it called? What do you call it? Yeah. I don't even think I said it right. Ethel-Methal-Fenal-Glycerate. Today's podcast is brought to you by Ethel-Methal-Glissle-Cidal-Vate. Delicious.

But it doesn't taste like strawberries, but you're gonna like it and we're gonna make it red. You're gonna love it. Yeah. All right, we're doing this. Today's podcast is brought to you by Too Many Sad Things. Too Many Sad Things. There's a lot of them and just let them pile on top of you until you can no longer function or even move.

And of course today's podcast is brought to you by Delicious Refreshing Diet Dr. Pepper. Diet Dr. Pepper. Not sponsoring me since 2007. This podcast is additionally brought to you by Meloria, the actual planet Meloria, which is found just behind the sun in the exact same position as the earth, but not by anyone because it's hiding there and has been and will always be hiding there. Just an opportunity for us to consider what could possibly be if the earth had it all to do over. Hank, is that really the name? Yeah, well, the girl's name was Mallory, who asked the question. Oh, so you named the planet Mallory.

Yeah, that's very beautiful. Thank you. I figured it's what her grandfather would want. I agree, I agree. I just thought of a joke that's too dark for the podcast, which is really saying something. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Okay Hank, we have another question this one's from Kelsey who writes Dear John and Hank. I recently moved to a new city and I'm in the process of making friends. However, the people I'm meeting make significantly more money than me and like to hang out at bars and restaurants.

I can't afford to go out multiple times a week. How do I continue to explore these burgeoning relationships without draining my bank account? PS, feel free to mention death in your response. Thanks Kelsey, I appreciate that. I will mention death in my response. Here Kelsey. I appreciate that. I will mention death in my response Here's the first thing that I would say Kelsey If you can just find a way to get to August You'll probably live to January

Well, that's good. I don't know why you're so worried about your weekly spending When the first priority needs to be getting out of February. YOLO! So here's what I would say. This is always difficult and it's complicated. And I think it's one of the reasons that we now live in a culture in the United States, where people overwhelmingly spend most of their leisure time with people who are in similar socioeconomic brackets, which is I think one of the biggest social problems that we

face as a country. But what I would say is don't go out multiple times a week, go out once a week, and then encourage your friends to come with you once a week to do something that is cheap, like go to a park and, you know, play feed pigeons. For some reason, the idea that came into my headhank was to play a game where you throw eggs back and forth to each other, but you try not to have the eggs break. But oh, so there are they on fourth grade? I mean not only I is Kelsey seemingly not in fourth grade what with going to bars and

etc. But also that isn't that inexpensive of a game because of course the eggs cost money. Eggs are pretty cheap. Just don't get the free one. Yeah, they're cheap, but you don't have the sad chickenoaks. If you're watching, if you're watching your weekly budget, you don't want to just go throwing raw eggs at people. No, I agree. Though, compared with the cost of a cocktail in New York City, you could probably get about four dozen eggs for that.

Did I ever tell you about the first time I went to New York City with my best friend Todd when we were in high school? My best friend Todd came. Did you have insufficient funds? No, that was Canada. My best friend Todd is from a very small town in Alabama and grew up in a trailer park and had never been to New York City before.

And we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and we were at the restaurant there with my parents and Todd saw that two eggs were $9. It was two eggs scrambled. We're $9. And Todd said to the waiter in his thick southern accent, for $9, I want a suitcase full of eggs that I can take home with me. The different time. Well, now Todd is an extremely successful dermatologist, but I suspect that he still won't pay $9 for two eggs.

No, I understand that. Back to Kelsey's question, I believe I didn't say that wrong. Did I? It is Kelsey. Yeah, I think it's, I think in particularly in big cities, this is a huge issue because big cities are optimized to, to, to provide for every, like, little slice, every little demographic slice. And where I live, there's just nothing you can spend much money on.

So everybody is sort of on the same page, for the most part. But in New York City, I think you really like there are so many different economic brackets and the city is optimized to function for each of them individually. I cannot imagine having to try to figure this out, but there are, hopefully you, one can, when doing these things, manage to do it, not so conspicuously on a budget. Oh, I'm just having celt or now.

I'm taking a medication that means that I can't drink anything that costs more than $20 a glass. That sort of thing. And don't be afraid to lie about that, about the little white lies, John and I are big fans of those. And then, you know, also be like, you know what I think is super fun is settlers of Catan and bring them back to your place where I'm sure there's loads of space

for a large game playing table because it is New York City and everyone knows. Oh man, when we lived in New York Hank, we entertained in our apartment in the two and a half years that we lived there. We entertained in our apartment once. We had friends over to our apartment one time and it was horrible because it was so small.

It was so cramped. We were trying to like make breakfast. And our kitchen didn't have any drawers, which is, you know, inconvenient when you're cooking for two, but when you're cooking for six, it's just, oh, it's just such a pain. Let's move on to another question so that I can forget about my New York City kitchen.

This question is from Diki Stutt, who asks, dear Hank Adjohn, I'm a native from dubious advice from two people who seem to be in stable, happy relationships. I'm a 21-year-old woman in college to talk to the male type, but it seems that nothing... No, that's your first mistake. It seems that nothing is working out from your relationship wise.

I went out with this guy once and I thought it was going really well. And he said he was looking forward to another date, and then suddenly just canceled, and I haven't heard from him since then. My more hip friends, hip is in quotation marks here, have told me that this is called ghosting, where you just stop talking to someone to show disinterest, but this makes no sense to me. Ah! Oh god! Those are the caps. That was all in caps.

Why do people take this seemingly easy way out when it seems like it's just better for everyone to tell the person you're not interested? We're adults for goodness sake. Oh God, I never want to be single again. I can't even give an encouraging answer to this question because inside I'm just cringing at all of my memories of dating. It's just so uncomfortable when you don't know if you're going to spend the rest of your is inside I'm just cringing at all of my memories of dating. It's just so uncomfortable when you don't know

if you're going to spend the rest of your lives together. Like the whole process is uncomfortable. Even when you've been in a committed relationship for like two years, it's still a little weird because you're like, is this forever? Or are you just like gonna be here for a while and then you're gonna go do something else? You've always got that option. You've always got that thing that maybe sitting there, that the choice. It's always a choice every day. It's like, do I want to be with this person or not?

Until you go and you say, you're standing at a fancy building and you say, hey, God, God, I want you to hear this. We're not gonna break up. And then God's like, I heard you. And then that takes a little bit of that constant choice out of the matter. Although I have to say, Hank, and I did not stand in a building or in fact, say anything to God. We didn't talk to God either.

No, no, he said nothing to God. You guys stood in a field and promised to stay there. Thank you very much. We said it to our God, which was our friends and family. That's fair. Anyway, point being, Hank and I are terrible, terrible at giving dating advice. It's true, but I have watched this. I've watched, I have a lot of young friends who are in the 2016 dating scene, which is admittedly very different from my dating scene,

which was just grab onto and hold the first woman who will listen to them, it might be giants with me, and never let go. The true story of how Hank got married. So I, as I watch this happen both on the the goaster side and the ghost E side I think what's what's kind of happening is that it's kind of a side effect of the the tiny commitment of the text message Which is which is that it is a really insignificant social act to text someone and And it is also kind of, and so everyone recognizes that. Everyone recognizes that this isn't a big deal. You texted me no big. But like because there's this really low commitment form

of communication, any other form of communication seems really intense. Like if you were to send an email to this person, it would be really strange. And like, why are we establishing a business relationship here? And if you were to call them, people would be like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back down there, tiger.

What are we married? Calling me on the phone. And additionally to this very low impact, this is the only way you can communicate. And basically, I see that you are not, it's not a big deal if I don't text back because you are just texting me And it's a low impact form of communication. I think also every single text message is

Like like when you get one you have to make the choice whether to text back or not and if that choice isn't obvious Then there's always that like well. I can put this choice off and then there's always that like, well, I can put this choice off. And not texting is a non-choice. It is a wait till later to make this decision choice. Well, texting is an active kind of a commitment, an active choice that you are making. And choices are kind of exhausting, especially when you have to make lots of them.

And so you're increasing the number of these choices that you have to make. And I have watched, and it's like, what I would rather do is just not make a choice right now. So I'm gonna push this off until finally the choice gets made for you because they're like, oh well, I didn't text them back for two weeks. It'd be real weird to text back now,

but you never really made that choice. So I think that there's a lot of, like this isn't about not being interested, necessarily. Of course, sometimes it is absolutely about not being interested, but oftentimes it's not just like, I'm not course, sometimes it is absolutely about not being interested. But oftentimes it's not just like, I'm not interested. It's like, I'm choice exhausted.

I have two, like, and I don't know, like, there's a lot going on and I don't want to necessarily add this because it's not like, it's not the 100% slam dunk thing that I imagine might could happen someday. Having heard you, Hank, old man your way through this question, I have come to a revelation that is even more terrifying than the revelation I came to when I realized that I myself was middle-aged, which is that I now have a younger brother

who is also middle age. Like while you were answering that question, you left early age and you entered middle age. It happened. It happened. I should have used the word millennial at some point. I heard it happen and I'm upset. We need to move on. No, I should just go full on and become a baby boomer and be like, uh,

you young kids need to make decisions and be more careful with each other's opinions of each other. I don't know why all middle aged people are from New York. Oh my god. Uh, Sarah and I had the best time a couple of weeks ago. A friend of ours who will remain nameless was using a Tinder-like dating app and allowed us to choose whether to swipe left or right on their behalf. And I mean, I totally get it. It was so fun. But let's move on to one last question before we get to the... Do you not think I had good advice? Do you think that it was all bad? No, I mean, I think my advice would be to listen to your hip friends rather than Hank Green.

I just watched. It's so hard to watch the young people date, and it seems very difficult and very... Yeah, I mean, I think it was always hard. I think it was always hard. I think it was always complicated, but it does To to our eyes certainly seem more difficult and complicated than it used to okay Hank one last question Before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon this question is from Bethany who writes dear John and Hank Last year my fiance and I traveled to London from Canada for vacation And of course we attended an AFC Wimbledon game to show our support. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you Bethany an AFC Wimbledon game to show our support. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you, Bethany.

Everybody in South London, everybody who visits London should really go to an AFC Wimbledon game. I myself am going to one in a week, but more on that in a moment. The game was incredibly fun to watch, but the best part of the experience for me was joining in with the crowd as they sang various songs to support the Don's and Taunt the other team. I've never been to a sporting event where there was so much singing and camaraderie like there was at the Wimbledon game and I'm just wondering how did this tradition of singing at football games come about? I've never seen anything like it at sporting events here in Canada. It's true

you don't hear a lot of curling songs. Or even hockey songs, you know, hockey's mostly about like cheering or making a lot of noise to make a lot of noise rather than about singing specific songs. That's mostly true in American sports as well. You know, I think as far as I know, the tradition goes back a hundred years that some of the songs that are sung are many generations old. But I don't know where singing at soccer game started. It is however,

a, what a huge part of what is so enjoyable about going to a Wimbledon game or, or really any game with good support is that there's this energy in the crowd that is almost, the game is almost irrelevant to the energy. Like one of my favorite moments, you can look this up on YouTube Hank, I think it was Aston Villa fans. They were like 1200 Aston Villa fans playing away to Manchester City and they were like 1200 asten villa fans, playing a way to Manchester City,

and they were losing like seven nothing, and they started, they started, first off, they sang one of my all time favorite football songs, which is, you're nothing special, we lose every week. Hahaha. Um, but then they, then they started singing, let's pretend, let's pretend, let's pretend we scored a goal and then They sang that like three rounds of it and then the all 1200 of them just went nuts like

Just screaming jumping up and down hugging It was amazing and like you know they weren't even like watching the atrocity that was happening on the actual football field. And for me, that is what makes sports special and interesting and especially makes soccer so interesting is that it has that passion that extends way beyond whatever the results of the game are. And I really would encourage everybody to go to AFC Wimbledon games. I would also say it's only $35 a year to become an owner of AFC Wimbledon. If you can go become an owner

of the team just like I am at the Don's Trust. And that's really cool too. You get lots of perks. But yeah, it is a really special experience. And one that I will get to enjoy next week Hank because I am going to an AFC Wimbledon game Yeah next week against Oxford United, I think well I am so excited for you as Oxford United good at football Let me look up and make sure it's Oxford United first before I answer your question It is Oxford United now. Let me answer your question as to whether they're any good I think at this point, every game is incredibly important, but Oxford United is not just good. They are very good.

They are currently third, which means that they are in one of the automatic promotion spots. The top three spots in the league, I'll get promoted up to the third tier of English football. AFC Wimbledon currently in 10th, right? But they have, they're only three points out of sixth. So it's, it's, so we're just going to jump right into the news from AFC Wimbledon. AFC Wimbledon, Hank played Lutentown last week. Now, of course, you remember Lutentown because of their significant role in AFC Wimbledon's history, I assume?

Sure, yes, of course. You don't do. No. Hank, in 2011, just nine years after the club formed or reformed, AFC Wimbledon was in the fifth tier of English football. Yes. They were an amateur team, not yet in the football league. You couldn't play them

in FIFA. And they made it to the playoff final. The game, at the end of 90 minutes, the score was nil nil. At the end of extra time, the score was nil nil. And then there was a penalty shootout. And 19 year old goalkeeper, Seb Brown saved two penalties against Lutentown to send AFC Wimbledon up to the football league and back to their rightful spot in professional English football. That same Lutentown a couple years later got promoted, so now we get to play them twice every season. And AFC Wimbledon played Lutentown last week and one,

four, one, Hank, they won by three goals, which is great for goal difference. And two of the goals were scored by our Montserrati in international. The Montserrati in Messi, some call him, to know who Lionel Messi is. Yes, yes, I have heard that name. He's a tennis player.

You're kidding, right? Yes. Okay, thank God. I am. Yeah, so I call him the Montserrat again messy. The Montserrat again messy scored two goals. AFC win will then beets Lutentown for one where in 10th place, I have to say I am starting to properly dream. So where are you at in the thing? Did you say, by the way, that the Montserratian messy is Lyle's Taylor? Did you just not say that name ever?

Because I feel like you should at least use his name and not just call him. I don't, at this point, I don't think it's necessary to say his name. I think we all know. I think we all know. No, I did. So that's a big guy. Who the Montserratian is. It's kind of amazing. There can only be one reason that I know. And it's Lyle Taylor. I think we all know. I think we all know. I did. So that's who the Montserratty and kind of amazing.

There can only be one on it. And it's while Taylor. Yeah, so AFC Wimbledon to repeat myself, Hank, are 10. Okay, they are 10th. I was keeping it in the park. Sorry. Okay, but because different teams have played different numbers of games, if AFC Wimbledon win all of their games, there's like 16 games left. So obviously that's not going to happen. But like, if AFC Wimbledon win all of their games, there's like 16 games left, so obviously that's not going to happen. But like if AFC Wimbledon won all of their games, and if all the teams above them won all of their games, AFC Wimbledon actually would make it into the playoffs.

So that's, I'm getting a little choked up here as you can tell, but yeah, I'm starting to dream. I am truly, I'm dreaming with you, John. I'm gonna have a dream. I had a dream last night, I thought I had a bunch of tattoos, and a really nice body. I mean, I might get an AFC-Wivelden tattoo if they get promoted this season. I'm sure my wife would be delighted. Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure. All right, you want to hear what's in the store? What's in the store? All right. Well, as you as you may have heard, you know, we got it, we got to make, when we get to Mars, we got to feed ourselves. And one way to do it is just to bring all the food with us. But as we learn from the Martian, if you bring all that food, and then suddenly you need to spend another six months on Mars You got to take your Thanksgiving dinner cut up those potatoes plant them in the marsh and soil and become you know become the greatest botanist on the planet and It works fantastically in the book in the movie

So NASA is actually looking to simulate growing Mars potatoes in Peru the home of the potato by the way if you. By the way, if you did not know where potatoes came from, South America surprisingly. Somewhat surprisingly, just because it is such a big part of what we consider European cuisine, but not since only after the Colombian exchange, as they say, here on Tearhanka John. The partnership is between NASA and I'm not kidding you. Lima's International Potato Center, which is a thing that exists. There are many, many, many, many different varieties of potato. We do not see the vast majority of them here in the US grocery stores, but there are 4,500

varieties that are registered at Lima's International Potato Center, and hundreds of them, including some genetically modified ones, will be used to, we sent through a series of tests to see how good they would be at producing potatoes, not just potatoes for one generation, but potatoes for many generations of potatoes on the surface of Mars.

And that's, we've got to deal with the amounts of, you know, the soil would need to be cleaned up before it is, you know, if we're on Mars, the Martian soil, we need to clean up to some extent before this is done. But, you know, you've got to test for salt, the amount of light that they need, you know, the amount of light that they need, the amount of water that they need is best if they use less water and produce more potato. There's like a radiation concern, but they are confident that at least some of these potatoes will pass through these tests and we will have the right stuff for going to potato land with and by potato land I mean Mars, and that's what we're going to call it. Well, but someday we'll be known as potato land.

All of our potatoes will be grown on Mars. We'll just, we'll eat nothing but Martian food. Earth will be for humans, Mars for potatoes. If there's only one food, John, it should obviously be potato. I mean, if you're only going to have one food, potatoes is not a bad option. Okay, so before we go, we need to answer a few things from previous episodes that have been brought to our attention via our email address,

Hank and John at gmail.com. First off, Hank, Mel wrote in about cereal, in your latest podcast, John Confesty puts water on his cereal. This intrigued me because I hate milk. I thought putting water on cereal was generally unacceptable and that nobody would actually try it, but hearing that at least one person in the world has not only tried it, but does it regularly, I thought I had no reason not to try it myself. So this morning, I had water on my cereal, and as advertised, watered cereal provides the

same softness that milk does without having to add actual milk. This has saved my breakfast. No longer will I suffer the grossness of milk or cut the roof of my mouth on dry cereal. I don't care if I get judgmental looks in the morning, I can finally enjoy cereal in a way I never could have before. Thank you for revolutionizing my mornings sincerely, male. You are welcome, Mel. Well, it's hard for me to argue with that, John. It's hard for me to say that you are the monster that you are after Mel has had this wonderful action in experience.

But we've also gotten about 400 emails from people who are disgusted by me. And an awful lot of comments, because you made a whole video about this. We've also got a message from Till who says that not only are there feral cows in British Columbia and Hawaii, but also in Hong Kong. And yes, Hong Kong. There are feral cows in Hong Kong.

I'm not even getting you. Jeff made some corn dog cake for his kids, and it wasn't bad, and they attached a picture of his kids, and they do indeed look very happy. Amanda writes in to say that she works at a food bank in Alameda County and thus knows all about how long food lasts after its sell-by date and indeed macaroni and cheese is perfectly fine. In fact, dried pasta is usually good two years after the sell-by date.

And she includes a PDF from the Alameda County Food Bank that it is a guide for how long you can eat things after their sell-by dates. We're going to go ahead and post that as well as some pictures of feral cows in Hong Kong to our Patreon page, which you can access even if you which you can access even if you aren't donate, but feel free to donate. And yeah, we are, so you can see both of that. I thought it was, I have to say, having read Amanda's email, I was dead wrong about food and how long it's good for.

And as she says, John, you have fallen prey to what the food manufacturers want you to think about as food safety, but is really about wanting their products to be at peak flavor. So, that's really important and an interesting point, and one that I will bear in mind for the rest of my life. So, we all learn something today, Hank. But what else did we learn?

We learned that sometimes when your team doesn't score any goals and is being absolutely ripped to little tiny pieces by the other team, it doesn't matter and you can still have a good time because really it's about comradery and singing songs and being together and believing in the same things. And we were in the strawberry flavor is not strawberry flavor, but it is delicious. Athomatophenol, guys at eight. We learned, we learned that John has a strategy called, empathic listening, which has something to do with Deanna Troy from Star Trek. We also learned that Hank doesn't really listen to me when I'm talking on dear Hank and John.

Oh man. And lastly, we learned that grief is complicated and that you shouldn't judge yourself for it, but that you should just go on. Yeah. You shouldn't judge yourself if you need to get yourself a donut. Go get a donut. Yeah, you shouldn't judge yourself if you need to get yourself a donut. Go get a donut. Yeah. Just enjoy an evening donut speaking of which Hank two different employees Here at the Indianapolis offices of deer hank and John brought in Friday donuts. Oh, we have three dozen donuts for just nine people

It is a it's an absolute absolute donut bananza here today, and I'm so grateful to everyone. I look forward to seeing if I can eat 10 donuts by myself. All right, donut disaster, donut disaster 2016, it happened. I'm so good to know. Oh, I should also mention that,

Dear Hankajan now has an intern. Thanks to our lovely support at Patreon, we've been able to bring on at paid intern Your name is Claudia and Claudia will be helping out with your hangage on in various ways So if you ever interact with with Claudia I don't know why you would but she will be helping out mostly. She'll be helping out us She we will still be doing all the public facing things actually in fact this voice that you're hearing now is actually Claudia's impression of me. I'm not doing this at all. That's what the intern does. She just

... Yeah, no, it was Claudia. Do both of us. Introducing herself. Yeah. In fact, the whole podcast has been hosted by Claudia. She's doing both of our voices. She's doing a great job. I'm really impressed with her work so fun. The best part about her doing this podcast is that she's so successfully made it not fun. Yeah, it's really a remarkable spot on impression of two guys really just struggling with being interesting and their own mortality and not really

caring at all whether or not the things that they say on this comedy podcast could ever be considered in any planet, you know, Meloria, Mars, or Earth. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I don't know. Our theme music is by Gunnarola. My voice is giving out, and as we say, in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.