Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Why Do People Think We’re Gay? | Ear Biscuits Ep. 384

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

When it comes to two guys being best friends, there’s none quite like Rhett & Link! In this episode, they discuss the challenges of navigating male relationships and whether they lean into the tropes or stray from the norm. Check out the Stand-Up Comedy Special at mythicalsociety.com! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is mythical. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the Roundtable of Dim Lighting, we are discussing friendships. And to be specific, the friendships of men with men. Yeah. We're two of those.

We're guys. We are men friends. Who are friends. And, you know, there's a lot of generalities here. And so we'll couch that. But, you know, I'm curious how much we fall into guy tropes, guy friendship tropes, and how much we subvert or expand beyond those. It's funny you should ask that, Link. Yeah, I'll go ahead and get the disclaimer right now since we're getting started. And we've already said the friendships of men, which might right from the top seem like it's not very inclusive.

So I want to discuss that. And I think that today's discussion of friendship will be potentially helpful to you regardless of where you land on the gendrum, which is the gender spectrum. I call it the gendrum. The gendrum. I'm trying to, you know, just sort of like get more efficient in my language. That's a trendy term. Oh, the correct word is gendrum.

So, however, we're going to be talking about what a bunch of research has shown about the differences between the friendships of men and the friendships of women. And one of the reasons the research has shown differences between men and women's friendships is because traditionally these studies have divided people into the binary of men and women and looked at the differences. And so as Jenna was pointing out a second ago when we were talking before we got started, you know, there hasn't been there haven't been a lot of studies that are specifically identifying non-binary people or people along the gender spectrum and including that. That's beginning to happen more, so we'll have more insight. But what we have found in sort of dividing people into that binary is that there are differences that, for a myriad of reasons, sort of nestle on each side of the spectrum. We do kind of observe certain things happening on this side of the spectrum and other things happening on each side of the spectrum. We do kind of observe certain things happening on this side of the spectrum

and other things happening on this side of the spectrum, and they're really interesting differences. And so I think that they can sort of be illuminating and insightful regardless of where you're at on it. And also, yes, I think that in looking at what these studies have shown, I do think that we fall into some of these tropes, but then I think there's some of these tropes that we have kind of defied. exploring in our latest Rhett and Link channel video where we experience 1984, the year that we first met, and we construct a scavenger hunt mixed in with a music video

that ends with us reclaiming the recess that we never had when we first met. recess that we never had when we first met. But yeah, in the lyrics of the song, we're alluding to some of these generalities of how guys relate to each other, or at least the trope of that. So we'll get into some of that, but watch the video. Watch it again, please, if you've already watched it. Please watch the video. 1984 on the RentLink channel. Watch all the videos we're putting out over there. We're very excited about it. But yeah, I think these studies is just a good backbone to then talk about our own experiences and our own feelings about relationships, friendships. And Jenna is present.

And Jenna is a woman. And Jenna may have a perspective on this. Do you have a perspective on friendship, Jenna? I believe I do. I do have quite a few decade-plus long friendships with other women. Okay, so we'll see if... Compare and contrast. Yeah, where these things might line up.

So let's start with, I think, the thing that would be, again, as you mentioned, these are general observations, right? And it's always, it's usually a mistake to take a general observation and then try to apply it to a specific person because that specific person may or may not line up with the general observation. This is when we look at populations of people, groups of people, we tend to see trends. And so don't think any of this is like, well, if you're a man or you're a woman or neither, these things do or don't apply to you. That's not what this is about. But I think this is pretty trope-ish. Studies generally find that women, on average, have higher emotional literacy than men,

which includes emotional recognition, understanding, management, and expression. And these are some of the ways that that plays out in a friendship. I'm just going to read some of the research here. So I will reference the studies at certain times. You might get tired of hearing it, but a study titled, Gender and Friendship, Why Are Men's Best Same-Sex Friendships Less Intimate and Supportive, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2011, found that women's friendships often involve more emotional sharing and self-disclosure compared to men's friendships. I'm going to read all these little things because they're all related and then we can discuss. Okay, yeah.

Men's friendships often involve less emotional intimacy compared to women's friendships, despite men desiring similar emotional intimacy from their friendships. They are less likely to actually achieve this intimacy due to fears of appearing feminine or gay. Hence the lyric, we're not queer, but we're supportive from our song. We were kind of playing into that. That's from a 2015 study, Men and Masculinities. And also, men's friendships may provide less emotional and practical support

compared to women's friendships, as per a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships in 2009. Okay, again, these are things that you might, if you were just like spitballing differences between men's and women's friendships, you might say that women seem to be more in tune emotionally with their friends than men. I think we can even start with, like the lyrics of the song, like playing off of the whole using physical maps in the video. You say, you are here.

And then the other guy says, and I'm here for it. Here for it. You know, just saying, you know what? I enjoy our friendship. I'm here for our friendship. I show up for it. I look forward to it. I'm engaged here. To actually say that, to me, there's a barrier to even saying that. Even before you get to saying other things,

is just expressing an appreciation and valuing a is, it might feel a little awkward. It's just not the type of thing that, you know, a lot of people find themselves saying. And I think this study is saying that guys in general are less likely to say it. And I relate to that, you know, because it just feels like you're saying, you're getting sappy, you know? You're expressing emotion. You're expressing care for a friend.

And it's just not, it's not the type of thing that you find yourself doing. There's like some things to overcome. But that, we kind of backed into this place when we were, I was like, there's something about like that place on the map. Like we were writing a song about maps, really, is what I thought we were doing.

And then it was like the you are here-ness of it and being here for it. Like, oh, there's something there. And then that felt like a breakthrough in the song. For me at that moment when we were like, you are here and I'm here for it, was, oh, now this song is about our friendship. And queer rhymes with here. Yeah, and then the next one.

And literally it was. We're not queer, but we're supportive. Yeah. And when, yeah, when you came up with that rhyming thing, I was like, oh, that's, that's it. That's it. It's one of those things where it's like the comedy was sort of leading, but then it was so on theme that we were like, yeah, this is, and I think this is a, theme that we were like yeah this is and i think this is a uh specifically as it relates to us um lots of people uh think or insist on the fact that we are actually in a secret gay relationship right and i think that this is actually yeah um i actually think that this is a symptom of the way that male friendships manifest, right? I think that the reason that people will be like, well, those guys must be gay,

is actually just an indication that, well, there's something sort of broken with male friendships in general. So that, oh, well, if you're together all the time, if you're sharing life in this way, you guys have worked together forever. If you celebrate your connection. You must be gay. If you celebrate a connection, then it must, yeah. It has to be romantic. Right.

Whereas people would be much less likely to make that accusation, not that being gay is, I mean, in this situation it's negative, but no, it's just like, we're not gay, but people think that we are. You wouldn't necessarily do that with two women that have been in a friendship for a long time.

In fact, if my wife says, you know, if my wife is talking to somebody else and she says, my girlfriend said so-and-so, so-and-so, there's a moment where people are like, is she talking about a partner or is she talking about just a friend?

But I never have referred to you as my boyfriend. Men don't refer to their boyfriends as boyfriends. If a man says this is my boyfriend, you just assume that he's talking about his romantic partner. And that's a problem, boyfriend. We're not going to get into what part of this is biological and what part of this is cultural.

into the like, what part of this is biological and what part of this is cultural. The fact is, is that we are all kind of subject to the culture and the norms, and they're being redefined in helpful ways. But you can't help that if you were born and raised in this atmosphere where, for whatever reason, men have a reputation, and I actually think it is a reality, are not as emotionally available to one another. Even if they want to be, they have a tougher time being emotionally available and disclosing things. I mean, these studies talk about not the self-disclosure. They have less self-disclosure, less sharing of what's happening emotionally. I remember back in grade school, I looked over a couple of guys' shoulders, including Zach, and there was this trend of making a list of your friends.

Oh. And these were guys that I remember doing this, and it was, you know, well, where am I at on Zach's list? Where would he be on my list? Can I make a list? Because I wasn't making a list. I'm just seeing if I'm on other people's list. Did you make a list? Do you remember this list happening back in grade school?

I remember more of the girls doing it. I remember more of the girls doing it. These are my best friends. I remember more of the girls doing it. I didn't remember seeing any guys do it. But I guess I wasn't looking over Zach's shoulder. I think I was on Zach's list, but I was kinda low. You know? And that's, I think that's accurate.

In Buies Creek, you get to like seven or eight, and you run out of people. Well, I might have been five. Okay, so you're basically way at lower half. Obviously, you would have been very high on my list if not, you know. If not? If not number one. Yeah, I mean, sometimes we were.

What grade are we talking about? It might be second grade. Well, second grade we were in a different class. Right. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind. We were always on each other's list, and practically at the top of the list,

but I don't even think I actually made a list. I never made a list. But it was interesting that at that age, we felt like a little bit there was some permission to do that. And then at a certain point, it's like, yeah, you might know that in our friend group growing up, we were the tightest, especially when you get to high school. That's when we started getting the, there was the rumors of being gay.

And I think it's just, you know, people, guys are missing out on expressing how much they value a relationship. Do you remember how intense that rumor got? I've kind of totally forgotten about this, but there was a guy. I'd forgotten about it entirely. I know you mentioned it on Ear Biscuit like a year ago. I'll mention it again because not everybody listens to every episode. No, no, no. I can't remember his name.

And of course, this is at a time where culturally it was very different. Specifically where we were at, it was very different. And specifically what we believed in the worldview that we were operating under, which is that being gay was wrong. And not just wrong, but it was shameful and the worst thing that somebody could accuse you of. Sadly, yes. That's the culture that we were in.

And I think that this guy was writing it. This is freshman year. He was writing Rhett and Link are gay in multiple places around the school. And I found out who it was and confronted him. And I'm a lover. I'm not a fighter. I don't come in with fisticuffs, as they say. I come in with like, hey, bro, let's talk about this.

I don't know who it was. I can't even remember the dude's name. Oh, really? Okay, so it was... I think his first name started with a D. Okay. I can't remember his last name. And that's not a dick joke.

No. If you thought that. That would have been a dumb one. It would have been a bad dick joke. And he ended up... He had to go to the principal's office. I don't know why I don't remember. I don't remember this experience.

He had to go to the principal's office. At all. But I haven't thought about that. Maybe I never saw it. It's the last time I talked about it on Ear Biscuits. But yeah, that was... So that accusation has been around for quite a long time. Because when two guys spend as much time together

as we always did, and not just spending time together, like we'll talk a little bit about this in a second, about sort of the nature of male friendships as they relate to activities. But we did a lot of stuff together. And it was like, well, they're gonna be, there's a talent show thing. Well, Rhett and Link are gonna be up there doing this thing together. Like, oh, there's a lip sync contest at the dance. Rhett and Link are

gonna be DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, you know? Oh yeah. And so we came into high school with that kind of mentality. We were like, yeah, we hang out all the time. Attached at the hip. And that was the... Sexual partners. I will say that we did not do ourselves any favors.

We came in pretty hot to freshman year, if you don't recall, when within two weeks of starting school, we were both dating two of what were considered, you know, back when they used to rank the girls in high school, which had horrible practice, but at Harnett Central High School, the ranking of the hottest girls included, we got two of the top five, according to everyone at school, who were older than us in our freshman year. And this was a huge upset for me. I mean, I... But didn't that... Kind of expect it from you. Didn't that clarify things?

No, but I think that it made this guy a little bit... You know what? He was a friend of one of them. That's where it came from. And he was older than us as well. And it's like these two Boots Creek boys come in. They're hanging out all the time. They're dating the hottest girls. They must be gay.

That adds up. Or we need to establish that. Anyway, my high school started strong, didn't end as well. So I'm not saying anything about my prowess, I'm just saying. It's okay to say, Rhett's my best friend, or we're best friends, but to say to the other person, I value our friendship. Like, I care about you. And, you know, I think we'll get into more of the emotional stuff with, like, the next study, right? So, like, talk about the L word.

But, yeah, it wasn't something that we did. It's something that, given the trajectory of our friendship and our career and kind of building our career on our friendship, there's been this journey of exploring every aspect of it. We're doing it again right now. That I think has opened us up to levels of appreciation that I think otherwise it would have been really hard to get here. And most guys don't get to that point if your friendship with someone is one of the calling cards of your your brand

which you make a living through and you've kind of built a company around now first of all that's fraught with its own issues right of navigating navigating that but it's also very good for making sure that you are talking to each other and even as part of your brand you're talking about your relationship. And yeah, I think about, I don't have any other friendships

where that is the case. I have close friendships. And I have friendships like, I have friendships with guys that there's an emotional intimacy that can immediately pick up where it left off even if like we haven't talked for months it'd be like oh there's not any awkwardness i'm gonna ask you how you're how you're doing i'm gonna ask you about your how's fatherhood how's your marriage how's your job like it gets intimate very quickly because that's the nature of those friendships

yeah but it's i mean it's a different thing when it's it yeah you've got it kind of built into the structure of your schedule for the average guy who doesn't have that it happens through what we're going to talk about next which is shared shared activities, which it creates this. Right. Which is what a lot of male friendships are based on. But before we get into that. We going to promote the comedy special? The stand-up comedy special.

Yes. Over on the Mythical Society. You know, we've got a bunch of people here at Mythical who are very funny, very talented, and have specific experience with stand-up comedy and we put together a little special uh for a little crowd of mythical folk and and exclusively for you if you're a society great time so you can watch that on the society uh it's gonna be so if you're listening to this audio the day that it comes out, it's gonna be Wednesday, June 7th. If you're watching this, well, today, or any time after,

you can go over there and watch it. It's already out. And let me tell you, it exceeded my expectations, which were not low. Lots of good laughs. In its first, second, and third degree, this is available for all members of The Society. So go over there, mythicalsociety.com. Watch the comedy special.

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talk about? Okay, there's a few, but this is all about friendship maintenance and shared activity. So, a study in 2006 the glass partition obstacles to cross-sex friendships at work published in human relations suggests that women may put more effort into maintaining friendships often through communication and mutual sharing whereas men's friendships may be more

reliant on shared activities and then another study men's friendships are more often based around shared activities like sports or hobbies according to studies like gender differences and friendship patterns, 1996. So again... You got this generalization that if you see a group of women in a circle, and you see a group of men in a circle, you can guess what they're talking about. It's much more likely that women are talking about, they're connecting, and the men are just saying, well, what are we going to do?

Or they're talking about a shared interest. The guys are. Sports creates, and for like a... Guys stand around a grill and talk about the meat and the sports. Super stereotypical male. I mean, I've said I've said this before, that like one of the things, you know, I would say that if you're doing a percentage breakdown of my conversations with my dad, my text thread with my dad, a very high percentage of that is sports related. Because I know the kinds of sports events that he watches, that I

also watch, and I'm like, this is happening right now. He's probably watching this. If I text him, we are currently experiencing the same thing. Which is cool. And we're connecting over that. Again, in some ways, it ends up being this thing that like, oh, you know, men really just want to be, you know, the joke is men really just want to be intimate with one another and self-disclose and be around one another. But the only way that they could do that is direct all that passion

and that energy towards a guy with a ball who's not either one of them. You know what I'm saying? And it's just like, we got all this energy, we just want to hug each other, but we want to watch that guy slam that guy, and that's how we're going to experience it. I mean, definitely the doing of things, it just seems like it's just the default. What are we going to do?

Let's do something Let's Let's go for a hike Actually we were talking Even a few minutes ago It's like okay Let's plan something Let's go surfing again It's been a long time since we've been surfing

And it's just It's kind of an easy way to then know that you're going to connect, but it's like we're doing something shoulder to shoulder. It might be watching something or walking towards something or surfing towards something, but it's a lot easier to then find the connection along the way it feels. But it's also easier. Than just sitting down and just staring at each other.

But it's also easier to not connect, too. It is. So it's like, again, you're together, and this common interest has brought you together. And I would say that a lot of guys have a friend who is their blank, fill in the blank friend. He's my golf buddy. Yeah.

My poker buddy, whatever. And so it's just like this guy falls into this category because I do this thing with him. Whereas if we're not, like, I don't know what I'd do if we weren't playing golf. You know, I think, thankfully, I think that this is, my guess is that this is,

this is also a generational thing. I would suspect that guys in their 20s, this is not nearly as much the case as it is for guys in their 40s or guys older than us. Like the older you are, the more you are kind of associated with an older generation, the more this is probably the case because things are shifting and kind of opening up.

Yeah. And it's becoming, you know, these stereotypes are kind of being revealed as being sort of in many ways sort of a result of these cultural norms that have been reinforced and people are having their way with those and breaking them open. as being sort of, in many ways, sort of a result of these cultural norms that have been reinforced and people are having their way with those and breaking them open. Men can be intimate in the same way. So I like where the trend is heading.

And women can just play golf together just for the sake of playing golf. I mean, Jenna, how do you feel about these generalities when it comes to, like, guys just like to do stuff together and women just get together and just weep. That was pretty harsh. I don't feel like you ever said that that's what women do when they get together is they just weep.

No, I was joking. But there's like more of a permission to connect emotionally and to share thoughts and feelings self-disclosure as we talked about i will say because i i have those friends that i are kind of categorized in the things i do with them like i have my universal um annual pass friends who we always we always go to the park together, and that's where we catch up. But, like, that's how we started. But as our, like, friendships evolved, like,

we get together outside of the park now, and we check in on each other. It's not all about universal. Like, we have a text thread that's not all about, like, universal stuff. It's about, like, other life things as well. So I think, like, yes to the activities, but I feel like that's what you all do as well. You have the activities, but you also talk about life when you do those things.

Yeah, we do. Definitely. I mean, I have a text thread with my dad friends, but it's mostly, the text thread is just planning the next thing. You know? Text threads are one thing. And our college friends, that text thread is planning the next thing, which may be a

phone call, but there's not a lot of like... To our credit, I will say that with the college buddies, we haven't been great about the frequency lately, as everyone's lives have gotten back to normal. But during the pandemic, we started a regular connection that was, again, it was about just connecting. Because everybody in that group is an emotionally mature guy who understands the benefit of that type of interaction and that sort of intimacy. And interestingly, I think a lot of that came from our background in church, but also the specific type of ministry that we were involved in with like crew, you know, Campus Crusade. There was a lot of sharing in circles. Yeah, yeah. You get together with a group. Like literal circles. You get together with a group. Mostly it's divided by gender.

At least it was with Crusades. It was like you got a guy Bible study, you got a girl Bible study. And unlike those heathens in InterVarsity that put the guys and the girls together. What were they thinking? But you got pretty good at being honest and disclosing and having those conversations. So I think a lot of that with those guys, because we all got to know each other in that environment, it's kind of based on that level of intimacy,

which was a little bit of a weird sort of like benefit that we got. We don't agree with everything that we learned in that setting, but there were some life skills that we referenced quite often. But to me, it's about your phone calls, right? And again, I'm just talking about my wife, my beautiful wife, Jessie, who makes phone calls to people and the purpose of the phone call is the phone call.

Yeah, that's wild. Okay, okay, okay. I never do that. If I call you, I have a reason that the phone call is serving. And I don't, and I just, I'm not saying I do this on purpose. I don't calculate this. I'm just saying, and I probably should just call people to catch up. But it's always, even when it is just to catch up,

it is precipitated by an event like it's their birthday even when it is just to catch up, it is precipitated by an event like it's their birthday. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. How you doing? It's your birthday. Happy birthday! Let me talk to you and figure out how you're doing now. But no calls out of the blue. And this makes me not as good of a friend. I will freely admit that, that a good friend, I think, will call you and just catch up. But it's just not in me naturally to be like, I'm going to call this person to connect.

Whereas every time I hear my wife talking to someone on the phone, it seems like the only purpose is to connect. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't do that. I mean, I'll call, but it's usually now it's just like a text to like, well, let's get coffee. You know, I want to catch up, but like I don't consider the phone like a viable option for that. It's got to be, I got to go a step further. There's got to be a coffee involved or grabbing a beer. Jenna, you call people just to talk?

No, I am also horrible about this. I'll do it with like a very select few, like a couple family members and like one or two friends. But usually there's some other like I need their advice on something. And that's why I'm caught. Like it's not just to call or like I haven't seen my niece in a while. I want to see my niece, which I guess is like just because call. But yeah, I don't seen my niece in a while I want to see my niece which I guess is like just because call but yeah I don't do that at all and I have friends who do that constantly like my best friend has friends of hers that will call her every single day just to and I think it's crazy

I think it's I'm like whoa that's a lot you just talked yesterday and like yeah so i think that's too much for me but like the relationship i have with my best friend like her and i don't have that like we we see each other constantly because we also live together so it's like i'm not going to just call her out of the blue for no reason anyway i'm gonna go in this other room to call you but like she she has like many friends who will call on a regular basis, and she will call on a regular basis just to chat. And I'm like, we are not the same person. I cannot do this.

Well, and then you talked about the L word. We could talk about that a bit. It kind of ties these first two things together. The ultimate emotional disclosure, saying that you love somebody Jessie ends 70% of her conversations with I love you

and so that's meaningless no no like Jessie you know will talk to someone who works for her

at Jessie Lane Interiors and in the conversation with I Love You. I mean, I think it's wonderful and beautiful, but it is so different than the way... Okay, so back to our song. I've never told an employee that I love them. Back to our song, because the lyric is...

Like a brother from another mother, but I won't tell you I love you, because that might make it weird. Weird rhymes with queer, and here, again, the rhyme leads us. Because it was, yeah, it's like, I love you. You know, it's just like, it's weird out of the blue. I mean, there's people, like, I talked to Dad on Dispatches

about, you know, there's people, like I talked to Dad on Dispatches about, there's people who wrote him emails about how we end every podcast saying that we love each other, which is what we do on a phone call. But there's a lot of people who, they don't have that with their parent. they don't have that with their parent. And I just chalk that up to if you don't do it from like, if you don't establish that that's part of something that you do, then it's hard to start doing it at a later date. Yeah, it was not commonplace.

Okay, in my household growing up, I felt a lot of love and I was shown a lot of love. And both of my parents would say, I love you in certain contexts, but as a way to say goodbye, that wasn't just, it just wasn't a part of the way that we talked to each other. So there wasn't an, I love you at the end of a phone conversation once I was in college. I love you at the end of a phone conversation once I was in college. However, at some point as adulthood set in, especially once we moved out here, and now we're like in a different place, and there's much less interaction. We lived in the same town or very close to each other.

It was different. Regularly say I love you to end a conversation with either of my parents or my brother at this point. But I think that's also a function of the fact that we, like our, our, as our friend group developed when we got to LA, we made friends with people who said, I love you at the end of a, like hanging out. Yeah. There were a few of those. Like other dudes that you would hug when they showed up and hug when they left and you say, I love you. Or it might be, love you, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you add a ya and a man, then it's kind of like that couches it a little bit. Yes. But that's still something. And we've talked about this before. This is where it gets a little bit. Yes. But that's still something. And we've talked about this before. This is where it gets a little bit weird with us because we share many of the same friends, and we have these gatherings where, okay, like, okay, if Mike— There's a guy you don't love as much as you love me that you're telling that you love him

because he told you he loved you. Let's talk about Mike. What about me? So Mike is our mutual really good friend of ours. And you may know him as Science Mike. And, you know, Mike said a lot of the things together that we would do. And that's the kind of relationship we have with Mike. It's hugging.

It's saying I love you. And then, like, I'll, like, be hugging him by saying I love you. And then I'll be hugging him by saying I love you, and you're, well there you are, you do the same thing to him. Right. And then it's like, well I guess the next logical step is for Rhett and Link to hug and say I love you. But we may do it, but it's sort of this,

oh let's be funny about it. It's a little silly. Because it's just like, I'm gonna see you at 8 a.m. You know what I'm saying? And it's not, yeah, it's just not something that we ever did. So is there ever a point when we'd have to make a decision to change? Like, I think the first times that we said I love you to each other were in the context of a video.

Really? I think so I think on GMM or something where it was just like might be true and it was for the comedy of it but the comedy was like yeah we never actually say this to each other there's no doubt that we do love each other but it's it's that brotherly thing of like, I mean, you had to make a decision to start saying, telling Cole that you love him. Yep. And that was an adult decision. Mm-hmm. Right? Cole's my brother.

I'm not defending. I'm just trying to explain a little bit. It's an interesting dynamic I think that there's Yeah there's a There's friends that I've made now That As an adult That are more emotionally connected

To themselves And are more comfortable saying I miss you I haven't talked to you in a while Or I had a friend text me and we're talking about getting together. And I'm like on this, when do you want to hang? Let's hang out. And then he was like, yeah, I really miss your energy is what he told me. And I was like, man, that made me feel good.

But that's not something that I said to him, but it's something that I, it was what was behind me initiating the text to like say, hey, how are you doing? Let's hang out. And then, but the truth of it was, hey man man, I really value our friendship, and I miss your energy. Let's get together. But it's a way of speaking that just like wearing your heart on your sleeve. I'm a fan of that. I feel like I do that. I do a decent job of that at certain times, but I still have to make up my mind to do it. And I'm inspired by when I receive that level of openness from another guy friend, especially.

It's like, oh, I'll note that. Like, maybe I can change. Maybe I can be that person who puts myself out there a little bit more and say, I miss hanging out. It's been too long. I miss you. Because saying that is just as hard as saying I love you, almost maybe. Yeah, I think for me, there's two things.

There's a vulnerability to it. I think one thing is that- It doesn't fall in a masculine column. ...is that I am definitely an introvert. When it comes to where I get my energy from, I get it from being alone. And so I love being with people. I love being in groups of people, and I have a really good time. And obviously, introversion and extroversion is really just a framework to understand people,

and I think that it is best explained as where you kind of get recharged, is it with someone or not with something. It's not really like your personality characteristics, because obviously I'm comfortable in a group and i i look people in the eye and you know it's it's i can be outgoing in other words and comfortable in a group or with in conversation but you don't find yourself desiring yeah most of the time i find myself desiring to be alone and be doing something where I kind of get lost in thought or I listen to something or I just... So for me, I have to make an effort to be like,

oh, there's value in this. So there's not a natural tendency to be like, I don't sit around and think, oh, I miss fill in the blank and I need to spend some time with him. Like it's like it just doesn't, that's not how I think about it. I think more about an activity like I would love to do this and that person would be great to do that with. Yeah. That's one thing.

And then I think another thing is that, I mean, I think it's important to give yourself grace in this area because. Me? Or anybody? Anybody. Okay. And you included. Because I think there's truth to what you just said, which is like, can I be more of whatever it is, be more available, be more vulnerable,

be more expressive? And I do think that there's, yes, because you don't... I'm not trying to make an excuse of like, well, everyone's different and everyone expresses things differently. But one of the things that I have found is because I am, I'm not super expressive when it comes to these things. But because that's my base level sort of way of being,

when I make a decision to be expressive or to say something, it carries a lot of weight. And so for me, I find myself thinking like, okay, well, I am this way for some reason. I'm continuing to try to get more in touch with myself through therapy. I want to be more available to people and I'm continuing to work on that. In the meantime, one of the benefits of that is that these things carry kind of a lot of weight given the nature of my personality. It's like there's a weakness that can become a strength at times. Whereas you might have somebody who's sharing all the time and there's a benefit and a strength in that because you can feel super supported by them

all the time. But it's almost like cursing. You know, I try to explain this to my kids if I feel like I hear you cursing too much. And it's not that I think there's a problem with cursing. I think that cursing is a very handy linguistic tool for emphasis. And I think you want to keep it special so you can use it at the right fucking moment. That wasn't it.

To make a point. So anyway, I'm just saying that I, that's one of the ways that I give myself some grace in this because I think that there are people that this would come more naturally to, and it does come more naturally to them. And so I think that there's sort of like a framework of, or there's a patchwork of people, and it's like, well, this person I experience in this way, and I like that. I'm not saying this is an excuse to stay closed off.

I'm just saying this is a way of giving yourself grace as you grow. But I'm talking about something a little different. Okay. I think I'm not talking about conjuring up feelings you don't have. I'm talking about expressing feelings that you do have. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about me. I'm talking in general.

That if I notice that I miss somebody, I haven't seen so-and-so in a while. Yeah. I want to go, I want to see him. And then what I haven't done is said that. Haven't said, you know what? It's been too, I miss you. Like that phrase is very vulnerable. And it almost feels like it carries, you know, it's really, it's putting yourself out there. One of the things that, so, but that's what I'm trying to do more of is, I've actually been in a phase, you talk about like introversion, extroversion Coming out of the pandemic

That's what I thought it was related to And maybe it still is But cultivating some friendships Like I've met a handful A smattering of new people Over the past couple of years And some of them know each other, some of them don't. And I've prioritized cultivating those relationships,

being the one to initiate and say, hey, let's get together. Let's hang out. It's been a while, let's hang out it's been a while let's catch up you know and some of those people are like they're just totally responsive

and maybe you would fall more into that camp in the way that you described like I'm friends with this this guy who's more I think he's more introverted like I'm still getting to know him

but like every time I initiate he's always game and he's always like, here's a couple of dates, let's make this happen. And then even to the point where it's like, I was like, I can do Thursday or Friday. And he's like, I'll keep both of them open. It's like, okay, this guy never initiates with me, but he's always responsive. So that tells me that he values our friendship, especially when he says, I'm going to keep two days open so that we can make sure this happens. Like, to me, those are little, those are things that I noticed that was like, oh, this, he's reciprocating in his own way.

He's reciprocating in his own way. And with another new friend that I made, he's the guy who's more like, I miss your energy. Like he's the one who's, we initiate about the same, but he puts his emotions out there and he's more vulnerable. And that encourages me to do that too and that there's there's there's some reward there you know that's like okay i know where i know where we stand and it's not just we're not speaking in code um about well is is this really just about golfing you know because when I get together with people I do want to connect like I like connecting with the person I like getting to know them it's not you know it with both those relationships it started out with we were both interested in the same thing a lot lot of times it's music, so it's like,

let's get together and listen to music, you know? That actually is a big factor in both of those friendships because it's another thing that I've really identified a passion. But putting those two things together, I love connecting with making friends, deepening friendships, and I love music. And if I can find people that that's really the beginning of our relationship, then that's a good one-two punch. But then, yeah, I've talked about Nick, my mountain biking friend.

It's like whenever we're mountain biking, it is an occasion for us to talk about other things, but sometimes there might be a camping trip occasionally or an off-roading trip in the past, but it is pretty much relegated to that. But then within that, you pick those moments where it's like, oh, we're connecting interpersonally, if not emotionally. I'm sharing some things and then saying, hey hey does he want to reciprocate where does this where does this go and so that's it's rewarding

what's my point what do you hear me saying well you're kind of just describing your experience the part about not conjuring feelings but expressing the feelings that you have, I think is where I'm at in terms of taking a risk. And I'm seeing the rewards of that.

Like, oh, even texting somebody feels like a risk sometimes. It's like, hey, do you want to hang out this weekend? You know? Yeah, I think. And putting yourself out there, it's a hard thing to do for me, but I'm experiencing the rewards of it, and it kind of helps me. I'm experiencing the rewards of, and it kind of helps me. I mean, I think that there's two stages.

There's the having the initiative, communicating that you want to, well, you're kind of talking about the, it's not nuance. There's a difference in like saying, I want to do this thing with you or saying I miss you. There is a difference in those two things. Right. And if that's the way that you want to play it, I think that's healthy and good.

I don't necessarily think that the guy who says, I would like to play golf with you, who actually kind of means I want to hang out with you, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that necessarily. It's like, well, if you want to hang with somebody, you have to tell them that. You can't tell them that's anything wrong with that necessarily. It's like, well, if you wanna be hanging with somebody, you have to tell them that. You can't tell them that you just wanna play golf.

No, no, no. You're not saying that. And I'm just clarifying that you're not saying that. For me, it's the, once I am with someone, I don't like, I'm an open book. I'm not, I don't withhold things. I'm not like cold. I'm not, I'll talk about anything with anyone. And I'll get as personal, as vulnerable,

not as vulnerable and as quickly as my wife. But she is an exception to the rule of how quickly you will know her life story. But I'm pretty close behind her in my willingness to kind of share and be intimate with somebody. Even people that I just meet at a party, but also people in the context of friendships. Where I struggle is taking the initiative

to set up the situation where that will happen. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So for me, it's like sometimes, Jessie even might say that, she'd be like, why don't you call so-and-so? You know what I mean? Yeah. So for me, it's like sometimes, Jessie even might say that, she'd be like, why don't you call so and so? You know, like, why don't you just call him? Why don't you just see what he's up to?

Or whatever, if I'm, like don't have anything going on or whatever. And then my tendency will be like, well, that would be fun, but it would kind of also just be fun to like watch some show that you don't want to watch with me. You know? And I have to – so I'm not –

Yeah, the extrovert energy. I think that that could be overdone. For me, I have to make a decision to be like, okay, I need to take the initiative here. Because once I'm in that situation, like if I'm playing golf with somebody, you're there. Not something I'm doing. You're there for it. It's like, I'm not, yeah, I'm like, I'm playing, but I'm also like, hey, like,

let's talk about something else. And I get frustrated when I go into social situations often with other guys, and it becomes very clear that they only are interested in the game that we're playing. Like if you play, sometimes you might play poker with somebody or the group of guys and it's like, no time for talk, man.

This is about strategy. And it's kind of like, well, this is going to be a little bit boring for the next three hours. Yeah. Or there's no self-disclosure. Yeah. Ever.

Yeah. It's like. Yeah. So I'm not into that. I just don't, I just need to take the initiative more to like. Some people take longer, right? I think when it comes to us, one of the things, you know, as we've invested in our friendship over the past year and still had some really good conversations,

that and this kind of plays into i think that the next study that you want to bring up about conflict or whatever it is i realized that um we both we we value our shared experiences and they build into our friendship but i'm not going to hold it against you if I'm the one that initiates more often than you do. Because I know that you will be responsive, that you're up for it, that you've... I don't read into it as like, well, if Rhett really cared about me, he would initiate, he would come up with the thing, he'd invite me to do the thing. initiate, he would come up with a thing. He'd invite me to do the thing. Because of what you've already talked about, and I know that about you,

for me, it's like, well, if I have this felt need for us to hang out, then I should initiate that. And then the ball's in your court how you're going to respond And then you've got a very good track record

Of being very up for You know like I pretty much know They're going to be like Absolutely You know And now I'm applying that to other people That I don't know as well

It's like I'm not going to read into the fact That he never asked to hang out with me Because he is always up for it When I do initiate. And so I don't think I had a chip on my shoulder that like you, I think, well, I think there was a time when I was tempted to have a chip on my shoulder

that like you weren't coming up with the idea for us to just hang out as friends or something. And I think part of my growth is the insight that I don't think that, I shouldn't be taking that personally. That didn't reflect your feelings, the feelings that you had or didn't have for me, because you were always responsive if I were to initiate that.

Well, and I think that there's another aspect of our friendship. And I, as you well know, am sort of constantly overwhelmed with all the things that I think that we should be doing professionally. Right. Right? And I – in a sort of – I talked about this on the solo episode. And in a somewhat potentially pathological fashion, I'm constantly thinking about work. And never – I never stop thinking about, I mean, if something is happening to me in life,

I'm taking a note, I'm coming up with an idea. Like it is a constant stream, waking up in the middle of the night, having a dream, waking up. Like it's always relates back to my professional life and how this can be translated into something that we could do and put in front of an audience. It's just the way I've always been.

And so because we have the things that we really want to do, which is to create, and then we have the things that we have to do, which is all the logistical things involved with running a business like this, that I think we're pretty good at it. things that we have to do, which is all the logistical things involved with running a business like this, that I think we're pretty good at it. But I also think that it's not the thing that we want to do. Like, I was never interested in being a boss. Never something that I was like, I didn't wake up and be, I

want to be a boss of over 100 people one day. Like, not a childhood dream. No. I wanted to be a boss in like the 2010 lingo. With the W? That kind of boss. Okay. But I just wanted to make things. And so when I think about, I sort of, I look at the time that we have together.

And every moment that we have together, I'm just thinking like, what can we do? What can we make? that we have together, I'm just thinking, like, what can we do? What can we make? How can we fight for this time that we have to do all the things that I think we still should do before we die, right? We're old. We've got to keep doing things. And it's not that I'm like, I don't have time for surfing or skiing

or fishing, which we never have done. Let's go fishing. But very quickly, as you know, if you go surfing with me, well, I'm still going to talk to you about the things that it isn't. And to be clear, I don't, I hope you don't

it's not, I ask you lots of questions about your life and your kids and I'm not interested in having a personal conversation about things. But because I feel like I've got this, uh, uh, box full of ambitions that's constantly overflowing. It's just like, it's got a fit in our relationship and our time that we have to talk to each other, which is in between all the stuff that we have to do, that I think that sometimes in the very quick shuffling that's happening in my brain about what's the most important thing right now, is it to connect

or is it to accomplish? I'll too quickly move to accomplish. So it's more like, I wouldn't do it because I value my relationship with my wife and my family. But if my wife and family didn't exist or were robots that had no feelings, then I would be like, hey, man, let's work on Saturday and Sunday. I know you would. I'm just telling you that's what I would do. And I'm saying. Because it's fun. It's fun to me. Yeah. You know. I'm just telling you that's what I would do. And I'm saying. Because it's fun. It's fun to me.

You know what I'm saying? I'm doing the activity that brings me the most joy. Surfing brings me a lot of joy, but in the ranking of activities, creating is more fun than surfing. And so it's like that's my hobby. That's what I want to do. I got a side project that's just creating something. It's just because that's what I want to do, and I want to do it with you.

So I think that that's one of the dynamics that ends up. Don't take that out of context. That's one of the dynamics that manifests itself in our friendship. Right, but I'm still going to say, all right, let's do something, and we can't talk about work. Yeah, and I appreciate that. We can't do work. I't talk about work. Yeah, yeah. And I appreciate that. We can't do work. I think it's important.

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What was the Yeah, so what was that The final study? Well, there's There's multiple I'm not What's the conflict point? A study called Gender differences in social focus among friends

In 2009 In the International Journal of Behavioral Development Found that women Take conflicts more personally while men may be more likely to overlook them. I gotta say, I mean, the female relationships that I observe the most are like Christy and her friends,

like, you know, hearing their conversation, her Christy-sided conversation, all that type of stuff. You know, it's like, I don't want to throw her under the bus, but, like, the dynamics at play in all of those relationships are so complicated compared to what I feel like when I relate to my guy friends. And I feel like I'm playing into the trope here. I don't have it written right here, but it was in the same study or another one

around conflict that said that women are more likely to end a relationship over a conflict than a man. So interesting. Than a man. Interesting that there's more emotional disclosure and more intimacy. So the relationships are deeper, which I think ultimately maybe one thing about that is it increases the stakes. So if men have a shallower connection that's based on golf, well, you're going to get into a fight over somebody cheating. You know what I'm saying?

So maybe that's why this tends to be a pattern. I feel like I'm – I've never ended a friendship. Well, you know I have. Ever. We talked about that. I've never ended a friendship. Well, you know I have. Ever. I've never ended a friendship. Ironically, the guy who said, I miss you, I then ended the friendship. I mean, one of my friends in high school screwed my girlfriend.

And I wasn't even screwing her because I didn't believe in premarital sex. I broke up with her. And I'm not proud of this, but he was still my friend. I broke up with her. And I don't, I'm not proud of this, but like, I kind of, he was still my friend. And it was probably wrong.

I was probably, but I was kind of like, dude, you know, yeah, yeah. Jenna, can you be the judge

on this one? Or not, whatever you want to say. I'm not going to be a judge on that one. I'm not proud of it. I mean, maybe I should have been an asshole to him. I feel like...

I'd say it all depends on how... Did you treat her the same? Were you an asshole to her? I wasn't an asshole to her. I was just like, I think that this means that we're breaking up. I love to act like I'm really mad for videos on the internet and people think that I'm being real, but I actually have a really difficult time getting mad at people.

I don't remember. I think you were hurt, but I don't think you were mad. I'm never going to go in and yell at somebody. I was just like, we're breaking up or whatever. And then I saw him the next day and we both kind of like, ha! It was like I just couldn't bring myself to hate the guy, because I was like, well, we've broken up. I don't want to pick this scenario apart.

What I was asking Jenna about was this general idea that... men... Like, well, I'll speak for myself. I feel like if some, you know, it's like I can slot people into different categories of friendship. Like, okay, you know what? The more that I get to know this guy, the more that, like, now he's kicking back out.

He's not going to be an inner circle guy. He's going to be kicked back out a little bit. And, like, if somebody, if there's a level of incompatibility or we get our wires crossed, I just don't find myself in drama. I'm just going to put it that way. It's like, okay, this guy, I won't talk to him as often. Or I'll see him as this type of friend, not this type of friend. And I'm not going to share as often or I'll see him as this type of friend not this type of friend and I'm not going to share that information with him anymore

but I just learned my lesson you know it's like it's like a categorization a compartmentalization of levels of friendship and I feel like it's because the bar is so low for guy friendships

and that the bar is higher in general for female friendships. Am I off base in your opinion? I don't think you're off base. I think it's a larger cultural discussion of women being told they cannot be confrontational. So then when confrontation does happen, it can really end things. Whereas men can have little confrontations and those are fine. But I don't like confrontation either. But I have ended friendships because things went to a personal level and I it's how we culturally

have established those relationships like women already have this strong bonded emotional thing behind it which I mean it's cultural but then it's also it's it can be a bit hormonal as well of like we have formed those. And I think it's hard to say that it's male or female because I very much am – I don't get super emotional. Like I know that friends of mine, female friends of mine, take things to heart a lot different than I do. And because I understand that, I phrase things different and I speak to them different. And I think that's just a level of growth and therapy for me instead of like when I was younger, oh, we don't vibe on this. I don't like this person. We're not going to be friends.

Yeah. Period. I think I might have an analogy that is helpful because I agree with you that, again, we're talking in generalities. And, you know, a lot of people's opinion, which I know is at least to some degree true, is that a lot of these generalities exist because of cultural norms and

things that have been put onto people. And so if there is a situation in which, like if you're in a pool and men's relationships more often are in the shallow end of the pool and women's relationships are more often in the deep end of the pool, well, you're more likely to drown in the shallow end of the pool, and women's relationships are more often in the deep end of the pool, well, you're more likely to drown in the deep end of the pool, right? If that's where you're swimming, the stakes are higher, and it could result in a loss. Somebody sinks to the bottom, right? There's consequences to getting into a conflict in the deep end of the pool

that don't exist in the kiddie pool. And mistakes for women in conflict are a lot – there's a lot more pressure on women for those conflicts that happen than for men. If women have this conflict happen, we're dramatic, we're too aggressive. It labels us as this type of person that then no one wants to work with or be around. Whereas men can have those same conflicts. And he's just standing up for himself. Yeah. Right. And that totally makes sense.

That's helpful. that totally makes sense. That's helpful. I also think for guys, it's just, you know, it's in the shallow pool analogy, it's like, oh, well, this doesn't matter that much.

You know? Like, the level of connection is just less, so I'm just gonna, I'll compartmentalize them, or I'll just, you know, that's the end of that friendship, and I didn't even realize it. Right. So if you've got a guy that you play golf with and he gets tendonitis and then

it's just like, oh, I hadn't talked to Chuck in four years. Right. His elbow's messed up. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, because it was so based on something. Yeah, apparently he wasn't a true friend. He was just a golf buddy. There's a couple of sort of things that you may not have anticipated

that I wanted to make sure that we talked about before we closed this discussion, which I hope has been helpful. I'm sure. I don't know if it's been helpful. I mean, again, it's just like I know we're kind of... We're going to each side of this spectrum and living there, and I know that that can be irritating to some people, but hopefully because, as Jenna said, as she has demonstrated already, that, well, in this situation,

I would actually behave more like what your studies show how a man would react. Again, because it's like these general characteristics don't apply to individual people. They apply to groups. So give us some more generalizations. So I'll give you some more general stuff. Virtual friendship. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center report,

men are more likely than women to consider online contacts as friends. So like somebody that is, and this is maybe generational too, because like I don't have, in fact, someone asked me recently if I had, and you were there, they were talking about- It was me. I was the one who asked you. Oh, but we were at a party.

I didn't realize you were the one who started that discussion. I think I was. Do you have people that you're just friends with online? Like, is there somebody that you- A social network friend. And then your wife was like, yeah, I have a thread, an Instagram thread, where it's like a text thread, but it's just on Instagram, and I'd never met these people.

And I was like, oh, that's something that can happen. Like, it was like, I don't have anybody. Now, there may be some people that I've like, there's a few people that are like public figures that we've connected via social media, like DMs. But it's not a friendship. It's more just like, yes, we've sent three messages over the past four years about specific things.

But it's not a friendship that's maintained online. And I definitely don't see them as a friend. Yeah, I don't relate to this. I see them as a friendly acquaintance. It's so weird the way that we experience social media as it was happening, that it was like... It's tough to apply this. As content creators, it kind of short-circuited actually using it as like for personal connection.

We never really saw it that way as it was developing. And then by the time everybody caught up, we were just these people who were just pumping out content through these pipelines. Yeah. So we never utilized it that way. Yeah, we made 5,000 Facebook friends for the promotional quality of it. Yes. And then still have most of them, but don't go on Facebook.

No. No. A study published in PLOS1, I guess that's plus one with a no, 2014, sex differences and social focus across the life cycle in humans. Exciting stuff. Suggested that men tend to have larger

but less intimate social networks compared to women. More acquaintances? If you started listing people that you would call your friends, and it's like, I don't know what you would constitute a friend, but apparently it would include online friends. On average, a man would have more, but they'd be less intimate, but it would be this larger network.

I thought that was an interesting tidbit. I don't think it's necessarily anything that I relate to personally. Yeah, I just don't have capacity for like, that's why I broke up with that guy who said he missed me because I went through the whole thing when it happened on this show but I didn't feel like I had the

capacity to give him what I felt like I wanted to give to be an actual friend. And it was like... Is that your one time of actually breaking up with a friend? Yeah, I learned my lesson. And I got... So I don't do that anymore. I've had friendships end, but it was because of complex social dynamics amongst groups and couples and stuff like that.

Yeah. But never... I haven't had a situation where there was a guy that I was a friend with and then something that he did to me or to someone else was like, now I have to end the friendship. That's never happened to me, I don't think. And again, as I suggested,

it would take a whole lot based on what happened in high school. I'm not saying it's a healthy thing. I mean, maybe I should have ended more friendships, but it just hasn't crossed my mind. And lastly, and this is something we can relate to because we are both aging. Aged.

Study published in the journal Personal Relationships in 2017 said or found that men may have fewer friends as they grow older due to reliance on their partners for emotional support. I actually think that, so you've already described how you are like personally bucking this trend. You seem to be making an effort there. It's not something that I have been doing. effort there yeah um it's not something that i have been doing um i have a fair amount of friends i don't have too many friends that i talk to on a regular basis that

we're like constantly doing stuff with each other mostly because because I feel connected enough, right? But I do see how this, like, let's just say that we had a horrible, me and you had a horrible breakup when our separate ways, something that is constantly being theorized is about to happen, just so you know. Not only are we gay, but we're also constantly about to break up. Right. Neither's been true ever um but i can totally see because i have a very and i think i speak for both of us i have a very deep emotional bond to my wife like we you know we share everything together. We're not isolated.

We haven't grown up. You feel like that's enough? We haven't grown apart as we've gotten older. We've grown together. We're better friends now than we were when we were youngsters.

I get a lot out of our friendship and our time together. We like spending time together. We like doing things together. Like, we like traveling with one another.

And so I could see how this would be the case where I would just kind of be like, ah, I don't... You know, as long as I got her, I'm alright. I like being by myself. And apparently, the studies

show that this is actually a pattern. It probably, I mean, I'm sure this goes both ways as you get older, like as you're in a couple of any description, and you kind of just are like, I got this person, and it's hard to find time and conjure up the effort to connect. And then that person dies. Okay.

And then you're just old and alone. Yeah, I'm- Like, that is kind of a scary situation. I'm hedging my bets. I'm feeling pretty good, you know, on that front. Yeah, you're... I'll have a number of friends. You're sowing some good seeds there.

I'm not talking about Christy dying. I'm talking about you dying, but... Oh. Yeah. But I... I don't have a replacement for you, but I think the amalgamation of a bunch of other friends would just keep me above ground.

Well, but if you fast forward into the distant future, you know, I'm dead early because I'm tall, whatever. It's just you and Christy. Right. She's most likely going to outlive you because women, on average, live longer than men, but let's just say that there's an accident. Okay, great. But let's just say that there's an accident. Okay, great. But she's old.

I mean, you're both in your 80s. It's kinda like, yeah, she's in an accident. It's kinda like, well, it's gonna happen one way or another. And so you're 85 and you're single. And so it puts you in that scenario. First of all, 85, single, you gonna try to get with somebody? But that's not...

No, just sexually. Let's just talk about that before we talk about friends. That's a whole other podcast. Like, if you're 85 and you're finally single, you gonna go on a dating website? What are you gonna do? Uh, yeah, sure. You think you have no desire to wet your willy at that point? It's not gonna be about desire, it's gonna be about ability, and I hope that...

There's drugs for that, man. Right, well there you go. Okay. Then yes. So yeah, so you're gonna get laid at 85. That's the first few weeks, is you just getting laid as much as possible. I mean, I'm not going to deny it. But then comes friendship. Okay, so my question for you as it relates to that is, like, what would you do?

I have friends, Rhett. Okay, so. I'm working on it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think. It's happening for me. At that point, I would join a group of some kind that was doing something like,

we're planting trees, you know? And I feel like... Let's get together and read the paper. In the context of a group like that, that I would definitely do, because I'd have the time, you know? I think I could generate a lot of friends really quickly. So I'm kind of...

You can catch up. I'm not... It's fine. I guess ultimately I was saying... Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm not worried about it. Don't worry about it. Because I can make fast friends when I want to.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, don't worry about it. Just be my friend. I'll be your friend whenever you want to do it. And then I'll be friends with other people when you don't. And then everybody's happy. I think this is working, right?

Yeah, yeah, I think it is working. I think it is working. Yeah, I got plans Friday night. I think I got plans Saturday night. What does your wife say about this? I try to make plans with her first, and then when she taps out because it's too many plans, then I just fill everything else in. That's the way I do it. Yeah.

Yeah, and I don't make plans. I've started making more plans. That's my thing. Yeah, I don't make many. I'd like to make more activity plans. You feel like this is a good ending point? I mean, this is as good as any. Okay. I want to bring you back to our RentLink channel for my recommendation. Our song, You Are Here, is streaming everywhere, so enjoy that song.

It makes more sense when you've watched the video, but then it's, since it was 1984, I created a playlist that was inspiration for the production of that track. So if you want to enjoy that, you can go to my Spotify account, which the best way to tell you to get to my Spotify playlist is to go to my Instagram profile and then click on my Spotify link. You can't just search Link Neal on Spotify? I don't know.

So the playlist is called You Are Here Inspo. It's the inspiration for the You Are Here track. And if you only want to listen to one song... Yep, that's me. Yeah, I just put Link in and you came up. You can just search Link in on Spotify. Automatic by the Pointer Sisters. I was so obsessed with that song when we were making

You Are Here, so you can check that out. See how these 31 minutes worth of tracks made their way into You Are Here. There you go. That's my rec. Thanks for being my friend, Rhett. I just realized that my... Thanks for being my friend, Rhett. No, thanks for being my friend.

I really miss you. I miss you too, but I... And you know what? I love you. I love you too, man. Look at that. Did you see that? But I do have something to share. Okay, yeah. And that is that I didn't realize that my playlist for Locke's graduation party

last year was public. Huh. Yeah, you can make it private or you can leave it. I don't really, yeah, I don't really use this. Maybe I should make that not public. Maybe I should make my whole profile not public. If you want to let us know what you think, use hashtag Ear Biscuits and give us a call. Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts. 1-888-EAR-POD-1

1-888-EAR-POD-1 It's a pretty good playlist. I'll leave it up. It's just seven songs. Hey guys, I just listened to the commencement speech episode and when Link said that spreadsheets were sexy i lost it i graduated about six months ago with my accounting degree and spreadsheets are sexy thank you so much

bye