Endless Thread - Encore: Niall Needs a Friend

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

As many people gather with family and friends for the holidays, we revisit a story about our listener Niall. In 2020, Niall emailed us saying he felt isolated during the pandemic. He wanted to know if we could help him make some new friends. So, we did. Credits: This episode was produced by Josh Crane and Frank Hernandez. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson are the co-hosts. Photo: u/archaelleon on Reddit

Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Unless Thread friends. It is that time of year when we on the Unless Thread team are spending more time with our families and our chosen families, the people that we care about and the people that care about us. And we hope you're doing the same. It's important for us all to spend that time together when we can and how we can. And so we wanted to play an episode that is about finding the people who care about you and who you care about.

So, without further ado, I give you Nile Needs a Friend. WVUR Podcasts, Boston. One thing that's true about endless thread listeners is that they're really good at email. Which honestly, these days, feels like a rare skill. My inbox is generally speaking a total garbage fire. But if it's a message from a listener, it is almost always great. I am not just blowing smoke. Like, you guys have good things to say.

Good story ideas, good feedback. And this thread listener email is, I think, the best email I get. This is true. And even when you're mad at us for something, it's still usually great. A listener named Kevin wrote to us recently about our unsent letters episode, which he couldn't complete because he got too emotional. He said, first time I've ever ended a podcast

and deleted an episode without finishing it. Congrats on pulling that sort of emotion from this old curmudgeon. Kevin, sorry not sorry, love you, man. A few weeks back, we got a doozy, though, from a guy named Nile, who lives in Galway, Ireland. Hi, Amory and Ben and team, he writes, I'm getting in touch with a topic

you may or may not find interesting in terms of content, but I'll explain as brief as I can. So I'm a 29-year-old guide from Ireland. I'm registered blind. I've reduced mobility. And the only friend I have is currently in the UK. While the COVID situation is impacting everyone, I feel particularly isolated due to being disabled.

By the way, if you could hear a little voice talking behind Nile there, That's the screen reader he uses to translate text into sound. The truth is a lot of people feel alone right now. But for reasons stated, Nile's operating at a different level of aloneness. Because while the pandemic has made a lot of us more isolated, that didn't really happen for Nile. The pandemic only made Nile realize that he didn't have many people to be isolated from in the first place. It made him realize that there's been a void in his life,

avoid where social connections would be but aren't. And the reason Nile is writing us is that he's been trying to connect with people online. He's even posted to some of the communities geared towards making friends. There's one on Reddit called Need a Friend, for instance, and another one called Make New Friends Here. But he hasn't had much luck. I've heard about great friendships which have been forged online, but far from posting in Need a Friend,

and making friends here, I'm not sure what else to do. I'd love to hear from someone, but if this too niche are off topic, I totally understand. Nile's actually well within the bounds of a whole genre of emails and messages we get. Basically, I'm looking for ex-community on Reddit. Do you guys have suggestions? People love asking us this, and we love answering. But clearly Niles' ask goes above and beyond the usual request.

First, I want to say I give you credit for having the guts to ask for help in making friends, because I think that's like vulnerable to ask for something like that, I feel. How many friends would you say you've had over your life? So, I would say it's decreased from when I was in primary school, maybe at 10 or 12th, and then de-freezing. This is not just a Nile problem. This is a becoming a grown-ass adult problem. But unlike many of us,

Nile had the guts to call it out and to ask for help from his podcast friends, yours truly's. Is it too niche or off-topic, Nile? No, no, it is not. Will we help? Yes. Heck yes.

I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Severson. And you're listening to end. thread. The show featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit. We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Today's episode. Nile needs a friend.

Ben, have you ever played friend matchmaker before? In a way, yes. Like, I'm the type of person who's always trying to combine my different groups of friends together, high school friends and college friends, work friends and life friends. Because I'm like, these people, I mean, I'm clear. really great. These people over here are great. These people are over here are great. Like, let's all just be great together. Let's get out. Like, let's hang out. And how's that working out for you? I would say that my success with this is mixed.

Sometimes friend groups, like, regard each other with skepticism. Figuring out whether people will click is actually pretty hard. What about you? You ever play a friend matchmaker? I'm more of the romantic matchmaker. Yeah. I find friend matchmaking pretty stressful. But, you know, we got to give this a try for Nile. So the important thing was to start with a little background. So we asked Nile what he was looking for in a friend.

To a certain extent, it will be some shared interests. So in terms of something like the technology or as means to the theater or Netflix, I'd have great conversations with people at work about those topics, about Netflix and theatre and so on. But outside work, that's where the connections end. Nile works in human resources. Outside of that, he's a pretty big science fiction fan. Right now, he's reading the book Jumper by Stephen Gould. But his greatest passion seems to be musical theatre. So musical theatre is another big interest of mine. Oh, favourite musical.

Go. Well, the stereotypical obvious answer would be Hamilton. But I just listened to Dear Evan Hanson today is pretty good. And then we've wicked, Phantom in the Opera, Miss Saigon is really good as well. I think I wore out a Phantom of the Opera tape when I was about 11 to the point of like it basically like crumbled and fell apart because I played it so often.

So you and I could, we could probably sing some Phantom of the Opera together. I thought we're going to make a pun there. There's a song of Phantom of the Opera called The Point of No Return. Well, what do you like about musicals, Nile? So I guess obviously the catchy songs are they're really good and everything. But aside from that whole music, in a lot of them it's the method, I suppose. The message is always, sometimes in the musicals I like anyway, is related to diversity and inclusion.

and overcoming adversity in some way. When he's not watching musicals, we wanted to know what Nile considered a good time, which, if you're Irish, is said a slightly different way. What to you is good crack? I think that's what you call it, right? Yeah, that's it, definitely. So to me, it will be lighter conversation

or a funny conversation with someone that was either shared similar interests or there was some kind of connection there. A lot of times before the pandemic when the work crew did go out for a work event

it will be in a bar or restaurant or something like that. and that is of course it's a social setting and it's widely accepted that that is a good time I would view a situation like that to be quite stressful because it's quite difficult to hear people if there's no loud music or a lot of a lot of other conversations going on. Remember bars, Amory? You know, I didn't appreciate them that much in the before times, but I miss them now. I really do. I do too. But Nile and I are on the same page and that I also, I'm a little bit of an old man

would this take, like loud bars, not always great for friend time. Nile wants some engaging, lighthearted conversation, and sometimes bars don't really do the trick. Yeah. And at the same time, Nile says that the pandemic hasn't been great either, because at least from his perspective, people with personal connections are using social media to stay connected with each other. But people who are looking for new personal connections can't really do that as easily.

What about people that didn't have them many connections before and now, you know, would like to make some connections? And I suppose I thought, I can't be the only person. person in this situation. I know mine may be somewhat unique in terms of the disabilities, but I'm sure there's other people in a similar situation. So after getting to know Nile, we got to work finding him some new friends. And by get to work, I mean, we went somewhere we knew would be filled with good people who'd be excited about making new friends, the Endless Threadread.

Endless thread.reddit.com. TM. Yes, dear listeners, you were the secret sauce in our mission to find Nile some friends. All we had to do was write the perfect post, which we did with Nile's permission. Headline, Nile needs a friend. Could it be you? That was followed by an overview of our mission and basically what amounted to a friend dating profile for Nile.

He likes science fiction. in musical theater. He's open-minded, looking for casual conversation, yada, yada, yada. Within a few hours, we had a gaggle of folks all clamoring to be Nile's new friend. So we sifted through

and came up with a short list. And by the way, if you posted and we didn't reach out to you, have no fear. We've got plans for you too. We ended up with three Reditors who, based on their written comments, chats, and personal messages, each seemed like they could become fast friends with Nile.

then we did what any good matchmaker would do. We called them up. Which Naila was cool with, by the way. He's not the most outgoing guy on the planet. So he agreed to let us basically screen his friend candidates before we looped him in. God, this feels like a job interview, you know. Sorry, sorry. I don't mean to make it feel that way.

But, you know, we're, we're... No, I know it's not you. I'm just like... I got kind of nervous about this, so... Would you say you're a self-starter? No, I'm just kidding. Where do you see yourself in five years' time? Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I spoke to the first friend candidate, a Reddor who goes by Headline Pickle. I'm Ellen. I'm 27. I live in Cardiff in Wales. What I do, I work in RPA in robotic process automation. Whoa. It's a lot more exciting than it sounds. No, it sounds a lot more exciting than it sounds. And it is other way around. I know.

Basically, I automate boring tasks for people who work in offices so that they don't have to fill out lots of spreadsheets or whatever themselves. As someone who deems spreadsheets to be my bitter enemy, I appreciate you. Thank you. Ellen is a big time Reddit lurker, especially in the cute animal subredits. So my current favorite ones is pit bulls and jammies. Nice. It's like weirdly specific, but they just look so happy all the time.

She said she's never been a big going out person, even in pre-pandemic times. When she's not spending time looking at pictures of pit bulls wearing pajamas, she likes to nerd out with her small group of close friends. We had a fun thing last year where we made a load of lightsabers out of plastic tubing and random stuff we found in charity shop. So just to do something different. But yeah, mostly just hanging out in our in our gang. How would you describe yourself?

I'm a nerd. I think that's the easiest way of describing myself. I'm a nerd about a few different things. Okay. Yeah. Like D&D. I play D&D. Musicals, theater.

I've been doing theater for like since I was about nine or ten. Favorite role to play in a musical? Oh, God, it's so cheesy. But the legally blonde musical is way better than it should be, and I would love to be L. It ought to be really awful, but it's so good. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I'd say more introvert. I can put on a good face, but I'm kind of happiest, like, just around the people that I really like or sat at home playing video games.

So, yeah, more of an introvert, but good at pretending. what would you hope to gain from a friendship with Nile? I think it's partially, I like knowing people in different places. I like having friends in different places. I want to know about like where he lives, what he does. I'd love for him to come here someday if like we ever get out of this lockdown because we have a monthly musical sing-along thing at a local pub. that he said he really likes Hamilton

Lynn Manuel Miranda has turned up twice to that in the past I feel like it would be fun to take him to that if that was something that he was up for just be like come sing musicals with a load of other people that like to hang out in a tiny pub and sing musicals

because it's one of the best nights out like the best feeling just being surrounded by a bunch of people that like the same things as you and sometimes this dressing up, which is always fun. How come you responded to the post about Nile? He sounded cool. Like he sounded like he, you know, he's into the same stuff as me.

And to be honest, somebody who like would contact you guys and say, help me do this. Like I think he's got he's got guts to say that he is out there and he doesn't have many people to connect with at the moment. I think a lot of people are feeling like that, but most people wouldn't say it. I don't know. There was just something about the pose that made me go, yeah, I like him. I did our second friend interview, which was with a Redditor named Ben. We've got a different Ben in the house. Right?

We can tell Ben who's been demoted. I can be the other Ben. It's all right. We've upgraded our Ben situation. Real cool, Amory. Real cool. Anyways, back to Ben. Other Ben.

So my name is Ben B. My user Reddit name is the music button. I'm from live in Washington State down in southwestern Washington. And I am a middle school choir teacher. Oh, choir. How do you, okay, how do you teach choir in these remote times? We sing, but they're all on mute, which is super sad. So I sit here in this big choir room playing the piano and singing to them and then assuming that they're singing back.

Oh. I do the whole like door of the explorer thing where I'm just like, you know, I sing something and then I'm silent for a couple seconds. Well, what do you like about teaching music? For me, growing up, music was, it was always the thing for me that kind of allowed me to speak a little bit more. I was always a little on the quieter side, definitely introverted, and music was the place that I felt like I could kind of be more of myself. And I think that for me, that's one of the most important things for me in teaching. I always kind of say, like, if you leave here a slightly better human being, that's kind of what I'm going for, especially on the middle school level. You know, the kids just need a place to belong.

And I feel like the music classroom is a really, it kind of lends itself to that. And I hear you like musicals. I do. We were big dear Evan Hansen fans. It was touring last year, and so my wife and I got to see it in Portland, which was awesome. Come from Away is a really one that we really love. Been really big into Hades Town. Absolutely love the music. And then if I'm going to go a little into the more obscure Sunday in the Park with George by Sondheim, that show, it was kind of transformative. It's a really, It's a pretty incredible show that not a lot of people get to see or perform because it's kind of a wild, wild musical. How would you describe yourself? How would I describe myself? I generally am pretty low-key. I try not to try, try, being the operative word there, not to stress too much about things that are outside of my control.

I'm from New England originally. So I tend to be a pretty straight shooter. I'll say what's on my mind. It's funny, I'm not an overly emotional person, like, outwardly. But, you know, when it comes to things like music, that's definitely that kind of release point for me. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Why did you respond to our post about Nile?

We all need friends. I mean, at its kind of most basic form. But at the same time, you know, I push my students to kind of get outside of their comfort zones a lot, especially in music. You know, asking them to record themselves or, you know, to literally stand up in a Zoom call and be like shaking their bodies out and stuff, doing a warm up, whatever. And I think it's important for me also to kind of step outside of my comfort zone. Because if I'm going to tell them to, then I better, I sure as heck better do it myself. So I just, I saw the post and I was like, you know, that is something that would be really good for me. I should, I should do that.

I should respond to it. So that's, I mean, kind of the simple of why I responded to it. And he just seemed like a kind of person that I would probably get along with pretty well. Our third and final candidate on Reddit goes by the name, Dris Balls. I mean, seriously, like if I had known that I was going to end up being interviewed, I never would have chosen this name. I mean, even though it feels inappropriate, it also feels appropriate for Reddit somehow, if that makes sense. Right, yeah. Yeah, I kind of come across like maybe a 15-year-old boy, possibly, and the, yeah, yeah.

Dris Balls is not a 15-year-old boy. She's 30. Like Nile, she lives in Ireland, and her name is IFA. It's Irish, so the letter is A-O-I in the Irish language make the sound E. How are you feeling about this interview? I was actually just saying it. to your producer earlier, it's like, I've been thinking about it all morning, and I know that you're going to ask me about me, and I just got way too existential. I'm just like, what even am I?

I don't even know. You're a carbon-based life form, right? I mean, that's... It's a start. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so I'm a carbon-based life form. In addition to being a carbon-based life form, EFA is also a photographer. I love my job. I run a photo department, and I've got some... some really cool colleagues here. I love the company that I work for. I can either spend the day sitting on my arse editing on Photoshop or I can be out on the other side of the country doing a photo shoot in mountains. So every single day is different. And then, yeah, come home to my cat and my husband

and I like cooking. So I usually kind of spend a lot of time on dinner. And yeah, that's about it. How would you describe yourself? I'm kind of all about the funny. Like if someone's not funny, then they're dead to me. I try to make everything that I do fun, even if it's like serious or if I'm bored or if I'm not enjoying it. I usually don't like people. So I have a really kind of close group of friends. And then after that, like I kind of hate going out to, like being in a big group of people where I don't know a lot of them.

I don't like those situations at all. What do you think are some of the challenges surrounding making friends as an adult? It's not that easy, you know, to just get out there, sometimes physically and sometimes kind of emotionally as well. So, yeah, I've noticed that my friend group has definitely gotten smaller and smaller as I get older. I have one friend that I made recently, whereas all the rest of my friends are like over 10 years old. Like, that's... Well, it's good that you're making friends with people who are, like, older than 10. That's good.

I mean, 10-year-olds, people under 10 years old can also be great friends. They're cool, too. Well, I am a 15-year-old boy, after all, yeah. But, yeah, like, I remember she and I were talking recently. And we were like, nobody makes friends, you know, in their 30s. It's such kind of an enigma to navigate if you want to. So fair play to Nile for kind of reaching out to you and kind of taking this first step because it's balzy. It's almost drizz-ballsy.

And it's-it's driss-ballsy. And, you know, I hope he gets a lot of replies, you know. He's definitely been creative about it. Yeah. We had great conversations with Ellen, Ben, and IFA. From Ellen nerding out in Cardiff to Ben leading awkward Zoom choir calls in southeastern Washington, to Eva being a carbon-based life form in Dublin. The only thing left to do, introduce them to Nile.

Coming up, Nile meets his new friends. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs.

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the creative studio from WBUR's Business Partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org. slash creative studio. So the next step after talking to Ellen, Ben, and IFA

was making the introduction to Nile. Which sounds great in theory. In actuality, meeting new people is kind of awkward. So, I'm just going to come right out and say that, like, This is an experiment for all of us, right? So I'm here. And I know some things. I know some things about you, Nile.

I know some things about you, Eiffa. And, you know, we're all just here. Do you know how much I hate you right now? So Eiffa was up first, obviously. And I decided to set a timer for her chat with Nile. 10 minutes. Because you can talk to anyone for 10 minutes, right? You can't talk to me for 10 minutes.

It's a struggle. Minimum is 35 to 40. That's the minimum. Oh, so true. So here we go. Three, two, one. Blast off. Nile, I know you are a fan of musicals.

I don't know if you like musicals at all other than I think you like the Rocky Horror Picture Show? I'm obsessed with Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's actually funny. I'm not like a musical aficionado at all, but it's really coincidental that last year, a group of friends, kind of we all got together and decided that we were going to go to any musical that we could find that was going on in Dublin. So even if we'd never heard of it before or anything. So within one year, I think we went to Le Miz, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and, and, and, Book of Mormon, all of that kind of stuff. So I wouldn't say like I'm super mad into it,

but I definitely have been starting to get there. You've mentioned who my favourites already. What are your favorites? Lame is definitely number one. But Book-Umarinen is really cool. It's really different. Yeah, that was really. We actually saw that in London.

It was so good. Oh, cool. Prince of Wales. Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah. Prince of Wales is apparently the theater where Book of Mormon ran in London. I didn't know what Nile was talking about, but fortunately, Ifa did. Turns out they're also both like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Can I just say during lockdown, I just bought myself a Sunnydale High School t-shirt, like literally about like three months ago. So I am so right there with you. More common ground? The Power of Love of Celine Dion. Wow, I feel like it's rare to find two people who unironically love Celine Dion. Right? I was like, tell me more. Oh, God, Nile would take that.

Bitch is crazy. My first thing was going to be what you want. He explained. It's all covered. The 10 minutes went by pretty quickly, I'd say. And we were on to the next potential friend, Ellen, who, as we know, likes musicals maybe even more than Nile does. But not so fuss about Le Miz, which is controversial in the musical world. I just took an intake of breath there.

Oh, no. Good start. There's some good moments. I didn't like the film. Really didn't like the film, but I haven't seen it on stage. Okay, so maybe all is not lost? All is not lost. And in fact, there might be some gaming in their future.

because Ellen is a big Dungeons and Dragons fan, and Nile, I would say, is D&D. curious. Get in there, Nile. Water's fine. Definitely it'd be something that I'd love to learn more about and kind of how it works. Absolutely. My whole group of friends play it. We've got a load of games going on. And obviously, most stuff's online at the moment. So if you wanted to try it, I'm sure I could persuade my housemate to run a one shot to like just a single session campaign so you can try it out. As a half-orke named Kethar Thrunvar with a chaotic neutral alignment, I would like to say, yes, I would like to see this collabo.

Okay. Let's see it. So last up was Ben. Other Ben. Who, like you, has no trouble jumping right in. I actually am curious, Nile, like kind of what got you into musical theater in the first place. So what got me First of all was actually

the Fox program Glee and that kind of introduced all the big 11 o'clock numbers kind of thing and then I looked into where they actually came from and that led to other musicals as well so that's awesome

I have been told before by I'm a teacher by my students that I'm like a real life Mr. Schuster but I don't have The hair. I don't have the hair, though. And other Ben, the choir teacher that he is, wanted to know if there was any duet potential in the future. Have you ever wanted to learn how to sing? So was yes. And do I yes, but I don't think I actually can, if that makes sense.

Well, I am here to say that I truly believe anybody can learn how to sing. You just got to have the right people around. And at the end of the day, long as you enjoy it, that's kind of what matters. Do you like sing in the shower, Nile? Do you have any singing spots? Yeah, but mostly it's when I'm just here, work on my laptop, and it comes from where Lame is kind of on in the background, and yeah, sing with that.

Or murdering Hamilton trying to rap when I actually can't. Oh, Nile, we would all love to hear it. We'd love to hear it. All right. So you didn't get Nile to wrap for you. Big mistake. Huge. But you did get some promising conversations going.

I mean, I hope so. I don't get any of the credit. But I wanted to see what Nile thought after all of this. Nile, how do you feel? Yeah. Totally fine. Really? Okay.

It's been really interesting to me. do you know three people from three different locations and they all have like something common but something different as well so it's I would imagine it'll be like really interesting if we can see in contact and if we can get to know each other better

and Nile hopes he can get to know all three of them better if the interest is mutual Yeah, I'd be totally open to it. Something that it didn't get attention, and I mean this in a good way, was the disability, so the blindness or the mobility. It really took the back seat.

I just thought it was kind of cool and kind of different that it didn't take focus. It was totally in the background. What do you think, Ameri? Did we do okay? You know, we did something. And that's kind of all you can do in these situations is just set the wheels in motion. But we do know that, at least for now, the wheels are still turning, Ben. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Nile's still talking to all three of his new friends for now. So we'll just see what happens. Yeah, I guess we just kind of have to wait and see. And ultimately, I guess it's not. up to us, right? It's up to them to see whether or not this stuff blossoms into something more. Yeah, we don't get a vote. But if you want to be Niles friend, send us an email, endless thread at wbUR.org, and we'll pass it along. Amory, there is one more thing I want to say about this. Okay. And that is that I think we all

struggle with this. I struggle with making friends as an adult, and I'm a fast friend. I'm a Golden Retriever. And I love making friends. But as an adult, it's hard to make friends. I think it's important to say that. And also to encourage each other to make friends to do that awkward work of reaching out to each other, especially right now, because it's worth it, clearly. Also, I'm kind of jealous. I want to be friends with all of these people, too, including Nile. Pretty soon Nile's going to be too busy for us, though. He's going to be like, uh, guys, I've Got like 10 minutes at 2 o'clock that I can pencil you in for if you're free. That's my dream.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Josh Swartz is our producer, and he gets nervous making new friends because he doesn't want to be murdered by words. Mix and sound design by Matt Reed, whose favorite activity with friends is Photoshop battles. Extra production help from Frank Hernandez. On Reddit, we are endless underscore thread. if you want to give us a story tip so we can tell it like we did today or contribute art for an upcoming episode.

Hit us up there. My co-host is Anne-Marie Sievertson. My co-host is Ben Brock Johnson. We'll let ourselves out. Within a few hours, we had a gaggle of folks all clamoring to be nice. Sorry, I just had to do it once. And you are my men. This is the next 20 minutes of tracking.

This has been my whole day. It's just stuck in my head. But it's good, man. It's a good song. I've totally... I'm backtracking on what I said. Okay. Okay.

I believe you. All right. I won't be any... I won't be disruptive anymore. You're going to do it again. I can tell. No, I won't. I promise I won't.

At least not right now. Okay. Not this time. Not for this piece of tracking. definitely get it. You're going to, I'm going to get Dionne. You might. You might. Well, two can play that game, sir, so. That's true. Watch out. Emery, there's one more thing I want to say about this. Because I'm your...

There it is. Was it that? There it is. Yeah, like that.