If I Were You - If I Were You: Swinging

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Back to dispense some wisdom about double dates, double names, and compliment sandwiches. And yes, you can watch this entire episode on our Patreon! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome back to a brand spanking new episode of If I Were You. Are you okay? You sort of got hurt dancing. I dabbed too hard. Yeah. I dabbed too hard. Dabbed so hard. Motherfuckers want to hurt my neck. Neck.

Yeah. Motherfuckers want to tweet. If you're listening to this, that means we posted the audio to our podcast feed. All right. Check. If you're watching this, that means you're on our podcast. Patreon, double check. That's what's up.

That's what's up. And that's what I'm doing it for. The whole crick in the neck thing. Yeah. That was for the patron members. The next 10 visual jokes won't even be alluded to. Watch this one. Okay, I'm not even going to say what it is, but Jake's doing a pretty funny big face.

Yeah. Yeah. He was doing like a thing where he like, I've never. He grabs his nose and he lifts it up. Yeah, no spoilers, but he looks like kind of like a pig man. or something. And you can only see that on Patreon. It's actually pretty unsettling. Yeah. It's really messed up.

I won't do that anymore. Try to do your eyelids, the flipping inside out of the islands. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That'd be interesting. Yeah. I feel like kids who did that always smoked weed by age 15.

Like that's a gateway drug. Nerves didn't flip their eyelids. I mean, they had to deal with the chronic eyelid pain that they inflicted. It was like the same thing that gets you high is what makes you want to flip your eyelids. inside out. I wonder what the correlation is. Oh, it's a million percent. It has to be. Correlation and causation. Okay. So this is sort of a bonus if I were you. We asked our patrons, another perk of being a patron on our Patreon for some questions, some quandaries. These people are, even though they can afford to pay us $4.99 a month, still finding themselves in a slightly difficult place.

Yeah. And this is how we're sourcing questions from now on every time we do this. So you've got to pay to play. Okay, Sanna writes, what does it mean when a man says he doesn't feel a, quote, romantic connection with you after the second date, even though he was the one who asked you on the second date and then texted you daily for a couple weeks in between when you were about, when you were on a trip out of the country, and then planned a second date and even picked you up and dropped you home on the second date. Do you guys think I must have said something weird on the date?

Hello? Follow up question. I'm serious. Hmm. Well, it sounds like the guy was super up for it after the first date and second date for whatever reason. You fucked up. You fucked up. See how you fucked. Text him how you fucked up. Then he'll tell you what you said wrong. And then you'll fix it the next time ground. You fucked up. you obviously made some sort of

hot crossbones yeah hot crossbuzz again we're going to cut that audio from the audio portion of the show so it'll just cut to Jake saying what song was that and then you need to really see me sing it see how you fucked up

see how you fucked up you obviously said something right of center and pissed him off in a way way you went that was wrong that was wrong have recorder we're outside her door no i've never made it past the second date so i can commiserate um that's when i sort of show my true colors and people don't yeah i guess most people are colorblind aka they want nothing to do with me after the fact I feel like that's how dating works is that it goes well until it doesn't.

Like everything goes well until it doesn't. That's why you go out on dates and you test it out and you see if there's anything there. And sometimes they stop after one, sometimes two, sometimes three. And sometimes they stay together forever. I think that in any dating situation, there's always one person who thinks it's going well.

Or not always, but like there's going to be one person that's this is fine and one person that's like this is not happening so one person is always surprised yeah like how many times have you broken up with somebody that you've been thinking about it for they say that like the person that does the breaking up with has almost already you know they've moved on in their head so it's easier they've like gone through the breakup in their head they finally say it out loud and then it's like cathartic it's a release but then the person that gets broken up with who has just been coasting thinking everything was fine is now confused and they

have to go through the breakup yeah or you're you start to fade away and you're like disinterested and the other person asks is there anything wrong it's like no it's fine so there's there's some warning shots or it's completely out of blue um but onward and it seems like this yeah this guy's sending you signals that he wanted a second date but no signals that he'd wanted a third do you know what I mean? And that's how it goes sometimes. Wanted to plan that second date and then I didn't feel a romantic connection, but guess what? Neither did you, Sana, because you dodged a bullet. Do we need to give these people fake names? I'm just realizing we called her by her real name or is that fine now? I think it's fine now. We're living in a post-anonymous society. Everyone needs to be

outed for their questions. You have to be proud about it. We could say first names and that's probably fine. Yeah, here's a first name from Naomi or Noemi, depending on how you want to be literal about it. How do you make more couple friends in your 30s without attracting swingers? Couple friends, 30s, swingers. A lot of buzzwords.

I haven't experienced that at all. You have not. Because every time you go out with a couple and I lived all in my 30s. situation. Well, I've often begged for it, but no, it's never come to fruition. Yeah. In fact.

This was an awesome dinner. Yeah. I've seen my loved ones go off to have a menagerie gras without me. I guess that counts as swinging, but I've swung and struck out. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you're left in the kitchen sort of being a pudding. Yeah, and they're all upstairs. Swing on a misses.

And it is a miss. Yeah. That's right. Usually couples dates happen when... Mind if I pinch it. Pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch. Mind if I pinch it. Swing on the missing.

Swing, badda, batta, swing. Nice cut. Good eye. Good eye. No, I've never kissed anybody before. Yeah. Usually it's like one connection turns into the double date. Like the lady befriends a lady.

And then it's like, oh, we should get together with our dudes or vice. vice versa. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it really requires one person going off and doing a hobby or a joby or an old friend in town slash connection somebody moves in. And that parlayes into the double date. Maybe with swinging, but never for me. Yeah.

I feel like if you're concerned about like, damn, if I make a new friend, it's just going to turn into a swinging thing. Yeah. then I don't know. I wouldn't have that concern. But I guess I'm not 30, so I don't entirely know. The other thing you can do is have a kid because having a kid, you do meet a lot of other couples. It's like the daughter's friend's parents. Yeah, it's like you have a kid.

You go to the playground. You see, oh, look, the kids are playing, or these kids are the same age. This one's looking at you or this one wants the swing. The swing? The swing? And it's back to swing. Well, how old is Gemma? Your daughter is, what, two and a half?

She's almost three. So in the three years that you've had her, has she led to any double dates? You, jail, and parents for a quattro hanging out. With no babies. Yes. Oh, for new parents that you didn't know before Gemma. Correct. All right.

So it is possible. It's possible. And I think it's almost the only. I think it's almost the only way to make friends once you're a parent. Do you talk about the kids? I guess eventually. It's kind of like going out with work friends. You try not to talk about work and then eventually you start talking about work.

Speaking of work, how about this question? I misheard my co-worker's name on day one and called him Craig. His name is Greg. He never corrected me. It's been 11 months. And I just found out from the company directory last week. week. Do I silently switch it to Greg and hopefully he doesn't notice? Do I confess or do I ride this out until one of us quits? And that's from patron Freak Beast. It's a great story. I wonder,

since Craig and Greg are such easy names to mishear. I wonder if he's misheard of you calling him Greg this whole time. Right. He might just think you say Craig weird. It's probably the closest two names could be because like you could almost make a case that they shouldn't be to. different names. What about Brian and Ryan? But that's clear, the B is so clearly there or not. The difference between a C and a G is like phonetically, it's got to be the most too similar. Greg. Greg. What am I saying right now? Yeah. Greg. What did I just say? Greg. Craig. Craig? Okay, how about this? I'm going to give you three. Ready? Greg. Yeah. Greg. Greg. Greg. You say Craig every time. No, I did not.

I really did not. Okay, I'm going to give you a sequence. You know, there's also. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to give you a sequence of five. Yeah, Greek ones. Like, the letter C and G are pretty similar. I mean, the only thing that separates them is this little crook, this little elbow right here. And they're all said, again, for the visual learners here on Patreon, look at my mouth when I say Craig.

Ready? Craig. Okay. Does you say Craig or Craig? Yeah, I said Craig. It happens in the back where the tongue. the back of your tongue hits the roof of your mouth. Now, let me say Greg.

Greg. It's the same. It's the same. It's the same. It's not even a difference. Craig. Yeah, it looks like you're just a pig man saying Greg. It's honestly, it's like you have a cold.

Greg. Greg. Greg. Really? Like, could you even explain the difference between those two? Craig, Greg. Greg. Greg.

Greg. What about crack? Grag, not, knock, knock, knock. Like. Because it basically at a certain point, it sounds like you're just barking at something. Like, we used to, when you say, heck, brag, break a leg. Hey, Craig, break a leg. Craig, break a leg.

What? I think you're saying Greg, Greg, Greg, Greg, break a Greg. No, I said, hey, Craig, break a leg. Break, break a leg. Greg. Egg, break, bag, bag, brag, brag. All right, let's say Craig, Greg, Greg, Greg, Greg, break a leg. Break, Greg, break a leg.

Break, break a leg. Break, break a leg. Break, break a leg. Break. It's the same, man. He doesn't have a name or not. It's all the same sound. I feel like if you want to get closer to Greg,

like you could come clean because it's kind of a fun story. And I think it'll be disarming. The big difference is the- It'll appreciate it. The R-A-I-G for Craig and the R-E-G for Greg. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. But are you one of those people that says egg instead of egg?

No, I say egg. Yeah, that's the right way to do it. Craig. And I say Craig and Greg. I say Greg and Craig. Craig. I guess you do say Craig. Craig, yeah.

I don't know why I went off like that. It's pretty different name-wise. Yeah, Craig and Greg. Sorry about that. Craig. Craig, it's all about the A. Yeah, Craig. Greg. Greg. His names mean nothing anymore. Okay, T. L. Wofford writes. I'm a writer who's...

We didn't give any advice, by the way. We didn't give any advice. I guess I said to... I thought I said something about his names. Yeah. Okay. We said we basically said that we don't blame you. Oh, I would... I would... What I would do if I were you is I would just start using the real name and assume over time you be like, remember when you used to call me that, now you don't. Or you muddy the water. You say, Greg sometimes, Craig sometimes. So, like, he starts to fucking question. He's basically gaslit into thinking he doesn't even know what his name is. Hey, Greg. I like that. Me and Craig are going to Greg or Greg or Greg or Greg.

You want to grab a Craig or an egg or something like that? And then it's like, I don't remember what he called me, what anybody else called me. It's all just muddy the water. Yeah. What was this person's name? T. L. Wofford. Okay. T.L. Wofford writes.

I'm a writer who's facing a dilemma with my dear friend and writing partner. She's in the finishing stages of her first novel manuscript, which is, well, fine. I mean, by no means is it atrocious. The problem is, this friend wants to make a career of being a writer and professor and cares about things like awards and professional praise. In its current state, I doubt the manuscript will elicit the response she desires. So far, I've withheld negative observations, except for what she's solicited, as the book has been a tremendous effort to write, and she's proud of it. My question is, to you lads is how do you weigh being a supportive friend with illuminating the flaws in someone's

creative work all the best love the new j and a yeah shout out to the new sketches on our patreon if you want to watch sketches with fucking outtakes you can watch them on our patreon there was a new one this week called fun hang fun you know it actually means a lot coming from this person because they clearly have like a really defined palette and they don't withhold their constructive criticism and feedback. So, you know, if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for you, listener. Yeah. She knows somebody or he knows somebody who's, who wrote a novel. So this person is pretty freaking discerting. I think you can basically just be positive. It's your role as a, it's your role as a friend to just be supportive. And it's like the literary world's like the book,

and the publishers to give the the negative feedback. And if they, you know, then it's your role again as a friend. If your friend comes to me and they say, oh, they said these two characters were similar. They said that the backup of the book was nonsense. They said, I shouldn't name the two main characters, Craig and Greg, because they're basically the same name, et cetera. Then you can be like, oh, I can, I think the book was great,

but I couldn't see where they're coming from. No, don't even give them that. No, don't fucking. Listen, they don't know anything, even if you agree. Are you kidding me? They said to change something? It's word perfect. It's flawless.

Any deviation from anything. Even if there's a missing period. Don't compromise your morals. What would Ayn Rand do? This is a polished final on vinyl. It might as well be Eston Stone. I'll self-publish with you. It's a flawless manuscript.

I cannot believe this is the first draft. I think you can give constructive criticism, though, you would to anybody. It's compliment sandwich. This is good. This is good. Oh, maybe this part you could look into, but this is good. Overall, it's good. So you're not lying. But it depends how they're giving it to you. Like, I agree that if I write something and I give it to somebody and I say, do you have any feedback? Do you have any notes? I want to make it better? Then yes, compliment sandwich. But if I just finished something, I'm like, this took me a year. I'm really proud of it. I've gone through a bunch of iterations. Here it is. You can tell, by the way, I'm presenting it, that I don't want feedback. I don't

want to do the next draft yet. I'm sharing it, you know? What about an open face compliment sandwich? What is that? So that's bad news first, good news, and we're out. Yeah. I think you'd want to, I think it should be a full sandwich. Yeah.

Because you hit me with the bad news first. Yeah. The good news doesn't, it doesn't finish. Sometimes it's too much gluten, though. Yeah. Right. You ever take the top of enough? Yeah.

I'd rather have a compliment. I'd rather have a compliment wrap. Yeah. And actually, can you make my compliment a salad or a bowl? I'm trying not to eat too many compliments. It doesn't agree with it. You could do a compliment smoothie. So that's just like spraying everything.

Like I like this. I didn't like this. I love this. Didn't like this. This didn't make any sense, but I love this. Yeah. And then it's like you pour it over everything and it's just confusing. And like you're still hungry like 10 minutes later.

Did you like it? Hell no. Or not. I loved it. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Because you're hungry again, 10 minutes later. You're so confused. You need more feedback from somebody else.

It was filling while I was talking. Like a smoothie. It's nice while you're drinking it. But then it's done. You're like, did I even eat anything or did I just have a drink? I'm still pretty fucking hungry for a compliment sandwich. Even open face. Hell, I'll even do a compliment burrito, a compliment breakfast.

This burrito if you have. Compliment pudding. That's just compliment. That's just a compliment. Compliment flan. That's a compliment with wet caramel on top. It's pretty good. Or a compliment brulee.

That's when you put a blow torch to the top of it. Make the knife crispy layer. Compliment of the pie. I wouldn't mind that. I think you just give positive feedback. I think that's where I'm landing on this. Yeah. Yeah, I was a good.

say compliment ice cream sunday or something else but i guess we've moved on i think we ran that joke into the ground okay you're obviously out of practice you got to go off on a high you don't mind giving me note on the day see how you fucked up see how you fucked up um all right one last question this one's about us specifically okay adam writes i'm right writing a research paper for university about you guys. It's a, it's about the college humor show and specifically a psychoanalytic examination of your relationship and how it skews comedically. I'll be using Freudian and Lacadian thought when it comes to discussing comedy at the psychoanalytic level. My general claim is that the Amir character is a classic villain, almost like a Dracula or a Frankenstein's monster, who seems to have infinite powers of evil, while the Jacob,

character is a representation of us as the audience who watch in horror and amazement at Amir's antics. However, even though Amir is all powerful and can seemingly escape death at every turn, like when he swallows bradderies and says it's electric, he still falls flat on his ass, as it were, and makes out as the bumbling fool. I think there's something there, but I would love for you guys to illuminate what you think works about your comedic formula. I know it has a traditional sketch makeup, but what do you think is the essence of your comedy, which makes it unique? I know it's not me. I know this is not me asking for advice, but I thought I would shoot my shot. So this is, uh, we're helping him out with his paper. So it's not really life

advice, but it is still helpful nonetheless. Yeah. I feel like I could say what I think the essence of our comedy is, but I would still, like I could still be wrong, even though I've made all the videos with you. So like I really do trust a Jake and a mere connoisseur to be able to distill it better than me. Right. Sometimes filmmakers are not good film critics because we're inside. You know, the fish cannot see the water. What do you think, what do you think is the essence of our series?

I'm stupid. You're smart. Yeah. It's kind of like a silly man and a straight man dynamic. So one person is untethered to reality and the other person has to deal with the consequences as a fairly grounded normal reaction to the absurdest comedic stylings of this clown,

this farce, this wacky character who doesn't seem to be tethered. to any reality at all whatsoever. I think it's all about self-awareness. There's a lot of self-references in Jake and Amir. We're often, you know, describing what's happening, describing this situation, pointing out why things are funny. So we take turns being in the sketch, but also the audience.

Like, you are existing being in your character, and then I do take the role of the outside world, which I think gave us a lot of license to be even crazier because if you and I were both insane, then people would watch it and be horrified. But instead, I got to be horrified. So I was taking the role of the audience. Yeah.

So self-awareness, confidence, and what's the other one? Oh, I think also there's a lot of like, you often could say, our relationship in people could see it in their real lives. Like I know somebody that is like that. Right. Um, the other person probably doesn't see it as that. The Amir in your life probably doesn't realize that he's that kind of guy.

Yeah, exactly. Uh, the episode goes back to self-awareness. The episode that came out this week on our Patreon, uh, which is officially called Fun Hang, I double checked. Uh, there's almost like three Jake characters. and only one Amir. So sometimes it's a one-on-three situation. Fun fact, I think you just wrote that.

You wrote that as a regular sketch, and then it just felt like a Jake and Amir once we shot it. Right. You know what? I think we can expand the Jake and Amir universe to include Riley and Jeff. Yeah, they could be there. There's no reason for them not to be there. I think that's the first time they've been in it, Jake and Amir.

That's right. Legally. Wow. Wow. And again, you can see that. at patreon.com slash JA. Okay, any unsolicited advice on our way out? Any new things you're watching or doing that you think would be beneficial for people to consume?

That's a great question. Well, shout out to the person writing a paper on us. I would personally like to see everybody else's distillations of what makes our comedy work below in the comments. You're assigning people a homework, a term paper to read. A homework assignment. Yes. And you want them to leave it as a comedy. When does this come out today, tomorrow? Wednesday, April 8th, I think.

Due dates Friday. Do dates Friday. That's when I'll be reviewing. And I will be replying. I'll be replying with a grade, with a number grade. So people are going to write essays as comments and you're going to reply. We'll just be their letter grade. No, a number grade.

I said number grade. Like out of hundred? Like 84%. Got it. My radio city show is on Friday. so I might be a little bit busy, but I think I can probably find some time to read all of the essays. If I don't get to a Friday, maybe Monday is a better, let's say due date is over the weekend. And I'll grade them on Monday.

I'm a little afraid people will do the work and you won't grade them. I'll grade them. Grade them by reading them or doing that game that we used to play where we count down from three and then randomly assign a number? No, I'll read them all and I'll grade them. Speaking of which, three, two, one. Seventy-eight-four. Okay, so yeah. I think I already said 84, so that was kind of top of mind.

Right. Yeah, I think he said 88 for the grade, but 84 was definitely in that wheelhouse. Yeah, for sure. All right, thank you guys for watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for consuming. Thanks for the patrons for patronizing. Thank you.

And we will try to do these more often. So sure will. Stick around, keep subscribed, and we'll see you soon. Bye, everybody. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast.

That was us now on HeadGum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show. This Is Us. That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry?

Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh? A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.