Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Con or Crisis? (Scam spotting, Soren's night out)

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

The guys have stories of strange encounters that raised red flags, discuss how to spot a scam, and naturally, talk about what to do when you find yourself babysitting a teenager out of the blue. Plus Soren went to a bar and had himself a time. Thanks RocketMoney.com/qq. It could save you hundreds a year.

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who do you get? When will I be? What's it out there? Oh, forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien

Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer, they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and commentators ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am on half of that podcast, author of How to Fight President, senior writer for Last Week Tonight, and guy who never sneezes, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host. He's american dad a family guy someone who loves his kids so

much you could say he's a simp for his son the animaniac himself mr soren buoy soren what's going on hey daniel oh my god just just um drinking some tea getting into the i'm feeling cozy okay i'm gonna be going up to the mountains real soon where there's gonna be um what do you call that stuff it's the snow and uh i'm working on being a cozy guy before I go. Okay. This is... I have a scarf on. You didn't ask, but I'm telling you. I have a scarf on.

You know what? I've decided I'm not going to be mad at you for this because you know what I've been getting into? Meditation? No. I've been into meditation for years and that's not working i've been i've been wandering around uh in like a like an apartment sweater not a pullover like one of those open ones like a cheap black sweater from amazon or something from a couple years ago that i don't wear out often yeah because it's not like the most fashionable thing

in the world. But just having like a cozy little walk around the apartment sweater that I put on every day over my walking around the apartment t-shirt and joggers, I'm really into it. I got to get a sweater. Really into this cozy life. Do you, huh? I got to get one of those sweaters before this trip. I hope it arrives in time do you think you'll get um any energy at any point during this podcast do you think i can i can expect that from you our listeners can expect that from you i feel like that would be wrong the way that i'm holding my hands around this cup with my mug with both hands and my shoulders are up, kind of. Like, I feel like a real fun hyper energy is not right for this pose.

I do also want to say, and our listeners can disagree in the comments or whatever, just as an outside perspective, just so you have a set of fresh eyes on this, I think you've taken too many sips in too short a time on your tea. I'm getting pretty wired. I don't think you're enjoying it correctly. I'm getting pretty hot and I'm getting pretty wired. My throat is a mess. It feels terrible. Ouch.

Thanks to Rocket Money for supporting our podcast. Rocket Money will quickly and easily identify your subscriptions for you so you can stop paying for the ones you don't want. Stop throwing your money away, cancel unwanted subscriptions, and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash QQ. You know what I've been, uh, I don't, I don't drink tea, You know what I've been, I don't drink tea, but my like nighttime warm drink in this cold weather is I heat up some water. And then I mix in some hot honey, like honey with a spice, not heat honey, hot honey, and a little bit of fresh lemon. And I have that just about every night.

Oh, what a treat. It's, I guess, I mean, it gets to be like late September and I start getting pumped because I'm like, I don't know. There's no rule against me drinking tea the rest of the year. But there's something feels weird about it when it's four or five in the afternoon and it's 92 degrees. And I'm like, I'm gonna get some some sleepy time going or like some vanilla chamomile it does it doesn't feel right so like as soon as the weather even dips a little bit i get pumped and lately it's been pretty cold here even though it's been sunny it's been cold and boy i am in like full blown tea season right now yeah i uh it's also very cold here now again yeah you're real cold though yeah yeah you

know how i know you said that there was a smoke alarm in the snow yeah yeah uh we had a uh a very short but very intense uh snowstorm monday morning or tuesday morning of this week i can't remember and uh we're fine it It cleared up. It stopped snowing around noon and then the sun came out and melted off a lot of the stuff, but right around five 30 in the morning, uh, it was really bad. And I was woken up because my dog was barking at firemen who were outside. The firemen were outside because the unit next to mine, uh, had an alarm going off that alerted the fire department. Either the alarm did or another neighbor was like,

hey, fire department, there's an alarm going off and it won't stop and it's 5.30 in the morning. Please come over here. The alarm was going off in a unit that is being renovated at the moment and there is no one home. So the firemen had to use their fire ladder to climb into the house, into the unit through their balcony. And then they ripped the house, into the unit, through their balcony. And then they ripped the alarm out of the wall

and then left it on the stoop that I share with this unit. So there was just a beeping alarm buried in the snow for the rest of that day for me. As somebody who has smoke alarms in my house yeah would you like me to call them and tell them how to stop that beeping call the fire department yeah yeah it doesn't seem like maybe they know no and they had like nine guys on it and they still couldn't resolve that that singular issue uh let me i'll give a little jingle uh i know how to take care of that issue it's it's pretty easy what they don't know is that there's actually just there's a connection both in the ceiling

where you put that and then there's also a nine volt in there i could just i could get on that for you can i tell you my other quick uh please apartment thing this was uh maybe two weeks ago or something like that doesn't matter for the story, Daniel. Um, but Jackson started behaving oddly at like 8 30 PM, which is rare for him. Uh, so I thought something must be up outside, uh, maybe a critter or something. So we go downstairs to investigate and there's no critter, but there is a, uh, a girl I've never seen before who was standing on my stoop and trying to, it looked like knock on the door of the unit that was two doors down from mine to my left. And as soon as she sees me, she says, oh, you're home. I'm really sorry.

I just moved in to this building. And then she pointed to a unit that was about five doors down to my right. So already none of this story is making immediate sense to me. I just moved in here, but I don't have the passcode to get in to my unit because I forgot it. Because we just moved in like literally three days ago. And also, I was dropped off here by a friend. So I don't have a car here. And my phone died.

Okay, there we go. So I can't call my parents to get the code to get into the house or to have anyone get me. Can I borrow your phone? Also, oh, what a lovely dog. She's petting my dog this whole time. And I was like, you can borrow my phone, but if it's all right with you, you have to dial it in front of me. And I just need to make sure you're not like using my Venmo to steal my money or scam me in some way. She was, I don't think I would even know how to do that. I was like, well, I'm convinced. And she calls a couple of numbers on speakerphone, which is either a nice gesture or just how young people talk on phones now.

I don't know. I still don't actually know. I think she's being kind to you, probably. And a couple of numbers don't pick up at all. Finally, she's like, let me try one more number. Let me try my sister. And she calls her sister and explains the situation to her sister it's like my phone died and i'm locked out i don't know how to get here and the sister goes and hangs up the phone oh and then i guess the sister calls the parents and then calls her back on my phone and i was like yeah mom says you're not supposed to be there you're supposed to be at the old house. And the girl was like, well, I didn't know that. And I'm here. I was dropped off. I'm just, I'm, I'm literally just standing outside using some other guy's phone, my neighbor's phone. And her sister's like, well, mom won't be there for another 30 minutes.

Well, what do you want me to do? Could you just go inside your neighbor's apartment? Oh no! And she goes, that seems weird to me. She's like, well, it's weird that you're using his phone. So just ask him. And then I go, hey, you're on speaker. I can hear you. I'm the neighbor. Yeah. So I just want you to know that I can hear this conversation. And right at this moment is when my girlfriend Shay is getting home from work after driving three hours round trip to the city where she works. And she just sees me on the stoop with some stranger speaking into my phone on speaker and another voice.

And I'm just like, you two girls, you sort this out. I'm going to go sort a different thing out with my girlfriend now. And I was like, hey, I know you just are just coming back from work in the city and everything but i explained the situation to her and she was like okay so does she need to come into our house now to wait for her ride i was like yes absolutely and we let this person into our house and everything seems totally fine uh as far as i know she did not this is not part of a scam i have since seen her parents move them in to this unit in my building that they're just going to live in temporarily and i was also thrown because um at no point did i have any idea how old this person was because i'm you and i are

in our 40s or whatever and so everyone is is young. It sounded like she was saying, like, this girl is like 14 years old, the way they're talking to her sister and her mom. She is 15. Yeah, there we go. I didn't know that. I just let this person in my house thinking I'm going to ask her what she does or what she's studying, not realizing that she's 15. So she does nothing and studies nothing. She just studies, like like high school things. She studies what they tell her to study, yeah.

Right, right. So that immediately set me at ease as far as like, oh, okay, she's not like, 15-year-olds can't be criminals. They can't do crimes. So there's nothing for us to fear. But we just sat around, Shay and I talking to this 15-year-old being like,

so what is it like being 15 now in the world we have she had not a single question for us by the way i have in our right i have uh at this point two emmys displayed in our home that she did not mention once and she didn't ask us what we do or or what what our lives are like we're just she just sort of like sat on the couch petting the dog we're like so what so what so social media for a 15 year old that's no that's got to be interesting huh what are the kids on do you ever track down your your teacher's private social media accounts so you can learn weird stuff about them? She goes, no, that never even occurred to me as a thing. We've always had social media,

so it's just not interesting. I'm like, huh. Because if I was 15 and someone told me that my teacher had a Twitter account somewhere, that's all I would think about. All I would want to do is try to find information about my teachers in their real lives not to dox them but just because i couldn't think of anything more fascinating to me as a 15 year old and she's like yeah that's just not that's not something i do okay in fact let's do it right now let's try to find my teacher i'm gonna pull up twitter those number of followers don't pay attention to that that's that's something i'm just i'm a big deal at kids your age.

What are you thinking about for college? I haven't really thought about it. I don't really know why I'd go to college. I'm so jealous of this girl. Cool. Really, really neat. So, like, what do you do? Can I ask, Daniel?

Yeah. When you first saw her, and she was trying to get into an apartment that wasn't that was five away from hers yeah did you look at her shoes no oh god damn it sorry man well there's every bit of it was was confusing to me and there there's there there are so many new scams in the world yeah that i don't understand we're talking we're we're researching for a possible future episode of of last week tonight about a type of scam that in like anytime you get one of those uh have you ever gotten a text where someone is like hey john are we still on for dinner tonight? Of course. I guess I rolled those. And you're like, no, sorry, this isn't John.

And you're like, oh, man, damn, that's the wrong number. That is a scam eventually. And it's called pig butchering for reasons that you can find out if you Google it. But like it's one of those scams that even when I would get those text messages and I knew it was a scam and not to engage, I didn't know how it would eventually be a scam, how a wrong number on a text could result in me losing my life savings as many people have done. But that just is like a sign of our times that so many things can be a scam because technology moves so quickly that I don't understand anything. So as there's this, this girl on my stoop who was like, Hey, I tried to get into apartment number

three. I just moved into apartment number 14. My phone is dead. Can I call my sister on speaker phone? Can I put several different phone numbers into your phone? And like, man, that all sounds like normal stuff to me. But's if i get scammed there's that there's a a cop in a police station there's like did she did she was it the old tennessee switch where she pointed to one unit and said i moved to another unit and then dialed a couple of numbers yeah yeah that's how they steal your car you let her oh one of those things that's going to sound that that could sound like a scam in retrospect, like a very obvious scam, but I don't know it at the time. I'm just so confused and fearful of

everything for this woman that is either 12 or 30. Yeah. And I bet here's the other element that I was also like, I was going to ask about, but the fact she's 15 kind of clears it up for me, which is, is she also acknowledging that this is a crazy fucking situation at the same time that was the thing that so when i immediately no yes and when i immediately told this story to the my friends who are my age the ones that i've grown up with the women in this group chat especially were like at 15 years old i would never get into a stranger's home ever under any circumstances yeah and i was like yeah that's right that should have also made me more suspicious that this 15 year old girl on a stranger's stoop uh before before she had shown up before there

was a woman involved before she knew that i was not just like a single guy by myself, she and her sister were already like, the reasonable plan is for you to go into the home of the stranger with your dead phone and no way for anyone to track you whatsoever. Both of them thought that was a reasonable thing to do at 15. Not something I would do. Not something any of my friends would do. Right. Oh. God, i didn't even think about that but yes it you know what it's the same as like when somebody on the street asked me for directions i immediately resent them because what it means is that they are

looking at somebody who they're like well he's hapless like yeah nothing's gonna happen to me here like this guy's and i and i don't want, this guy's... And I don't want to look dangerous, but I also... I don't want to look like a schlub who couldn't even be... It wouldn't even be possible. Right. So I understand what you're feeling.

I can't tell if she is very trusting or if I'm very unassuming or what the the one mystery that got cleared up why she was going to knock on the door of a unit where she didn't live and didn't know the person who did live there is because she said i guess yeah sure she wants to go work out in there she thinks it's vacant what a callback uh no she she thought she heard their tv on and thought that meant someone was home uh and so she could go in there and talk to like this was a uh a young gal who at no point thought strangers are dangerous and you shouldn't go in their homes she was she was no matter what was like, this person seems home,

so I'm sure they will help me, which is, you know, maybe not. I'll just try the doorknob here. I'll see if that opens right up. Head on inside. Oh, they're asleep. Well, I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable with a stranger looming over them, so I'll just crawl right into the bed. When they wake up up we'll get

this all sorted out man that's that's crazy yeah it's and i do feel like there's there's there's a lot in this story of like maybe she's crazy or maybe uh kids are trusting and uninterested in things these days i also took a good hard look at myself that like, I could definitely be scammed by any number of things that I just don't understand because I'm vigilant, but I don't think vigilant about the right things. I was like, you got to use the phone in front of me so I know that you're not clicking the Venmo button

and sending yourself money. I think using the phone in front, that so i know that you're not clicking the venmo button and sending yourself money i think you're using the phone in front i thought that all makes so much sense to me i think that they i think you were doing the exact right thing because the phone feels like the pivotal piece of the scam if there was one you would think that and then i realized i let this person into my home yeah no like the i thought i was so clever being like let me see you use the numbers on the phone so that i know that you are not sending yourself money from my venmo account which is at the moment empty i was like good now that i've safeguarded against everything i shall let her into

my home where i don't know maybe her parents will pick her up or maybe eight youths will run into the building. I don't know that. Sora and I have some bad news. She drained our Patreon. She got all $27. Yeah. I know you were counting on that.

She took our Patreon, filled up her tank of gas. She could be all the way to three towns over by now. Hey! If our Patreon filled up her tank of gas, she could be all the way to three towns over by now. Hey, you know me. I love things. I subscribe to a bunch of things. There are so many streamers out there and so many packages to subscribe for things. I have completely lost track of what I'm subscribed to.

And because I just recently moved in with someone, that's two households worth of subscriptions. We had to turn to Rocket Money to help us streamline what we did and didn't need. Rocket Money finds your subscriptions, the ones that you forgot about and the ones that you might've paid for twice and didn't realize, and they cancel them for you. If I asked you how many subscriptions you have, would you be able to list all of them and how much you're paying? If you would have asked me this question before I started using Rocket Money, I'd have said yes, but let me tell you, I would have been wrong. Dead wrong. I can't believe how many I had and all the money I was wasting. Rocket Money is a

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a picture of your bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. Rocket Money has over 5 million subscribers and has helped save its members an average of $720 a year with over 500 million in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash qq. That's rocketmoney.com slash QQ. rocketmoney.com slash QQ. You're reminding me of a thing that happened to me when I lived in Santa Monica. I would bike to work when we were working on the promenade. And there was one day where I was biking home. when we were working on the promenade and there was one day where I was biking home, it's like seven in the, in the evening. And it's starting to drizzle.

And there's a woman who flags me down and I stop. And she's like, thank you for stopping. Will you go into my apartment and get my jacket? And she's like pointing up at this building where there's like, maybe like five, three stories. And she's pointing to this middle one. She's pointing to a window. She's like, it's right there.

I need you to go get my jacket. I can't go in there because my boyfriend's in there. And I was like, no, she was like, and she gave me this look like, are you kidding me? Like, why, why won't you just help me? And I was like, I, there's no no way there's no way i'm doing this and like you know yeah to overcome your instinct to be a hero to like somebody needs something and you're like oh oh i can do that my leg i have legs i can and i have a hand that opens the door um i was like to overcome that and be like no i'm not gonna do that this sounds like something is waiting for me up there yeah i'm not gonna do that um and so i think that's that's the right instinct and so i rode

away and she but she continued gawking at me like and like she was so insulted and angry that this person wouldn't just do her this kindness and um thinking back on it i i'm like i wonder if i mean if there was some sort of situation where abuse was happening i also don't want to go in that apartment but i maybe could have done something else it also she was not acknowledging that it was a crazy thing to ask somebody yes she gave me just a little bit of information and then was and then was mad that i had the audacity to say no. So I was like, no, that was something, something was going to happen to me. Yeah.

I think that's, that is what separates me from this person in your story. And this young gal in my story is that if I was ever in a position where I was completely stranded and locked out of something and my phone was dead and I had to rely on a stranger, I feel like I'm really working on my preamble. Just to get right out of the way, it's like, let me start by saying I understand how crazy this is. And I absolutely know that you have no reason to trust me on this. It's a wild circumstance and that you have every reason to think that what I'm doing is related to a scam, even if you can't exactly put the pieces together for why it is a scam. I'm really sorry. Is there something I can give you to establish trust? Here is my wallet or whatever. All I need is a charge for a phone or for you to establish trust here is my wallet or whatever all i need is a charge for a phone

or for you to dial a number that i give you to call someone to help me and if you don't i totally understand but just know that i'm i'm trapped and alone and lost and again i know that this is crazy and this is how murders start in movies some kind of acknowledgement yeah you have to say you have to say over and over i'm sorry like i'm so sorry to to interject myself into your life basically um and like and i'm just thinking of how that would disarm me like yeah there's if somebody immediately was like i'm i'm so sorry to ask this of you please look at my shoes yeah now know that uh everything's okay i just i'm in a really strange circumstance and i need some help and you have i don't want any money i don't want anything like that i just need to use your phone like yeah i'm trying to think of how

what i would be um what would disarm me and i think that that's what it would be um that's that's wild man that's crazy it is be. That's wild, man. That's crazy. It is wild. And like everything did work out. I'm glad that it was all true. Did someone come pick her up from your apartment? Not from my apartment.

They just called my number when her parents were there in the parking lot to go get her. That was another slightly weird part of it that the parents didn't even come by to be like, we are... What the fuck? Thank you so much for taking in our daughter. That might be the weirdest part of it now that I'm saying it out loud, that no one was like, hey, we really appreciate this. She could have ended up in anyone's house and we're glad that she ended up in your house and you offered her water and kept her warm and listened to her talk about social media, I guess, or whatever we did.

What the fuck? The parents didn't say anything to you? No, they just called. We were sitting there chatting and then my phone rang with a number that I didn't know. So I was like, I think it's for you. She picked up the phone. She was like, yeah, okay, they're here. Thanks again.

Do you want me to close the door on my way out? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess. I don't know. Unless that's also part of the scam.

That's that part. Real. I mean, 15 year olds. I, I don't understand anyway. They, whatever they do,

I'm like, yeah, it's just normal 15 year old stuff. But the parents did not come and say anything to you. It's fucking crazy. Yeah. I'm also, it's, how stupid would I feel if she was in my home and Shay and I are just sitting on the couch. And then she pulls a gun out of her bag and then a bunch of her friends come in to rob the house.

And then as I'm talking to the police later, it was like, yeah, I thought once I made her dial the phone on speakerphone that the threat had been neutralized. It just gives you that look like, are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. I mean, yeah, it could have been in as good as it gets situation right and where you're painting her and like it's going really great and then all of a sudden her friends come in and ransack the place and hit you with a pipe i know it could have been that it could have easily and she she's called you've only ever heard her talk to one person like it uh yeah but it does it certainly makes me realize how uh like difficult it would be to be in her position not that she had at any point seemed

stressed or actually nervous but she's got my phone and she tries to call both of her parents and neither of them pick up and it's like yeah course not, because it's a number they don't know. And like I, if I, if my phone died and I needed to take a stranger's phone and call someone, first of all, there are only a few numbers that I have memorized. And one of them is not my girlfriend's. And one of them is my childhood home that has been disconnected. But like I would call my brother or my mom or my dad. Those are numbers that I have memorized.

And I have no guarantee that they would pick up because why would they? They would just see a random phone number. She wasn't leaving messages either? No. Well. Oh, damn it. I know. I'm jealous of this 15 year old daniel yeah i like i hate that that's my first reaction but i'm super jealous of her i'm jealous either incredibly stupid or incredibly sheltered or just like 15 year olds maybe they just know in the back of their heads like i'm

never actually in danger i'm immortal because i because of because of snapchat or something i don't know yeah i love that she has no ambitions she's got doesn't give a shit about you no that these are just like these are just people that appear throughout her life that she can like to hold her up yeah really, I'm so jealous of that. Uh, I wish I could walk through my life that way. I would go, I would travel so much. Um, all right.

Well, I want to, I'm glad you told me a story because I want to tell you one too. And today this won't be a question. This will just be story time with, uh, Soren and Daniel. You know what?

Let's switch it around this time. Well, instead of, instead of, instead of, instead of the naming that we usually do, let's do story time with Daniel and Soren. I mean, you deserve your fair shake.

You should be at the front of the marquee. Okay. Top billing for Daniel. Um, here we go. I, I went to a singles event recently. Don't, does that surprise you?

I mean, I'm laughing because I have to assume it's a misunderstanding of some kind or like you were someone's chaperone or something. This would be a terrible way for me to react if that was your way of saying like, well, I'm divorced now and I went to a singles event and I immediately laughed at you. No, I'm just kidding.

I'm not divorced. Widowed. No, I went to a singles event because I didn't know it was a singles event. My friend Sam and I, you know Sam Bergen, right? Yeah. Shout out Sam Bergen. Advertising. Great guy.

Works in advertising. uh you know sam bergen right yeah shout out sam bergen advertising great guy works in advertising uh he and i we meet up like maybe like once a month and we get drinks and we always end up going to this same bar even to the point where i went back and looked through our thread and we had just agreed on when to get drinks and we never said where we were going like that's how often we go to this one place because it's in between the two of us we like it's quiet and uh he got there maybe like five minutes before i did and he texts me and he's like hey i just want to let you know it's singles night here do you want to go somewhere else and i was like is it the whole bar he's like i can't tell and i'm like nah it's fine let's just let's just stay here so i show up i walk through this

group of people and they all have name tags on but but there's like a tent out front, not front, like in the interior of the bar, but like a separate section. And it's clear like that's where it looks like this whole thing is relegated to. I walk in and I have to walk through this thing. And the minute I step in the door, it's, I've never felt more like a celebrity. I've never felt more like a celebrity. Like everyone there is clocking whoever comes in, male or female, because they have good reason to. And so like I, all these eyes,

conversations just stop and everyone looks at me and glances and then keeps continuing their conversation. I go find Sam and I'm like, wow, it's crazy out there, right? And he's like, yeah, it was, he's like, everyone looked at me when I came in. I was like, yes, yes. Um, and so we're like, okay, well we're, we're inside the interior of the bar. Now I think that I'm like through with it. What I didn't know at the time was that this thing is the entire bar. And it's like, everybody there is, is single, I guess.

And they're all kind of like talking to each other. There's a lot of people in groups too. So that's very confusing to me um like a bunch of singles like all together i didn't understand that like i don't know why you're not pairing off but i haven't dated in a very long time no but even as someone who uh was uh publicly single for branding purposes for many years and would sometimes go to bars. I think if you go to a, uh, with, with the specific intention of meeting someone, the going to a bar on singles night with your buddies, trying to meet someone is functionally the same as going to a bar with your buddies any other night. I feel like if that hurts your cause, if you're

just going to go, I understand you want like a support group, but also that's defeating the entire purpose of singles night. You're supposed to be out there to be out of your support group and not fall into the easy habits of just shooting the shit with your buddies. Right. So I've come in and i'll give you like my mindset as i'm there i'm not like nervous or anything i am i'm kind of pumped about it i'm glad you're not nervous i'm kind of pumped because i'm bringing something into this room which is like a a confidence that that they they cannot possess which is that i'm in a relationship and this date this night means nothing to me you know which is like that's

an energy that you just carry and i'm like and so when all the eyes looked at me i was like oh i must look like quite a catch like i yeah i'm bringing like i i got a devil may care attitude that i'm bringing into this. I'm pretty mad thinking about that. If I was one of the single guys who just like, who, even if I knew your story and I knew you were off the market, you weren't competition for me. It's like, don't give anyone an example of like easy confidence. Don't let them know what's out there there even if you're not out there just like don't even don't even invite it yeah and so i can feel their energy and they can feel mine i'm

assuming i mean i'm assuming a lot but like i can feel their energy and i'm like ah i'm not it like i'm oh you understand i have privilege uh this is good this feels nice. And went and sat down with Sam, feeling pretty high. Within about five minutes of us sitting there talking, two people approach our table. It's a man and a woman. And the guy, I want to say, is probably like 26. And the woman is maybe 61. Excellent. is maybe 61 excellent and she comes up to our table and stands there till we stop talking and acknowledge her and just stands like not like she's talking to her buddy she just they come up both shoulders squared to us as we're sitting down and they're standing up waiting for us to finish our conversation finally we turn and look at her because that's a weird fucking thing to do and she Finally, we turn and look at her because that's a weird fucking thing to do. And she introduces herself to us and just starts like chatting like we're part of this thing.

And she's like, sorry, I brought a, I can't remember the guy's name, Evan or something like that. She's like, I brought, I asked Evan to come in with me because I wanted to talk to you too. And so he was essentially on his own singles night being a wingman for this elderly woman wow and uh and here's where like the real blow comes down because i'm already feeling great through having walked in and looking so good looking like the catch of the day and she goes i want i saw you guys both come in and i and it's so hard out there because I didn't realize no one else was going to be my age. And it's nice to see some people who are. Oh. Do you think she was making a joke or negging you?

That's what Sam suggested later. I know my, me, I'm my, my first instinct is always like, she's being honest with me. What a terrible feeling. And so she says this to me and I'm like,

as like we're shaking hands. And I was like, Oh fuck. That didn't feel great. And on top of that, the way that she phrased it was suggesting to me, look, I'm not spoiled for choice. That's why I'm here. Like, at least you're my age.

Clearly not my type. Clearly not very attractive men. But I'm going to do what I can because otherwise. You take one of the boxes. You're here and you're old. And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I keep looking at Sam. The look I'm trying to convey to Sam is, do we look old?

But instead I think it's coming off as, boy, this lady's crazy, huh? But I'm trying to look at him up and down. I'm like, no, he's not giving off that vibe. He looks good. He's like a very, he's a very fashionable guy too. He is not graying like I am. And he's got a good head of hair. He's a handsome guy.

And so like, I'm like trying to like take this all in. And the other guy, Evan, is just really standing there and like nodding his head. Like, yeah, yeah, you guys are old. I don't think you'll all hit it off. Okay, yeah. Because that's where all my questions were going is like is what's evan's face saying at this point is he is he like shaking his head like i've been stuck with this fucking lunatic all night she thinks i'm 61 also you gotta i'm really sorry to invite

this crazy to your table no i was getting nothing from evan and i was checking him too because because i wanted like some other i wanted somebody else there to be like this is not a normal situation but he's just nodding along also evan right you want the bartender to come over with a brew and be like hey shoot get out you are different get away from one of them uh he is uh, Evan has some red flags. Evan is, his name tag's a little crooked, but also Evan has a collar underneath his jacket that is so irrevocably fucked up. Like a collar that's all folded and weird, and it looks like it didn't get ironed, so it's bending in some weird ways. And it's like a polo shirt collar that shouldn't be

it looks like it got left in a dryer for a very long time till it like for three days and then you pulled it out and you're like whatever i'll put the shirt on anyway and so it's like all folded and we found out evan had come all the way from the valley to be at this event which to give everyone who's not in los angeles some context he drove roughly 50 minutes to be at this event yeah and i was like evan you're wasting your time on this like what do you what are you doing unless like evan your hope was that by the end of the night this is the lady that you liked which is fine you know but it's it looked to me like he was she just saw a guy by himself he was desperate to talk to anybody and so she she used him um anyway she came to us she started talking to us and

it became pretty clear pretty early uh that we were not on the market she asked if we were together we said no we just love this bar we come here and we're both married she doesn't fuck off dan she sticks around and it's one of those situations where i was talking earlier about the energy the energy that we're giving keep in mind we're both still sitting down and there's a woman standing over us at the edge of our table. And so she starts lamenting how difficult it is to meet somebody and for it to turn into anything. She's like, I see people that I think are attractive at the bank and we'll talk. But if he doesn't ask me out, then I don't know know what to do that's the last i'll ever see of him and we were like can you just tell him yeah and granted neither one of us have been dating

such a telling detail for the age difference where it's like you know how you meet someone at a bank or like waiting in line at the red box to return something? It's like, oh, lady, I'm sorry. No. Yeah, Sam and I have had a postmortem on this since. And like, I was trying to recall the details. I was like, didn't she say she like met somebody at an auto repair shop? And he's like, no, it was the fucking bank. I was like, oh, yeah, the worst.

Yeah, that's, yeah, we are not on the same team. And so she, she's telling us like she meets people she talks to them and then that it goes nowhere and i was like oh that's sort of sad and she's like what what dating websites did you guys use and we're like oh i'm so sorry we we don't we didn't i'm like well she's like what do your friends use i'm like oh there's bumble and i was like remembering some bumble stories from daniel and and i was like i know my wife my wife's sister met her husband on tinder she's like really tinder tinder unless she kept like chewing on the word i was like oh boy you don't even that's the. Oh, you don't even know what Tinder is.

Evan's just nodding like a bobblehead. And, uh, and then she's like, well, what would you do? Like, what were you, would you do if you were me and you found somebody who was attractive and you wanted to tell them they were attractive? And I was like, I don't like where this conversation is going because I feel like at any second, she's going to try it on us. And like, she's gonna try it on us and like she's not absolutely yeah and i i already told her all the things that suggest that this can't happen so uh i tell her story about that happened to sam sam and me sam and i went to a uh lafc game which

is the the really awesome fun soccer team here in los angeles in a stadium i'm like getting nachos stands for the la soccer club i want to say is what those letters correspond to we we're getting like i'm getting food so i'm like getting condiments i'm like piling some ketchup or whatever in a little cup and and turn back around and sam is talking to this woman and i don't know who she is but she's close to him in a way that suggests affection like she's close enough that she has to look up to him uh so her chin is up and she's kind of smiling and talking to him and i'm like sam has is this an affair like sam has run into somebody that he knows he's talking to her and then she goes away and i'm like what was that he was like, she just came up to me and said, I caught her eye.

And I was like, that fucking rules. For the rest of the night, I was so pumped. I'm like telling people in the seats next to us and stuff like that. Like, I was so excited because that is such a cool thing to have happen in a stadium. Yeah. For someone to pick you out of a stadium and and be like hey i you caught my eye like that's such a nice also it's a great way to tell someone that they're attractive so i'm telling this woman this story and she's like i don't think that'll work and i was like well

you're fucking hopeless like this isn't gonna work like what do you mean that's not gonna work i just told you that it works it just it works on somebody who's like i'm generations younger than you yeah i want to like shout at this woman and she's also you need to need to make it clear like listen soren has been in a in a couple for i want to say 400 years so the the idea that you would get any relevant advice out of him is like which no disrespect to soren it just is unlikely and you're getting a great piece of advice regardless of all that and you're throwing it away you you deserve to be single forever and so she's not and she's like still like she just wants to have a conversation with us which i'm also sympathetic to but yeah i see sam maybe once a month and I want her to just go away. And so eventually I just turned to Sam and I start asking him about what I want to talk to him about. Like, how did the Minions campaign go? Are you going to do the Super Bowl commercial? Like that kind of stuff.

Are you going to do the Super Bowl commercial? Like that kind of stuff. And she then sees that we are talking to each other. She turns and talks to Evan a little, then turns back to our table to see if we're going to continue talking to her. I don't. And so she does finally wander away. And afterwards, I was like, this was a mistake. We shouldn't have come here.

And Sam's like, I don't think it's that bad. And I'm like, she thought we were her age. And he's like, I don't think it's that bad. And I'm like, she thought we were her age. And he's like, I'm pretty sure that that was a neg. And I was like, I don't think so. I think she's just a confused lady. I don't think she knows. I don't think she knows. I think she saw a guy with gray hair come in and she went, oh, thank God. And maybe to her credit, she may have just said it wrong which she might have just thought here's

somebody who's clearly a decade older than everybody else at this singles event that's the very closest i'm gonna get yeah um which also i didn't like either because i want to walk into that thing and i want everybody regardless of age to look and go ah that's what i want that one right there i'll take one of those um but yeah it was a super weird experience and then yeah he had a birthday later i i brought it up again at his birthday and uh and that's where we had like our denouement like where we talked it over like what had actually happened and he's like yeah it was super weird i could tell that you kept looking at me and i thought maybe you wanted me to end the conversation with her and i was like yeah how how are you gonna do that i tried like 16 times i said i was married it's um but yeah i'm never going to

singles event again dan i mean don't say never yeah that's true you had one bad experience it's a numbers game you gotta just keep keep getting back on that horse man thank you i gotta remember that i gotta remember that you try you try you get back up you fall down yeah you get up you do it again i'm gonna meet someone i i think just like next i'm gonna aim for like a really nice 58 year old just climb down the ladder the thing that confuses me if she was doing a joke or if she was nagging you is that is not reconcilable with her sticking around to then hit on you yeah which which is the vibe you got right yeah absolutely yeah i don't know it's a disconcerting by the way to be hit on by somebody who is uh 20 or 30 years older than you. I can't, I think it,

part of me was, at the time, was like, oh, this is what women feel like. Where I'm like, clearly nothing's going to happen between us, but you're still trying. Yeah. What are you doing? And she,

yeah, she, I felt a little bad afterwards. Not by what i had said to her i was very kind and we all we did all the right things but this poor woman right looking for help and she went to a singles event without any knowledge that she was just gonna be a bunch of fucking kids there that's gonna live in my heart for a while as well and like maybe she's a kook and maybe she's she could be a bad person for all we know but just only going by the details that i have just the the single panel comic version of 60 something year old woman getting dressed up to go to a singles event and being surrounded by 20 somethings

is heartwarming and heartbreaking simultaneously yeah yeah seeing the the thinking from her frame of reference her going there looking around and being like oh no i'm alone like with that feeling again and right and how it must feel like i hadn't thought about this before but how it probably feels like if you are in your 60s and single, and you go to one of these events, and you see nothing but 20-somethings, and it's like, what are the 20s? What are you doing here? Why do you need this? Just go to other bars and be young and single.

It must seem to her so easy to be single in your 20s. Like, just find someone anywhere, or don't find someone, and enjoy your 20s. This needs to be for people in their 60s, just find someone anywhere or don't find someone and enjoy your 20s this needs to be for people in their 60s their 50s or whatever in this very it it i don't think she's a a lunatic for thinking a singles night would be for her demographic of course not of course not yeah that there would at least be some other people that show up there who are, that are of any age. Yeah. So anyway, I found her and I've been having sex with her. That's nice.

Just, I felt bad. That's good. Yeah, I mean, you got to give back. Yeah. Well, that about wraps up our show. That'll do it. Which, who knows what it's about. I don't even know why

I spend any amount of time thinking about what I'm gonna say in the intro it doesn't oh sorry show us a quick question but you knew that already nope

don't do it nope nope nope go on we are recorded edited and produced by our

president of podcast operations Gabe Harder our theme song is by the incredible Merex their digital album is incredible Merex. Their digital album is available at merex.bandcamp.com. You can find the show on Twitter at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can email the show at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. You can find both Soren and I on Blue Sky, where we are sometimes doing jokes. You can find the show on Instagram, QQ underscore with underscore soren underscore and underscore daniel you can find us on youtube also soren hit him with that link

soren hit him with that link comment just give me a second the link is when you guys when you kids hear this link, it's going to, you're going to flip. YouTube.com slash at QQ podcast. Hey, all right. Daniel, an American dad and simp for his son was really good. It was. And family guy. I know. He actually did a whole animation thing for you.

I was going to. And like you did it. I had a moment where I felt really bad, but I was already committed to a bit because I had been sipping through your intro too. So I just, I stepped on it. I stepped on it like it didn't matter. And I'm sorry. It was a really good intro. That's all right.

We'll just, I'll just do it again. Okay. Let's do that one again. We'll try that one next week. None of this is real. Yeah. All right. Bye.

Bye. one next week none of this is real yeah all right bye bye So what's your favorite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? What did I do? Where did all the guys go? Oh, forget it. Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien. Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time here.

I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here