The Josh Innes Show - When Do You Stop Making Friends?

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

I'm in the car and I had a random thought about friends. Well, it's not really random. I thought of this when talking with someone about a mutual friend. I said "He's one of the my best friends". It occurred to me that I may have passed the age of ever making a new best friend. Is this weird? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I'm in the car, just picked up lunch, leaving the radio station. You can probably hear the blinker blinking in the background. I'm driving this nice equinox, which is fantastic. I love this equinox that I'm driving. But I was thinking about this today because I was having a conversation with a radio guy here in Detroit. That's a legendary guy, Bushman is his name. But like he was all over like the big hip-hop station for years and years. You heard him in the, I think, well, he was in 8.

mile and he was in the new beverly hills cop and i'm talking with him and i mentioned that i that one of my good friends is a guy that goes by dj grooves who uh you know i met in philadelphia but grooves also worked in detroit at one point so i was talking with with grooves about bushman he's like he's like the nicest guy ever and i'm like so i i mean i talked with him and i'm like yeah he totally is the nicest guy ever. But it got me thinking about how like I'm friends with Grooves. And I said like, well, DJ Groo is one of my best friends. And I met him as an adult. I met him like I'm 26, 27 years old in Philadelphia and we became great friends. And it got me thinking about how like I don't think I'm ever going to meet another human. Like I'm at a certain age now where I'm never going to meet

another human that is going to become a best friend. I don't know if that makes sense or if you that's fully grasp what I'm saying, or if I'm making sense. But first of, let me play a couple commercials. So by this, what do I mean? It's like when you're young, you start meeting people and some of them become your friends for the rest of your life, right? Like, I've got tons of friends that are going to be friends forever, saved by the bell style, right?

Like, you know, my two best friends from high school are still my two best friends. Whether, you know, we go years and years without talking, like we had a strong. stretch where we didn't talk as much. But since 1998, I have had these two people who have been my best friends. I've got other people who I'm really close with from high school that I still talk with. I got people that I've met through years and years of doing radio that I'm very close with. Some I would consider best friends. Some I would consider really good friends. You know, like I talk with sludge. Sludge, I consider a really, really good friend. Like he and I are best friends, but we're really good buddies, right? Like if he had to put together a crew of people to be in a

wedding, like I wouldn't be one of them, but he and I are super close and I confide stuff and him about radio and we're buddies. I got a bunch of people like that. But like, I don't know if just my personality has changed or what's changed about me. But I just, I had this epiphany just now. And maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe it doesn't apply to you. Maybe it does. But whatever. I don't think I'm ever going to meet somebody as an adult again that I just become best friends with. or close friends with. Like, I've got friends, like, my boss here at this radio station's a good dude,

and I'll go drink beers with him, and I like him, and we'll be buddies and friends. But, like, he and I are never going to be, like, best friends, run the roads with them, fuck shit up, go out and get super hammered. That will never be our relationship. And I'm almost 39, my birthday's in a couple days, I'm almost 39, and I think my days of meeting people who I become best friends with, meeting people who, like, over time we grow to like confide all of our deepest, darkest fears and secrets and all that, I don't think that's ever going to happen again. The people who know where the bodies are

buried as it relates to me are the people who are going to know it. There will be no new additions to the Josh Ennis inner circle. And I don't know if that's a unique thing to me. I don't think it is. I don't think it's unique to me. I just think it's people. I think you hit a certain age where you are done meeting best friends. You will meet people you like. You will meet people you like. You will meet people you are close with. And if it's people that you work with, like, and you work with them for an extended period of time, they will be people who will be your friends and you will be pretty tight with. But they will never be your best friends. Like, I don't think people meet best friends when they're 40 years old. I don't know if it's because of what you do, the kind of

shit you do when you're 20 versus the kind of shit you do it when you're 40. When you're 40, you meet a lot of people who already have kids and can't really go hang out with you anyway. Like, you just don't make best friends that way. Like, it's a very rare. occurrence. So as I sit here and I bring this up because I'm talking with this legendary radio guy in Detroit named Bushman and he's fucking nicest guy you're talking to, just a wonderful guy. And I go, yeah, one of my buddies, one of my best friends. And it dawned on me that I said, one of my best friends, DJ Groove, says, you know, you're a wonderful guy and he wasn't lying. And then I said to myself, when is the last time, that was 2015, I guess, 2014 that I met DJ Groove. So it was 20,

his name's Pat, by the way. But, like, we're talking over 12 years ago, 11 years ago that I met him, and we just became best friends. Like, I don't know if we just shut down as adults. I don't know what we do, how things become what they become. But I think as adults, we are not as willing to just open ourselves up to people as we are when we're young people. And, you know, you don't have sleepovers and shit like that.

But, like, there are people, like, I'm never going to have a new best friend, if that makes sense. I will have new good friends and I will have new people that I hang out with and you know, you move from city to city. You want to meet people so you at least have some people to shoot the shit with. But like, there's shit that DJ Grooves may know about me. There's shit that, you know, my best friends from high school know about me. There's shit that Matt Moscona may know about me that I would never tell anybody new. And maybe that's because of the way the world is now and you don't trust that people have your best interest. You don't know if like you'll get canceled for your thoughts on shit. You don't know who you can trust to you, you can not trust. And I think that's a really big part of it is

who can you trust. You don't know that you can trust any of these people. Who can you look to and say, I trust you. I'm not talking about with, you know, stories about committing crimes or anything, but just like your secrets, the things that make you you, you, who can you trust? Haba, hubba, hubba, money, money, who can you trust? Like, who can you trust as an adult? And I just don't think we tell people that shit. Like, I don't think that we sit here and go, I'm going to meet someone and they are going to know my life now. They may know stories about you, but you're never going to confide in them that deep shit that your best friends know. And I think that's kind of part of getting older that makes you feel older is these are the people who are going to be my best friends.

There will never come a time that I meet a new best friend. There will be times that, you know, I might pick up the phone and call like, say, Casey, my new boss. We might work together 20 years. We may work together 20 minutes. I don't know how long I'm going to be here. and I hope I'm here for a long time. And I might pick up the phone or text him and say, hey, or whatever. But we will never be best friends.

And we can be. It's just, maybe this makes no sense, and you guys think I'm bad shit crazy. But like an example, like Howard Eskin, I think Howard Eskin's a nice guy, and he always treated me well. And I got a text from him. Like, he and I talk so infrequently that I don't have his number saved in my phone. It is just like a 215 Philly Area Code number that pops up. Like, that is the extent of my relationship with Howard Eskin, the king, Howard Eskin, right?

That's all I know about Howard Eskin is that, you know, he's the king and he was good to me. So I got a text from him when I got this job and he was congratulating me. And I'm like, look at that. Some guy that I talked to a decent number of times, but we'd never be mistaken for best friends. But like, he reaches out and says hello and says, hey, congrats on the job. And I'm like, that's very nice. Howard Eskin doesn't know barely anything about me. Like, again, this may make no sense.

You may be like, Josh, what the fuck are you talking about? Stop drinking these energy, these liquid IV plus energy packets in the middle of the day because it makes your mind go fucking crazy. And maybe it does. But like a guy like Howard Eskin reaches out to me, he and I are never going to be best friends. Like, that's what I'm trying to convey is. As an adult, you will meet people that you will be acquaintances with and you might share text. And there might be nights you text for an hour, but that person will never be your best friend.

You will never make a new best friend when you're 39 or 40 years old. Might be someone you're close with or someone that you're buddies with, but you will never make a new best friend. What age do you stop making best friends? That is my question. What age do you stop making best friends? What age is it like, you know what? Is it like a mental thing?

Do you deliberately shut down? Do you shut shit down and tell yourself, I don't know. don't want to open myself up to having new best friends. Is it just a matter of being content with what you've got and being an adult? Like what is it? What is it? It fascinates me. Like what keeps us from making new best friends as we get older? Or is there like a window where you don't make best friends like you're 40 to your 60? And then as you get older and your friends die and you start building closer relationships with other old people? I don't know if they're set rules. What are the rules? I don't have the answers to it.

But I just, I don't know why that, like, I think a dumb shit. I think a random shit like that. And that is the random shit that comes to my mind. It's the, hey, will I ever have any other best friends? I don't know. It's a bizarre thing to think, and I'm aware of that. But maybe you guys have the answers, and I don't. Either way, I'm going to go eat my lunch now.

I'll go do another pod a little bit later. I know I'm a little bit behind. What's funny is I got two pods done before 6 o'clock this morning. Then time got away from me doing my actual job. I'll get some other ones in there for you, so don't message me and bitch. They'll be done. Thank you.