Hey, we wanna let you know that the final Rhett and Link musical show
dates of the year and for-- The foreseeable future-- Are right, coming up on us. So, November 20th through November 23rd, we're gonna be in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, Phoenix, Arizona, Sacramento, California and
Valley Center, California. Go to rhettandlinklive.com
to grab those tickets. We promise, we will make it a very, very special
night worth your time. Rhettandlinklive.com, go get them tix. Now, on with the biscuit. Welcome to "Ear Biscuits". I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the round
table of dim lighting, we are exploring the challenges
of maintaining a friendship. We're not gonna necessarily talk about, I mean I'm sure we will. We're not talking about the
challenges in our friendship. Maybe some of them will come out as we talk about the challenges in your friendships that
you have let us into. Thank you for those of
you who have responded to our props on the social
medias that we have asked and told us about some of your situations that you've got with your friends that we're going to address.
Yeah. If we've got anything, it's-- Good hair? No, it's a friendship. Oh, friendship, yeah. It's friendship and with over 35 years of that continuing to
happen, like constantly. Friendship is still happening. You know, it's-- Despite the doubts in the
comments from time to time. Right. And I would say to be friends as long as we have and to not get like
concerned comments from fans who are only seeing us
through the lens of the lens-- Lens of the lens. Would be, that would be weird. I mean for us not to be
comfortable enough with each other that sometimes, these honest
moments of tension come through in the things we createm I
think that's a beautiful thing because it's, again, it's those, everything in friendship is not rosy. Friendship, in general, is very difficult and as I've look through these questions that we're gonna discuss
from mythical beasts, it's a good reminder of, to me, about how much work it takes. I don't wanna show our hand here but it does take a lot of work and there's no clear answers
because on any given day in any given friendship,
there could be any scenario that you've never experienced before and you may not know anyone
who's been through it so you kinda, like, what do I do? So we'll talk about some of that. Yeah, and like all relationships, they have their projects that
have to receive attention and so, hopefully, we
can offer some insights but speaking of our friendship-- And viewing friendship as, of your friend as a project, it's maybe a bad place to start. Well, you know what I mean. It requires ongoing attention but a person is not a project,
that's not what I meant. But speaking of friendship
and maintaining friendships, I mean we did something that
is just about as friendly as you could possibly do. We went and went on
paddleboats this past weekend. Yeah, me and Rhett went out
on a paddleboat together. Can you picture this two of us on, at Echo Park, there's a lake which I guess is called Echo Lake, is it? I just call it Echo Park Lake. I don't know if that's what it is. Echo Park. But-- Echo Park Lake. It's like the most, one of the most LA things
that you can do is get on-- Echo Lake? Echo Park Lake. Oh.
Echo Park Lake. Echo Park Lake.
Is get on one of these giant swans that is a paddleboat that
can hold like five people and paddle around this pond
and I've been by this place so many times, and I've been like-- Me too. Gotta get out on one of those paddleboats. You'll see it in like, if a commercial decides
to shoot in Los Angeles, especially if they need
like a picturesque scene, like if it's an ad for a medication, they'll shoot at Echo Park. Now, they'll film at such an angle where like you can from
one side of the lake, shoot across these fountains, there's three fountains
that are grouped together that shoot water, probably
50 feet in the air. Straight up in the air. And then you shoot past that
and you can see the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles. It's very beautiful. But you just got to make sure that you, that you film the proper angle around the homeless encampments. There are a few of those. Right, yeah. But they're very well-- They probably get them to leave when they're about a shoot of commercial. They're very well-maintained
homeless camps because, I mean they're like,
there's a camp under this tree and then you go to the
next stream there's a camp but, I mean, they got nice
tents and there's this one guy, he had a frigging, where we parked, he had a flat screen
television beside his tent and I was like, "How on earth?" And then before I could get my answer, I was like, "Oh, solar panels." Yeah, a solar-powered-- Dude had solar panels-- Flat screen TV out there. And a nice tent. And so, it was like this
is prime real estate. I made a note. Right. If I need to live out of a tent, LA is a great place to be. First of all, you've
got to get a flat screen and a solar panel.
You gotta move to LA. I'm already here. And there's just so much going on. I mean the thing about any
outdoor space in Los Angeles on the weekend, really, anytime
but especially the weekend, is there's just so much happening. There's so many people there
and I know for a lot of people, that can be a problem because you're like, "Why can't I just go to an open space?" Now, you can easily get to open spaces where you won't see a soul, you
decide to go outside of town but it was just like so many
people of all walks of life almost as if the people
had been manufactured for the sake of a movie. Or for an insurance commercial. Walking around--
I mean medication commercial. I mean you got people selling things. You got this guy giving
free vegan ice cream samples next to a guy selling-- Ceviche. Chevice and then you got the taco place and it's just, I don't
even know if these people have licenses or permits. I don't even care and then-- So picture me and Rhett holding hands and skipping around this
lake together hopping on-- That exactly how it happened.
Hopping on a swan and just peddling out there
with our jean cutoff shorts. Yeah, if you-- And our thighs-- I'm sorry to disappoint you-- Tanned. But we actually didn't
get on the same swan. My sister-in-law and two
nieces were in town and then, I think your wife had the idea to be like, "Hey, let's all go to the swans, "let's all get on the paddleboats. "Let's do this thing that
we've talked about doing "for 10 years and we've never done." So it was you and your
wife and two of your kids. No. One of your kids. No, me and Christy were on a pedal boat, and they call 'em pedal-- No, I'm just saying--
Not paddleboat, by the way.
I'm just saying who was there at this event. And then my wife-- But we can do it by boat.
And my son. So, me and Christy were on a boat. And just you and Christy. Just me and Christy. I don't how you worked that out. Because you volunteered
to take the youngest kid-- The kids, so Shepherd and
his first cousin Adeline, my brother's daughter, is like, they are each other's favorite people. They're the same age. Same age within like a couple months and they just love each other, they love spending time with each other, they're into all the same
things and they just, two peas in a pod as you say in the South. And they really love to include
Lando, which is very cool. He and Shepherd are really tight but Lando's a little bit younger so I think it's nice when Adeline enters the equation that
they still wanna include him and invite him over to
swim and stuff like that. And by the way, you do know that Shepherd jumps off of the roof
of the shed that covers the back half of your patio.
Behind. Into the pool. Yeah, they recently
discovered they could do that. Well, they invited Lando
over and then Lando comes, we pick him up and he's coming back home and you know how Lando is. He like had this sheepish look on his face and I remembered I was like, "Lando, did you jump off
of the roof into the pool?" He was like, "Yeah, Shepherd
told me I should do it." Oh, Lando did it. And he did it. That's awesome. And then he started crying. He was like don't be mad at me. I was like, "We're not mad at you." Boy, Shepard has never
cried about anything except not getting his way. Definitely never cried about
getting caught for something. So the three of them wanted
to be in the same boat and then you stepped up to the plate. Well, I knew an adult had, I like being the fun uncle, you know. The funcle. And I'm quite a funcle and I was like I'm gonna go out with
these kids, it'll be fun. We can drive through, I knew they would want
me to drive really close. Drive, I think, paddle. Do you drive a boat? You do drive a boat
because there is a rudder. They wanted me to go really
close to the giant fountains because the wind is like blowing the water that's going 50 feet in the air and of course, you can go
right under it and get wet and it's like going on
the log ride at Disney. Christy and I watched you do
that from a safe distance. Yeah. We spent most of our time trying to get an Instagramable photo. You know how that is? Did you get one? Yes, you know what, she did gram one. So, I think she got what she needed. I always forget that that's
a thing that you can do. I think it's just a sign of my age that social media is still
just not a part of my DNA. So I'm doing things--
Oh, I think you focused on the right thing, man, that was good. I know but, you mean,
this is what we do, man. It's like if you're in a giant-- Oh, we're talking about it. If you're in a giant swan, you should get a picture of
yourself in a giant swan. There's a freaking coffee shop out there. I got a lavender. You make it sound like it's
in the middle of the lake. It's on the dock. You have to walk through
a little coffee shop that serves breakfast burritos
on the weekends, what? Yeah, I love it. I got a lavender latte and
I'm not ashamed of that. I love when lavender is in things. It's one of my favorite
flavors to be in things. Something that seems like
it shouldn't be ingested. Yeah, let's eat perfume. That sounds like a good weekend. This lavender latte made me so happy. It's just almost as happy as
being in a swan on a lake. Chasing swans, did you notice that? You could chase other
swans with this giant swan. Do you think that the little swans believe that the giant swans are swans? No. You think they know they're inanimate? You think they have a
concept of inanimatecy? Is that a word? I think they they're not of their kind. I don't think they look at that thing and register that it is trying to impersonate them in any way. Did you know that you did these swans, on the weekends, you can go
out there until 10 o'clock and you saw the light, the light. Yeah, they got some LED-- The piping. Piping on it. Think about that. You could go out there at night. We could be like the
tourism board for Echo Park if we don't watch out. And then we paddled to the far end. And by the way-- Oh, yeah, this is great. The other the other boat was Jessie and your sister-in-law, Teresa, and then-- My other niece. Lily and then your older niece who's closer in age to Lily. Yeah. Emery. Mm-hmm. Which they were hanging
out, it's really cool. Christy had a good idea.
Very sweet. Christy had a lot of good ideas, we'll get to the second one. And then she, so we pedal all the way across. We're like trying to keep
up with you and the kids, which they got mad because
you wouldn't let them pedal. No, no, no. What's the story there?
No, no, no, no, no. They kept switching off
so I would be on one side, I was on the left side. So, only two people can pedal at a time. So I was like I'm gonna pedal because I don't wanna be in the back and have to deal with
two little kids up front trying to direct where we're going. It's hard to be funcle. And so--
If you're not in the driver seat.
I just let them rotate in the other seat but then eventually, they were mad, they wanted
me to be in the back and they wanted to be driving
it and so, eventually, I was gonna let them do that
but what's the first thing that you noticed when you got out there? It's really hard to paddle. Yeah. And you don't go anywhere. I was like, "This is my
workout for the day." Oh, man, I felt the burn. Yeah, like really, I felt the burn and then I felt the burn
when I went to the gym. Whoo! My trainer was like, "Okay,
we're gonna do squats," and I'm doing squats. My back is back, man, and
now, I'm doing squats. Oh, don't say it. I mean we'll see how long it lasts. Not a lot of weight though but I was like, "Man!" I was like having trouble, I was like, "well, I did paddleboat this weekend." Yeah, that's-- It's like I was the only person to say that in the gym that morning. I paddleboated too hard this weekend. Well, you went all the way to the--
Having trouble with the squats.
Other side and there's a group of people on the bank. Yeah. And you got there before we did and you just sat in you're looking on and then I pull up and it's a freaking-- Freestyle rap session, battle. Rap battle. It's a rap battle. On the far end of Echo Park. I love this town. Like where can you go,
get a lavender latte, get on a giant swan-- Swan. And then paddle your way-- To a rap battle! I mean-- Nowhere! People always ask me every time I go back
home to North Carolina. They're like, "Do you like it out there?" With so much skepticism
dripping in their voice. We love it! Hell yeah, I love it! I love it! Yeah. And then, you know what? You got the lavender latte, I
went out to use the bathroom and there was a homeless man
with his ass in the sink. Did you see that guy? I love it here! I love it here! He was washing his ass? That's a good enough place to start. I didn't see that. You didn't even tell me. I didn't want you to go gawk at him. I wanted the man to have his privacy. The sun was setting, it was golden hour. Man. I mean for a man who takes a shower and stares his neighbor's
down, I respected this guy. Yeah, any choice.
I'm liking his dominance. Yeah, and then your wife had a great idea. We were trying to figure
out what we were gonna eat and she said, "Well we can
go get some deep-dish pizza," and I was like-- Ding ding ding ding ding! Say no more! We were on the lake and then you started pedaling for the shore before
she even told me where it was. I haven't had deep-dish pizza in so long and there's this place,
is that in Highland Park? Where that place was? It's Echo Park. Masa?
Echo Park. Echo Park. I don't know why it's called Masa. That makes it sound like it might be an Indian restaurant but it is, it is straight up Chicago-style deep-dish, takes an hour for them to bake a pie. It's very reminiscent of
Lou Malnati's in Chicago because we got the original, they call it, which is sausage and mushroom and it's got that corn bread crust stuff, that's like the crispy
very cornmealy crust and the sausage is a
giant piece of sausage that's the same size as the pizza, which I've only ever seen
that at Lou Malnati's which I'm sure that's done
in other places but like, we got pizza and Christy was like, "You can only eat about
one piece of this stuff." Oh, yeah, it's so huge. So-- And when we finally got there and I got to the crust of the first piece and I'm like, I start to think, man, it tastes so good, I want another piece but I don't think I can
do it and I looked over and you had, you were
at the crust as well. And I thought for a second we
were on pace until you said-- That's my third piece. This your third piece. It's crazy. You were going exceptionally slow though. It's so dense. It's so good, I had three
pieces and then I could-- You ate like the dense, it's like eating a dense loaf of bread, like eating the whole loaf. Yeah, and then as I told
you then, I'll say again, I could have had a fourth piece. The only reason I didn't is
because y'all made me feel bad about having three. But to transition back, these are the things that
friendships are made of. Friendships are made of good times-- Rap battles, deep-dish pizza-- And bad times. And LED light piping. You can't really quantify a friendship until you go through
some bad times together and I even say plural. It's basically going
through life together. So as we go through these questions, I think we'll get very specific about some problems that pop up and even how to maintain or
reconnect in a friendship, things that we've been through. We are no experts. But we'll do our best. But first, we wanna let
you know that mythical.com continues to be the place to
go for all your mythical needs and we've got this-- Let's call it the hub of happiness. Yeah, we've got what we're
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version of the front. That is nice. It says mythical in a lot of ways. It's a little spooky. It might be it might be
a kind of Illuminati. Oh, I got to tell you, oh,
I gotta tell you, it's-- Did say Lou Malnati? Speaking about Illuminati--
Deep-dish pizza. I was literally at something recently that I have to tell you
about and somebody brought up on, ironically, Bohemian
Grove, Bohemian Grove. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You gonna tell me about it? I'm not gonna tell you about it now, that's a secret, man, 'cause
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flip side of our ads. You wanna get started with a question. Do it. This is from Caspooky which
is Casanora on Twitter, she's changed her name to Caspooky. It's a little dated after
Halloween, so that's why she's changed it.
Yeah, well, she answered this question before Halloween so she was called Caspooky at the time. "I have a friend that
chronically cancels last minute. "We'll plan dinner or a hangout, "I'll be halfway through cooking the meal "or heading to her place when she texts me "to say that she can't meet anymore "less than one hour notice. "She always seems so excited
up until she cancels!" Sad emoji. Yeah, this is extremely frustrating. Christy had a friend who was like this. A chronic canceller. A chronic canceller back in the day and so, I would hear about it. She would complain to me and I we wanted to make sure that there wasn't some
unspoken thing going on. It's like do you just feel
obligated to make plans but you're not really
motivated to follow through so you're looking for an excuse, and the conclusion in
this particular example was no, that wasn't the case. There's some people who just, they can't keep plans together. But I would say it has to
be on the table to consider is this an avoidance thing? But let's assume it's not
because like she said, she's very excited, always so
excited up until she cancels and she's probably apologetic or he's probably
apologetic or whatever, so. It feels like it has
to be addressed, right? So, I think honest communication about the elephant in the room, which is you're always canceling on me needs to be specifically addressed and I think that you could
no longer wonder is it about, is this an avoidance thing? Because you could just say, hey, there seems to be a pattern
where we've got plans and then you cancel
them at the last minute and I just wanna know and I
want you to be honest with me, is this something that's just related to the way that you schedule your stuff and it's just unfortunate circumstance or is it that you just
don't wanna hang out? Because I feel like I need
to know as your friend. Yeah. That's a tough, that's a
very tough thing to say but I do feel like you gotta, if you wanna actually make
progress in this area, like you wanna pursue this friendship, you got to take that head-on, right? I think a through-line of everything we're gonna talk about is gonna
be how key communication is. I mean when you're left guessing, you never know if you're right. But I think that I'll
end up sharing a story where I did choose to
communicate something and it went sideways. So, communication alone is not
the key, it has to be proper. I think, and I don't know all the criteria but I think if you try to have
as much humility as possible so it's not a confrontation but, like the way you said it, that
was like a humble approach. It's like, hey, I just wanna
share how this makes me feel. I actually don't know what to conclude, I really would like to
hear from you about this because be very careful
when jumping to conclusions preemptively, especially
if it makes you upset, aggressive, something like that. And even me talking like
that, I started to get, I start to wig out when it feels like we're just giving advice. It's like, I don't like
being those people. So I like to share more
about just what we would do. But I do think that in this instance, you never know what the
other person is going through or if they're just, they
may just be oblivious to what they're doing and the
impact that it has on you. Hey, I made dinner. I mean we made plans. I sacrifice doing other things to make sure that we had this time because that's what plans do. Plans mean you're not planning
to do everything else. And I would say that the
vast majority of the time, assuming that what is going on is this person is just
a little bit flighty, you communicating that
this is a concern of yours and pointing it out will, I don't know, I'm not especially
schedule-oriented person but I'm not very flighty either. Like, if I say I'm gonna be somewhere, I'm gonna be there but my assumption is that people who are
kind of like scattered is that all it takes, what you're constantly doing with somebody's got that personality is you're kinda competing for
they're sort of unofficial floating priorities. Yeah. And so, by simply expressing
concern about something, you move yourself to the top of, and so the next time you
say you've got plans, they will be like, okay, I
know that I have a tendency to kinda flake out so
I don't wanna do that because Casanora said
that this was an issue and so I'm going to honor that. I think that's probably
what's gonna happen. Now, if you can't make that, if you can't communicate in that way, if you're a person who just
avoids conflict at all costs, then I think that you gotta make plan Bs. I think you got to have a
back-up plan that you're okay, you're not emotionally drained
by having to go to plan B. So, you'll be like, all right,
I got plans with you-know-who which means it might fall
through but if it doesn't happen, I'm gonna eat a whole deep-dish pizza and watch "Ghostbusters". Okay, yeah. You gotta have something
that you can look forward to so that you don't get pissed at them. Yeah. But you can kinda reward yourself and almost kind of hope they cancel. Well, yeah, I definitely agree that you got to find a way
to not harbor resentment towards this person because it's not gonna change overnight. The type of person that does this is gonna keep struggling with it even if you having a great conversation. It may take two or three times but it's gonna happen again
so you have to find a way, and maybe that's, you invite them to things
where there's other people so the plans aren't
contingent on that person flaking or not flaking, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's good. So, it's like the thing can continue and hey, you're invited if you wanna come but I've changed the way I invite you to things.
That's a good idea. Yeah. Let's move to another one. I know that there was the one that, it's like three different people. Yeah, so, three different
people basically asked a very similar question so I
will quickly read all these. First ones from postcardhs. "How do you reconnect with someone "that you used to be best friends with? "I had a best friend but ever ever since "we went to different
schools, we stopped talking." Second question from Cameron. "If you haven't talked
to someone for a while "and nothing really ended your friendship "like a fight or moving away, et cetera, "are you still friends with that person? "Should you reach out
and have a conversation "or should you just let it go?" And lainey, "How do I
reconnect with a friend "that I haven't hung out with regularly "since elementary school. "I have close neighborhood friends "that stopped hanging out with me "when our mutual friend died. "Should I move on or try
to befriend them again? "And if so, how?" Hmm, it's interesting because we've gone through life together so we've always had each other but we've also made really
good friends over the years that I do, I wonder if you would call it a pattern of like losing connection, you know? Everybody that we've connected with and it's like we got the grade school through high school friends, had some tight friendships there, then we had some really
tight college friends and then we had, there's like
a few post-college people and like I'm thinking of
specific people all along the way that when we, especially
when we moved out here, our friendship got more, well, we made friends out here, you know? But all those friends were
physically left behind but then, I think it's a continuing pattern of like not really
maintaining those friendships. And we discussed on a previous podcast about our issues with texting
and talking on the phone and neither of us are
good at either of those and we don't use texting
or talking on the phone really as a way to connect with people. It's usually a way to coordinate some particular strategic action and then you couple that with the fact that everybody's busy, I understand but our time is very much scheduled, like we've got friends,
there's a lot of people that we're friends with in Los Angeles and you'll be on a text thread with them and it'll be like 2:30 p.m. on a Wednesday and all of a sudden, they
start texting each other and they text each other and they're like putting memes in there and somebody's telling a story and somebody's responding to it. Right. 2:30 p.m. on a Wednesday,
95 times out of 100, we're doing something that we just can't, I can't just be like, I'm
gonna get out of this meeting or this brainstorming
session or whatever it is and enter into this text chat. So, we don't-- For all intents and purposes, before our working hours-- We're unavailable. It's like we don't have
a phone for personal use. And then when we get
home, it's like, okay, I haven't seen my kids
and my wife all day, I'm gonna spend some
quality time with them, maybe I'll be able to stay up long enough to watch a television show
with my wife if I can do it but I'm gonna bed pretty
early so I can get up and go to the gym. It's like we don't leave a lot of space for connecting with people who are not close to us physically. It's gotta be like okay, all right, we're going out with this
couple on a double date on Friday night or we're
having this event at my house. Six weeks from now. It's like a lot of it has to be booked because then you got a couple
of nights on the weekend, you got the stuff that
your kids have planned that you got to attend and you got like, okay, you got relatives coming
into town, like your nieces. And so that weekend's off--
So, we have a difficult time just keeping up with the
people in Los Angeles and then you've got people who live in different parts of Los Angeles and if they're on the West side, they might as well be in South Carolina. And so then, everybody back
home in North Carolina, people that you've been
friends with for a long time, unless you're someone who can
text and talk on the phone for extended period of time, those friendships become, like we've got a number of friendships where I consider myself
very close to someone that is in North Carolina and if we decide to get together while
I'm in North Carolina or they come out here,
we have a great time and we pick up exactly where we left off and I think we've all kind of accepted this isn't the kind of friendship that we're gonna be like
relying on each other on a regular basis. This is something we re-enter into. Right, like two examples. So Mike from from back in North Carolina, work will bring him out here to California and sometimes, it may not be too close and maybe like Bakersfield
but then he'll make a point and we're like with a
lot of advance notice to like initiate with us and say, "Hey, I'm coming into town,
can we get together one night?" or "Let's go camping for a few nights." We used to do that, like once a year, we would go camping. It was something that like,
he would always initiate it because he was the one coming into town, he would give his heads up and we would, so we always make some time. Lately, over the past couple years, we haven't been able to make the time for the camping like we used to do but it's on his initiative. Whenever I go back to North Carolina, the time in is so limited, I'm just prioritizing my family and if I get to see one
friend when I'm there, I'm very lucky 'cause it's
like the once a year trip. And then you've got the other, another example like
Eric who lives in Utah. And so, when we go to, he lives in Park City so
when we would go to Sundance, well, I mean, if he found
out we were going there, we didn't see him, that
would be an insult. I mean, it's like, because, I mean he's a high school friend, he was in the Wax Paper Dogz with us. We don't really communicate at all except when we happen to see
him there or like when we went, we went to something else. Oh, when we had a show. We introduced him to the
audience in Utah in Salt Lake. Yeah, in Salt Lake City. And so, but when we see
him or when we see Mike, it's like the friendship picks
up right where it left off and I think those are two
examples of like an understanding. I think that in a lot of ways, those individuals like Mike or Eric have, I feel like they've kind of
adjusted to us in some way but that's my assumption. I know Mike, because I've
been friends with him for a long time, is the kind of guy who will get on the phone
and talk for a long time. Like, his job requires him
to drive a lot of places and he'll talk to people
on the phone and he can-- But he doesn't talk to you, right? You don't talk to him on the phone. No, very rarely. It's like we'll text and
we'll get something set up and then, of course, then we
have like long conversations, the three of us once we're doing something like camping together or whatever. Right, and like we got the friend who, he went back to Australia for like weeks. Yeah. And it's like, we're
really tight but it's, like I find the conversations
that we have over text, it's more like when you coming back. Mm-hmm. It's not like let's
continue our friendship while you're gone because I'm just so bad continuing a friendship over text. So I find that it's like,
it's all just very practical. And I think we've talked about that before and like learning how
there is an opportunity for text to be a legitimate way
to continue a friendship but I have this sense of guilt and obligation whenever like I fall out
of connection with somebody and I think I just put that
on myself and over the years, I feel like when the
two of us talk about it, we've said things that
have made me feel better that I don't know if
they're true or healthy but we say things like
well, you know what? I'm not good at text, I'm not
good at long-term friendships but when I see him, it would be fine. But like a great example is Greg. We were super tight with Greg in college and like he's working
up in Washington State and doing his own thing
and like we saw him we went on tour up
there, like they came in but it's not like,
occasionally, he'll text me and then we'll have an exchange that'll, it'll fizzle out over
the course of 10 minutes. And then in the past, there
would it be like let's have, we would hop on the
phone a couple of times. We'd have like an
hour-long catch-up session. But like, I mean I love my mama but I have a really hard
time calling her on the phone and reconnecting. But I have this sense of guilt that's like I don't talk to
my mom enough or like I don't, like, I wish that I had a
more of an active friendship with Greg because he's so busy
with his work, much like us, it's like he doesn't have the opportunity to come down here and visit and we don't have the opportunity
to go up there and visit and so it's, that's been difficult because I actually, I've moved from feeling, I don't know, I moved from feeling like
this is just the way it is. I still love the guy
and I know he loves me but the circumstances make it whoa, our friendship can't be active to feeling bad about it and it kind of
back-and-forth, I don't know. Yeah, I just, I don't like, I don't want
to put that on myself. You know what I'm saying? Like I don't, I know I can make all kinds of excuses but I just don't want to, I don't think it's
healthy for me personally to sit around and feel guilty about it. Yeah, yeah. Now, it's one thing if the person is going through something
specifically challenging and they need me. Yeah. None of the people that I'm
thinking about right now don't have some people in their lives that can meet some of those needs. I'm not enough I'm not
in a place to be like, what can I do for you tangibly? Mm-hmm. And so, I have just kind
of become okay with. The nature of these friendships is that they pick up where
they left off when they do and that's a great thing and
there's no hard feelings. And I just feel like trying
to make anything more of it. I don't know, I just feel
like I'm setting myself up for disappointment, both disappointment of myself and them being disappointed in me if I like start trying to
say hey, actually the dynamic of this thing is gonna change, like we're going to have this dynamic long-distance friendship
via text or via phone call every now and again. I just know that it's not
gonna be a reliable thing and I just don't wanna begin it.
It's not realistic for you. Yeah, I think it'll become more clear that I do have some neurosis
associated with this but I would like to believe, to build on your point,
that if we heard that Greg or someone in his family
was going through something, that if we knew we could
be of help by being there, that we would do everything we can to drop what we're doing
to go up there, you know? If there was something bad that happened, if they were going through something. But in the absence of that, an occasional text, it's like, hey, you crossed my mind, you know? I still aspire to like, to
at least dabble in that. Yeah. And it's interesting because
we were closest with Greg and then, in college,
and then Tim moved in and then like Tim was
really close with Matt and we got close to Matt and then, you know, we got
a text from Matt yesterday and all he was doing was asking if we had listened to an album, you know? Did you get that text because-- I did and I listened to the album but you responded on the text thread and then I never got around to responding on the text thread, which is an interesting
thing that happens sometimes where if somebody is sending
something to the both of us, whether it's an email or a text, I've got this thing in my mind
that if one of us responds, the other one isn't obligated to and I know that that's not what this was, this wasn't a business thing. This was like hey have you
listened to this album? Yeah. And so I was actually thinking
about that a second ago. I was like, yeah, I haven't
gotten back on that text thread to be like, I also don't like the album that you recommended. But I only listened to it one time. And so then he was like, "Oh, you gotta listen to
it two or three times." So then I was like, okay, I'm gonna listen to this album again and
then I'm gonna get in on the text thread but I could also just say
that on the text thread. But I think it was cool that, and he, like, either every single time or the vast majority of time, he initiates the
conversation because we just, like I don't know if we've ever
initiated a text with Matt. But like every month or so,
there's like a little exchange and it's actually valuable for me to like, for what it is and for me not to attach
some sort of guilt that I'm not doing more.
It's also also valuable because he's introduced us, Matt is the one who
introduced us to Sturgill and then Jason Isbell. I don't think Sturgill
'cause I think we went in Amoeba Records and I
literally saw the record and I was like who is this? Okay, well, I know for a fact he introduced me to Jason Isbell. And I am as thankful for that as any music recommendation
that I've ever gotten. Oh, wow, and then you've got Tim, who I think because of
result of some of the stories we told on this podcast
that he started to reach out to discuss those with us and-- Correct our errors. Correct our errors but it led to like-- Fact check. Us having more of a
conversation and connecting more and I really enjoyed that. It was like, it was a
little odd that's like, okay, he's listening to "Ear
Biscuits" and then he's, and I'll tell you why it was odd. I'll try to articulate that, and then because he's probably listening. But it felt odd to me
'cause it was just like, okay, he's sitting on a
conversation we're having but we're not having it
with him, so it's like, I don't know, I have all this
guilt associated with friends because I'm like, I feel bad
you're listening to our podcast but you can't be here at the table to be a part of the conversation. Like if we were, if we had an active friendship
like we used to have, like, you'd have a seat at the table. And I know that's not
healthy and I don't know, he's not thinking that
but I start to think like, if Greg or Tim or Matt
listen to our podcast, did they start to feel like we're not good friends
or something to them because we never initiate
conversations with them. I don't know why I attach so much guilt to these things but I do. Actually, I guess I'll share this story where it really came to a head. A friend out here in LA, and I'm gonna try to be very
careful when telling this story because this story's about me. It's not about him at all. But it's about a text exchange that I had because I was, he's a friend that, like, we
were close a couple years ago like right when we move to LA but then, it was like, because purely, because of circumstantial reasons, we fell out of being in contact. Like it went from seeing
each other every week or every few weeks. Even if you didn't plan
it, we would see each other and having little conversations then kind of trickles
into, hey, let's make plans or we're going here for
lunch, you wanna come type of thing too like none of that. We're just in different circles. Kind of like what some people
ask, how do you reconnect? And so then, it would be like
once, maybe twice a year, we'd see each other or he would come over and we would have this
reconnection session that would be like an
hour or maybe two hours. And it would be great to reconnect but then it would it would
be like radio silence from both parties for a long time. And I guess one day, it caught me at a bad time that he decided to text me out of the blue and it was just a friendly text. It was something like, miss
you, man or thinking about you. And I've been struggling with, in general, and you know where the story's going but I was struggling
with if I feel something or if I think something, I should say it. So, just in general, like
I'm trying to become a person who's more honest about what I'm thinking or feeling or going through or how I feel like I
should respond to somebody and I thought it would
be a healthy practice for me to respond to his texts
with exactly what I thought, what I thought in the moment. And but what I was thinking was, well, you know what? I'll read what I wrote back. Okay, I remember this. He's like, "Dude, I miss you." That was his text. Again, this is about me, not him. That was all his text said. And I was like, I'm just gonna, I got a lot of feelings are
coming up in me and I just, and this is what I wrote. "Hey, man, thanks for the message. "Honestly, it's very tough
for me to know how to respond "so I'll just be real about it. "I care about you but I just
don't have time in my life "where I'm at right now
with family and work "to devote enough time to take
the friendship we had before "and make it work now. "There are a few friends in my life now "that I'm actively trying to maintain "a quality friendship with "and it is proving to be very difficult "purely from a practical standpoint. "I wish it weren't the
case but I respect you "and wanted to be honest
about it so I'm writing this "from a place of love. "Thanks for hearing me out, man." And you're laughing because why on earth would anybody who has an ounce of
kindness in their heart write this in response to a friend who simply wrote "Dude, I miss you." Right, is that what you're laughing at? Well, no, I'm laughing because it's just such a Link thing. It's just, it's comical to me. It was an experiment in honesty because well I feel guilty about, everything that I felt is true. As your best friend, I
wanna comment on that because I find that very
interesting that that, first of all, I think your
instincts are great, right? I think that the guilt that
you feel about friendships and your sense of obligation and your obligation to
be honest with people and these are all really good things. This shows that you're
a person of character. I think that it's interesting that you made a conscious
decision to be like, I feel like I need to
say what I think more because on the spectrum of
people who say what they think, you're pretty high on the spectrum of the frequency with which
you say what you think-- Candor. Is pretty high, potentially
the highest of anyone that I know personally. Okay, okay. If you can name a person who says what they think about
things more often than you that we know collectively, I would be interested to
know who that person is. I can think of one person that we knew and I didn't much like this
person for that reason. So. That person would always say
exactly what they thought. And so, and of course-- With no concern for how
it would be received. And so, yeah, and my tendency, not that I don't talk a lot, not that I don't have a lot of opinions but in certain situations like this, it's just like I'm always gonna be on team just say something to be nice to just keep things where they're at. Don't push away and don't pull that, like my tendencies to say something that just kind of keeps
things at a stasis. That's just my instinct, I'm
not saying it's good or bad but in every type of interaction, I don't wanna move things
further in either direction and that's just my sort
of knee-jerk response to any kind of interaction like that. Well, it just drove me crazy to feel like I respected this person,
this friend of mine that I couldn't give them what I felt like a true friend would give and so just, I felt like I needed to define the relationship, so to speak. Well, and I-- Out of respect. But I will say in addition to this, to add more color to this situation without getting into specifics, that this person was going
through something difficult and had reached out to both of us and spent some time kind of catching us up on what they were going through and it was obvious, it was obvious that they wanted and needed friends to kinda help them get through this situation. And so there was a, we had similar interactions. You with him and then
me with him separately. I don't think we got
together the three of us. No. And I felt like, it was weird for me because I was like, I don't
think I can give this person what they need right now for a number of really complex reasons but I just, and so and maybe, you communicate, he didn't sent me a text
that said, "I miss you," because I assume that
when you're interacting, you felt more of an obligation to be like, okay, I can see what this guy needs and I'm going to try to give it to him, which that's not good on
me, that's good on you. I mean I'm probably giving out the vibe that's just like, okay
I can see that Rhett is not available to me in this way. And so, but he may have thought that you were available to him in that way so you probably sensed
a little bit of pressure when he sends that text. It's like hey, I still need
you to help me through this. And his response was
very gracious, very kind but it was also clarifying that, I mean he was basically saying I was just being friendly, this wasn't coming from a place of me needing something from you. I just wanted, it was more of just like
a friendly, we're friends. Just checking in. Yeah, it was just like, and it wasn't anything more than that. And there was a little
bit of an exchange there where we clarified what each other meant and then a day later, I
wrote back one last thing and I said, "I read back through my text "and just wanted to apologize "for giving what must have
felt like a cold-hearted "out of the blue response
to a friendly kind text. "I was trying to respect
you by being honest "about what I was able to give "even though you were
not asking for anything "and I'm sorry if it insulted
or otherwise hurt you. "you deserve better and I think "that's what I was
actually trying to say." And he responded, "I appreciate that." And that, I mean, because
of my experiment in honesty, I'll call it, air quotes, that was apparently the
end of our friendship. It was definitely the
end of that exchange. I mean I guess that was my message. It was like I love you and respect you but I don't have time to
invest in a friendship in the way that I think you deserve, therefore, I just needed
to get this off my chest and break up with you? Like, I regret it. I think about when am I gonna
cross paths with this guy in a Ralphs grocery store,
on the street or something and like I often think
about what I'm going to say. And now, I'm tortured by
that, you know, it's like-- Well, so let's get back to
her question though, right? Yeah. Because I think maybe we have different perspectives
on this and that's fine. And I'm not just saying this is my advice because this is what I do because I don't, it isn't that I don't feel
guilty about it at all like, when we talk about it in this way but I think I've made a decision and maybe this is a decision
out of self-preservation but I mean one of the
things that I have learned in therapy is that it's okay to make decisions that have your own health, your own mental well-being in mind, and I think that, you know, we come from a place where I think that there is a sense that self-sacrifice is super important and kinda always putting
other people's needs before yours is super important and I, in principle,
agree with those things, in principle, right? But there's sometimes, just because, like sometimes, your needs are actually, you got to think about what your needs are and you have to think about
the reality of a situation. And so I think the way that I interact with these long-term
friendships is this like, okay, when I have the opportunity, like a real opportunity
whether that's a text exchange, even if it's just initiated
by the other person or it's seeing them in person, I wanna be present and
I wanna be available and I want to be invested in
the friendship for that time but then, when we're
not physically together and that we kinda go back to our own lives because we're not in a situation that we're gonna be brought into each other's presence
on a regular basis, I'm going to be okay with the fact that there's not much of
a friendship in the gaps. And I'm gonna be okay with that because I feel like
trying to make anything beyond that happen,
it's gonna be something that I'm not going to be good at it and it's not gonna be a regular thing and it's only going to
lead to disappointment. If we can have an understanding that there's not gonna be much here until we see each other again, and hey, let's be open to that. Let's try to make that happen, if we're gonna be in the
area, I'm gonna let you know so we can get together. Like, let's be proactive about planning. Hey, let's go to see a game
back in Raleigh together or something like that or hey,
we're coming to your town, come out to our show and let's hang out. My advice to these three people who are asking about different
situations, it's like, and I don't know if, some of these situations may
not be like a long distance, it may just be like I was
friends with this person and now, I'm not. My tendency is just to be like friendships are very difficult
but I don't, I don't know if, it depends on the
situation but I don't know if it's worth it to be like, all right, I'm going to
place the burden on myself that if I don't, if this
friendship is not rekindled, there's something wrong with me. You know what I'm saying? Like I don't think, I don't
think you have to force it. Yeah, I do think, I appreciate what you're
saying, it's helpful because I think friendships are, it's a reciprocating
cyclical process, you know? It's a relationship and
there's give and there's take and take and give. And it takes both parties being
on enough of the same page to continue to move a friendship forward. So if you're wanting to, if you're the one wanting
to rekindle the friendship, you got to respect the fact that that person on the other end of that might not be in a position
to make that happen or exactly the way that
you would want it to or envision it coming together, if at all. In the clarifying exchange
that I have with with my friend and I do still call him a friend, he clarified that he knew
but based on the fact that he like, whenever
conversation happen, it would be on his initiative. So he said, "I actually understand that. "So me reaching out was just a kindness." There were no strings attached. I think that's why I feel bad is that like I made
assumptions where there, I made wrong assumptions
about why he was saying and that like there were strings attached that they weren't which
then it was presumptuous where he was just being nice, you know? Yeah. But I think, I mean relationships are dicey and so you've got to be, and you can't, like you
said, you can't force, you can't force something to
work if it's not gonna work and that doesn't mean you
shouldn't try but you should, I think your advice is initiate lightly and just
see what comes of it. I mean it's just like in
a romantic relationship if you're really into somebody, you can't lead a horse
to water, so to speak. You can't make somebody
fall in love with you. But don't date a horse. Especially if they're a horse. Don't date a horse. I mean it's much more, we don't, I think we fall back on thinking of friendships as being this thing that's like, oh, it's so
easy and it just happens and it's like, aren't I likable? Aren't you likable? Well, then, can't we be friends? It's like, there's a
lot of freaking factors. It's very, I mean in many
ways, it's just as challenging as a romantic relationship. I think that we may be thinking about this in a very narrow way because of our age. Mm-hmm. Because we just assumed, again, we've already established that we're not great at
connecting with people digitally. Mm-hmm, yeah. Via phone or text or heck,
I've got a VR headset now. I could sit down in a room
with someone who's got one. And maybe physical proximity will continue to become
less and less a factor in maintaining a friendship and maybe that has already happened and because I think what
I just said a second ago is that hey, listen, if
we're together physically, I wanna make an effort to be there for you and to be a listening ear and
to catch up and to be present but if we're not physically
present together, the best I'm going to do is just try to be proactive about opportunities for us to be physically present
together that are practical. And maybe that's a really
narrow way to look at it. I understand that about myself and you might be like hey, guys, listen, my best friends are people
that are in different countries that I connect with
that I video chat with. what is this? Right. Most of the people that
we're talking about are kinda like us, of our generation and we're not video chatting
with a lot of people in the way that like our kids will just, you were talking about Lincoln just being on like a constant video chat with a group of friends. Yeah. On that like Houseparty
app or whatever it was. Yeah. And I understand, okay, this generation, this next generation is different so maybe our advice is not
very applicable to them. So I don't know where you're
at with these situations. I would just say that if you
feel like you need that person, like you need that friendship or they might need that friendship, then I think, like you said, sort of initiating but not
initiating where, don't, I just, the idea of putting
a burden on yourself and feeling this, all of a sudden there's a
negative obligation or guilt that's associated with your
interaction with that person, to me, I just don't like that negativity. When I think about somebody
we went to college with, I've got good memories and
I think about the next time we're hanging out, we're
gonna have a good time but I don't wanna think about and then every other
time I think about them, all I do is just associate guilt with the fact that I
don't talk to them enough. Yeah, it's not-- It doesn't seem healthy. It's not. So how can I focus on
what the positive is? But like you said, if they're
going through something, they need somebody to talk to, they need somebody to show up for them whether that's physically or digitally, then I hope that I can do that, and I feel an obligation to do that. But that doesn't mean, in every sense, it's appropriate or the
right choice for you to even do that. Right. I think we do need to say that. It's like just because
somebody needs a friend, there has to be scenarios where that doesn't automatically mean you have to be that friend. Right. So, I'm just trying to tip the scales and I'm saying that more for myself. And again, that wasn't actually the case. I think I might have brought
some of that assumption but that wasn't the case with
this scenario that I explored. But I actually don't
know where you, is it? Where do you come down
on this text exchange? That, I mean if you're saying
you would have just been nice and like you would have
continued the niceties and then I mean, and then the opposite, that's one extreme, right? Is it not? And the other extreme
is clearly what I did, which is basically
break off the friendship because I couldn't be everything I thought I had to
be which wasn't even the case. I don't know. I mean, I definitely am, like I said, my tendency is to maintain
the status quo and I don't, I really don't like
uncomfortable situations. I don't like awkwardness,
I don't like conflict and so it's really difficult for me when I'm not like, okay, I need to be honest with this person so that we can clarify where we're at so we can actually reach
some sort of conclusion. Like I'm much more likely to be like, okay, this is going to
be this sort of thing that just indefinitely continues and isn't really that
big of an inconvenience. It's easy to just send back a text that says, miss you too, man. But when it's like, hey,
let's get together and do this and it's like, I've got these people that I feel like I need to prioritize because they're like
more in my inner circle and I can't say yes to them right now and give them what I want to give them. Forget what they need, what I
wanna give them as a friend, then at that point, you got to, you're just lying and saying, actually I can't get
together, I have plans. It's like you're just letting
people read between the lines. It's like okay, you can
see that you're initiating. I'm not a bad person for just, I think most people can get the message. It's like hey, it's not
that I don't like you, it's just that I don't have capacity. Yeah, I think my theory is that you arrive at the same result with a little less awkwardness. And it might take a little
bit longer to get there for somebody to get the message. Like, oh, he's not really available. I don't necessarily think
that one is better or worse. You were ripping the Band-Aid off, I'm letting the Band-Aid
fall off in the shower. You know what I'm saying? And maybe it should
have come out a little-- I wouldn't shower with someone who's not that close of
a friend but go ahead. Maybe the Band-Aid should have come off a little bit earlier but I tend to, it really takes a lot for me to have an uncomfortable
conversation with somebody, so-- Well, I-- I tend to-- I need to take this to therapy, clearly. Yes, you do. I mean I think there's
probably some deep-rooted fear of abandonment thing that then I don't wanna
put on other people even when they're not even expecting or fearing that themselves. I would say that that would
be something to look for. I think it's probably
something in that arena. So, I mean we can leave it at that. Okay. It seems I'm pressing
you to solve my problem. I don't have a solution. I'm just telling you the
way that I would do it and it tends to be okay. Yeah. I've definitely slowed my role
on saying what I'm thinking, which brings it back to this still may be obnoxious at times
level that you're used to. I don't know how much help we've been. We didn't answer a lot of questions. We did answer three questions at once. You know what? It was--
And we took a lot, I mean it was more-- Hey, it was helpful for me, thank you. We did what we often do which
is we take your questions and then we make it-- So what? So you're now, you're
apologizing for that? An internal exploration of
our own lives but hopefully, we're all learning together
as a large community and hopefully, we're getting
better at doing things, friendships, as we go. I quite enjoyed the conversation and I'm kind of nervous about
it going out there but-- Why?
Whatever. You got nothing to apologize about and if you do, you will. I do have a Rec in Effect and-- Okay. Mine is a book that I am listening to that everybody's talking about this book. Oh, you gotta read it or listen to it. I'm half way through it, it's
captivating us enthralling. It's "Catch and Kill" by Ronan Farrow. So, of course, Ronan
Farrow, he is most known as being Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's son even though he, for
understandable reasons, likes to distance himself
from his famous parents and he has a career of
his own as a journalist and he was the-- Lot of help you just gave him. He was the one who was very instrumental in sort of breaking the
Harvey Weinstein's story. Ah. And it's just this incredibly engrossing tale of him trying to get to the bottom of the story and just be able to report it and all the crazy stuff
that he encountered in the process of going after someone as big and as powerful and
as with as many connections as Harvey Weinstein. Just fascinating story. So it's a docu-novel. Yeah, and his, the audiobook,
which he was actually, some people made fun of him for this but I thought it was great. Oh, okay. He does all the voices for his audiobook and he like does like
impersonations of the people that he spoke with whether
they be Australian, British or a woman with a sultry voice and he basically just does all the accents an he does a really
good job at it, I think. But it's nonfiction. It's not a fiction. This is all any place,
like there's a recording, there's the famous recording
of Harvey Weinstein that one of the actresses
that he was harassing took. Wow. And it's in there. Anyway, fascinating story if
you're into that kind of thing. "Catch and Kill". I'm recommending the audiobook because that's what I've listened to but I'm sure it's a great
book to read as well. Okay, thanks for hanging
out with us, hashtag. Oh, every time I say hashtag now, I wanna say #BLEAKCREAK
because we've been-- Well, you know what? Promoting the novel so much. Keep talking about "Bleak Creak".
#EarBiscuits. You can use both of them. If you wanna talk about
#BLEAKCREEK on #EarBiscuits, we don't care how many #hashtags you use. But you know what? You can hashtag count on
us hashtag being back again next week just like we
are most every week. And you know what? Being your friend. Yeah. You know what? We'll be your friend, #FRIENDS. We're your friends. To watch more "Ear Biscuits", click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous
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