Oversharing with the Overbys
Welcome to Oversharing with The Overbys! In this podcast series, Jo and Matt Overby cover a wide variety of topics—from parenting lessons, life stories, to personal relationships. Take an inside look on the lives of Jo and Matt as they navigate the adventures of adulthood and overshare online.
Oversharing with the Overbys
Cultivating Laughter and Learning in Life's Academic Garden
Ever tried to cram a semester's worth of knowledge into a single night, only to watch it vanish like mist? We've been there, and we're laughing through the pain and puzzlement. Join us as we fumble through cloud types, reflect on the literary escapades of boy wizards and post-apocalyptic tales, and muse on the ebb and flow of our self-confidence. Our conversation takes flight on the thermals of academia, swooping through the delicate balance of friendships and the personal growth that sometimes means letting go.
We wrap up our eclectic chat with a back and forth on off-the-grid living, the millennial quest for the perfect Instagram life, and the real deal on succulent survival. We're dishing out green-thumb guidance and diving into the nitty-gritty of nurturing not just plants, but also our connections with friends facing life's crossroads. So tune in, subscribe, and journey with us as we chuckle, reflect, and grow together. Sending out our love—catch you on the airwaves!
If you've got a voicemail or want our (likely unqualified) advice on something, hit us up at the Speakpipe link below!
http://www.speakpipe.com/oversharingwiththeoverbys
If you'd like to email us you can reach the pod at oversharing@jojohnsonoverby.com!
And if you want to support the podcast and gain access to all episodes, check out https://www.patreon.com/oversharing!
CONNECT:
TikTok: @jojohnsonoverby / @matt.overby
Instagram: @jojohnsonoverby / @matt.overby
Website: https://jojohnsonoverby.com/
Watch the Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL29Si0ylWz2qj5t6hYHSCxYkvZCDGejGq
Welcome to Oversharing with Overvies. I'm Joe.
Speaker 2:And I'm Matt.
Speaker 1:And each week you can tune in to hear us respond to your voicemails, go in-depth on our lives as content creators and hopefully leave you feeling even better than we found you.
Speaker 2:With that being said, let's get to Oversharing.
Speaker 1:The birds are singing.
Speaker 2:They are.
Speaker 1:A song. You think people can hear them Probably not, huh, hopefully not. There are birds right outside our bedroom windows who are just singing it up. They're saying it is spring. I know it's mid-February, but really it's spring.
Speaker 2:They, yeah, they think so.
Speaker 1:Our trees are budding. I'm actually really concerned about us getting a really bad freeze and then having a terrible spring again this year, because I feel like last year all the flowers and stuff didn't do as well because of that. Yeah, and I feel like we're on track because it's supposed to be glorious for the next. Like 10 days, like the next 10, the forecast goes out 10 days and everything looks fantastic.
Speaker 2:I feel like every other year it just absolutely devastates the plants, like we get a March freeze that just lasts for three days and kills everything We'll see we'll see.
Speaker 1:You know, you live and you learn, you learn and you live.
Speaker 2:Speaking of learning to learn, we need to learn how to prune that grapevine that we have. Yeah, we have a mature grapevine that really needs to be cared for, and it has not been. So it's basically now just a giant wooden vine thing, and I think you're supposed to like cut back the woody parts. I don't know. There's lots of, there's lots of stuff involved with it and I don't know any of it.
Speaker 1:So I don't know anything about it either.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm more worried about the butterfly garden. Yes, we got to really hit the ground running with that this weekend too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got to cut that down.
Speaker 1:Like I did not grasp three acres.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I grew up on three acres so I knew but and I tried, I tried to tell you a little bit like, hey, it's there's, there's a lot to it, like there's there's some moving parts and, uh, it's, you can. The thing is you can always be working on something. A hundred percent you could work outside all day, every day, and you'd never be done.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You, you might catch up, but you're, you're never done.
Speaker 1:It's like constant maintenance. And the thing is we don't have like, when I think of something that's going to be constant maintenance, I don't think of our yard because we don't have anything fancy. Do you know what I mean Like? I think of, like people with really elaborate yards and landscaping that requires a lot of weeding a lot of where ours is a lot of.
Speaker 2:It's just pretty natural you know, we don't have two acres of turf grass and a heavily manicured set like decorative plants outside our house. We're like that'll do.
Speaker 1:I'd like to walk away. Yeah, I'd like to get some landscaping in and do things, but I feel like I need to get to the point that everything we have right now is already maintained. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're lucky to get mulch down.
Speaker 1:That's where we're at right now, truly Nobody prepared me for the work that is mulch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and you need a lot of it. Yeah, really like we don't need a truck most of the time, but In the spring we could really do damage with a truck, yeah.
Speaker 1:And in the fall, honestly yeah, you know what? I completely disagree with you. I think that we have a lot of use for a truck. Yeah, we don't need, like, a big boy truck.
Speaker 2:No, but most people like unless you do it every day, don't need a truck every day.
Speaker 1:Speaking of trucks, okay, trucks. Matt and I saw the Tesla truck out in the wild this weekend.
Speaker 2:She saw her first Cybertruck, which, if you haven't seen it.
Speaker 3:What the hell is that thing?
Speaker 2:I mean, you've probably seen pictures of it, but I guess Joe hadn't so.
Speaker 1:No, I've never even heard of it. I didn't even know they made it.
Speaker 2:It's like if, in 1980, somebody told you to draw the truck of 2030. And you did, but you were also seven years old and so you just drew a silver car shaped. Do you think that's what it is, trapezoid?
Speaker 1:thing Like Elon Musk is in his healing inner child work era and he's going back through his journals from when he was like seven and eight and he's just like I'm going to make this he's like this is the perfect design.
Speaker 2:How can I not use this? It's so sleek and it looks like a gray potato on wheels.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's have some empathy here. What if, instead of it, him looking at it and being like, wow, this is brilliant. He thought you know what I'd love to honor eight year old me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he's like I'm going to just sink.
Speaker 1:I'm going to make a giant, so millions of dollars into making this happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I also love that it's stainless steel. I think pretty sure it's stainless steel for the exterior. Steel, but it's not coated in any way. Like you know how your car has paint. Well, the paint serves a purpose.
Speaker 1:Why don't you explain to everybody how stainless steel is not stainless, well, stainless steel is more stainless than regular steel, but not stain proof Like you still can't, it can still rust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't put like salt all over it. There's certain things that are corrosive that are still going to cause problems. For stainless steel it's just better than carbon steel. Yeah, anyway, that's steel talk, but anyway, I find it hilarious that it's uncoded in any way, because the paint on your car does serve a mechanical purpose and that it keeps debris and contaminants off the metal parts of your car.
Speaker 1:That's fair.
Speaker 2:Which destroys them. Anyway, that's the little chemical engineering degree peeking out.
Speaker 1:Dropping a little knowledge on it, a little material science. Ooh, did you take a class called material science? I?
Speaker 2:think we took materials.
Speaker 1:Materials. I don't know if it was material science or not? My favorite class you ever took in college was Diffie Q. Just because I liked saying Diffie Q.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought you were going to say mass transfer, or mass transfer too.
Speaker 1:No, I don't remember those at all. I remember Diffie Q. You mean like I have homework for Diffie Q or whatever, and I was like what is Diffie Q? Like that is that sounds futuristic.
Speaker 2:It does sound a lot better than differential equations, yeah. I didn't learn anything in that class. I don't know how I passed it.
Speaker 1:You really struggled with it. That's like. That's what I remember about it is that it was really hard for you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I never studied, studied, yeah, or really even tried to study.
Speaker 1:You're kind of funny because it doesn't matter how much you do to prepare or don't do to prepare, you're always surprised by the outcome yes, good or bad. Like you could put all the work in the world in and then it goes really well and you're shocked that it went well. Or you could put no work in at all and it goes terribly, and you're still shocked.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't feel like I was that shocked. I was shocked that I passed that class because the day I walked out of the last day of class I was like I don't know anything about differential equations, like a lot of classes. Like the last day of class you're like, wow, I really know this stuff. I never had a class like that Really. You didn't leave the end of the semester and be like OK, I know my class stuff.
Speaker 1:No, I genuinely think I was maybe one of the worst students to have ever existed, really OK. No, I genuinely do Like I passed my classes and I did fine, but I know, I genuinely like. I can't think of a class that made an impact on me in college where I walked away being like wow, I really remember that.
Speaker 2:When should we be concerned about your short term memory loss? I don't know. When is it too much? Because I do feel like you maybe just learned it past the test or the homework or whatever, and then completely forgot it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. Should I be talking to someone or you actually like I can't tell if you're joking or, if you're actually concerned, I'm like 75% joking. Okay, well, the 25%. How serious is the 25%? Not super?
Speaker 2:serious. Just you know, I do feel like you have a hard time, but I know what it is. Instead of you weren't interested, like if you didn't feel like it applied to you, you never even tried to commit it to memory. Like you were that way about science classes that you had to take, like in high school. You're like I'm never going to use science, I will not learn it.
Speaker 1:And I haven't.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying no one ever uses it.
Speaker 2:Like I feel like you were cramming not to like learn it long term. You were cramming that you could just use that knowledge in like the next 24 hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then purge.
Speaker 1:Now I'm trying to think of if I remember anything from many science classes. What about?
Speaker 2:clouds. Remember anything about clouds? I'm just like throwing things at you.
Speaker 1:I know that there are different names and different types.
Speaker 2:Name three names of clouds, no idea. Name one name of a cloud.
Speaker 1:No idea. I know there's one that starts with an R, but I'm getting it confused with a shape.
Speaker 2:Are you thinking about rhombus?
Speaker 1:Yeah, rhombus is the only thing coming to my mind, and I know that that's not a cloud, that's a shape.
Speaker 2:I'm actually not familiar with a cloud that starts with an R.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, maybe I'm just wrong. Now I think I need to go you name three cloud types Cumulus, Stratus, Cirrus, and then there's combinations of those. That's so impressive.
Speaker 2:Cumulonimbus, Stratocumulonimbus. Those are like the real big boys. They do the work, Wow okay. There might only be three like base clouds yeah there are.
Speaker 1:that was really mean you tried to make me mean Well, I actually named one. No, you asked me.
Speaker 2:You started by asking me to name three Well, but then there's also combos and thinking back. They are just combinations of.
Speaker 1:But they do end in US. That's where I was getting confused.
Speaker 2:R and US. Well, no I like Rhombus, do you RS, do you?
Speaker 1:Confused me because like the bus part. Yeah, babe, I'm not. It's hard for me.
Speaker 2:It's like a beautiful mind.
Speaker 1:If he was stupid. Like that's not nice, no it's just like it's a.
Speaker 2:You know, the strings go together.
Speaker 1:Like Stratus and Rhombus. Do you see why I got that?
Speaker 2:confused yeah, Cumulus.
Speaker 1:But I knew. I knew that Rhombus was a shape, not a cloud.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like. That's why I was like I can't say this, because I know it's not right. Well, welcome to Oversharing with Overbeats, where you can learn about clouds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean kind of, what are storm clouds? Usually Storm clouds cumulonimbus.
Speaker 1:Can you say that again?
Speaker 2:Cumulonimbus Word of the day. Word of the day cumulonimbus. This is big giant guy there.
Speaker 1:I don't think I can say that, try again, cumulon, and.
Speaker 2:Why did you quit using real sounds?
Speaker 1:Cumulonimbus.
Speaker 2:Cumulonimbus.
Speaker 1:Cumulon? That's really Wow. Say it slower. How many were Cumulonimbus? That's not slower Cumulonimbus. Cumulon.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Wait, no, I really want to get it.
Speaker 2:Cumulonimbus.
Speaker 1:Wait.
Speaker 2:Cue Mew Low.
Speaker 1:Nimb Bus Cumulonimbus.
Speaker 2:She did it. Let's stop here while we're ahead. Cumulonimbus. You got twice in a row, Two for two baby. That's really hard.
Speaker 1:Like they're trying to teach kids that.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, they probably taught you at one point.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I don't believe it.
Speaker 1:I never learned about whether.
Speaker 2:Earth science.
Speaker 1:What's funny? Oh, I took Earth science.
Speaker 2:I was pretty sure you did.
Speaker 1:I remember Earth science.
Speaker 2:She's crying. Tears are running down her face. Go to youtubecom to watch Joe cry.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's sad, I am trying to be.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to be positive about how dumb I am, but I Okay what I'm not saying. You're calling me dumb. You're not dumb, but I kind of am.
Speaker 2:You're not. Look smart, had you?
Speaker 1:just listened to me try to pronounce Dang it Cumulonimbus.
Speaker 2:Nailed it.
Speaker 1:Was that right?
Speaker 2:Yep effortless Rolls off the tongue.
Speaker 1:Cumulonimbus.
Speaker 2:Now you're just showing off.
Speaker 1:I still can't get it to come out as a single word.
Speaker 2:No, you can't.
Speaker 1:It's like four different bars when I say it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a confidence play.
Speaker 1:I don't think so, baby.
Speaker 2:You sure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You almost tried. She wound up to say it and then was like bale, nope, can't do it, which was the funniest thing I've seen in a minute. Good stuff, good stuff Cumulonimbus. Wow, there you go. That was only two words and Nimbus is a type. Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 1:OK. Well, guys, now that you've heard me say it, cloud type 800 times.
Speaker 2:Is today just going to be like science facts with Joe?
Speaker 1:Like what does she know? Honestly, that might be kind of a fun episode. If you guys want to hear that, let us know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like eighth grade to 10th grade science.
Speaker 1:The nucleus is the powerhouse of the cell.
Speaker 2:Wrong the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell which is like the only cell fact that everyone in the world knows.
Speaker 1:Not me.
Speaker 2:The nucleus is like the part in the middle that has the information for replication.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a powerhouse too. It's a different kind, it's definitely important.
Speaker 2:It's not the powerhouse.
Speaker 1:The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
Speaker 2:Eche means look see, and Latin Well, I know zero Latin, so you've got that on me, but most people don't, because it's a dead language.
Speaker 1:Why am I so like? Why can't I remember people saying whatever the mitochondria is, but I can't?
Speaker 2:But you didn't remember. No, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I remember people saying it, but I don't remember what the words are.
Speaker 2:That's how little you cared about science. Like the one thing that everybody is like the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and that's all they can say, you were like I don't even care about that, not important to me, I'll never use that information, I'll never have to know about mitochondria. You're not totally wrong.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not.
Speaker 2:Like you're not going to apply that knowledge.
Speaker 1:I'm still doing pretty well. You're doing great, like you know let this be a lesson, kids. You don't have to know things.
Speaker 2:You really don't. You don't have to know stuff. Some of it's good to know, some of it's helpful. A lot of it isn't.
Speaker 1:The things I'm good at I'm really good at. That's what I will say.
Speaker 2:And you're good at real life things, for the most part Like real applicable skills. You care none about facts, no or general knowledge.
Speaker 1:No, I do care about it, I value it.
Speaker 2:Well, you do have like, you have fun with it. You're like wow, that's amazing, yeah, and then you forget.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Which is great. That's how you do books and movies.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe not books. Do you remember books? I don't know, you don't? We just talked about this when we went to Barnes Noble.
Speaker 1:I remember some books Like the ones that really make an impact, like Harry Potter. I remember pretty well Ugly's, pretty specials. I remember pretty well, like Hunger Games, real foggy, ok, real foggy.
Speaker 2:Are you sure Harry Potter's not just from Reps?
Speaker 1:Oh, it for sure is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, aragon, real foggy. Yeah, because I really want to read the new one that came out, but I'm very foggy. I'm trying to think of things that I read a long time ago.
Speaker 2:We went to Barnes Noble and just walked around and looked at the fantasy series and, like several of them, you've read a long time ago, Like City of Bones and all those You're like I have to reread that. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like I know I've read that I got method. Yeah, I do have a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Is Spark Notes still doing? Did they do like?
Speaker 1:I bet they're still up and running. Right, let's go through it.
Speaker 2:Do you think they're running like those books though?
Speaker 1:Why not?
Speaker 2:I don't really know the purpose of Spark Notes, like I felt like it was mostly literary works.
Speaker 1:I think it's like studying. Yeah, let's see literature.
Speaker 2:They're limited to like a subscription-based app that isn't at all just abbreviated books.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are like, these are like things that I would. Yeah, I wonder if Harry Potter's in here though, because I bet they are studying that now, don't you think why? Why do you think they're studying it? There were courses on it and stuff in college. That's why I think that, yeah, game of Thrones is in here. I feel, like if Game of Thrones is in here.
Speaker 2:It probably is. Is there not somewhere to search? Or you just?
Speaker 1:The Handmaid's Tales in here. Harry Potter All the Harry Potter's are in here. Okay, the hate you give. That makes more sense than Harry Potter.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 2:Man, we're learning so much today.
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 2:We've gone back and looked at Spark Notes.
Speaker 1:Did you use Spark Notes a lot? I didn't read a lot. Oh, I read the books.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If there's one thing I did, nerd?
Speaker 1:I didn't learn anything in science class, mr Mitokondria.
Speaker 2:Again, I got a science degree. I went to four dedicated years of school for science.
Speaker 1:But I'm the nerd yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong Reading books. I like to read yeah, I wouldn't know, I haven't even tried.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I enjoyed reading and I remember bits and pieces of the books that I read in high school and middle school.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But not all of it. Like I remember Hot Zone. We read Hot Zone.
Speaker 2:What is Hot Zone?
Speaker 1:It's about Ebola. Like people in the 80s I think the 80s that's probably not right, but people getting that's not right I'm combining books. This is why you can't expect, they traveled back in time Hot Zone is. It came out in 1994. Okay, and it's a best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller about the origins and incidents involving viral how do I say that? Hemorrhagic, hemorrhagic, hemorrhagic, okay Fever's, particularly Ebola. The basis of the book was In the 80s.
Speaker 2:Did you get it? I don't think so. It's nonfiction in 94.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, it's probably in the 80s it was. Yeah, it was the 80s, I was right.
Speaker 2:Sharpest attack, this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, I got it in there, steel trap. But, I also don't trust anything Like sometimes I really do think I'm like no, I think that, and then I really I don't have any confidence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of that might be my fault.
Speaker 1:You think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I've chipped away at some of your confidence.
Speaker 1:I used to be really like blatantly confident, which really did me well, but Matt really didn't like it. That sounds bad. I don't mean that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Try again.
Speaker 1:You explain? No, I'm like, it's not sounding how I'm trying.
Speaker 2:Um, you, yeah, you used to have really no problem projecting confidence, whether or not you were informed. But, um, which is like something I'm terrified of doing, but that's why I don't project.
Speaker 1:It still doesn't scare me. I don't project confidence at all. I just don't do it in front of Matt.
Speaker 2:That's fair Smart.
Speaker 1:But I'm with Matt all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 22 to 24 hours a day.
Speaker 1:So yeah, sorry, it's not like you're like be humble, it's not like that. Yeah, I don't think of you like I don't know. Maybe you think of me as somebody that's.
Speaker 2:I don't. Okay. No, don't worry about it. Okay, yeah, if anything, we need you. We need you to project more confidence again. We need to start pretending we know more again.
Speaker 1:I wasn't pretending to know things.
Speaker 2:No, I know.
Speaker 1:I'm so confused I don't know. Give us, give us a little bit more explanation of what you're saying right now, cause right now it's just a bunch of broken words.
Speaker 2:It really is. What am I trying to say? It's a good question for me to figure out live. Hmm, that just made me think of our kids Me too, when you did it.
Speaker 1:I was like, that's where she learned it.
Speaker 2:That's where a child has learned it.
Speaker 1:Our daughter does that every time you ask her a question.
Speaker 2:Hmm, and so a lot of times like put her hand on her face and like her chin and really do the whole thinking face.
Speaker 3:Like she does a whole bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, but she really she acts it up. I love it. A true ham. No, I don't know. I'm probably just carrying way too much shame in general and so I was like whoa somebody who's not ashamed of themselves in their life For no reason at all Weird, that's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:That makes me sad. Well, yeah not for me, for you.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, that's just my.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to feel that way. Well how do we undo that?
Speaker 2:I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I've got a team of mental health professionals. Okay telling me I'm wrong.
Speaker 1:That's good. Yeah, well, I don't know if that's good actually.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's not actually what they're saying. They would all vehemently to like disagree with that.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 2:Obviously, they're all just really nice to me. They're like hey, you need to stop being mean to yourself, because like you're, you're like a pretty pretty good Dude. You're a great dude. I'm like, hmm, okay.
Speaker 1:I'm so confused by that. Matt's like literally the nicest. He's like so fun to be around. He's so great. And then he's always like I'm horrible and I'm like who told you this? This is so sad.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Anyway, that was sad, I know. Sad there for a second.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's, let's get happy. Bad dad mean mom bad. Dad mean mom what's on your agenda this weekend.
Speaker 2:I mean like the same breakfast for like six days.
Speaker 1:I don't think that qualifies. I think that sounds like you made a nice homemade breakfast for your kids every morning. It wasn't pretty like good breakfast yeah you've been big on the egg bake game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've just been plowing through egg bakes. They're really, they're so easy. Well, like they're not. They take a little while to prep, but they're really nice to have when your kids don't eat breakfast at the same time. Yeah, like it's nice to have on hand.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say for mean mom I, this is mean mom, but also like good parenting, like we were getting parents. Oh, we took away the passi.
Speaker 2:We did. Yeah, that was a good choice by us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I do think it was perceived as as why would you do this to me?
Speaker 2:She did really good, but there was there was a couple moments where she realized what we were saying.
Speaker 1:It was my first. I was telling Matt. It's the first time that I have seen one of our kids experience true Sadness, like I've seen them cry, I've seen them feel like hurt or be in like minor pain, or I've seen them like be overwhelmed and over stimulated.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of like dysregulated when your kids are little, like they have dysregulated, being upset if you're like, okay, we're gonna recover from this, like this isn't, it's an outsized response to something that is upsetting but not irrecoverable. And Then this was the first time that it was like, oh, this is something that she might be sad about, yeah, or like she's gonna remember it and be kind of sad about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, when she was sad, like actually sad, not like dysregulated, but genuinely just sad in the moment.
Speaker 2:I think that's what was hard about it. It's like she was calm and sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah we're like, oh, she's really processing the sadness for sure, like she was really working through it and like asking me follow-up questions to make sure that she should be sad the way that she feels sad and like, yeah, it was violent. For me like it hit me, like I was actually being physically assaulted yeah, like I and it made me realize I am not ready for my kids to get older.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and have things that they're sad about, like that their Actually whatever like, or like heartbreak. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I, how do you do that? And it also makes me wonder, like I have a lot of wondering, like why and how things were handled with me the way that they were handled when I was growing up. Sure like I don't know, just like through the eyes that I see things. Now I don't. I think that's the hardest part about parenting. Yeah, it just opens up all of your own experiences, so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you end up like really hyper, even if you're not really critical of it. You you think back and like hmm, I wonder why things went that direction instead of. You know your perspective now.
Speaker 1:Which I'm sure that we are bad dad, mean mommy knit all the way to a whole hundred percent a radio conversations we're gonna have later.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah definitely. Yeah, it was. That was really tough, yeah, but it went really well. You did night one.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah you. You had an event of some kind that you had to go out to, and that was a Two to two and a half hour bedtime night. Not that she wasn't even really getting like wanting the pacifier, she was just like. I don't have my usual cue to go to bed, so we're just vibing in bed together, dude. Mm-hmm and we had like lots of we talked a lot. We did a long talks About random stuff like the colors of like she's been big on birthdays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had her brother's birthday and we've been really big into birthdays because, so we have a nanny that works with us part-time. Well, we actually have two different nannies, yeah, right now, because scheduling that work with us part-time, but one of them, their birthday, was two days after Right, and so there was like a birthday and then a birthday, and so we were very, very there's a lot of cake and stuff and she's like birthdays are sick.
Speaker 2:When's my birthday?
Speaker 1:She's been really excited for her birthday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's been talking about it every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been working on the party and theme already because I'm not that into that stuff. But I can tell she's gonna be really into it and so I got started and kind of asked her what she wanted.
Speaker 2:She's been telling us the color of cake she wants, what topics it should be. She's been doing a lot of making up stories.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Bad dad. Yeah man, bad dad he, my new bad dad thing. It's not the worst, but I have been having to make up ways to get out of the room at bedtime. Mm-hmm like if I'm in there, she wants to just chill with dad, and so after about 45 minutes I'm like I'm gonna go check on your mom. I'm gonna go do something that needs to be done outside of your room. Hold on, I'll come back and check on you if you don't fall asleep. And Usually, just being gone for five minutes, she'll fall asleep.
Speaker 1:But no, I did that the other night. Yeah, remember. Yeah, I was in there with her and I came out and Matt goes Did you pull it off? She asleep and I said I told her that you could only come in and I could only come in and check on her if her eyes were closed.
Speaker 2:There's been a lot of logical tricks played at bedtime. You're like. Well, if you fall asleep, I'll come check on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that like that works for her, but that's not gonna work forever.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. Yeah that's okay. So that is bad dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's kind of the bad. Dad Pattern lately is having to escape the bedroom. But yeah, first passing night was two plus hours. I love it. Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1:That's so funny to me, yeah, okay. Reads of the week. Reads of the week.
Speaker 2:Is it Greg's reads of the week?
Speaker 1:It's Greg Johnson. He looks at lots of news, then sends us article.
Speaker 2:Wow, can't even tell that it's ad-libbed. Thanks, yeah, greg's. Your dad reads a lot of news, sends us articles and then, whether or not we read them, we rate those articles on the podcasts One to five. How much anxiety they give us just from the title.
Speaker 1:Okay, number one what is popcorn brain? How social media may be killing your attention span. Five no four Popcorn.
Speaker 2:Brain sounds bad.
Speaker 1:You know, it doesn't really stress me that out, what maybe it does. It doesn't stress me out that much your brains popcorn you think yeah no, I don't know why doesn't it stress you? Cuz I don't feel like I spend that much time on social if not doing my own things.
Speaker 2:True.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't you don't peruse it as a pastime much like I, I take in some, like I have my favorite content creators.
Speaker 2:Well, some of it is you have to do it and that's it know what is happening and like what different content, ideas and trends, and.
Speaker 1:Cuz I do enjoy taking in a little bit of content here and there and I enjoy following a handful of people, but I don't just scroll a 4u page for hours anymore. I Felt that that was so detrimental to me like it just wasn't good. Yeah, I guess the reason it doesn't stress me out is because I Feel like there is a very applicable solution.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, which is like back off on the screen time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, number two fake it until you make it. Millennials are obsessed with looking rich. Wells Bargo study shows.
Speaker 2:I Zero. It doesn't give me any anxiety.
Speaker 1:No, it annoys me, but it doesn't yeah give me a different response?
Speaker 2:for sure. I mean, I think every generation has had some interest in looking Well off. You know, it just looked different through the ages. Are you reading it now? What are you learning? Yeah, Just get it.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think that it's such, just an article written by older generations that are like the youths. Yeah, it is in there.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's kind of the thing like I think a lot of people think like I don't know, there's so much semantics to that.
Speaker 2:It's a good topic. Let's dive in. Yeah, let's not dive in Okay.
Speaker 1:People in this remote valley live to a hundred. They follow five distinct diet and lifestyle habits for longevity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they probably just can't get trash food shipped to the remote valley.
Speaker 1:Honestly true. Um, that actually does give me a little bit anxiety. Like three out of five three out of five.
Speaker 2:I was gonna go two out of five.
Speaker 1:Well, cuz I feel like actual living that sounds so dumb, I'm excited. I feel like actual living is so inaccessible actual living like being able to just Live a very simple life is Is a lot less accessible than you would think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I suppose, unless you're willing to like live in a vehicle kind of deal.
Speaker 1:No, I'm well. You can't live in a vehicle and live the kind of life. I'm saying, though, like I'm thinking of somebody who's like like I'm sure a lot of it is that they're very hands-on in their food production and they're growing their own food and Processing that food, and do you know what I mean? Yeah, living is the job, gotcha.
Speaker 2:Gotcha and, instead of working, to pay for food that's processed elsewhere right Gotcha but yeah, that is tricky and you need to buy seeds or you need to do.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, unless you Don't know, there's just a lot of.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's not an agrarian society anymore, so that's definitely trickier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anyway, I just think that that's yeah.
Speaker 2:Stress-inducing even living off the grid. Now you need to buy land, probably In some capacity was there a time you didn't need to? Know you did, but it's expensive now.
Speaker 1:Got it. Yeah, okay, I Thought you were saying there was a time you didn't have to buy land. I guess you could live what like Illegally in a national park.
Speaker 2:What's the you can try. I do think they patrol those things.
Speaker 1:I know that's I'm like, but I bet people do, don't you think?
Speaker 2:for periods of time. I don't know that they like Throw up a homestead out there.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not what I meant, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, but no people do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people definitely spend in illegal that there are people like that are like Living completely off the grid, that like don't even know about modern society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're talking about like primitive yeah, primitive, but remote tribes and stuff Isolated. What am I thinking of?
Speaker 1:that's not really what I mean.
Speaker 2:No, okay.
Speaker 1:I don't know what I mean. I just know that people have said there people just like living in the mountains, that don't oh.
Speaker 2:Oh, like wild mountain people.
Speaker 1:I don't know I Do I sound like an idiot. It's just an episode of Joe sounding really.
Speaker 2:No, I do that. There are, I'm sure, small, isolated incidents of people that are like truly Not a part of society. I think that's interesting it is. Is that what you're going for?
Speaker 1:Like. Is that what I'm trying to?
Speaker 2:achieve. Yeah, that's why my entire career, sharing my life online and doing things like you know, when five to ten years guys, you're never gonna hear from her again. You're not even able to find her. Yeah, you guys just wait why what's happening? And then that'll be your handle.
Speaker 1:I'm changing my handle and documenting my life off the grid.
Speaker 2:She just has to like drive into town to upload. Yeah and then back out.
Speaker 1:No, I actually, from all my science classes I took, I figured out how to make my own Wi-Fi.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, there you go. That's totally a thing. It's really impressive. Yeah, what are you gonna film on, like, not a phone?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna film on the camera I built with mirrors.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're gonna build your own camera?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think you could use a camera you already have that's still off the grid. No I, I learned it in science.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you built a pinhole camera. Yeah and you're just gonna make a video version of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people are gonna love watching you make a pinhole camera. Yeah, yeah, I do remember doing that. I don't remember anything about it, but I do remember that activity.
Speaker 2:Did we use it to take pictures of an eclipse? What did we do with it? I Can't you do that.
Speaker 1:I don't know what am I thinking of?
Speaker 2:maybe that's maybe. That's just a different thing.
Speaker 1:I have no idea. I don't know what girl you took with a pinhole camera and a tape pictures of an eclipse. But it wasn't me.
Speaker 2:Why is a girl involved in this?
Speaker 1:Well, I just figured, if you thought it was with me, that it was probably with a different girl.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't think it was with you, I just thought it was like a thing, like a science class thing, oh yeah maybe yeah did you, did your any of your teachers, ever make a fireball in class?
Speaker 1:a fireball. Yeah like a ball of fire, like actual, like the seventh or eighth grade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no absolutely not. Then did you learn about kittens?
Speaker 1:No, we did like kittens, that's not horrible.
Speaker 2:We did frogs, owl pellets. We do anything else we did worms first and then we had to do like lizard or something I don't remember we had to.
Speaker 1:We had to dissect kittens. No, that's not okay Is that not the worst thing you've ever heard in your entire?
Speaker 2:life. Yes, that's horrible. There's probably a lot of them available. Yeah, no, anyway. Fireballs, let's talk fireballs, don't talk dead cats. Okay, I'm so sorry no, the lesson was like you can't burn flour in a pile, but then if you blow it into the air and it's dispersed, it'll ignite. Do we need to do this later?
Speaker 2:Wait what that's how dust fires happen, that's how, like Again, going back to my chemical engineering degree, I learned about it again later Because lots of industrial like accidents have happened where, like in sawmills or I think the biggest one's like a sugar plant, and they didn't have like dust containment and so that the sugar dissipated through the air and then something sparked and ignited it and killed like a hundred people. Yeah, that's the application of it, but like you can burn most like powders Just by blowing them into the air.
Speaker 1:So I just have to throw it in the air and then yeah, yeah, pretty much. Oh, we sure are doing that later.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, we're gonna get done, recording this, and we're content, content plan guys.
Speaker 1:Wait what.
Speaker 2:We're gonna do science. We're gonna teach people science on your channel. There's. This gonna be like my sixth video of all time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, matt, I have like 14 series for Matt and.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my PDA is really doing its thing lately.
Speaker 1:It's not good. Do people know what PDA is?
Speaker 2:It's pathological demand avoidance. It's a little special tick in my neurodiversity that's really infuriating to myself and others basically means that if any kind of thing is asked of me, my Brains response is like nope, which I think is part of my whole, like Describing things in the negative, like it's not that, because even saying something is something Feels like an imposition.
Speaker 1:Okay, a little bit of an explanation. Something that Matt and I have discovered with our communication is I really need somebody to tell me what something is or what they want me to do, rather than telling me what something isn't and what they're like don't do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah don't do that You're like. Well, tell me what to do. Stop telling me all of the things that I shouldn't do, because that's really not that helpful well, and sometimes there is relevance to statements like don't do this.
Speaker 1:You know, but what we've run into, at least in our relationship, is Matt will tell me to not do something, so I won't do that and I'll do something different. And then when I come back, I'd be like, well, don't do that. And I'm like, okay, well, can you tell me what you do, what me to do? And you can't, often no. No, that's yeah and so I'll let you explain further.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, anyway, some of that is, and I was just actually watching some stuff on this yesterday. But even telling me what something is can feel like a demand or like An imposition, like somebody's imposing information. It's not. It's really counterproductive to everything.
Speaker 1:Pda it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:to me it's not logical.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's hard for me. I'm like that's not real.
Speaker 2:It's. It's really hard, like when and like there's a lot of people like like you go to the comment sections and people are like hey, um, like I get this is a thing and my kid has this, but what the hell do we do? Because, um, the they can't always be the response of like oh well, just don't ask anything of the person Like there's, there's a lot of like, yeah, well, and Also, where do you draw the line of like?
Speaker 1:is it PDA, or are they just lazy? Yeah, and like the part of it also is Maybe the least isn't a good word, yeah, but like are they just not wanting to do something?
Speaker 2:or right, that's what I'm trying. Yeah an actual response and I think a big part of it is okay. This is the person's response to being asked things how do you work on helping them rationalize through to actually achieve things? I think that's part of the goal with understanding it. But anyway, random brain knowledge deal. But PDA guys, if you have it, learn about it and God help you.
Speaker 1:Okay, we have a couple of voicemails today. Are you ready? I'm ready, okay.
Speaker 3:Hey guys, my name is Kelsey. I am from southeastern Pennsylvania and just wanted to start off by telling you how much I appreciate everything you guys do. I've been following for a number of years now and really love your podcast. I have spent the last six and a half months of my life rehabbing from ACL reconstructive surgery and you guys have been such a bright spot for me, helping past the weeks and being with me on my drives to and from physical therapy and work and everything, so I'm just super grateful.
Speaker 3:My question primarily for Joe. Matt, feel free to weigh in if you have input, but I happened upon some propagated succulents a number of months ago. I accidentally almost massacred them all by knocking them off my desk at work and there was literally dirt and baby succulents everywhere. It was actually very funny and rather comical. I saved what I could. They're actually doing very, very well now and I don't know what to do with this because I've never been able to keep plants alive before. But we're getting to the point where I think I'm going to have to transplant some of them soon and help. How do I do this without killing them? Joe, do you have any advice? Thank you, guys again, so much for everything you do and I hope you're having a great week.
Speaker 1:Plants are so much more durable than people think they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just don't look good in the interim.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be. My biggest input to you is I think what happens with a lot of people in plants is when plants start to look bad, people then over care for them because they're like, ooh, it's looking rough.
Speaker 2:The dump water on it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give it fertilizer, I'm going to move it to a different spot, and really you just need to pick, kind of one thing.
Speaker 2:Incremental changes.
Speaker 1:With most of my plants. If they're looking bad, they're not getting enough attention, like that's 95% of my plant problems is either they need to be repotted or they missed a watering, and so generally what I'll do is I will then make like a month long plan. So if my plant looks rough, I will water it first and see how it looks like I am. Just behind the camera is a rubber tree that was looking violently, just like it was, like it was so sad and I gave it water and now it looks totally fine. So I'm not going to repot it because it's actually fine. It just needed I must have missed a water on it and I have a lot of plants so sometimes I do miss them.
Speaker 2:But to transplant, them what Most people overwater their plants that are new to plants. So, maybe your first response shouldn't be water.
Speaker 1:If you're not, like a plant experienced person, yeah, If you've watered it in the last week and it looks rough, like it's not water likely. But anyway, it doesn't sound like your plants look rough. It sounds like your plants are great and you're wanting to repot them and kind of have an idea of how to do that properly. So what you're going to do? You're going to take them out of the pot. You can clean off the roots with water if you want and then you're just going to put them in new soil and they might look sad for a couple days. Make sure that they go back into the same spot so they're getting familiar light and you'll be surprised. They might look rough for maybe a week or two. They can. Sometimes they're totally fine too, but just give it some time and it's really pretty simple. They're normally more resilient than you think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have any helpful advice, but I do have a succulent story about small succulents and killing them all, and I successfully killed them. Yeah, you did.
Speaker 1:Joe, you know you recovered your succulents.
Speaker 2:I murdered them all. I murdered them all. Turns out, your plants can do without water for a while. They can do with, you know, bad light for a while. What succulents can't survive very long is no light at all for like a week. They don't do well with that. I was gone for two weeks.
Speaker 1:Two weeks.
Speaker 2:However long it was. They didn't get light because I like it dark in the house and I didn't think about the fact that the small succulents that you got from the wedding you'd gone to were all in the window and Matt closed the blinds and he said see you never. And they all died. Yeah, I was you came home and you were furious.
Speaker 1:I wasn't, I was sad.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I felt like you were furious, but that's my own problem.
Speaker 1:I wasn't furious, I was sad. Yeah, I like wasn't even that Like. I was like I get it, I should like not.
Speaker 2:You watered them before because you were like, hey, you're not going to have to do anything. But you were prepared to be like, hey, they do need light the next day.
Speaker 1:I didn't understand that you were going to close all the blinds and just not open. Now I have that information. Yes, like I should have reminded, not, I don't know if I Like. It kind of makes you sound like An idiot incupable, but that's okay. We've done a lot of that to you, so it's probably just yeah, I should have told you that to keep the like, you don't have to.
Speaker 2:No, but that was just a good lesson for me to learn. I wish I hadn't have learned it with all of the succulents at one time.
Speaker 1:If I was leaving right now, like I have finally put a lot of plants in our bedroom. I've had no plants in our bedroom up until now because I really wanted to have spots to put them, and now we have quite a few plants sitting in our bedroom and I, if I left for four or five days, I would give you explicit instruction to open the blinds, like to open the curtains during the day, because it would. You don't make the bed like. You don't do any of the things that you do other stuff like you reset the kitchen.
Speaker 2:you do the laundry, but like I thought we were about to list all the things I don't do and I was like, oh, this is going to feel uncomfortable. Well, no, just like the bedroom.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's kind of my domain For sure. He kicked up like you do the kitchen and like we just kind of have our things yeah and like this is kind of your space, really, like you work out of here a lot. Yeah, I make the bed every morning. I manage all of the plans I clean up our bathroom. Like those spots are kind of my territory, and so I think I would have to give you instruction, because otherwise we'd end up with a lot of dead plants. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thankfully. That's kind of why I'm scared to get blinds in our bathroom. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I get that. I get that Because I. Yeah, if you were leaving, and with all these plants I probably just would never totally close the blinds.
Speaker 1:I guess it doesn't impact you getting up in the morning, because you normally get up like when the sun's going up anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I get up when it's like dark, yeah, and so they don't. I don't need it, the same way you get up later.
Speaker 1:So the blinds help you. I love plants, I think everybody should own a plant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I do Well, we're going to kill a lot of plants with this tactic.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but also, I think it's just so good for people to have something that you are really committed to. I also think it's good for people to understand science.
Speaker 2:Tell us about some plant science, Joe.
Speaker 1:No, genuinely, though. I think it's really important for people to be connected with how things grow and how all of that works, because I think there's such a disconnect in like how our food is grown and how like flowers are grown, how all of that Sure, because we're so used to purchasing those things at the store that, even owning just like a pathos or like a very basic plant and seeing new growth come into it, I feel like it's very good at helping us connect back to Earth. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Are you?
Speaker 1:looking at emails. Yeah, it's almost email time. It's almost email time. Oh my gosh. I in our bedroom guys have been completely making over all the bookcases and yesterday when I got done and I posted a video about it, I was kind of disappointed, like I was like man, this looks bad. I did all this work and it looks bad, but now I'm looking at it and I kind of like it. I actually don't think it's bad. I think that it definitely needs more pictures hung on the wall, but I'm making way more progress than I thought I was and that's kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks, I mean, like it looks intentional.
Speaker 1:There's a lot there, so Both of those things sounded like.
Speaker 2:Backhanded compliments. They weren't intended that way, but I can definitely see it. I can totally see, how that happens.
Speaker 1:I said the first thing, I didn't say anything, but I looked at you and then I was like, oh, he's about to redeem himself. And then he said another thing that I was like, oh, okay, uh, I definitely need to get more things like hung, like there need to be pictures hung all the way up to the ceiling, I think, for it to really work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that would that would help.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I've also wondered if tossing in some of these like bookshelves we have the bookshelves with the floating books Like if tossing some of those into the gallery look would be.
Speaker 2:I was like the floating books. Yeah, got it. I don't know that.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to describe them, but they really are like floating books on the shelves.
Speaker 2:Maybe that would find it.
Speaker 1:But I also, yeah, it would. If you look up floating shelf, um, I also wonder if that would be too much going on. I think once it's all records on the bottom it'll be better. Yeah, I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Okay, got an email here that has two questions. First, what is one competition that you are so confident you would win, that you would be willing to bet your life on it? However, you have no idea who you will compete against. It can be anyone in the entire world. Nothing.
Speaker 1:There's literally nothing. I think I'm better than anyone in the world at?
Speaker 2:Yes, now I mean general, let's, let's alter it to general population, because you and I are both very comfortable with the idea that we are not the best in the world. I'm not the best in the world at literally anything. Yeah, because I think that's a good perspective to learn and that's something you kind of start to learn in your twenties is that there will always people. There will always people nailed that I have purse.
Speaker 1:There will always people be bigger than that was just going to try and get that cloud.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, there's always going to be people that have more money than you. That have what you personally think is going to be. There's going to be people that have more money than you, that have what you perceive to be a better job, that have things that you don't have.
Speaker 1:I think they get it.
Speaker 2:But so the more you can be like, okay, that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:I literally can't think of something like. I don't have any skills.
Speaker 2:I don't know. You're a fast reader, I think. Like we stack you up against five people, I think you're the fastest of the five. No, no, you don't.
Speaker 1:I don't. But, like my life.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. We have to adjust to like you're not going to compete against Olympic swimmers.
Speaker 1:I think I'm better than like the general public at reading.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like at speed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like I think you could swim faster than the general public. I read more books than like. Like if you're telling me okay, I guess here, let's do this. Like if you're telling me that we're like doing the lottery and we're turning the wheel and it's just going to, and then we have to ask that person how many books they read last year.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I like your odds, I like my odds, but like, generally speaking, like I know there are people who have read a lot more books than me.
Speaker 2:Man, what would mine be? I'm a pretty good like er-grower. Like over, like a short distance, like 250 meters to like 500 meters. Now, my cardio is not the best right now, so once we get past that, I'm going to have to like actually breathe and keep breathing and have better cardio than I do right now. But I think I can sprint on a rower faster than 95% of people.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm trying to think of other things, like number of house plants. In my house You're well above average, probably more than most, yeah, but like again, anybody I don't know, I'm not staking my life on many things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm not going to stake my life on most of this. Anyway, they also have a second question, and this one's super long. Great, I love long, anyway. Second, I need your advice on a friendship. For context, I met these two friends during my master's program in 2020. The program originally started online due to pandemic, but my second year we had some classes in person. I have never super clicked with these friends, but I didn't mind because we only saw each other during classes and it was low commitment.
Speaker 2:What's now been a few years and the two of us have graduated Well the other went on to get a PhD. So they've insisted on a more regular meetup, since we don't see each other in classes anymore. Unfortunately, each time we make plans to hang out, I never really want to go. I don't really enjoy my time with them and I just do not think that we are meant to be that close of friends.
Speaker 2:I've also learned that one of them tends to be a negative, nelly, and in our most recent hangout she felt the need to share multiple complaints about my wedding. That had happened a month ago. I don't really think she meant anything by it, but or meant anything mean by it, but I also don't think it was really necessary. Totally valid. Anyway, this is all to say that I don't really want to be friends with them anymore. They haven't done anything blatant Well, they've done some stuff. That's not nice, but I just don't think we have enough in common to approach and approach life differently. Any advice on how to best proceed without making this something bigger than it needs to be would be so helpful.
Speaker 1:I don't think you have to do anything.
Speaker 2:You're going like let it fizzle. What's your thought?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just slow set new normals. Okay, I do that all the time I do. I've done that all the time in my life, because it's not that you don't want them as friends anymore, it's not that you don't want them as connects anymore, it's not that you don't value them. It's that you don't want them as your grade A tier, and that's okay. Okay, you can both go separate directions, and do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to just be honest. So when they ask to hang out, if you are not available whether that be emotionally energy you have plans already. It doesn't matter. Like you can just say I'm not available.
Speaker 2:So you just get better at saying no.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Get more okay with your negative, not so great friends. Yeah, being upset.
Speaker 1:And then, if they're upset and they address it with you, you can say, hey, I just don't have the time or energy for this relationship.
Speaker 2:This relationship takes a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I don't think that friendships necessarily need formal breakups. Most of the time there are cases Fair, Like when you're trying to really call it quits.
Speaker 2:There are cases that yeah, and this isn't like a childhood best friend that you've been friends with for 15 years either.
Speaker 1:So I bet naturally, as time goes on, you won't be as active in each other's lives too, but what about the fact that one person is like trying to make this happen? What was the Like? How are they trying to make it happen?
Speaker 2:One friend is like wanting them to have like regular meetups and hang out.
Speaker 1:That's fine, say no.
Speaker 2:Just bail on them. Just bail on those, don't bail.
Speaker 1:Don't say yes and then don't go.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's not what I mean by bail, just like say no.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's what I think of as bailing. Yeah, say no.
Speaker 2:You think of bailing as being like I'll be there and then not showing up? Yeah, you could do that. You'll start to yeah, yeah. You'll lose those friends pretty quick if you do that yeah. You could just do terrible things.
Speaker 1:No, say no, and maybe I don't know if you've already made your mind up that you don't want to be friends with them. You can just say, hey, I really don't have the time and energy to be doing this right now and you can make it a more formal thing, but you can also just back off on how much you're seeing them.
Speaker 2:Like, make it twice a year instead of once a month. If you do have to make it a more formal thing, I think the best way, especially with these types of personalities, is frame it through you.
Speaker 1:But here's what I want to note about that. Okay, sorry, got it.
Speaker 2:Note it. I'm so sorry, hit me with that note.
Speaker 1:I want to note that I have friendships like this, that around that season of my life I felt that way and I backed way off from seeing them every other week, once a month, to suddenly seeing them once or twice a year, and we maintained that once a year or even like once every 18 months for the last six, eight years, and now in this season we're aligned again and I'm bringing them back to see them more frequently. Yeah, so I think it's one of those things where you let people grow apart from you but always leave a door open because you never know when you're going to reconnect and have things in common again. And unless somebody's blatantly hurt like to me, it sounded like maybe they were doing some things that were hurtful, and that's a different circumstance, like happy people who are actually harming you versus people that you're just not aligning with. I guess is really the key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and these are big transition years, so like, who knows what space they're in and what space you're in and will be in? So, yeah, just get better at not feeling bad about it.
Speaker 1:I guess.
Speaker 2:Your 20s are hard, so we don't need any more.
Speaker 1:Sure, we can do one more.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:One more, one more, one more.
Speaker 2:More friendship advice.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:My best friend since middle school is 26 and recently got engaged to her 40-year-old boyfriend.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, he's going to try and power through that One more time.
Speaker 2:Best friend since middle school, is 26 and recently got engaged to her 40-year-old boyfriend.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So as long as they haven't we talked about this on our live yesterday We'll get there. Yeah, we'll get to the question. We're talking about having kids, which is not something she's ever wanted in the past, and he believes that she should be a stay-at-home mom, in home school to kids, because public school is quote unquote too political. He holds very traditional values and doesn't share many of my friend's interests or hobbies. I'm terrified that she's settling into this traditional housewife role where she'll be expected to do it all herself. She's passionate about her career and has a full social life, but he struggles with anxiety and I can't imagine him stepping up to allow her to maintain an identity outside of the house.
Speaker 2:My friend has a bad track record of compromising her own beliefs, and past relationships and mutual friends share my concern. Selfishly, I'm also scared that I won't want my kids around hers Well, definitely parent differently, but there's a very real possibility that they won't vaccinate their kids, which is a hard line for my husband and myself. My friend is such a light in my life and has been for 14 years, but I don't see many paths forward for us. Is there anything I can do?
Speaker 1:That's hard. First and foremost, I'm going to say that's really tough. That's really tough. I, in the past, I am the friend that I will always say how I feel. I will tell you to your face. If I think you're dating somebody that's not good for you, I will tell you. But I go about it in a really specific way because I never want people to feel like I am an ongoing judging party or that they can't come to me when they have difficulties or if they have difficulties with their partner in the future. I always want it to be a safe space. I would tend to be on the side of light and truth, of just hey. I really want to talk to you about this. If you assure me that this is of no concern and that this is the path you want to take, that's great. Maybe not that's great, but I accept that. That is what it is. I accept you as my friend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not going to be a friend, I'm not going to be a friend.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to use my friend. Yeah, I'm not going to keep berating you with the things I'm about to say and just lay it out and voice your concern, and that this is how I've always seen you in your thoughts, it seems like you're really passionate about your career. To me, the choices that you're making don't really fall in line and it makes me uneasy and I just want to check in and see what you're thinking, how you're feeling. If she feels that it's in line with where she is whether it's a good or bad decision for her is here nor there. She has to make choices for herself.
Speaker 2:You can't change people that don't want to change. Yeah, that's just a fact in life is you can't force people to be different. You can't force people to do things that are good for them. No, if they don't want to do it, if they don't want to change, if they don't want to be better, they will choose not to. It's really tough, because I've seen you do this before, where you're like, hey, do you want my actual opinion or do you want support? Because you're like, hey, I will support you as a friend.
Speaker 1:I don't lie to my friends. I will not.
Speaker 2:I will not do good things that I don't believe, but if you've seen you share your opinion and go, hey, I don't think this person is right for you. Understand that that's not your experience right now, but this is what I feel and this is why I feel that way. I care about you as a friend. And if you don't want me, I'm not going to bring this up a lot, but I want to express it and get it out there. And if you don't, want me to bring it up ever again, I won't, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the thing that I think is really important when you're having that conversation is to make sure they know that you're speaking from your perception, with the information that you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because that's something I always say. You know, I'm not in your shoes and I don't have all the pieces to the puzzle, but the pieces that I do have, and the perception from my angle is not so hot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how the dots connect for me doesn't look great. But maybe there's more dots I don't have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, you get to choose what you do with your dots at the end of the day. Yeah, but I that's. Something that's really important to me with my friends is they can always rely on me to be honest with them and to say how I feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you said a lot of really nice things in this letter and maybe helps you to write it down. Maybe, maybe write some of these thoughts down and get them concrete, something you can refer to. That can definitely help if, like, confrontational conversations aren't your forte. I've had to do that before where you're like hey, these are my notes.
Speaker 1:I love a confrontational conversation. I hate them.
Speaker 2:It makes me want to disappear.
Speaker 1:I don't feel like I'm somebody that's like trying to start them. By any means You're not confrontational by nature. Well, and I'm not confrontational with people I don't know.
Speaker 2:If I don't know you.
Speaker 1:I have no interest in going back and forth with you.
Speaker 2:You love constructive controversy Like you love to get feedback. You love notes, you love.
Speaker 1:Well, I love hearing people's perspective, because I only have what I can see through my lens, yep, and so the more I can listen to other people, the more information I can collect. The more information I collect, the better life gets, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2:Good luck. Yeah, the political thing can be tough.
Speaker 1:That's all tough Like. As I was listening, I was like Ooh, ooh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know anytime that a husband's saying they want their wife to be a stay at home mom and that they think they should home school the kids or things like that. When it's a worded that way, yeah, and that's not to me, because I'm like if the wife or the woman in that situation isn't telling me that she's dreaming of being a stay at home mom and she's dreaming of keeping the home, the kids home, for homeschooling. Like immediately. I'm like Ooh ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, I don't like that.
Speaker 2:Because there's yeah, I mean sometimes like there's.
Speaker 1:It's great, like I don't think that's the best thing. There's people that aren't good at teaching.
Speaker 2:There's people that aren't good with keeping up a home and it maybe it makes more sense for them to go to a job and pay people to do those aspects and like, maybe it's, maybe it breaks even, but that person is a better person when they're working and they have their autonomy.
Speaker 1:Matt doesn't know anything about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not.
Speaker 1:I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I thought you were like saying, that was me.
Speaker 1:I know that's what. When you started responding, I was like that's what he thinks. I was saying yeah, I was talking about myself, gotcha. Yeah, matt and I did not live together very long before I said hey, buddy, I'm hiring somebody to come clean the house once a month because you're not doing it and I don't want to do it.
Speaker 2:I don't do it with the frequency that I mean it needs to be done. Yeah, I'm like you need it cleaned more often than I do, like people need it cleaned more often than I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll clean all of it, but I'll do it half as often as I should.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is why we came to the compromise. When we first moved in together, yeah, we kept doing like we both kept doing what we were doing, and then we added the cleaner, and then that kept us up to par.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great. So, anyway, try to be really supportive of your friend. Try and frame it all through Like this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm experiencing and these are my concerns, because I care about you. And then, beyond that, like it's just going to be in their court.
Speaker 1:Sorry, Matt's like oh man. What a bummer. So, on that note, we'll be back next week. We love you guys. Subscribe, review all of those things. Watch us on YouTube. Do the stuff and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 3:All right, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.