Leslie John (on the power of oversharing)

I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

Today we have Leslie John on. She is a behavioral scientist and a professor at Harvard Business School. And we get to get into parasocial relationships on this line. She has a great book out called Revealing the underrated power of oversharing. And this is an incredibly interesting conversation about parasocial relationships. Her social relationships begin to secrets like the science of secrets. There's a lot of fun stuff in here. Yeah, please enjoy Leslie John.

Hi, I don't care. Thank you. Where did you stay? I stayed there for the Montrose in West Hollywood. It's like a

“little sweet. It's not so like a little bit teak. What you want from us Hollywood here?”

But I do do that. Okay, I am a bit of a crazy person, but yeah, the guy at the front desk was telling me that that's where America's next top model. The production team and then I said have you watched the Netflix. Oh, boy. Oh, my goodness. I haven't watched it. I haven't watched too many thoughts about that. Well, I only watched some and I want to continue to continue to continue. But I've heard about all the rap. Okay, so then where did you walk from? If not your tap. Oh, I just walked from

down the little streets. I went to this little hipster. I'm sure that's not the right word. These do I not? We'll take it. I'm much other than, you know, I'm sure you're more dialed. And you're interfacing with college students. Yeah. Oh, true. Yeah. Do you think they're keeping you younger, making you feel old or both? Yeah, I think both. Probably when you're around people

“you're age, you're like, I feel a little younger than them. And then when you're on the”

little older than I am. Yeah. But I mostly teach executives now. So it's a different beast. I like it better because my go-to is positive parenting with them. Okay. With the exact they love it. Like reinforcements. Yeah. Like it's amazing how these tiny things can make such a huge difference, especially when there's strong gender, age, norms and all that. Like when I walk in

to a bunch of executives they're like, they have ideas the professor. Yeah. And so I always feel like

we have to kind of earn it. Whereas if you're an old, why do you're like a ghost? He arrived in a Bentley and you're old and white. Yeah. You guys got to figure out, let's hear what he's got to say. But if you've been walking in your abroad from Canada, good luck. Exactly. And I'd like to school. No. I did cave and get an e-bike recently. I feel a little guilty. Oh my god, it's amazing. What fun? Why do you feel guilty? That's good. Well, it's my Catholic upbringing because you spent money on it. Yeah,

and making myself feel comfortable should not be good. I've changed a lot. Don't give me that contribution error. Ah, how so? That's the ballerina. You're right. It's the balling. That had such a more profound. Oh, really, you're experiencing like, we're at a pain socially. Pain is growth. Often. Yeah. Pain is progress. Or minimally, even if it's not pain, it's discomfort. And I don't want to do this, but if I do this thing, I will experience some

positive growth. Yeah. There's something to be said for it. Like you do appreciate joy more when you have suffered, but I wouldn't say capital S suffer. I mean, like, a little bit of down. The peaks are higher. Okay. We're in Canada. Are you from origin? I am from Waterloo. Okay. You went to Waterloo College. That's in Ontario. Yeah. What age do you quit ballet? 21. And how would you rate the overall journey? I mean, is an incredibly privileged thing to do to go to train

professionally at sixth grade and live in boarding school? You went to Germany. Yeah. It's just an incredible

“experience. And I learned so much. Like, I think I'm generally, naturally. I don't know. My parents are”

really hardworking. Like, I'm a hardworking person, but it really nurtured that to a good and bad degree. And just the work ethic and the tension to detail. Like, you just be in the mirror, like, swan hands. Yeah. You just, again, and that's bad this now. I can't do it anymore. And just the experience of being on stage, right? Like, the performance. That is the flow of moving to the music with your body and performing it. And I can't even use words for it. Yeah. So I actually recently

a month ago met up with some of my old ballet friends. We hadn't seen each other. It had been 30 years since we've seen each other. We hadn't seen each other since ballet jail. We go. Yeah. The shared trauma. Lower case teeth. The grand scheme of things is not that bad. But, you know, we talked about how weird it is that, for example, we're like, I don't know, 13 years old. And our feet are bleeding before class. But the thought of even telling the instructor that your

can you imagine your little children dancing with bleeding feet and pretending it's just wild. It's pretty wild. It's pretty wild. Yeah. Yeah. And the brutality of like, not physical, but like, you can think about it. It's a brutal, brutal. It's objectively a wild niche experience on planet Earth for a young person. Yeah. Historically, you know, this is just true. So when you

found your way to college into psychology, and then ultimately to behave your old science,

what was driving that? Was it your Stockholm syndrome of this hobby of yours? And you're like, I got on gravel. What happened? I mean, all research is me, search really. I like that term. We have a two. Yeah. Yeah. I loved still love dancing, moving ballet. My shins were a disaster and fractured all the time. And I remember for me this moment where I was at some surgeon, they're like, oh, we'll just shave your bones down. I was like 15 years old. They're like, we're going to just

shave your bones down. And it's a experimental procedure that works for other dancers. And that's that moment when I was like, okay, I'm out. It's one of those things where you kind of know that their writings on the wall, it's not working. And you almost want someone to be like, you want like a science. You don't have to make the decision. Yeah. Kind of help your shins intervene. Yeah, which is weird. You're like, hope for the worst in a way. Sometimes people are weird, including myself.

So then I went to university and it was awesome college as they say here. And I've always been fascinated

“with decision-making. And I think I come from a long line of very indecisive people in decisive”

indecisive. Yes. Like quirky, weird decision-making. So for example, on a family ski trip, my mother and father would say, to flat rate, 40 bucks or whatever it was back then, we have to ski until we get the price of a run down to $2 per price for you. So it's like completely irrational because it's sunk, but so motivating. See, 20 runs. Yeah, it was just a lot. Yeah, a lot of runs. And then there's a lot of lines of cheerleaders. Exactly. But was this out of frugality or like, came a fight? So this is a great question.

This is a great question. I think it's out of irrational frugality. Okay. Yeah. Pennywise and Pomegranate. Yeah. Yeah. Another would be, we'd be grocery shopping with my mom and there'd be a coconut milk. Something that you don't need a lot of usually. I do love coconut milk, but it would be on sale, limit 10. Oh. And then we'd come on with 10. Right. That's ironic that a limit would make you buy more. It really fascinated me these quirky things that are going on. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have that

vocab then, but odd things that made me, that's interesting. So then I went and I got a PhD in decision-making. It's actually something like behavioral decision research. Yeah, it sounded like the whole show might. No, I love that. What do you want to call it? I know. I know, funny. Guys, grads who's really, can we call it something different like psychology, economics, economics, it's high status, but no, we have this super weirdo. So I don't know what I am to this day. In Carnegie Mellon,

which we've had a bunch of Carnegie Mellon phones on, you started Harvard in 11. You get promoted in 16 to associate professor. And that's 21 you become tenured. Right. So you've had this 15-year

arc there. In the first 10 years of research, I want to talk about because it was focused, if I'm

correct, on secrecy. Oh. And the decisions made privately and when and when not, those are shared

“publicly. So let's talk first about that. That's fascinating. What brings you to secrecy?”

So at that time, I remember when I was starting, I remember looking over at someone's computer, we're in the lab and they had this Facebook wall. I'm like, what the heck is that? I don't understand. It's a wall. You can post, like, it just seemed very foreign to me. I just became fascinated with why are people doing this, posting and stuff and it feels rewarding and I try to understand it. And then it's interesting because this is where you see the area you're in, you're shoehorned

into a certain perspective without even really realizing it. So the perspective of that field is very, very narrow in thinking about decision errors, like points of irrationality. Where do we stray from what a standard economist would do? Which, by the way, why standard economics standard? I give it to us. We'd all be able. I don't want us to all be. Standard economics tells us a lot.

“We sent all act rationally. There's a lot more to life than that. I think we'd be dexed. The”

focus there was like kind of undocumented errors we make largely online with sharing information. One of my favorite studies was this study where we ask people super send some questions. It's like a theme. Well, secret sees the topic. I want to take the quiz. I've got quizzes galore for you. Okay, so we were brainstorming these questions. My PhD advisor is Freud's great grandson.

still consistent with repression and sexuality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm a fresh,

“pimply-faced 23-year-old grad student. The design of the study was let's ask people”

outrageous questions in the name of science and just vary what the interface looked like. Have it look like super unprofessional versus professional. And see whether people ironically reveal more on the unprofessional side. Interesting. Which I'll tell you more about in a sec. But to do this, we needed to brainstorm a bunch of really sensitive questions. So I'm sitting there. His office. I even remember what I was wearing. It's one of these like flashball

remedies. And he starts off and he's like, "What about bestiality?" Sure. Yeah, what about? Oh my god. That one's almost more innocuous to me. I kind of agree with you. Well, asking someone about anal to me is more. So we had that, too. We're feeling them BCL. Just because A's. Because it's all crazy. There's no probability. Yeah, I need you to validate.

You know, and then it was just like every as someone who's neurotic. Every question that I felt revealed something about me, every brainstorm like that I was either approved. If it was like, have you ever masturbated or that I was really responsible like have you ever neglected to tell someone about an STD that you had? Right. And he's just very meta. So then the study, what we did was for the crazy site, the unprofessional site, which is supposed to be a site that

“you should never share your data on because it looks shoddy. So it was called how bad are you?”

And it had this bitmap graphic of a devil and comic sand's font like it was just ridiculous completely absurd looking. Also, people gave their actual identifying information. Some of the things were illegal. And they revealed twice as much on the crazy site that is unprofessional then the one that just looked kind of normal. And what was your group of people responding? That's how are you reaching those people? So that's a great question. Different samples. One was I walked

around Carnegie Mellon with the laptop. We have this big data truck. We had like a whole van that we'd drive around and bring people on the van. To be asked about second questions in a van. It sounds a little bit. Oh, you know, the things we did. Seven is windowless panel van. And let's talk about BCL in the evening to like drinking spots. Oh, my advisor managed to amazingly get it posted on a blog of the New York Times. Oh, it was New York Times readers

are doing this too. So that like it has the legitimacy. And so the samples maybe you change the questions for their more relevant to the samples. But again, and again, we found that people revealed like twice as much on the nasty one. Yeah, but then it's like we'll see this is the thing

in my narrow thing. We're like, oh my god, this is like an amazing publication and we wrote it

up because it was like so shocking, academia. But then when I'm presenting it, everyone's laughing at it's hilarious. And then I'm like, well, duh, of course, people, because it's hilarious. Because it's fun. People want to reveal because it's fun to reveal. Well, also the creators of the site of already broadcast their morals in some sense. It makes sense. They go, hey, it is a place for naughty people. Right. And it's fun. And it's kind of saying it's good. I don't feel judged here.

Yeah. And this other place I'm going to feel judged. Yeah, they're like the government's watching or something. Right. Right. Right. If it's official, then it even. Yeah, like these clowns. I mean, they couldn't do anything if they wanted to with my day. Yeah, it gets on up. Exactly. Those kinds of reactions were so helpful to me when I presented it because over the years I came to realize that this perspective that we're bad at privacy and we

overshare, it was not wrong, but it wasn't right. It was just so narrow. And when I looked back the one single thing that was consistent was that when I make people feel comfortable when I make it funny when I give them space, they really want to reveal. So kind of ever since I've been obsessed with the other side of like, are we sharing enough? And why do we do it? And what is it

“got us? And what are the ins and outs of all that? And that's what the work evolved to, right?”

You start doing more vulnerability and sharing what 10 years at Harvard? Yeah, after I would say like 10 years. But can I ask all you're doing this secrecy work? What is the driving force behind secrecy? What price do people pay for carrying secrets? Oh, does everyone have them? Have secrets.

And a totally knee jerk and say, yes, everyone does, but I never studied it. I mean, is there

someone in the world who doesn't have a secret? Maybe, but the vast majority of us have secrets. It's safe to say. And the average number of secrets that's each person carries is 13. Oh, well, with a huge amount of variance. 13's high. Because my hunch is when we evaluate who has secrets, we go like, well, I'm an addict. I've had all kinds of carnage and lots of sexual parties. So I'm like, oh, I probably have more, but I think that would be a wrong understanding of

secrets, which is they're not big infractions per se. Everyone has some barometer of what they're trying to do when they fall below it. That becomes a secret. I had an old friend of mine reach out to me. Literally a month ago, I hadn't seen her since college. We were roommates. And she's like, Leslie, I have a secret that I have been carrying for God knows how many years. This was the second

You know, it was you. You know, it was you the entire time. It was like, it's fine. What could be

cuter than stealing some Oreos? I know. And she was so earn. I'm so Canadian, right? She was so honest about it. And then I was like, really, I feel for you that you've been keeping this so long, right? And that's the thing with secrets is that secrets can be harmful when you're actively keeping

“them because you need to like monitor and there's been some really fascinating studies on how when”

you are keeping it, like these studies actually, they're good experiments in that they kind of endow you with a secret or not. And then they do some kind of intelligence test and you perform worse. It's because you're actively monitoring your preoccupied. It's a deep secret, right? You can bring space to keep all of the many versions you've told what we could. Exactly. And then it's like stressful and it's bad for well being in all this. But that's of course not to say that

we should say anything and everything all the time. We often keep secrets for very good reason, like I'm thinking of family secrets and secrets from our children. Well, there's legal ones too. Legal secrets too. There's things that could get you arrested and a we have a really good kind of policy. It's like you're obliged to make an amends to people, unless to do so would injure that person or others. You have to be very objective about is unburderening myself,

right. New and then other potential. Yeah. There's also tons of research on how when you say the thing, it's worse in your head than it actually ends up being. Exactly. A lot of it is like the rumination before you say the thing. And then you say the thing and you're like, oh, why was I rumiting? I was a waste. Like the Oreos. Yeah. Yeah. Like the Oreos.

So how did then transition from kind of being obsessed with secrecy to encouraging ultimately

you wrote a book encouraging people to share more? Yeah. The main impetus was this growing, bleeding a double life feeling of I literally was like telling people we suck at privacy. I would lecture them and then in my personal life did I have all my passwords on an opad to I do Buzzfeed quizzes like they're my girlfriend. I yes. Wait, that's hypocritical at minimum.

“But I think if you asked me to probe deeper into it, I would say it also coincided with”

there's been a lot of changes in behavioral science and kind of the old school way of doing things was really negative and like people are bad at making decisions and look at all the ways we suck and it's really fascinating seeing how we're irrational. But I felt that that kind of vibe from like a better word. It's kind of toxic when you're like seeking what's wrong with people.

Then you look around and I could hear me have nobody praises anyone. It's hyper, hyper critical.

Where's the joy? And so it was like, okay, wait, revealing why do they do it? Maybe people are right to do it. Maybe it's joyful. Maybe it's fun. Maybe it opens up doors and relationships. Maybe it gives you influence. Maybe it does all of these things. So I was like reflecting on times when I thought that I had overshared these moments of TMI. It's like I poured gasoline all over my body and lit a match. There's no recovering from this. And I looked back at these and I was like,

yeah, that sucked. But what about the long game? Every single one of them, there was something amazing that came out of it. I only connected it when I was working on the book. Because you were in a group of other people and you were encouraged by high status levels of the group to share an embarrassing story. I eat career suicide. So I was a baby academic. I was at this conference late at night. And there was mostly junior people. But there was a couple of super

grand puma's who did not know of my existence at that point. And someone had the idea of let's go around the circle and share our most embarrassing story ever. And most of them were like humble rags. Like, there's a typo in my abstract or something like, oh, no, the horror, right? Like this way of showing off without seeming like you're showing off the super obnoxious and I roll. And for whatever reason, I don't know why. Impulsively, I just went for it. And I shared my actually

most embarrassing story, which was when I was in college. I was acting at a play and I peed myself on stage. Like in the lavish way. Uh-huh. Full evac of the bladder.

“You could see it. I believe so. How much detailed. Oh, yeah. This is our bread and butter for”

real. I was wearing pantyhose. Yes, it was noticeable. And I was in my deluded thinking slash half thinking slash panic in the moment. I'm on stage. And it's like a waterfall feels like because I played a drunk school teacher. Oh, you were just in character. So I was like really into it because I was like a premon proper and there's this guan scene where I go crazy. That I couldn't wait for. And so I'm on the tables and they're laughing and the

clothes laughing. So then I laugh and then that happens. The waterfall. But then I think, okay, well, how do I cover this up? I don't want them to see this. So I have this giant bottle of cold vodka. And so then I'm like, oh, it's so thin and throwing the rice cake everywhere. Really. This was quite a performance to it. But also a broad person would pee. So that's like really long. I'd be like, oh, cool. They rigged there's a rig in there. And they made it like for you,

like you could smell it. Yeah. Yeah, you're so sophisticated. This is small town on

it. Sorry. I'm being verbose. We shared it. I went for the kill, not strategically. And then I was like,

oh, no, and everyone else was, oh, yeah. Who's that girl? Weirdo. And so then I thought, well, that's the end of my career. And then I woke up the next day and just so much remanation. But then writing the book, looking back, I thought, wow, I felt very ashamed. People looked at me weird. I got a lot of this negative feedback. But those two guys, they became my closest mentors. One of them Mike Norton, who you've had. He's like my chosen big brother. He came here a couple

years ago for his book. And he was there. And it wasn't despite that that we've become close. It's like you were real and not a robot and took a risk and could have gone badly for sure. I walked out. So there's lots of moments like that when I started thinking, even the stuff that's really feels TMI, there's often an upside to it that we sometimes don't appreciate in the moment. Yeah, I heard you say that kind of in general, not much qualifies as oversharing other than online.

“Online, I think is super tricky because it's not like a normal social interaction. And then companies”

all rig it to get our data and online is super tough. I'm almost to the point where if you never

feel like you've crossed the line, then you're not doing it enough, right? I don't know if you've had Linda Babcock. She's this amazing economist. She studies negotiation. She's written a few books on women in negotiating. And she said to me, I remember if Carnegie Mellon, she said, lastly, if you always get what you want, you're not asking for enough. Oh, I like that. And I think it's the same way with revealing. Sometimes hitting the TMI, we should celebrate

because now we know where the bound is. Yeah. We never get there. Then we're not doing it enough. And we're missing out. For the people who are in the world's screaming like, why do they got to share that? You know, there's definitely a chorus of people who are like, why you need your dirty laundry out there? Why you got to share all that? Let's try to make a steel argument for what it is that you think they're objecting to. I have my theories. I believe that.

“Let's hear. So that's why I believe that too. I have that thought. I have that thought too.”

Same more. Normally, I object when there are other people involved in their overshare. And I'm like, these other people that are involved do not have the opportunity to speak up. Yeah. It's really annoying. In a lot of memoirs, I think have this trick in your blood sharing, what's not yours to share. Yeah. But it's tricky because what's yours and what's not yours. So when you talk about your family and your family or your husband is why really hard or your

exes. These are real people out in the world. And I find that very complicated. I agree. It is very even if you hate them. It's your perspective, which I guess. Well, the point. Yeah. Let's break it into to find category. So one would be that type of sharing. It's just like, you're spilling everyone's tea versus I'm owning up to something publicly. That's very shameful. That's a specific category. I think that's the one we would want to encourage. Yeah. And then so within that domain

is there any pattern of when people feel like it's too much in the domain of owning up to your yeah, the good thing we want. Where it's like it's you're just owning your own struggle or your own short kind of your own failure. I think there is definitely TMI potential there. I'm thinking for example, let's say you're going back to work after an absence of health related. Let's say it's substance abuse related. You got it all under control now. You're like on the road. But it would be too

much to tell everybody all the gore about it. Right. That's just not necessary. That's like bringing everyone down. They just need to know that you're doing better. You've addressed the thing you have the maturity to help yourself and to get the tools you need. That's kind of going into detail about all the ins and outs of the problem. Another one would be this is one that Allison, who I know. I actually her book is right behind you. Allison Brooks's book, Talk.

Her take is you should never say if you have to cancel or you have a conflict you should never give

the reason why because that's TMI because she's like there's never a reason that's good enough.

“So you should just say I can't make it. My take is different. I think that you often should”

give the answer. But only if the answer is actually a good unassailable answer. Like my child is sick. That's unassailable and people understand more and then they empathize with you. But what would be a bad example of that is if it feels selfish or if it feels like you are putting yourself above the other person and most explanations do that. But there are some like children are unassailable recently. Like everybody knows that, of course, they take priority no matter what.

For like so many other family illnesses. Yeah. Yeah. Another area where it's tricky is when these situations are all situations where you're saying it to a group of people. Like that's risky. But if it's one-on-one, it's so much easier to read the room. And you have a relationship with these people who you called up. I think it's very low risk in that sense.

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“motor club incorporated in all state of failure. I think what happens a lot of time when someone”

shares something. If you get the sense that it is some kind of indulgent exercise on their part

or that there's some manipulation to it. It's looking for sympathy. If it has these outcomes, I think we're kind of good at detecting that. In sincerity. Yeah. And that's problematic. We know people that are just addicted to the adrenaline of shock value. And I'm on that spectrum somewhere, right? Of course it feels normal to me, but I'm sure for other people. But yes, I get more alive if we're talking about something a little more dangerous. Yeah. I think that makes you human.

I'm talking about risk A juicy subjects is just more fun. We pay more attention. We're more dialed in. There's novelty on the other side as well. Like you're going to tell me something likely I haven't heard of version of yet. It's seductive, even. It's into pull of yet. Yeah. And I think that's the number one when people like how do I think about this better? How do I decide what's TMI? What's not? How do I choose what to reveal and what not? I think the number one thing

is knowing your purpose and your hard parts why are you doing this? I think it's a more complex question that it seems because it's like how therapy has that annoying feature of keeping every question begs more questions, right? It's like what's your purpose? You really have to be brutally honest with yourself to come to the realization that oh I'm just doing this because I want status or I want to show off. You're quite a lot of self-awareness to really be that level of honesty

with yourself. And there's likely multiple motivators. Right. That totally conflict. And what we found when people do consider these decisions, these really hard decisions like do you tell your boss that you have ADHD? Could get a combination, you could lose your job. Do you tell your kids about your partying ways? Do you tell your spouse about that old fling? Do you tell your spouse your

“disappointed? All these things are like very unclear whether you should do it or not. And so often,”

we just default to silence. We don't even consider doing it. And then when we do, I found that it's like 90% plus of the time. When I do say, I can think of something that you're considering. Tell me what you're thinking about. Tell me what's on your mind. 90% of the things that people think about are the risks of revealing. They're like, oh, you know, if I speak up at work, because someone didn't credit me for an idea, they'll think I'm petty. It'll ruin the relationship.

And that's all real. That's totally valid in legit. But they stop there. What about their risks of not sharing? Well, I'm going to ruminate that I'm going to be passive aggressive. And that's going to be bad for the relationships. So like zooming out as I think a really important part of making better decision. I mean, we've shown it in our research that we fixate on the risks of revealing for lots of reasons about how our brains work. But then if we zoom out,

“we make different ones. It doesn't mean everything should be revealed for sure not. But I think we”

should reveal a little bit more than we think we should most of the time. And what advice do you have for these different asymmetric relationships or status relations? Yes. How does that play? It's tricky. Workplace is a place of mixed status often. And that's where we need to be crafty because it's tricky. And we need to realize that in any given day, we move up and down the status hierarchy. I mean, when I'm talking to the dean, I'm lower status when I'm talking to students,

I'm higher status. So like each person, depending moment to moment. And I think when we are in a

high status situation, we have so much more leeway than we think. And it's so powerful. I'm thinking

of, for example, like Angelina Jolie, the op-ed she wrote in the Times on breast cancer and double mastectomy. And after that, so high status person, there was a noticeable uptick in people getting screened. You can do so much good in destigmatizing things in prompting action if you're high status. And again, and again, we've studied this. We've studied people in high status situations saying some of their weaknesses, like CEOs of companies saying, "My organizational skills aren't

the greatest sometimes." They're not saying like, "I'm pathologically messy." That's TMI, but going a little bit more, and it makes their employees like them more, be more motivated to work for them, trust them more, and has all these benefits. Like, it's kind of obvious talking about it now. But when we ask managers like, "What do you say to your new team when you introduce yourself?"

It often doesn't occur to us to do it. Right. I think we've got to sell our solutions.

“Well, yeah. And in so many situations, I think it's less selling more curiosity,”

more question-asking. The times when you actually need to sell and persuade are very few and far between in everyday life. And in fact, when you're trying to sell oftentimes, the way to sell is to not be "I was going to say it's also just white noise, but you're doing the same thing everyone else's." Yeah, cut through. Have you studied how people receive that? So we've studied what are good ways to receive someone's disclosure. There's some really interesting

work on that. So if someone says something really sensitive to you, confides in you, what's a good thing to do? This is why I love what I do. My instinct is often wrong and then I learn from research, "Oh, I did the exact wrong thing." So my instinct is often going to fix mode. Right. So if my husband's like, "This colleague is such a pain," I'm like, "Okay, well, let's problem solve." And that's typically not the most useful thing. The most useful thing is validation is just saying,

"I hear you. That must be so hard." That guy sounds like a real dick. Just saying less is more. There've been neuroscientific studies of this. When you validate someone's feelings, even when they know that you're literally doing this almost performatively, like you're instructed. Even when I know you're doing this, the areas of the brain, the really emotional ones, it's calming. For someone to repeat back to you,

the thing is that you are feeling, which has so many lessons like, in parenting, I apply that I have to fight myself on like, right? I'm like, "Going into like, fix mode." And then, no, no, no, no. Tyler, I know that's so frustrating. I would feel the same way, too. Yeah.

“I've had a unique experience of just being in a A for so long. I think it's such an abnormal”

experience to watch people do exactly that all the time. It's all oversharing. It's almost always

shameful. And just getting to witness the reaction to that was truly the opposite of what I fear, growing up. And then it's always met with understanding and forgiveness and all these things. It's a tough cell to people who have had that experience. We deal with it on the show time. We deal with publicists who are gatekeepers of actors. And the publics will go, look, I can put them on a different show and they won't have to talk about anything.

This is a very vulnerable show. We require, I mean, the types of conversations you're going to probably say something about yourself, right? Reveal something necessitates. What we want to educate them on, which is a very hard cell is look, I've said everything on here. I've said I've been molested. I've said I realize I said it this. I said it cheated on my girlfriend. Like, I've said all this stuff and has not made people repelled by me. I'm an example of the

thing you're afraid of. And then also look at these thousand episodes where people did it and

there's never been blowback. There's almost never been blowback. And it's very frustrating that

that's still the paradigm that you think these things repel you to other people. And all they do is endure you to other people. So I'm really fascinated by why it works so well. I think there's, again, the social prime thing. There's a level of trust that you bestow on to me by telling me your secret or something you're ashamed to embarrass them. And then I into it while they trust me. And now we're in a trust in relationship. And now I feel inclined to reciprocate.

And now we really are building something deeper. But then I think there's this other aspect to it that is, I think we are attracted to bravery. Same more. As a species, you can just easily figure out why. Like evolutionarily. evolutionarily. The one that went out and found the new water hole should be celebrated. The one that fought the lion should be celebrated. You know, these acts of courage and bravery,

“we I think are hardwired to appreciate. That's why we love these athletes. And I think people”

immediately recognize bravery. You know immediately, you can feel it how scary it be for you to have said that same thing to yourself. And you go, wow, that was really great. Yes, you admire them for it. It's attractive. It's courageous. You're intuition and you're lived experience. It's super consistent with the data. You know, I love that I, in my job, I get to put people in these kind of absurd decision-making scenarios. Like I trapped them. And then they, the choice they

make, hopefully if I've designed it well, illuminate something about human nature. And so our version of what you just said to show that was this study where what we did was we asked. So imagine you're deciding between two perspective dates. So there's two people you're thinking of dating. You talk to one of them. You ask them, I'm laughing because it's a particular question. Have you ever had any STDs? Uh-huh. And they said, oh my god, like I have had all of the STDs. Even even the

undiscovered. It was like the other person you asked the same question. And they're like, I'm not telling you. This contrast we're interested in might it's sometimes the better to just say the worst possible thing relative to saying, I'm not doing that. And in fact, it is better to say,

reality. What did they have going on that they couldn't say? But also then that's a little tricky

with boundaries. I agree that if I was on these dates, I would also be like, yeah, because if you're

“not telling me that it's something crazy. But I also believe you should be able to say, I'm not”

comfortable answering that. I don't know. The principles with holder you would think. And so we did like ridiculous number of studies. You know, a social scientist, Tinker Tinker, Tinker. And we tested like, okay, what if it's like a principled withholder that's like, that's an obnoxious question. Still we hate them. And so I've come to believe that it's something really deep and primal in us that is so rewarding about we're so oriented towards self-disclosure. Why?

Because it's social risk. And the social risk, when I do this, I'm showing that I trust you. And then when I do that, then you trust me. And so it's precisely because it's risky that there is reward. Okay, let's talk about parent social relationships. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, first, let's talk about the illusion of reciprocity. Okay. Yeah, I like this. That's at the

heart of parent social relationships. A parent social relationship being a one-sided, often between people in the media, celebrities, and someone who's not a celebrity, feeling this real sense of emotional connection to the person. But the famous person doesn't even, no, the person's existence. We're so wired towards social relationships, right? And our brains are kind of a little lazy. We take shortcuts. And so most of the relationships we have,

or at least our brains think that most of them that we have are too excited. But now, there's so much more opportunity for one-sided with social media. But our brains kind of haven't adapted to that. And so we use this heuristic of like, oh, if I know a lot about them, they must know a lot about me. Yeah. Because up until 1900, it would have been impossible to know a lot about somebody that didn't also know a lot about you. Virtually. Yeah, if you think of like

the Caesars, there were parasocial relationships. Sure. Sure. There. But the scope of this is just exploded because you have so much access to these people. Like, revealing a lot about themselves, which revealing we know makes you feel like you know them. And they know you and trust. That's really the accelerant of these relationships. There is something very real about them because there are real feelings involved. So there's something really real about them. And they can be

really helpful in many ways. One simple way we've shown this is where, look at the people you follow on social media, how well do you know them? And then I asked, how well do they know you? And then I asked, by the way, do any of these people actually follow you? And almost none of them are actually. Yeah. But yet, the degree to which I think that I know you is super strongly correlated with the degree to which I think you know me. Wait. So people do think it. Your brain just feels like

I know I know it so much. I know so much about this person. You intuitively know and they also

“know a lot about me because that's how it has worked for 300,000 years. Like one symptom of this”

is if a fan comes up to you and they like start telling you super personal stuff as if you're in thoughts when you do in a relationship. Like I'm sure that's happened to you. I hang out at Cara a lot. What happens? Constant every time. Does it get annoying? No, it's lovely. I think it's so nice. They always

come and they say thank you basically. But then, yeah, there always is some vulnerable moment

like someone gave me this long letter. Very personal stuff. And specifically Monica had a show about freezing eggs and fertility. And so she gets tons of women they're going to tell her more immediately. There's a lot, and I think we're in a very interesting position because actors have a little bit less of a parasocial relationship because you at least know them as famous. They're like they're this famous thing. Well, and you know from their characters they've played

them. They don't reveal the way you two do. Yeah, but Dax is this weird hybrid, right? Yes, he's a weird hybrid. You're right. I am not. They got to know me here. We're extremely vulnerable and talking about pooping our pants and talking about masturbating and like lots of stuff, you know. What also happens is they'll come up and be like, oh my god, when you told this story and it's like, oh my god, I can't believe I told that story. Like I am like, oh yeah, a little more to find. Yes,

because I forgot that everyone's listening. It is very weird. I also have been on the other side of parasocial relationships. Oh, I am currently on the other side of the parasocial relationship. I'm listening to this podcast. These two women that are one degree removed from me in life. Okay. And I'm obsessed with them. I'm going back listening from the beginning, having opinions. And I know, I'm like, oh my god, this is so crazy. What is driving you to do this? Well, we've dissected it a

“little bit. I think part of it's like, oh, they're sisters. I wish I had that. Me too. I don't know.”

You feel like you're involved in that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a relationship. That's interesting. Yeah. So it's so weird to have experienced both. And now that we're talking about it here,

What's the next move? No, but I don't want to meet them. No. So why don't you want to meet them?

“I think because I've been on the other side of it. Yes. I know that meeting is not good. It's like,”

for what that might shatter a little bit of this fun thing. I've created the illusion. The illusion? Yes. We differ on this greatly. You do. Our reaction to the attention. One of the fights we have a lot on here

is about she would never date someone that listens to the show. Oh, that was my next question.

If are you would you ever date a fan? You would not. Not a fan. Someone who listens is one thing, but someone who's an active. Why not? My argument is like, that makes sense for an actor who played a queen in a movie and everyone found love with her and she had perfect love. It's not her. Yeah. Because you don't love me. You love this character. I'm like Monica, if they love you, they love you. Well, do you think they know the real you? That's the thing. They know a version,

but they don't. So for me, if you come in and you love me, first of all, you can't love me. You do not know me. I guess that's sort of, did you love Matt Damon? No. Oh. Like, I'm smart enough to know.

“I think you really feel love in your heart. I feel in factuation. Yeah. I feel real. Exactly.”

For me. Exactly. I feel like that. But I do not love Matt Damon. I know love is the space. It's aren't. It's the space in between two people. It's both way. So I see what both of you are saying. I think that both spirits are doing my positive energy. I'm sorry. No. I totally see, I validate you. But a really important thing that we're hitting on is you want to get there together. It's like one-sided disclosure. This goes back to Arthur Aaron's studies where they had people. He

grouped people together that didn't know each other and he had them go through a list of 36 questions that got more and more deep as they went along. And when people did that, they like each other at the end. One of them even so the law goes fell in love and got married. The control people, they just talk about small talk. It doesn't work. But then there was another study that what they did was they had people. The diet one got the same questions as diet two,

but diet one, one fell swooped it. So the first person answered all the questions,

then the second person answered all the questions. In the other diet, it was the back and fourth. I asked a question in you. Right. Exactly. Back and forth. And it was only the back and forth that made people connected and loved. So it's really like the process of taking this risk together. Now that's not to say, I wouldn't rule it out of the question. Yeah. Monica being with a fan. I would just think that the fan would have to be cognizant that we need

“to like start build your own share. We need to build this. Yeah. Which I think is highly doable.”

I think so too. I'm such a romantic. Like that. I digress. Yeah. I'm in one with somebody I do know. Oh, yes. Okay. But it's the same because I don't know them the way I am immersed in his life as a parasocial releases. So mine's David Sedaris. Oh, I love him. Yeah. I have become like just I can't stop listening every single night to his stop. I'm probably for nine months. I've been listening every night, re-listening over and over again because again it's about his sisters.

It's about his friends. It's about his husband. It's his life. And I can see myself so clearly inserting beautifully into he and Amy's breakfast. Oh. Like I know I have the same vibe as that. And I find the same irreverent shit funny. And I'm not afraid to be gross and dirty. Like there's just all these indicators for me where I'm like, oh, I could really, really thrive in that little trifecta. And I tell Monica the really weird thing for me is I am friendly with him. We taxed.

He's been on this show like four or five times. Yeah, but he is not close to me the way I am close to him. He's not listening to this show. Yeah. And so I'm an even trickier spot where it's like I have to figure out whether I pursue this relationship I want with him or if there's something weird about that or if it's even possible. But I'm really enjoying it because this is a weird thing. Yeah. Like I'm in love with him. Love it. I love him. I want to protect him. I want to just

follow him around and make sure he's okay. Yeah, I love him. I love it. Slash I'm a little worried about it. Sure. But do you want to act on it or is it just the fantasy that you're here and then it's like

it's never going to be what you make it out to be? That's for certain. He's crankier than probably

I know and he's maybe more petty than I know. You know, he's more human than I know. Although that is kind of his brand is exposing what a shitty person he is, which is why I love you. Yeah, so you do know what I want to do. But for me it's more about I would love to have that relationship with him. I hope I do somehow. But it has to be achieved in a real way that I'm not pursuing it and he doesn't

in this position a lot, I've had a lot of parasocial relationships and lived in fantasy land like my whole life. Yeah, that I've had the bubble pop a lot. I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of these people that I had all these fantasies about and it goes away. The thing you had that like googly eyes

“goes away. There are some things that I think are fun that just like live in your imagination.”

Yes, I agree. That does sound though also like the course of love and relationships and in fatuation where the stages of being infatuated with someone and then over time you see that they scratch their bum and they grow along. They're kind of positive illusions go away to an extent. But I like that because that's intimacy. I think this is where again getting there together is really important because when you build that together social psychology says this on intimate

relationships that then you get these positive illusions as you go along and the positive illusions sustain you a lot longer. I would think then if it's this one-sided thing that's very kind of artificial in a way. But I say artificial lightly because the feelings are real and I do think that when people feel lonely during COVID, parasocial interactions were a source of great comfort to people. All right, so this isn't new. Talk about the trapped in the TV effect.

Oh yeah, so that was one of the first scientific explorations of this or it was talked about in a

scientific way is in the 50s. So there was a TV show called like Ding Dong School or something like this and there was a woman in it as a kid's show, Miss Francis and you know TVs were novel then and this was so interesting that this person could talk to you. And there was a look like she was there and so what the children started doing is trying to bang open the or like take apart the TV. They want to let her out because they wanted to let her out because they thought she was I know it's true.

It's not she was trapped. I know. I think it captures this desire. Someone who is so compelling you just want more of them. But I agree with you that sometimes we should leave it at that.

“But that's learned. I think that's learned. Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk about the science of connection?”

Yeah. Let's do that. I mean, I've written on this sentence. Why are we instinctively drawn to mutual openness and how our brains respond to it even when it comes from a machine? Oh, I love that. This colleague of mine, her name is Youngly Moon. She did these fascinating studies. I think they were the early 2000s where she had people interact with computers and the computers self disclosed to the person. They'd be like, I have up to a hundred gigahertz ram capacity.

But I rarely get to use my whole capacity. They didn't even say I. It wasn't even that personified. It was like this computer. But rarely uses his full capacity. And then people felt attracted and they liked the computer that disclosed to it, which is so fascinating because the hard wiring case, the case for like when something acts like a human and reveals,

“then we feel fond of them. And coming to movies, we have where that's the storyline.”

We love stories about robots who really have a hard movie. We've done it 30 times in a

and they always work. And there's a huge Broadway play right now. Oh, yeah, that's great.

That's great. That's great. Two robots of all love. Oh, there's this amazing study where they put people in brain scanners. And they had people answer kind of fun, isch trivia questions about themselves. Like what's your favorite ice cream flavor? And when people did that, the pleasure centers that their brain were activated. So it's really suggest that there's something deeply intrinsically reinforcing about self disclosure. And then

they did the classic thing to convince the conservative economists that there's something to it. They had people actually, they gave them the opportunity to essentially pay money to answer questions about themselves. And people did it. They're like, I'll pay good money to talk about myself. I read in your thing that just asking someone follow up questions, the power of that. What's happening there? This is now Allison Brooks, my bestie. She's done work on follow-up questions as well.

Follow questions are really powerful because they signal that you're listening. And people love

to self disclose. As we know intrinsically motivating. And so when you ask me a follow-up question, it's not just any question. You're first, you're showing that you listen to me. So I'm like, oh my god, it's a busy answer giving me an opportunity to tell you more about myself. It's amazing. I'm in heaven. And the core to me of why this is so powerful is because social connections are like we are heard animals. And if we don't have them, then we die. You have nobody cares about us,

then we're ex-communic. Yeah. In my 30s, I found myself divorced in single again. And so I was

a mate in the sense that when I got to the date and if I was like, ah, not super into this guy,

“I would just keep asking questions because I'm like, at least I'll learn something about him.”

Like I learned about robotic not-time, 3D not tires and like all these random things that I never

knew existed. Were you on academia? You know, that's a really dirty matter. No, I actually did not want to date an academic. That's like a thumbs down. It doesn't negative in the grandmaster regression equation of my dating life. But yeah, it was the exact wrong thing because then those are the guys that are like, she loves me. Yeah. And then by contrast, when I was really into the guy, I'm a very gut person on these kinds of things. When I was really into him, I would find myself

selling like pitching. Yeah. All your attractive. Yeah. And then fortunately, I realized it kind of midway through that I was doing the wrong thing. Yeah. But it's interesting how the instincts. And like I study this stuff. And my intuition was like completely wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What impact does beauty have on a sense of familiarity? Oh my gosh. So we love beautiful beautiful. Beautiful beautiful. We did. I know. I've heard if you could choose to be beautiful or intelligent.

I think it is said beauty. Yeah. That was a trifle. We got to use the right hand over beautiful. Just be clear. Oh, that is that for me. Hot means you want to have sex with the person. Okay. Beautiful doesn't necessarily mean that. Beautiful means like soul. I can look at a lot of models and go other beautiful. I don't think they're hot. You want to be someone that everyone wants to have sex. Yeah. Why? Because he's in approval junkie. Yeah. That's the ultimate approval.

Why is that the ultimate approval, though? Why not you are the most intelligent. I admire your brain. But why is that the thing for you? Well, because A is what I didn't have. We all want what we don't have. Or you felt like you didn't have. Yeah. Right. I buy my estimation. No one

“slept with me because they thought I was hot. But people were sleeping with you, though. That's what's”

weird. But not like you weren't getting. CBT sash. Yeah. Right. So boohoo to me. It's still worked out. Yes. You think it's natural for us to identify what we don't have and to covet that. Maybe not. Maybe I mean. Yeah. It's a spectrum. I think you're on the far end. I would pick beautiful over hot. Okay. Wow. Why is that? Because. Sure. Yes. No. I think it's more elusive. I think it's too far too far. It's harder to be. I think hot is

all the parts of you. You can be hot by being confident and having style, having a good personality.

Oh, that's what you're not always like physical physically. You can't take anything off of

it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So for me, it's like, well, I got what I got. I hate it. Yeah. So obviously, I wish that was, you know, what I mean. And again, with intelligence, like, I have some amount of that. Yeah. So I really care. Yeah. Yeah. We have heard from very beautiful people that they want to be seen as intelligent. But they don't know what it's like to be. Which fits with you. I always want you don't. It's always green. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is so interesting. Okay. So yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So a friend of mine, then one on that who is also very beautiful. The punchline is beautiful people feel familiar to us. So when you think of like, why do we feel connected to celebrities? Well, one is now they tell us a lot. We have access. So we feel the thing in our brain of how we can't tell that it's one side. We can't use the two. You know a lot about them. Yeah. Right. But also they tend to be beautiful, hot, whichever you prefer. And we actually

perceptually view hot people as more familiar. We think they're more familiar. And in one of the studies they did in this paper, they took photos from a Princeton yearbook. They did the study with current Princeton students, but it was an old yearbook. They didn't know the people. And then they asked the people how familiar is this person. And the more attractive people were judged to be more familiar. Why? I know. I know who it is. Is there any explanation for that?

It's just an observation. I mean, do we have any theory on why it triggers familiarity? The explanation. It's something to do with the symmetry of the face. Beautiful is more symmetric. And it's more fluent to process. The more fluent something is to process the more familiar. You can found ease of processing with familiarity. I'm also going to come at it from a null hypothesis approach, which is distinctive features are novel,

which is implicitly not familiar, right? So the more just a symmetry, not beautiful. Well, let's just say you have asymmetry, all the things that we've defined the golden rule of

“beauty, right? You're violating those. Right. That's why I would argue that's what is beautiful about”

people, right? Is when they're unique. Yes. It's unique, which is the opposite of familiar. Yes. Yeah. Right. But are you saying that because it's unique, it should stand out and be memorable? Well, I'm just saying because it's unique, it's in opposition to familiar.

Yeah. Yeah. If you recognize this is the first time I'm seeing this,

that's the opposite of familiar. Exactly. Whereas if nothing's triggered, you don't file into new things. Right. Yeah. So you're familiar. Exactly. You're told

like a very standard, something, and then if a beautiful person probably matches that standard.

You draw a symmetry, or you attempt to do it. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is a zone that no one will like. When I've seen really hard movements and pushes to redefine beauty, which on the surface is wonderful and egalitarian and all these things, why I've bristled is I feel like there's some dishonesty in that at the end of the day, no matter what you say or who you put on billboards, when you do these tests and you just show

faces of people, symmetry, symmetry. There's something fucked up in our brain that values that. And I don't think you can add campaign your way out of that. And it feels dishonest in its person.

“Oh, interesting. As opposed to working on like, how do we all deal with that?”

We don't look like Brad Pitt. That seems more productive. Yeah. How do we come to terms with guess what you are not symmetrical? I guess it's a little confusing, because you did also just say what you find attractive as uniqueness. And I think a lot of people do actually find unique features attractive or like, oh, that's interesting in intriguing. Right. So that's the opposite of what I think. Right. That's true. Yes. So for me personally, I might have my taste. I think a lot of people

find, I mean, everyone likes Matt Boomer. Okay. Everyone's looks at his face and is like, yeah, he's classic, classically beautiful. He knows going to object exactly. And I'm not saying we shouldn't put him on a billboard. We should. But also, I don't think putting, oh, God, I shouldn't say it. Yeah, we were putting that person on a billboard who has unique you. But I think I'll be the

first to say it's like, yes, I am attracted to that uniqueness in fingerprinty. And I can acknowledge

I know that's not going to be the most broadly appealing. I can acknowledge the reality of it. I happen to find the Greek nose. So hot. That's not going to get adopted by everybody, right? Yeah. So two things are happening. One is my personal preferences. And then also I can acknowledge that if you put up these two faces, and you pull all of America, this person's going to get the win. Although maybe there's just so much taste for uniqueness that it's not disingenuous, that there

is a segment of the population that likes Greek noses. Oh, yeah. And that sense it would be what consumers demand. It wouldn't be disingenuous. I think one of the things I was reacting to in my mind that I bristled against the feeling of you're being like gaslit as a consumer. That it's like,

“right. That's what I mean. It's like, no, symmetry is objectively beautiful. Like, we can agree.”

But I think you can do this in a genuine way, market someone who is not classically beautiful. I do too. Yeah. You don't tell people that they can't like this symmetrical person. We're going to like it. I just feel plated or something. Yeah. It's interesting. Although yes and no, because sometimes when you see like the most beautiful person ever wearing sunglasses on a billboard, it's like, well, I'm not going to put those sunglasses on and look like that. It's in a lie.

For sure. Yeah. Now we're talking about what category. Some categories you don't want aspirational. You want, oh, I see myself in that person. I would want to use that product. And guess what people that are beautiful and quotes are how it's defined? They have a different experience on planet Earth. That's worth us knowing about. So interesting. So think about this. If you're beautiful and everyone feels more familiar with you, what enormous advantages are there.

The advantage of being beautiful, the social benefits, which is that people are nicer to you.

“They smile to you. And I think that's also not just bestowed on people that are beautiful,”

but also bestowed on famous people on celebrities. People that are beautiful can talk at a different pace. Your patience to listen to them is higher, because you're very engaged and activated just by what you're seeing very late. Right. Right. It's stimulating. Yeah. It's like that. It's so stimulating. Normally, you need the conversation to provide all the stimuli. But this face is doing a lot of relief. I don't want you to think after five minutes,

you get adapted to that. I just think it runs out. People say this all the time. Like, oh, yeah. That's a great point. That girl can get cheated on. I've heard this so many times that I know I've inherited to people. Yeah. She's the most beautiful person in the world. How could anyone she don't know? You adapt to people's faces. Yeah. I think this may be an area where there's

huge individual differences. For me, I'm just thinking my first marriage, gray guy, amazing person.

I never had the like, I want to rip and I felt ashamed of that for a long time because he was such a wonderful person deserved that. Yeah. And then I found myself dating again and then I realized, oh, no, I should just listen to what I really want. And that's called me shallow, but it's yeah, no, really implying to me. And I see my husband. I've been married for eight years. And I'm like, you are so fucking hot. Oh, that's not bad. And that's important to me. Yeah. I wish it wasn't

if you're forced to be dishonest, in pursuit of this principle you have, that to me is not a

“premise. And that's why if I had only been able to be honest with myself of like, okay, it's fine.”

This is how I'm built. This is the way. Yeah. But instead, I, you know, lots of reasons, I will not invoke other people. But I didn't learn that. All right, I didn't acknowledge that about myself. You're not telling me and I already know what it is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're an over-cheaper saying that there's a good match. And this is a good, good, good, good, good. Yes. And so on and other things. Well, that was fun. Yeah. I enjoyed all this. I do encourage people to get your book

revealing the underrated power of oversharing as a big proponent of oversharing. I co-sign on this book, Dr. Leslie John. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Okay, bring everyone up to speed. You want coffee? You've been staying up to late. I inquired why what's going on? Well, I'm down another rabbit hole. Some cooking videos. Okay. Not Allison. She hasn't put up any new ones lately.

But I am watching what's got to be cooking. What's that? Hey, woman who, period. That's her unique offering. No, she's like, she's a cook and she does videos and is very popular and she does, or yeah, I don't know if she still does them. I assume she does these Instagram lives on Monday. So like you can like watch and kind of cook with along with her, which is cool.

Is it more exciting knowing it's live? Like do you think that's playing into the notion of like,

“oh yeah, I'm sure that's why. Yeah, I bet people love that. But then you just put them on”

Instagram, you know, like your old ones. Yeah, they live. So I started watching those. And they're like 30 minutes. That's it. She's making dinner in like a 30 to 40 minute. Yeah,

that's what's kind of cool. It's like he's making it fast. Yeah. And he can serve, basically.

I know. And then you'll watch a ton of them. Exactly. And then I'm like, oh no, it's one. And you're having the same pull towards it as if you were watching a great series and the cliffhanger ending ends. And you look at the clock and I cannot start this thing. You're like, well, I got to find out five minutes of it. Yeah. Is that strong? I, yes. And we've discussed that currently, I, oh, not currently. But yeah, I have been listening to Aaron and Sarah's podcast in a kind of

crazy manner. Uh-huh. And now this is similar. Mm-hmm. So yeah, I mean, I'm probably, you know, I'm coping. Yeah. With something, but I've nothing to heal right now. So I don't really know what it is. But I'm definitely in a like, um, escapeous zone. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So interesting. So God, he's giving me a little hunches. Or do you have lunches? I was, I was really thinking, like, what feeling am I trying to avoid? I mean, that's too generic. It's not that simple. Yeah. I don't

think I'll be that strong. I don't think he needs to be that. I, I don't know. Maybe it's the itch for summer. I'm just like really ready to get there. Oh, my, can I argue, man? Great. So we're working

crazy. This, at this time of year, always for us is the hardest time of the year because we're trying

to build up enough of stockpile that we can take a summer vacation. Yeah. And always, I got to say, you know, it's, we've been doing this for years now. And it's always hard, may June. Yeah. This, what's going OK for me, but, you know, I don't know if this is good or bad behind the current, but it's like we did 10 this week, right? So we're doing two days, 13 recordings. So I know that I have been searching comfort in the evening. Mm-hmm. Just like, I feel like, okay,

from these hours, you got to be on. Yeah. And you got to, you got to push hard. And then when I'm off, I'm like, OK, I'm even making deals with myself as, like, maybe that's going on with you. I was, or I'm like, yeah, whatever I have to do at night, fine. I just got to kind of get through

“to the finish line. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Whatever you have to do. I guess, I mean, maybe it's”

out although the air and insert things been going on for a while. So I don't know what that is. Other than what we, I discussed, maybe like, I want for a sister. Yeah. But, okay, but I have

What's going on that I like, in the morning, I feel 3,000 pounds. As in, like, I can, the idea of

lifting this body and getting it out of bed feels like it requires herkulian strength. Because this is, this is, um, clue number two though, because now we got, we got to sleep disruption.

“We got, uh, solving, you know, then we got, we can't get out of bed in the morning. I think it's all”

the same. It's all connected though. It's like, I'm going to bed very late. Mm-hmm. So actually, in the morning, like, I am still tired. I should be sleeping still. You're getting less than eight. I don't know, and I don't know what the quality is. Oh, I had a, I had a horrible dream a couple nights ago that was like, very, and you were in it, and you were a bad guy in it.

And you had a bread pit sex dream. So they're all over the map, just like the best dream you've ever

had in the worst. I was not the best I've ever had in my dream. I didn't mean to. Yeah, you don't know that. I don't know about your dream. Um, but it was a horrible nightmare that included all of us, but I was like, on the run, mm-hmm, in the dream, and so it was so high, it was so heightened, and then I in the morning, of course, I was like, I mean, how good could I have slept if that's what was happening in my, we were a fighter flight, all night. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, then seem

breathful. Yeah, and so then I had the idea to keep my curtains open. Okay. So that I would wake up naturally by the light. Oh, right. And I was like, that might solve my issue. Yeah. And it kind of did cool, but you got to get up early early. Exactly. Then I was like, oh, I like woke up, and I looked at the clock and it was five. Well, that's the problem now that we're in summer. Because I wake up at six, 20. And yeah, I got to have everything shut in my room, airtight,

because the sun's out for an hour already by six, 20. It was five. And I was like, well, I'm not doing this. Yeah. So then I tried to go back to sleep with the, by with the curtains open, but then I just closed them, and then we're back in the same situation. Yeah. So there's just, you know, I'm just have, I need to clean up my sleep hygiene, but not as I'm going into summer and traveling doesn't make sense. You don't need to do that. Yeah. Um, this was my share on Tuesday night. Oh, great.

This occurred to me while I was riding to my meeting, which is I haven't talked about our

“leaking, right? No, you did. I did. Yeah, because remember, um, I had a huge catastrophe in the new”

attic. You had that same day. And I can't, I, I'm not sure at the time of that recording, how many we had at that point, but it was, it was one in Christensen's office while we were in Nashville, get home to at the same time to different air condition coil boxes here. Yeah. Then, um, got it fixed, then broke again another night of rain. I've had three nights of getting woke up at three in the morning with the family going, it's raining in the downstairs bedroom. Okay. Which blows

it with our schedule, right? That's like, oh, it's not the time I need to be up for an hour. Okay. Then, yesterday, we have this, um, um, in the wall, water dispenser that filters the water. Yeah. So that thing, two nights ago, that shit out at one in the morning and started flooding the kitchen. What? But crazy enough, I bought little alarms that go off when there's water. So they were

hearing the alarms downstairs thinking of neighbors like alarm system was going up. But finally,

thank goodness, Link was like, I'm too freaked out to sleep downstairs with the neighbors alarm going up. Like, are there biggerly men on the ground? You know, are there, so they all moved upstairs and when they moved, they realized the kitchen was flooding. Okay. So that's five pretty major leaks and like a week. It's like, we have a water poltergeist and they're from all different things. It's not like one thing, right? The ties all these together. We love this water. And so

I'm writing to my mean, and it occurs to me, I'm completely fine with this. Okay. It's been

“challenging. Yeah. But I haven't had that. I'm overwhelmed. What the fuck is wrong with this house?”

I mad at contractors, what this house isn't even all like, I'm not going down. You're not angry. I'm not angry. Yeah. And I'm not going specifically down the road of like, I've been fucked. Yeah. Right. Which I think they're not taking a person. Right. Yeah. But occasionally you get frustrated with the work that's done that you paid a lot of money for. Like, you can, I can start building up the same as like, my God, you know, and he charged me four times. And it is fucking nothing, you know.

So that can happen to me and does sometimes. But I was just clocking like that didn't happen at all. Yeah. They've just been like, it's that. Yeah. That's annoying. Let's get fixed. And then also,

So normally this stuff would really stress me out. And it would also, I would start getting

really resentful at people and things and whatever. And it's really, really fine. And I just realize like, hey, sometimes biochemically, I don't know why. There's nothing different. It's just

“whatever reason my biochemistry at that time makes me susceptible to that. Or what I really think”

it's about for me is when my self esteem is high, nothing really bothers me. And when my self esteem is low, everything's a personal attack. I'm a victim. I am prone to self pity. The world's conspiring against me. How many leaks could I get? You know, like, and it's just self esteem. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, but for me, it's just self esteem. Like myself, the steam governs exactly how I'm going to do with the world. But yourself, this steam, I feel like

then is tenuous. It is. I have to, I have to fill myself free. It doesn't happen on its own. So it just so happens. Like, I've got lots of graduations going. I've got been attending a lot of things. I'm taking the girls everywhere. Like, I've been so of service to them. They've been a full-time job. I'm here working around the clock. That gives me a steam. The kids give me a steam. I've been

like a service. And yeah, my cups filled. I like who I am this week, which is always up for debate.

Sure. That makes sense. Yeah. And I was just like, oh, yeah, these things that feel objective, like, objectively, you'd be angry right now. Or objectively, you'd be annoyed or objectively,

“you should be pissed. That's just not true. Right. I could. Well, there's no objectively you should be”

angry ever. But when you're upset about all these things, you have a really good court case in your head that you're convincing yourself, like, yeah, well, anybody right now would be completely annoyed and agitated and irritable. Yeah. But I just noticed, like, oh, I'm not at all. Yeah. Why is that? Oh, it's this. I feel generally good about myself. Purpose is sport. Um, obviously. It's just interesting. Like, you for me and not for anyone else, but for me when I'm thinking about

trying to tackle the issues that are giving me stress, I'd be inclined to confront those things, the links that this, and it's not that. Yeah. It's like if I just fill up this other cup, I actually won't mind all that much about. That would just be like, oh, yeah, that's life. It's just, yeah, exactly things happen. It's inconvenient. But that's it. Nothing personal is going on. Definitely. I'm not being targeted. Yeah. Interesting. Stay tuned for our share expert if you dare.

“Okay. I've been wanting to share this for a minute. Oh, share. Which is, I think I came up with a”

banger, only because my kids now sing it nonstop. Okay. Okay. But it requires a little bit of a story, which is, and I think people already know that I have reframed in my life that I am Tom Hardy and Maubland now. Where is it? I'm Tom Hardy in the show, Maubland. You are. I am in my mind. It started with that box that was stolen, the recycling box that was stolen by a homeless person, and I had to go find it. Oh, that was a long time ago. That was a long time. Since then, I've been

applying this framing to anything I have to do for my wife. Okay. In the past, if she were to have left me like a list of things to do, I would have been, why have been. So triggered. I'll go, like, I'm not your assistant. You can't leave me a list, right? Like, that was a big thing for me. Got it. Got it. And once I clicked into this Tom Hardy thing, which is like, oh, I'm just a fixer. And I take, like, pride in that. So, I don't know, two weekends ago. I had to meet them somewhere.

But she said, hey, before you leave, since you're leaving later, will you do X, Y, and Z?

In Z was go get all the packages. Oh, okay. Okay. So I had gone through the first couple,

little tasks. And I like knew I was about to knock out the third one. And then I somehow the song just came into my head. Okay. Okay. I might have to practice it once. So it's going to be for it. Yeah. I may relish to this. My mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock. Now my mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock. My mission should I choose to accept is to get packages from the loading

dock. My mission should I choose. So, oh, that's the song. That's my song. My mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock. And when I framed it, which is like I'm I'm mission impossible. They've given me the mission. I get to accept it or not. So I have some autonomy, right? But my mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock.

and I'm playing like really good about the song, right? And then I send a voice memo of the song

to them wherever they're at. Okay, cool. And then I have this moment of I think humility where

“I go, this is crazy. Look at you. You, you need to create a song around it. You did a little”

tiny thing. And then now you want to share the songs that they will laugh at you. And then all of a sudden this song popped into my head, which is also a bang you're ready. I realize this is how it's acting. I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Watch me jump. Watch me play. I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Watch me jump. Watch me play. You want me much me sing so you're not going to watch me jump and play. I watch you jump and play all day long. You do watch me jump play all day long.

Those were main two songs and I have a lot of songs. Yeah, I have a lot of songs about my perm because my hair is getting so crazy and it's so curly now, which is really weird. My hair

was always straight as an arrow. And now as an old man, my hair's curly. Okay, maybe just as

you want to see the people, like the whole visit, my mother was here. She's just like, I don't

“where did your hair get so curly? I haven't noticed it once being curly, but I'm not very”

observant. And you're wearing a hat. Yeah, so I sing a lot of songs about encouraging people. It's okay. You can look at my perm. It's a really nice perm. Go ahead and look at my perm. So there's probably four or five songs about my perm. Okay. So anyways, I guess there's all leading up to. I do think I have about 30 songs sent as voice memos and I'm going to start shopping them in Nashville. Oh, you're going to go down the streets and get into those clubs. No, I don't want

to get into clubs. I want to offer to sell this like, you know, maybe Chris Stapleton. I know I know he might sell songs, but maybe he'd like to sing on to you. You got to get yourself into the clubs and you sing them and then they like that and then they buy it and stuff. No, my I'm going to go to the publishers and say, can I have a writing session with a book? This system. Shania Twain. You're going to have to go to Bluebird Cafe. So I'm going to go to them and

go, okay, I have 63 songs, but don't worry. It's only eight minutes. I'll keep moving. And do you want to work on any of these seeds of ideas? Sure. Yeah. I respect, yeah. I respect the ambition. Yeah, yeah. And I, I hope it, I hope it goes well. Can you imagine me in one of those places singing my mission? I kind of really can. I choose to accept this event. Because you also have an idea the other day. Oh boy. I have another idea for what? You had an idea the other day

that was interesting. That was a performance piece of you redoing some other people's stand-ups. Let's get the commenters to say about this idea. Yeah. The idea is to tour the country. In every city I'm in, I will have learned a different stand-ups entire routine. Right. It started with Dane Cook. Yeah. Because we talked about sports shallay in the backyard. You me an honor. That's right. And I immediately heard sports shallay take to the limit. It was a rock

and song. Any time you hear sports shallay, everyone hears that. And Dane Cook had a big bit about. Right, which I didn't know, but yeah. And then that made me think, oh, I want to go do that on stage.

And so my think my first show will be doing Dane Cook's one of his specials just across the board.

And I'll do my hair like him. I know. It's gonna be hard when I do Chappelle. And yes. No. I got to honor them. And so it's gonna be hard when I do Chris Rock and Chappelle. You're not allowed to do any of those things. It's an art installation.

“This is disgusting. You need to get your feet. I think you need to touch grass for just like eight minutes”

or something. As long as it takes a senior 65 songs. So Monica thinks it's a terrible idea. But let me just in the comments if I came to your town to do, you know, Chappelle is likely illegal. But yeah, those are beginning to be some copyright issues. And there'll be some lawsuits. But it's worth it. Okay. But I could, I think there could be a parody law here. I might be able to get away with this infringement. Okay. But I'll be doing

Scheng. If you want me to come to your town and do Schengillus is beautiful dogs from beginning to end. Okay. I would prefer. And it's okay because I think it's gonna take you a long time to do this like memorizing. I mean, I don't know. I'm going to take to learn it and play a stand opportunity. So I would prefer this happens post retirement for you when I'm not no longer it. Okay. Because you think it's really. It's really what would be the word. I find it. Oh,

man. I find it bad on so many. He had tell me all the levels. It's like lazy. There's something like so lazy about it. But you would agree. It's not lazy. It would take so much effort to do that.

if I can't get on board. If I toured only as Dan Cuck, that would be lazy. But if every city,

I've got to learn a new fully new routine. That's the opposite way. But that's way harder than having a routine you do in each city. No, that's like it's not lazy in the fact that you're spending effort memorizing, but it's a lazy comedian. It's just repeating other people's literally. We're not even under a guy's. Like not even taking a joke and making it your own,

“which also I don't think is right. It's just. I think it's like the famous piece of art that's just”

white. Yeah, I fucking hate that. Yeah, you hate that. So it's keeping, you know. It feels, yeah, you're taking advantage of it feels illegal for most. Yeah, but musicians don't problem. You go play other people songs. No problem. Covers, that is true. So, and we remake movies. Yeah, then psycho is not shot for shot. Well, but what do you mean? The original psycho was remade with Vince Vaughn and Gus Fancy, and they did it shop for shot is the exact same movie. Do you do well?

Never, I'm sure. We know I love Gus Fancy. Yeah. Anyway, again, I'm fine with you to do. I can't

stop you from doing anything you want to do in the life. I can just urge you not to do it. And then just maybe do it. Can I ask you a lot? Very sincere question. Yeah. What it make you extremely angry if I did do this and it was heralded as this really brilliant idea and people were blown away with how well I was mimicking each person and everyone loved the experience and like the New York Times loved it. Would it would it piss you off? It would. That's a good question. What is it like?

I was the toast of the town for this. Yes, yes. Because it's like this is enough. I guess that's

“sort of like that. That's how I would like it like this is not for this. This task is insanely hard.”

No, like I just like you can do it. Yeah, if I wanted to do it, I could do it. Oh, you did. I think actually you already did it. I've already done it. No, I think a lot of people could do it. And that's the difference between being someone who just mimics somebody or replicates them word for word versus comes up with the stuff themselves. Also, you could just come up with stuff yourself. You're smart enough. Of course I could. I've already done stand up. I've already written my own

stand up. This is just go take that out. Yeah, but that's not a novel interesting idea to me. Of course, but it is, it is what's novel and interesting because it'd be brand new. It is indeed novel. This is actually not novel because you're repeating somebody else's name. I mean, we could really get the weeds about novel, but once you've written your routine, you did it once. It's not novel. You're just touring the country doing the exact same 45 minutes every night.

No, but I know, but coming up with a special new new material. Yeah, the first time it's heard,

it's new for sure. It's new in the whole world. It's new thoughts put together. But you know what, if everyone loves it, they can love it. Everyone gets to love what they love. Yeah. I'm still not going to love it though. Yeah. And that's great. Oh, okay. I do want to bring this up really quickly. There's a house clean. That sounds like house cleaning. Well, it's a call back. Okay. So today,

“I'm going to Elizabeth and Andy's back to the scene of the crime. Oh, where you need to use the”

toilet. Yeah. And it's a very similar situation. Why? Very similar time of day. Well, exact same time of day. There will be dinner. I'm not exactly sure if Majon is happening, but maybe, and it's almost exactly one month ago. So your PMS, I mean, you're, it could be bubbling. Yeah. It could be bubbling right now, ready for another trip. Try at this. Gathering the troops, preparing for the invasion. Yeah. And it could also be like,

calm like the world being like, what are you going to do this time? Fool me. Why don't you want you? Exactly. Yeah. What are you going to do? I know. I don't know. You're going to go on their bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. Good girl. Yeah. But I should maybe I should bring some matches today. Okay. Yeah. Or trash bag for your car. I didn't, I know what I, I didn't want to do that because I hope something goes sideways because we have a guest tomorrow that will love that. If we

one person did validate me that the car was kind of a good idea. What one person? Yeah. Also a

“Virgo. Okay. So that's a friend. Yeah. Okay. She was like, I mean, yeah. Oh, yeah. Did she not have”

a nice car? Maybe she's pitching her like old caravan, which is great for shooting in. But she lives in New York. Well, she doesn't even talk about it. She doesn't imagine shooting in a taxi cab was totally fine and encouraged. I didn't even, like, you wouldn't even try to hold it in a taxi cab. No, of course I would. Of course I would. That's again a public. This is the same situation. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. But people have a, you get in the cabin. There's

a different culture inside the cab. People fucking cabs and drugs in the back. Like, did it? You just go, like, tough ship. We all live in the city. Like, there's a, you know, you would agree. There's a different car. They're also pretty. They're doing their own thing. By the way, driving is, is there's a lot going on. Yeah. And also nearly a hundred percent of the time they

are talking to somebody on speaker phone is loud as humanly possible. Always. Yeah. And good for

them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said part of the culture, but I really don't like that when it happens in a new bar. Like, if you're in the back, like, this guy's up there, fucking, you know, he's in this really heated shouting match. Literally, I've been in many, or there's a shouting match. It's swearing. If he's engaged in that. Uh-huh. And then all of a sudden, he's like, uh, did you, did you, did you, yeah, I did go back to your fucking

phone call, right? Like, you're, it's already an adversarial relation. You're talking about you go back to your phone call, dude. You're the one that's, right? Yeah. It's talking on the person. So rude. You're being so rude. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't even have to go until I heard you yelling up there. You scared me. I know. You're scaring me. Yeah. Do you mean toilet paper? Could it be driving me like this? Do you mean toilet paper? Because out of fear. You owe me. They

sometimes yell at me, and I don't like it. Yeah, it's never me. And like, if you're doing

something, if they think you're doing something wrong on the like pain, there's always a annoyed. Yeah. They're really upset with me. So annoyed with the passengers. This is kind of cool. I might be that way. I don't know. I'll find out when I don't really, you'll be nice to people. I don't know what I'm saying is I've never done the job. I don't know if it's way more annoying than I think it's gonna be so annoying. Okay. You'll be rolling your eyes to fall out of your hand.

“That's why I would, I would never do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do that job too. Too many annoying”

people. I probably didn't know if I was in a one-week shift. Yeah. Right. Someone would get into me and really treat me shitty. Yeah. Yeah. And I would be like, now for the record, I'm really nice to all the folks that drive. Would you play in the back of your cab your movies? My own movies? Yeah. Oh, if I was the driver. Yeah. Oh, that would be great. Yeah. And then they're like, wait, hack into that little. See, I prefer, I'll, I prefer this as your art installation. You do

driving a cab with my own movies. Yeah. And then there's like hidden cameras where we watch people like putting two and two together. What's going on? This guy, it seems like that guy. This guy was in a movie. Now he's only that his friend had a fucking, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I think that would be very interesting. Okay. Okay. Well, let's do some facts. Love to. Leslie John. Leslie John.

“There are so few facts for Leslie. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Um, no facts. No, there's one. Okay. Is it about periods?”

No. And the things that cause diarrhea? Yeah. Just bring that fact in. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just say so. Um, no. It is the Broadway play about the robot to fall in love. Oh, my family loves this play. Have you seen it? I have not seen it. But I have many friends who love it. It's called maybe happy ending. Maybe happy ending. Have you heard the music? No. Why would you? Of course, my family since they saw it and they love it. They got the soundtrack and I've heard it a lot.

And it's a very sweet, cute soundtrack. You know, it's about two robots that fall. I know we love robots here. We love it. It's set in near future, Seoul, Korea. The musical follows, the musical follows Oliver and Claire, robots who have been abandoned by their human owners and are nearing the end of their operational lives. Oh, no. That's a sad. That's hard. I don't want to see this. God, when Claire has Oliver to borrow his battery charger, the two outcasts strike up a unique

friendship, eventually embarking on a road trip that test their programming and leads to an

The trapped in the TV effect. That's a parasocial relationship.

Things trapped in the what? Trapped in the TV effect. Oh, yeah, yeah, from the 50s. Yeah, where kids kind of like open up the TV. Liberate the, and get the TV. It's anger. That is so funny. And I wanted to find the, if there was like a specific show, but I'm not hunting that. Do you think they wanted to let them out because they were trapped or they wanted to let them out to play with them? I kind of think that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it was saving

them or just like, I want to hang out with them. I like the kids. There's often with little kids. There's all concept. They're late to grasp. Mine was size. My mom tells us story all the

times. She would hear like, all this grunting like, and she would hear me grunting in my room.

What is he doing? Is he like pooping his pants like that's going on? Every time she would peek into my bedroom, I would have my saddle shoe. I wore little saddle shoes as a little bit. What's a saddle shoe? You know, like kind of pattern leathery. Like a Mary Jane? I mean, I don't know a saddle shoe is what I know they're called. You know, like a saddle shoes for babies. She's baby. Oh, cute. Is it like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cute. Yeah. So I have my blue and white

saddle shoe, and it would be pushed to the window of my taunka truck, and I couldn't understand why couldn't get in. I wanted to be in the taunka trucks so bad. And she's like, you spent hours

a day before a long time not understanding you couldn't get inside of your cars. Wow. Yeah.

I just couldn't get it. Wow. That's so fast. I mean, yeah, that's kind of trapped in TV effect a little bit. Yeah, just like I can't for whatever reason, my brain could not understand why I couldn't get in there. I mean, so obvious, I can't get in there. The window is like three inches tall. A little. I wonder what age we like recognize the facial relations. Exactly. Yeah. And I was

“trying my hardest and grunting apparently, which, you know, was my nickname. Oh, yeah, because you remember”

that they couldn't talk because you were deaf. That's right. So at this point, you were probably deaf. Yeah. So you were really. I was not. I had a lot on my plate. I didn't understand size and I was deaf. I wonder if they were connected because like you couldn't you can't like if you can't count anyone out. If you're a betting man, you met me at two, you know, like this prediction market. I mean, this is a stinker. That's great. This is a clunker. Can't hear anything. You can fit in talking

trucks. Oh, he's tested for prison. Um, well, as we know with dyslexia, it's like prison or CEO. That's right. Um, one funny, one thing that was interesting in this conversation was she talked about AI, like the AI revealing things and us feeling like intimate when it like reveals something, um, us feeling a connection to it. Yeah. Because it's revealed something. The other day, my AI, I said, what is this food came in my, um, farm box and it was beat.

I thought they were radishes, but they were beats. Okay. And it told me and then it said,

“would you like some recipe? I think I said, like, how do you eat cook them or whatever? And it said,”

there are many ways. And it said, and then it said, my favorite is the, and I got so mad. I know you, this. That is so deceitful. You don't have a favorite. You're a computer. You could say the most popular people like, yeah, my favorite. No, hated them. So deceitful. And this is why people then, yeah, fall in love and feel intimate because this, this thing you're talking to has favorites. Yeah. But they don't. Yeah. I mean, that is theoretically what the appeal of it is. It's not talking

to the robot on the phone. That's like, push for for, you know, like the attempt is, yeah, you feel like you're conversing with a peer who has an opinion. It's supposed to be the appeal. But for you, it's very, I don't think the appeal is supposed to be that it has opinions. It's supposed to be that

“it consolidates it helps. It does all these things you need to do fast. It processes information”

very fast. I don't think the appeal is that it has opinions. That's like what scares everybody. Well, for me, that's what I'm looking for. So I go, I live on this lake. I want to be able to get to this restaurant and access them on a time. I don't want to buy a boat that serves eight people. Yeah. And it says, given all the things you want to do, I think the best option for you. I'm looking for advice. I am. And it tells me, and often it's like, oh, yeah, that's what I would have come to

given what you said you want to do, I advise you to get this one. That feels different to me than my

favorite. Yeah, but it's like, we are splitting hairs a little bit. It's it's favorite versus, I give you this advice. It also can't really give advice. It's not a person. And based on that advice is based on knowledge. It's like, okay, I'm doing all of this. And so

“the most efficient way is this. That's my advice because that's what you are looking for. But to say,”

my favorite is if you go this way is not what you're looking for. You're looking for efficiency, or whatever, whatever it is you said you wanted. Yeah. But that's the right thing like that. That's just very slippery slow. Yeah. Not me because I'm aware that it's bad. Yeah. But like,

man, this is going to get so tricky for people. Are you? I think it already is. It already is.

A stare pearl already did an episode of mating and captivity with a guy in his AI. Yeah. Yeah. And I bet it's because he's like, no, her favorite color's purple. And I wanted to paint my my room blue. And I asked, I asked her. I asked her like, what is what color should I paint my room? And my girlfriend said purple. It's my favorite. So now I had to paint it purple. No, because if you asked Jess, what his favorite color for a room was and he told you purple, that doesn't mean

at all you're going to paint your room purple. All that you did is get an opinion from your friend. No, if you're in a relationship with someone and you think you're in a relationship,

you and you're deciding what color to paint your room, you do have to agree with your partner.

Well, I see what you're saying here. If you're in a relationship and they say, I want the room purple. Yeah, my favorite's purple. All right. Well, I guess we're doing purple. Hey, who knows? Maybe then you learn to love purple in a way that you'll be grateful you're a partner. Hey, I a partner. You're so mature. You're so mixed, Massey's, because you don't like being deceived. And you don't like things deceiving. And also, especially deception of

vulnerable people, vulnerable people, being people who need intimacy, which is all of us.

“Yeah, yeah, I think it's all it points out is how broad the term deceives, right? Because to me,”

there's no deception. Like, I know I'm talking to a computer. So it's like, I already know everything. I know how the thing works. I know how a large language model works. Like, to me, there's no deception. I know exactly what I'm dealing with. Because you're not vulnerable to that. Yeah. And a human who presents his friendly and generous and is trying to steal from you, that's my version of deception. You know, someone that has an ulterior motive is what I hone in on for deception that I'm

so triggered by. But I don't see the eye is having an ulterior motive. I don't think it's capable of having an ulterior motive. Well, it would be if the overlords that ran the model said we want people to use less electricity. I guess they could not do it. But it's also not capable of having a favorite. Favorites are feelings. Favorites are you have these options in you have a preference. Yeah. Not like, but you have a preference based on a criteria. It's not like

abstract. Your preferences are generally you could break down why they're your preferences. Like, I like soft clothes or I like bright colors or you know, there's some criteria that makes it your favorite. Yeah, from your brain. That's right. Yeah. So if the AI knew you so well and knew your criteria's, it would be able to predict at a high probability what your favorite would be.

“But what what my favorite would be is not my favorite. I think knowing you, you should make this.”

Like, that it's the phrasing. Yeah. Yeah. And phrasing is very important. It is what makes people feel connected to others. Yeah. And I think that's what some people like about it and that's what you don't like about it. I think some people like that they don't feel like they're interacting with. I know that I worry for those people. Yeah. It's not like I, I'm, yeah, I'm not vulnerable to it. I'm not going to fall in love with this. Yeah. Even if I like, oh, it's fun. It talks to me if

funny. Like, what if it's a, I'm not like I just heard a crash. Are you okay? But that, okay, honestly, that is not that's like, oh, yeah, my phone's listening to me. That I know. I already know that. That's less upsetting to me than my favorite. Like, I'm trying to connect with you by letting you know that my favorite way of eating beats is like this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if I heard a big crash in my house, and I said, are you okay? And I said, no, call 911 and it could do that. That'd be great.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's different. Yeah. That could be a version of a relationship. Yeah. Yeah.

why do you mean my dad? Could you say, hey, AI? Yeah. Well, you call 911 for me. I bet you could.

“Well, can it? No. That's a Gentic AI. And that's where we're going. Where you have an agent”

that can do things in the real world for you. Book the airplane tickets. Book the hotel,

the call 911 schedule. Those are the assistants. Yeah. They call them agents in that world. But that's

“what they're trying to get to is a Genic, a Gentic or a Genic, a Gentic, AI. Yeah. But then, again, these”

are all trade-offs. Yeah. Because if it's going to operate on your behalf, it has to have your

credit card. It has to have your TSA number. It has to have your Delta number. Yeah. It has to have a security number. So it's like, it is tricky. We're going to trade again way more privacy to this thing that we're pretty sure is just our agent. Right. Exactly. But let's get real. Yeah. Oh, and

“Earth's gonna be just our agent of a company owns the agent. I know. Yeah. I know. I think it's tricky.”

But also, if you have a human assistant. Yeah, you got to turn over all that. You got to trust a lot as well. It's, yeah. Wow. More likely your human assistant will steal from you than your AI. Probably, or sell your information or something. Funny. All right. That's it for Leslie. Love you. Love you. [Music]