Sibling Chat: The Friends Episode

Welcome to Season 2 of the podcast! 

The evolution of the Grind.EXP podcast into its new form as the Thoroughly Overthinking It podcast brings a new season, new look, new format, and now, guests. This episode doesn't screw around with talking about the new changes though. We're hopping right into a sibling chat talking about friends throughout the years and how those friends met the family. 

Enjoy listening to one of the most relaxed and, hopefully, relatable episodes released yet, and don't forget to follow along for new episodes 2x a month. 

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Hiya! Welcome to Thoroughly Overthinking It. This is episode one of season two and the first episode since the original iteration of the podcast formerly known as Grind XP. This week we are doing a sibling chat where my sister and I will dive into friend group integration and how we navigate introducing, sharing, and navigating blending your friend circles.

and how that affects the family dynamic, uh, in what will likely be a bit of a trip down memory lane.

Now, if you've listened to any of the episodes from the previous incarnation of the podcast, you'll note that a guest is a totally new thing that we're introducing as we launch Thoroughly Overthinking It. It makes so much sense why some of the best podcasts can make it look so easy with two people. Uh, Anna, why don't you go ahead and [00:01:00] introduce yourself to the people who listen to this podcast, all five of them.

Okay. Um, I'm Anna. I am Sean's older sister and I currently live, oh my God, on the other side of the country from you. So it's always really nice to be able to just chat. We don't do it nearly often enough. But we've done it twice this week. I know. There's no evidence of the first one though. We do. We do.

Yes, this needs to be a regular thing, as I say to mom every single time that we actually get on a phone call together, like, Oh yeah, we should make this a regular thing. Yeah, totally. Let's do it. We'll absolutely do it. And then a month, two months, three months go by and I either get the, the, the text message from her that's, I wish my children called me more often, or I actually do call her and she doesn't pick up.

And then I ended up sending a passive aggressive text. Uh, about how it must be so nice to have a mother who, you know, picks [00:02:00] up the phone when her children call. I always just say, what's the point of you even having a phone if you're not going to pick it up? Yeah, that's good. I like that one too. I don't even go with passive aggressive.

It's just straight up aggressive. Yeah. Uh, all right, well, let's talk about our topic today. Um, today is friend group integration and how that, um, kind of historically how that's gone for us. I think it's an interesting topic for us to talk about as siblings. Um, cause we've definitely had, we've had a lot of different friend interaction, group dynamics, and I don't think we're going to have any like groundbreaking insights into this, but I'd like to.

As the title of the podcast suggests, let's just thoroughly overthink this and talk about this. Um, well, yeah, let's dive into the dynamics of friend circles. Now, when it comes to friend circles, we typically have, [00:03:00] they change a lot over time, so your first one is kind of developed when you're a child.

You're in school, you have after school activities, that kind of thing. Um, we didn't know each other when we were child age. Ours was early adult when mom and dad decided to adopt me and then I met you a few years later. Let's talk about, uh, let's talk about friends and how, how those friendships developed, like how for you did friends kind of, how did your friend circle develop?

What was your friend circle like as a kid? And we can dive into like the adult stuff after that. Really, I'll be completely honest. My friend circles. As a kid, I am sad to say that I don't talk to any of the people that I was friends with as a kid anymore. I know there's people that do, [00:04:00] and I've always been rather envious of that, but my friend circle as a child just naturally, I, I don't know, naturally just fell, fell apart and fell to the wayside as things got older.

I know that as a kid, making friends was just so much freaking easier. It's just like, Hey, I'm playing on the swing. You want to go play on the swing kind of thing? And then all of a sudden you've got a friend throughout your entire elementary Into junior high and sometimes all the way through it, but into high school That's just how it worked.

Mm-hmm . Yeah. It could be as simple as, Hey, I, I, I wanna play mermaids. Do you wanna play mermaids? Yeah. Like that video , I wanna play mermaids. Mine. Yeah. Mine was, um, I was, I am sure that you've heard the stories. I was notorious for crawling around on all fours, like a freaking horse. Yeah. So [00:05:00] that's always what me and my friends would.

Collectively do is like, Oh my God, I love horses. Let's pretend to play. Let's play horses kind of thing. That's what we did. You were the origin of the horse girl epidemic. Absolutely. You're welcome.

It started in, it started in Wyoming. Actually, it probably did. So it says probably actually not far off. I joke, but it's probably in all seriousness where it started. Yeah. Now I, I, I mean, Psychologically, we, we change a lot when we're kids. Like our childhood is all about, is all about developing your identity.

So it's actually not that uncommon for your childhood friends to just grow apart because Every relationship does that, whether it's a friendship, whether it's a close relationship, sometimes even family relationships, um, especially like romantic relationships. If you, as you grow as a person, which is what I, you know, it happens a lot in like younger, [00:06:00] especially like younger romantic relationships.

As you grow and develop as a person, you might actually grow apart from each other. Your interests, your goals, like everything kind of like heads in different directions. And when that happens. The relationship or the friendship naturally kind of just disintegrates Totally normal. It's expected. I think if I knew this as a kid things would have made more sense Yeah, I don't think it would have been so hard to lose friends as a kid if there was the You know, the logic that you have, uh, as an adult, because like you said, people grow apart, whether it's because of distance, whether it's because of interests, whether it's because of values, morals, family structures, all kinds of different things.

But as a kid, all you know, is, Hey, why don't I talk to my friend anymore? Yeah, you definitely, you definitely are learning about the process of, of loss and growing up and all of that as a kid, which, you know, all valuable lessons, where would we be today if we didn't have those lessons, but [00:07:00] still would've been nice if someone had given me a handbook.

Um, I did manage to, so not so much, um, friendships as a kid. There's obviously those, those people that I was very close friends with still exist to some extent out there. Um, they didn't all magically disappear. Um, Had they then I probably should be checked out by a therapist or psychologist to understand why I had so many imaginary friends.

Um, but I do not have imaginary friends. They were all very real. They are all still very much alive, I think, for the most part. Um, but obviously have no have no actual active relationship with them. I did, however, when I got into high school and I started to push back on a lot of the things that I just kind of blindly accepted from my parents and the religious group that they were.

Um, I had that, Oh, I [00:08:00] wonder if everything I've been told is the truth. I started to question things and started to like dig into things on my own and started formulating my own opinions. That wonderful age when you become a teenager and suddenly, um, stereotypically you hate your parents. And you start rebelling, my rebellion was very quiet, but my rebellion was being friends with the people that my parents told me that I should not be friends with, because I legitimately sparked curiosity of like, why shouldn't I be friends with them, they look like totally normal people, but my parents didn't want me hanging around with them because bad people.

And so I was like, Okay, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure out who these people are. And one of the people that was high, high on the parents shit list. Was this one girl, and I went up to her one day, I think we were at church, and I went up to her and I was just like, Hey, very straightforward, as I, as I am wont to do, uh, and I was like, hey, I, uh, my parents don't like you, and have told me to stay [00:09:00] away from you, but I'm not really sure why that is, because I think you're actually pretty cool, and I'd like to form an opinion about you myself.

And she was like, uh, okay, that's good, very taken aback because most teenagers are not that straightforward. No, no, no. Yeah, it was very, uh, not what she was expecting. We are still very good friends to this day. Um, it has been probably 25 years and we're still really, really good friends. There's like a handful of other people that I knew at that time who I am somewhat close with, but she's, she's definitely the one person who from that.

I would call childhood friend circle has actually stuck around. So yeah, childhood friends are definitely, those are very, very rare. Um, some people do kind of escape childhood with like one or two people they ended up sticking with over, you know, the development and growth years of becoming an adult. But how did your, how did [00:10:00] your friend circles kind of change when you got to like, I guess, 21, 22, because like once people start drinking, that usually that drastically shifts who you are friends with, because.

You're hanging out with people you can drink with, you know, versus the other people that you can't drink with. I can, I can legitimately say, um, I got, you know, I got married extremely young. So my friends were my ex husband's friends who were all older than me. So I didn't have the I didn't have the drinking buddies.

I didn't have the like, clubbing girlfriends or anything like that. All of my friends were just I kind of just absorbed into what was already there. I do not speak with anybody that I spoke with in my 20s, simply because even at the time, I had nothing in [00:11:00] common with these people. It was just where I happened to be in what I happened to be doing.

Yeah, well, it happens a lot. I didn't really start getting good, firm foundational friendships up until my thirties. And now I've had friends, people that I've been friends with for the past 10 to 12 years, and it's the same friends. And I love that, but that didn't really happen until I started really becoming who I'm supposed to be.

Yeah. Yeah. I think as an outside observer looking at, um, Your twenties and your thirties. I can definitely I can definitely say like your thirties were when you did start to kind of Decide who you were going to be and very much. I mean not that you weren't your own person in your 20s You definitely were, and you were a lot of fun, but you were also still very much figuring yourself out.

Um, I think most people are. If you know who you are when you're in your 20s, congratulations. Oh yeah, yeah. 100%. [00:12:00] 100%. Um, although I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna run with that and say I, I kinda did know who I was, who I was gonna be. Although for me it really was after 25. Because I mean, I came out at, when I was what, 20, almost 21.

I was a month away from being 21. I came out and so my first five years of being an out gay man were all about kind of being a teenager, like an adult teenager who could drink, but an adult teenager. Mm-hmm. Was really . And that's a very common thing with like. People who are queer, who go through that process of coming out, but much later in life, especially from my generation, our generation.

We didn't usually grow up in homes that were really super conducive to coming out. Um, you did, um, more so than my family was the exception to the rule though. Very much. So very much. So mine, no, it [00:13:00] was stereotypical Christian family to, to a T. Um, so yeah, so the, my first five years were very much about like discovering myself.

Um, but I also think I hit the ground running really, really hard because I got kicked out of the house when I was 20. Had to start figuring out how to be a functioning adult so early on, all the while trying to come out and, you know, live my life like a carefree rainbow farting idiot, you know, for five years.

Um, it was, it was, it was. It was a crash course in growing up is what it was. That's really what it was. Thankfully, mom, our mom, did a really good job of telling me how to be an adult and how to do things that were, you know, uh. Not stupid, you know, like, uh, you know, not burning the oil out of your car.

That's stuff like that. Um, oh, yeah. Yeah Useful to [00:14:00] have parents who tell you a story Uh huh. Well, we'll have to dive into that one at some point in time. I was gonna say wait at some point We have to do a A conversation about some of that stupid shit that is still trotted out in Family Holidays. Oh yeah, oh, Family Stories is a whole episode that I would love for us to do at some point in time in the future, so yeah.

That will definitely come up. Maybe that will be like a group guest episode with one of the other siblings, that would be fun. Yes. That'd be fun. But yes, no. glorious train wreck. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But no, the, uh, the, the early twenties were definitely rough for me. Um, I do feel like I made a lot of great friends.

Lost a good chunk of the early friends. Like that was very much transitional period for me where I like a lot of the older friends, we grew apart, fell off, things stopped and we stopped talking all of that in that, in that five years. But I also felt like I kicked off a lot of really good friendships in those first five years.

[00:15:00] Um, a handful of them that I'm still really, really good friends with, um, friend of mine. Um, and her daughter who live in Colorado, we're still very, very close, call each other all the time. I say that, that's kind of a lie, we don't call each other as often as we should. Um, I had a small, um, small group of people that I became really good friends with.

I think when I was 23, 24. Um, that group fell apart, but my roommate and also part of that group at the time, she and I are still very, very close. Um, so like I had, I think. My 20s, I definitely started figuring things out and I felt like I had things figured out pretty well Towards the end of my 20s like 28 was when I moved to New York.

Yeah, I think I was 28 when I moved to New York Yeah, so like I knew what I wanted to do I knew where I was going and I was ready to to get into it But, fun fact, since we're [00:16:00] talking, you know, generationally, or not generationally, but decade blocks here, Um, I also knew when I was 28 that I wanted to spend some time at 28 getting to know myself a little bit better.

So, like, taking time away from the dating apps and, Um, I would say crazy partying, but no, I did a lot of crazy partying when I was in New York. Um, mostly taking a break from the dating apps to focus on myself and focus on work. Um, and one of the things that I wanted to do and focusing on myself was like, learn how to be a better friend.

Can't say that I was successful at it, but I did learn a lot about myself and about being, you know, about having friends and maintaining those friendships. Um, so for me, those like early adulthood friends. Were there was a lot of them. I feel like I made friends very easily Um, and I hung on to the good ones Like there were a handful of really good people that like came out of that that hung on to now [00:17:00] 30s 30s are where things really changed I think for both of us like you had mentioned too Which is what kind of led us to hear about kind of like figuring 30s And building those friendships there.

What did you find? Or how did you find the? friend Making process, um, in your 30s. Like what was that like for you? Um, in my early 30s, it was Making friends was just extremely awkward. The majority of the people that you make friends with her acquaintances from work or my the friends that I currently have are Holdovers from a friend group from my last boyfriend I am still very very close friends with three of the seven people that we spent time with and That's really how I managed to make friends when I was in my early 30s was just making friends of people that [00:18:00] I knew.

Yeah, like, if that makes any sense. I was invited to a couple of parties in my early 30s by acquaintances, or, like I said, this ex boyfriend, and I made friendships there and just held on to them. As I started to get older into my mid to late 30s. And even now in my early 40s, I find And I'm sure this is true of everybody.

But I find as I get older, there's fewer fucks given. So now I find it's easier to make real honest friends, because I am being who I am. And just me being me draws in the kind of people that I want to have around me. And the people that I would have to hide myself for the people that I would have to tailor myself for just naturally.

aren't interested in who I am as a person. So I have better friendships now because I know who I am [00:19:00] and I am nothing. I am unapologetically me and any interaction that I have with people. I feel that. I think, I think it was, I think it was definitely easier in my 30s. I say in my 30s, I'm still technically 39.

Um, it was easier in the majority of my 30s to Again, no fucks given. 100 percent agree with that. Like you very much get to the point where you're like, I'm so tired of drama. I don't I don't have time for drama. Like who has the time for drama? Yeah. Um, and I found that weeded out a lot of people living in New York.

You like, you socialize with a lot of people. You have friends from work, you have friends of friends, you have friends parties, you have people that know your friends. You have event friends. Like there's a lot of different friend groups and there's a lot of, a lot of people. You kinda start to get into that.

You start to understand the dynamic of friendship levels. Um, that sounds very reductionist, but like for the sake of like easily categorizing things into something that [00:20:00] you can kind of like talk about, like having your best friends, which Gen Z says best friends, best friends are over. And to a certain extent, I can see, I can see how they, you know, I can see why, but you have best friends, people that you could.

You've probably been through some shit with the people that you've probably fought with the people that you've probably had major disagreements with, but you've come back around and it's made your friendship stronger. You can tell them anything, that kind of thing, those best friends, you have that group.

And then you have your close friends, the people that you don't have issues with. You're probably very similar. You have a lot of the same interests and you just have a good time with whenever you're around them. It's just, you know, they're just great people to be around. You're very closely aligned. And then you have just like what I would call like casual friend, someone who's like, maybe, maybe someone that you know, from work, who's like, you're okay with hanging out with, they might have some dodgy ideas.

They may have some dodgy perspectives, but as [00:21:00] long as you don't touch on those, you know, sensitive things, you're okay, you know, nothing's going to go wrong. So you can start to get into that, you start to get into that, like, like categorization of friends, or you understand, I should say, you don't necessarily actively categorize, you start to understand those categorizations.

And that starts to kind of change who is part of your circle. Like who is, who is part of your friend's circle at that point in time? Um, so yeah, I, I, I completely agree with you there. I think I also, in my thirties, I also really started to dive into making friends online. I definitely, I definitely didn't see the point of having online friends until probably right before I moved to New York.

Um, I met a few people online through Twitter and made friends with them and hung out with them briefly when I moved to New York, um, but didn't really pursue that. It was, it was one of those [00:22:00] things. I think growing up, we also were very conditioned to like people on the internet are probably untrustworthy kind of mentality.

Yeah. We were definitely of that generation of the person that you're talking to on the other end of the line is a pedophile. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, you don't really, you don't really go in with the idea that like having friends online is a thing. I don't think it was until I was in my thirties, um, that I started going, Oh wait, online friends are a legitimate thing.

Like this can be, it's going to be a thing. And people have like really strong, significant relationships. Um, and that introduced a whole new friend circle. So like, I mean, this podcast is all about. Or this episode is all about, um, friend circles. Like, let's, let's actually start diving into now those friend circles.

Um, I think again, my twenties were very much about like kind of having those friends circles, but I didn't notice when I was probably 27, 28, I noticed that like my, [00:23:00] actually, it was probably, it was probably more in my thirties. I think, yeah, kind of follows the same path of like, kind of figuring stuff out and also not giving a fuck about things.

I started to realize that I had very distinct groups or distinct circles of people. I actually even did like a whole, you remember when those like, um, Facebook had those little like, Revaluate your friend circles thing, or like rate your profile, like those little plug in things, the things that were stealing your information like crazy and we were just giving it away to them because it was cool.

Um. Yep. Yes. Yeah. Um, I did one of those one time. Um, through a, it was Wolfram Alpha. Which is actually a legit, it's a legit, um, website, I think, or maybe it's not legit. I don't, I don't actually know. It was pretty legit at the time. Um, but they did like, it was essentially data and they would compile data and kind of pull it together and show you what cool things they could tell you from that data.

So one of the things they did was the friend circles thing. And they could show [00:24:00] you based on the relationships between different people in your Facebook profile data, they could tell you how distinct your circles were and where those circles intersected. And I looked at mine and I had five separate friend circles, like five distinct untouched friend circles.

I was like, how do these things never interact with each other? And I became very, very aware of the fact that I had a hard time at the time, integrating my friend circles. Like my friend groups just didn't intersect and that's led to a lot of thoughts, which we can dive into more as this episode goes on.

But, um, I'd be really curious, like. Did you ever have a moment where in like your 30s where you kind of thought about like here are how many friend groups I hang out with or how many friend circles I have? Um, are they all distinct? Were they one big giant circle? Was it all kind of a mishmash? What was it like for you?[00:25:00] 

It wasn't really an aha moment in my 30s. It was very much a I have three very distinct friend circles. I have three very Different sides of me that these friend circles are seeing and I still kind of have that not as much now They're integrated a little bit more but in my 30s, I had my gamer friends.

Mm hmm. I had my outdoorsy friends And I had my book friends, and they did not intersect at all. You'd think the gamers and the book friends would intersect a little bit, but they didn't. Yeah, not as much. Not as much. And now, now I still have my gamer friends, but I've discovered that my gamer friends and my outdoorsy friends actually work very well together.

Which, you know. Just kind of works out that way and I my I have my book friends But [00:26:00] my book friends also work well with my outdoorsy friends And I also have there's this one friend that I have retained since my early 30s who I'll be completely honest I don't think I could introduce him to any of my other friends because they would not know how to handle him And he is my he is my we're just gonna act like silly stupid bitches friend.

Yeah Yeah, yeah, there is always, it seems like there's always one, one person, one friend who's not really a part of any of your other circles, or if they are, they're very loosely associated with one, and they're kind of just your friend. And it's not because they're like. A bad person or anything. They're just, it's just they won't work.

They're weird. They won't really, really integrate with anyone else. Yeah. They, they tap into a, a special side of you. They bring out a side of you. Yeah. They bring out a side of you that is not, it's, it's, it is who you are. Mm-hmm . But it's an aspect of you [00:27:00] that very few people see and that you yourself don't normally do.

I was actually I was working with him in the office yesterday. We didn't get a damn thing done because we were just being, um, catty, dark, humored bitches all day. And it was fun. It was a great day, but I'm very glad we were the only people there. Cause we would have offended a lot of people. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Sounds about right. Sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. I, I completely understand the whole, like the, the different sides of you kind of, there's one of the things that I realized with like my five different circles. I was like, why, one, why are these people all, why are there so many distinct circles that don't really overlap?

And part of it was like group dynamics. Like these people just really wouldn't, there's, you know, they wouldn't integrate. Um, but two of them were like in New York. And then you would think that like in New York, like there's gotta be some sort of crossover. Oh, [00:28:00] no, no crossover. There might've been like one thread that was like, this person is also friends with this person.

And, you know, in this group, I'm like, Oh, cool. There's one person that would like potentially integrate. Um, but. I also realized that with each group, they got a part of me that they knew that was part of the est how we established the friendship initially. Yeah. Um, and that was the part that just we had like the interests, and Um, we had the interests that we shared and the perspectives on things that we shared and that was, that was how we built that relationship and that's how that circle kind of grew.

So, yeah, it was, it was, it was interesting to kind of look at all of that and kind of break all of that down. When it comes to my digital, like my online friends. I've realized that, like, the diversity there is a [00:29:00] lot more, just a lot more. There's, there's quite a bit of, quite a bit of diversity in, like, all of the different types of people.

Because it's very accessible. You have, you know, people who live anywhere in the world, from any country, um, a variety of cultural backgrounds, um, people that you wouldn't normally have access to because you live where you do in the, you know, in the United States, in this particular point in the world. And it was interesting to see that, like the friends that I made online, it was easier to kind of integrate a lot of them into each other.

I will still say that, like, I still feel like a lot of that is like its own process. I did the same thing when I moved to Austin, where I found a large group of people that I was like, Oh, cool. A new group of friends, like bigger people. Very casual, casually friends with a lot of them, but I started to pick and, you know, find the people that [00:30:00] were the most in sync with me and we became better friends as a result.

And then that group kind of faded, but these people stuck around. So it was really, really nice. Um, I will say coming up on my forties. Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say, it's not really high up on the list of things to do it's I've, I have my friends, the relationships that I currently have. They're very strong.

And I just, I don't, I don't want to say I don't have the time. It's more, I don't have the energy. Oh, I absolutely have the time. A hundred percent have the time. I don't have the will. All the time in the world. I mean, I'm today, the only thing I've done. After I got, you know, some errands done in the morning this morning, I [00:31:00] don't have anything else going on except sitting around my house, enjoying my own company.

It's just I don't have the energy to socialize or to try and make a new friend. Yeah. I do find that like the friends that I do make now kind of happen, not by accident, but it just kind of naturally develops in an unavoidable way. Yeah, it's like if I do make a friend now, it seems, it seems like it's easier now.

Then it was when I was younger simply and by younger. I mean like my 20s in my early 30s. It seems easier now Because it's it's like it not I'm not trying and the energy doesn't have to be put forth. It just happens Mm hmm. Yeah, it's just it feels like it clicks immediately rather than feeling like something that needs to be yeah It doesn't feel like it's forced.

It's not like oh, hey constant constant invitations to [00:32:00] go do this or this. It's just hey Honestly, for me, a lot of my, some of my closer friends are just going out and doing things like, I, I won't go so far as to say I'm a hiker. I'm not, I'm not out. I'm not outdoorsy. I'm outsidey. So I have my outside y friends and that just kind of develops like a or just talking about things that I'm going to be doing around the house or that they're going to be doing around their house and then it's just a hey, I'll come over and help kind of thing and it just works naturally that way.

Yep. I see that. I can see that. All right, well, let's go ahead and transition into when the family gets to meet these friends. Because I know I have a few, I have a few different. Points that I remember very fondly of introducing the friends to the family, but you have having, you know, live closer to mom and [00:33:00] dad for a good chunk of our lives.

You definitely have more experience integrating your friends into the family group a little bit more. So let's talk about that. Um, specifically, what are some examples of friends that have kind of been integrated into the family group? I can think of a couple, Chris and Sarah love them. Chris and Sarah, they have, they haven't been integrated with the parents.

They've been integrated with the siblings, siblings. Okay. Um, they've not met. I can't say that they've not met the parents, but it's been in passing, but you know, Chris and Sarah will, we've all gone out and gone and done things together. We'll have bonfires together. We'll have like cookouts together with them and siblings.

And it just works really well. Chris and Sarah are the type of people that I almost want to say that they're chameleons. They kind of get along with everybody that they meet without [00:34:00] losing who they are. Mm hmm. I can definitely say that. The times that I've hung out with them and hung out with friends of theirs, you can definitely tell they're, they hang out with a lot of very different people, but that doesn't really change who they are.

Again, they're not really like shifting or being a chameleon and like kind of adjusting to the group. They're kind of just like showing up as them and networks. Yeah, exactly. It's just they, they just have something about their personalities that is very flexible and malleable and can just adjust to wherever or whoever they are with.

But it's still true to them. It's not it's not a different facet of their personality. It's just their personality. Yeah. There's only two other people. In my front of my friends that have ever actually spent time with my parents with mom and dad and [00:35:00] It works. It works great because you you know, mom like She is when you bring when you put someone in front of her.

She is the most outgoing person in the world She's like a little kid So that works really well. So the people that everybody that meets mom just thinks she's the most amazing person on the planet. She's great. She's fun. Let's, I love spending time with her. And dad is dad is dad. I like, I don't even know how to describe dad.

Yeah. It's so funny that everybody. Especially when we were younger, everybody was just terrified of him and he's not, he's not scary. He's not mean, but they're all terrified of him. I think the thing that happens with dad is that he very much has a poker face. Yes. And you can't read him immediately. Yeah, you can't read him whatsoever.

You can't read his facial [00:36:00] expressions. You can't read his tone when he is being funny. He's like kind of cutting with his sarcasm. So people are like, Was he trying to be funny? Was he trying to be mean? What's going on? Yeah, exactly. And That's just how dad is. And once you realize that about him, you're like, Oh, no, he's actually a really freaking cool, chill guy.

But until you realize that, like, he unnerves so many people because of that. Yeah. And I now, as an adult, I find it funny. It's entertaining to watch. It really is. And I've had plenty of my friends that have met, um, Brian, because Brian will come up and he stays here over the summers and my friends will come over while I have bonfires.

And so they've met Brian a lot. And Brian is another one that is [00:37:00] kind of chameleons. I say chameleon, but it's not that he's changing himself. It's just that he integrates well with the majority of people that he comes in contact with. I can't say everybody. He's not like Chris and Sarah, but he is Brian is surprisingly likable in his jerky, jerkishness.

Yes, very much so. He has a, he has a, yeah, he has a comedy thing that he does. And he adapts his comedy to his audience. And that very much, I mean that's very much, you can watch him do it when he's talking to. Uh, a new person, he like figures them out, he tests a few things on them, sees how they respond, and then he adjusts to like make sure that he's like hitting the right comedy notes with that person because they are his new audience.

It's honestly, I think everyone who's ever met Brian from my friend group has also liked him because again, they find him hilarious. Um, when [00:38:00] I brought, um, when I brought Jackson and Jonathan up to meet mom and dad, one, mom and dad loved them, um, and they loved mom and dad. Um, that was, that was a very, that was a very easy integration, but I also feel like I didn't know what to expect because it was like, I have my, my New York City.

Basically BFFs that are coming to just hang out with the family that they know so much about. Cause I wouldn't shut up about my family, but they hadn't actually met them. And I was like, wait, this is very much like the city mouse and the country mouse kind of thing. But like, I don't know how this is going to go.

Cause I feel like the boys are going to like not know how to act. No, it went off perfectly. They knew exactly what they were doing. Mom and dad were super welcoming. Dad was exactly who he is, and it was seamless. Um, I think I'd actually introduce them to, [00:39:00] um, my friend Teresa. Um, it's actually funny. Dad remembers some things about her that I won't say on the podcast, but that she found hilarious when I told her.

But she's basically the great shoes. Um, she always wore fancy, beautiful, you know, gorgeous shoes. Um, Among other things. But that was like, Oh yeah, I remember her. She's really pretty. I know that. I know that. Um, but she was one of those people who mom, mom definitely. Um, definitely liked her from the, Oh, you're one of Sean's witchy friends.

And I was like, yes. So mom connected with her on that, on that dad, I think to a certain extent did as well, but he also wasn't quite sure she was just, she was there and she was fun and he was poking fun at her, but she's, she pokes back just as hard. I think he [00:40:00] likes that, but he didn't quite know how to like adjust for it, which was fun to watch.

That's because he doesn't normally get that. Right, right. Normally, I mean, he'll get some, he'll get a little bit of pushback from people, but Oh, we all cave. He can keep going long, long after others are done. Yeah. And so to have someone that can go toe to toe with him for just as long, it's not something that he encounters very often at all.

Yeah. Yeah. Not, not many of us have the stamina to, to keep up. Oh God. She definitely did though. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. Um, I know I've probably introduced other people. I honestly, mom and I's mom and I's relationship kind of started because we were a part of the Barnes and Noble group, which was crazy because we still have like random people that were all kind of connected there.

But, um, I'm curious. I was thinking about this when I was kind of prepping for this episode. About like, does the [00:41:00] level of closeness of the friend. So like if their best friend, close friend, or just a casual friend, how does that impact, like how, who I'm going to introduce to the family? Like, am I going to try to like, bring this person over to like, meet the family, hang out, let's all be friends kind of thing.

I don't know that I would do that for someone who's just a casual friend, maybe not even for a close friend. I don't think I've, I've introduced mom and dad to anybody. Or even the family. Like, I don't think even you or Gina have been really introduced to anybody who is a casual friend or even a close friend.

Like, maybe a random close friend here and there just out of, like, convenience. But, like, most of the time you guys are meeting the people that I would consider to be some of my best friends. Yeah. Is it kind of the same for you? Yeah, absolutely. Um, and to be perfectly honest with you, since I don't have very many friends, the friends that I do have, I consider to be best friends, best friends.

[00:42:00] So, but previously, when I had more of those casual friends, or I had the acquaintances, they never, they never met the family ever. I never would have thought to introduce them to the family, unless it happened to be that they met in passing. And that was, I think that maybe only happened once or twice and it was with a sibling, not with the parents.

With the parents especially, they, the only people that I will introduce to my parents are the people that I genuinely, honestly view them as family. I feel that. I feel that. We've definitely, I feel like earlier on I was definitely more, I was less picky about who I was introducing to mom because she's usually mom.

Dad was usually at work. Um, this is back in the days when dad worked all the time on the, on the, on the base. Um. But when it came to like introducing people to mom, I felt like it was a lot [00:43:00] easier to introduce her. She was also in town a lot more when that was happening. And it would just be like, Hey, this is so and so, that kind of thing.

But again, there was nothing super intentional about kind of introducing her to those people. It was just kind of a, this is a thing, it's happening. Here's where we are kind of thing. Yeah. The last time I think that I really tried to, Like do a whole like introduction of like, here's my friend, here's someone from my friend group.

And here's my, you know, parents, um, was my, one of my good friends here in, um, Austin when COVID was happening and mom and dad were on their world tour. Um, they came through Austin and they got to meet her and it would, again, not that I had any sort of, um, hesitation about it. It was just kind of like a, Oh, I'm going to introduce.

Em to my to mom and dad. I [00:44:00] think they'll get along great. And again, they did. It was fantastic. She loved them. You've met him um But the choice like actually that that the choice to actually introduce him to everybody again kind of accidental But again, you guys would probably never have met her unless she was in that best friend circle Like if it was just something casual you guys probably would never have really run into her there would ever would have been I feel like as I get older too, I'm also hanging out more with people who are important and less with people who are just casual friends.

So that might be, that might be part of the reason why there's more chance for the family to meet. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, I tend to spend time with people that I view as family anyway. So since I'm already viewing you as family, it's nothing to me. To guys I say that it sounds bad, but it's like it's not really something that I think about With the repercussions of [00:45:00] introducing who I view as family to the rest of my family now Has there ever has there ever been someone that you were?

Kind of touched on a little bit has there ever been someone that you were maybe a little bit nervous About introducing to the family for one reason or another

You don't have to name names either No, I'm just thinking, um, honestly, the only ones that I've ever been nervous about introducing to family is boyfriends. But that's just because my track record was shit. Friends, friends, I never had a problem. If I was going to introduce you to the family, then it's because it was I knew that it was going to get along and especially as I got older the only people I would consider introducing to the family are The people that I knew would integrate it would and I don't I'd never [00:46:00] realized That was my thought process until just this moment when you ask me that because I've never thought How is this person going to?

React or how is this person going to feel? How is this person going to integrate? It was just if they're, if they're being introduced to the family, I already know it's going to go well. Yep. I think that's, I think that's more of a, I'll be honest, like I think when it comes to family, I have Never been like super concerned.

There might've been a passing, like I mentioned with like Jackson and Jonathan, where it's like a, Ooh, I don't know how this is going to go. I mean, it's, it's probably going to go just fine, but I don't know how this is going to go. More of like a curious, like, Hmm, this could be very interesting. Never a concern, just a.

Oh, I wonder how this is going to go. This will be interesting kind of mindset. I think I've had more anxiety introducing or trying to integrate different friend circles within the friend circles group. Yes, that's where I get most of [00:47:00] my anxiety from, is how is this friend going to think? I mean, I, I get anxiety meeting people from my friends, friends, groups like, I don't, I don't necessarily, yeah, I don't necessarily want to show up to a party and be like, oh great, someone do I want to show up to a party and be like, I'm here to have fun and be myself.

And now there's some new person here that I have to like, I will be honest. Test of the waters. Exactly. I will be honest. I have in the last. Or five years probably made an excuse for not showing up to something a handful of times, literally because I found out the last minute that someone else is going to be there and I didn't know who they were and I was like, I am not prepared mentally to deal with this right now and the cozy, comfortable environment that I thought it was walking into is now suddenly different and I'm not okay with that, you know, part of that I'm sure [00:48:00] is, is You know, exacerbated by the fact that I'm, uh, I have a neuro spicy brain, but it definitely, it definitely doesn't, there's just something about it that just doesn't sit right.

I'm like, no, no, I'm sorry. I am sick. Or my car broke down. I completely understand that. I've, I've done that more times than I care to admit, where I'm super excited to go and get together with some friends. And then, oh, Hey, by the way, there's these people that are going to be there that you've never met.

And it's like, No, the anxiety, the anxiety just spiked. And now I'm done. We're not doing this. Yep. Oh, and I hate the ambush. The ambush that happens when you have friends who know, you have friends who know you well enough, and I've never understood why some people do this. I'm actually not friends with anybody who's done this to me recently.

Not anymore. Um, but people who are like, invite you to go do something, and you're like, cool, so it's gonna be You, me, [00:49:00] person A, person B, person C, and they're like, yep, absolutely. And you're like, fantastic. Like, I'll be there looking forward to it. Mark me down as an RSVP. Yes. And then you get an hour away or you're in the process.

I hate this. You're in the process of driving to whatever you're going to do. And they go, Oh, by the way, I didn't mention it to you before because I knew you'd probably back out, but I also invited. Person F, G, Z, X, and Y along to go along as well. And I'm like, I suddenly have no interest in being at this thing.

Like, I'm sorry, I don't care anymore. Uh, I just got in a wreck and I'm going to have to turn around and go home. Goodbye. Like, I hate that. I just remembered that I left my refrigerator unplugged. I've got to go fix that. Right. Right. Like that, that alone will rapidly, rapidly accelerate the process of not being friends with someone very, very quickly.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I feel like the, the concern that we have one, we've already, [00:50:00] we've established it like more concerned with integrating friend groups, less concerned with integrating those friend groups with the family, generally the family, the family knows all sides of us well enough to know which group this is from or like which group, why this person is like in a, in our friend group period.

I think if we ever had someone who the family was just kind of like, who is this person? Like what? Yep. Why are you friends with them? That should be a red flag. That really should be a red flag because yeah, I know there's, if the family can't, if the family can't make the connection of why you have this person in your life, then that person most likely should not be there.

And I say this specifically with regards to our family, there's actually a lot of psychological study to support that your family does actually have a very biased view of you and can actually be kind of limiting to your ability to build new friendships. A lot of families are like that. [00:51:00] Some families don't really get to know you all that well.

A lot of parents will let kind of, um, uh, enshrine preconceived notions of who you are. Right. They, they kind of, they kind of preserve the version of you that was you 20 years ago. And so they don't see why someone else could, you could be like in a relationship with someone else. Uh, it can be very, our family is a bit of an exception there.

And I know that sounds incredibly hypocritical, but our family is an exception to the rule there. Um, yes. If mom or dad ever came up to me and said, , what the hell are you doing hanging out with this person? I would probably go, what the hell am I doing hanging out with this person? I should probably rethink this.

Yeah, you're probably right. Mm-hmm . Not necessarily just on that alone, but there's probably things leading up to that. Right, exactly. That have been bit of a red flag. It's some sort of red flag that they saw. Yeah. That we've been blind to. Yeah. And. Yeah, [00:52:00] I hate to say I hate to say this and don't ever tell mom and dad this and if they you got to bleep this out of the podcast, but

Yeah, you're giving them a lot of power right now. You know that? That's, that's why you're going to take that out of the podcast. I can totally take that out of the podcast. Anyway, so now that we've, now that we've, uh, bleeped out everything that could potentially, um, put our parents on an ego trip. Yep. We just wasted a good 10 minutes.

We totally did. We totally did. We'll be creative with the edit for sure. Oh, gosh, um, now when it comes to, when it comes to like the friends that we don't introduce to the family, um, again, mine are more just because I haven't stuffed someone in a suitcase and flown them [00:53:00] to New York with me, or, you know, sat them on a train and drag them up to mom and dad's, um, but when it comes to people that we do kind of have those boundaries with, of like, not really ready to introduce you to the family.

I know my thinking on that is very much, there's a, not that there's like anything wrong with those people meeting, there never is. Um, but I think there's still a certain level of, for me, space that I need to have there. Um, like if you integrate everything in your life with everybody in your family. You kind of lose a little bit of that blur and that separation.

I, ideally I would love to live a life where I was completely happy with having every inch of my life. shared with every single person that I was [00:54:00] acquainted with, especially family and could have some sort of like complete separation. But I think I need my space. I think, I mean, we all do family in general.

Like we as a group of people are very much all a family that does very well when we have our own alone time. Yes. And I think friends are part of that to a certain extent too. Like we need to just go do things with our friends. For a little while I think you and mom and dad are like that to a certain extent to like dad definitely has his friends which he's happy to share but he has his time that he needs to go do things with his friends.

I'm the same way with my friends. You are the same way with your friends. Any thoughts on that? Any, any, any changes to that, that outlook on things? No, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head right there. It's, it's fine and great for us to have the integration and to feel comfortable integrating friends in with the family, but there is that separation.

There is the, [00:55:00] these friends are mine because they, they do something for me. For me specifically, it's, I find that I, tend to surround myself with people that give me a battery recharge because I am so

I'm very I'm very much the ambivert and if I'm Social for too long then this bat my battery just gets drained and then I can't function for Weeks at a time so I make sure to surround myself with people that aren't going to drain that battery Or even charge the battery for me And sometimes integrating the friends in with the family Is it is a drain for me, even though it's something that I wanted to do, even though it's going well, there's still that anxiety that just kind of drains it.

And I, I don't like having that. And I don't know that that made any sense to what you were talking about. But that's where my brain went. Nope. Totally makes [00:56:00] sense. And honestly, I am I'm 100 percent with you there. It's if there is any boundary that needs to be there. It's literally just a I need to have time to recharge with a different Flavor of people kind of thing.

Um, because yeah, mixing, you said it perfectly, like mixing everyone together, introduces another type of anxiety of just like, it's not even necessarily anxiety over the fact that they're all together or trying to manage different, like people, it's just a lot of anxiety. Yeah. It's a lot of input. It's a little bit of overstimulation.

And honestly, that's one other thing I was going to try and touch on is, I am always nervous introducing friends to the entire family together. Because when we all get together, it is chaotic. It's fun, but it is crazy chaotic. It can get loud, and it is just draining and exhausting. And adding in [00:57:00] Another person into that mix.

Just too fucking mush. Yeah. It, it's, you almost worry for them . Yeah, exactly. It's like, I don't think that they're gonna make it outta this are Right. Alright. Yeah. They're gonna probably not gonna wanna spend any time with me for the next year 'cause they're gonna need that much time to recharge. . Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah. You very much worry about their ability to kind of take in a new situation. Mm-hmm . And be a little over simulated themselves. Um. Oh god, yeah. It's the kindness, it's the empathy in us that, uh. Yes, it's, I'm not doing it because I don't like you, I'm doing it because I do like you.

Yes. And I, I want you to continue to like me. Exactly. Exactly. I don't want you to hate me after this interaction, so I need to make sure that this interaction is moderated enough to like, not. Yes. Have you hate me. Yeah, I feel that, I feel that. Um, were there anything, [00:58:00] I feel like, again, we have, we have such a good, uh, we have such a good dynamic with our family, in that it is, Ridiculously accepting and open and it's nice.

Um, very much sounds like a, like a hype, a hype podcast for our family. Um, but when it comes to like the like cultural differences or integrating people with different cultures into our family, um, how has that, like, have we really ever had like us culturally we're very American. We're very, like when it comes to friendships, we're very open.

We're very friendly. We are very typically American. Um, we don't have a lot of, a lot of issues kind of creating, creating space for friends to be our friends, that kind of thing. Um, but have you, have we, [00:59:00] have you ever had friends who came from a slightly different cultural background where making friends was a little bit different?

I'm thinking specifically about, for example, um, friend of mine that I had whose parents were Chinese and they did not, they did not understand why she was so friendly with me. If we weren't going to be married and they knew, they knew I was gay. So there was no threat in their heads. We were too friendly and they didn't understand.

Why would you be, why would you be hanging out with this guy? Why are you going to the club with him? Is he your boyfriend? Um, and I found the whole thing hilarious. Cause it was actually the first time that I'd run into a situation where being friends with someone came up against a little bit of a cultural wall with their family.

Um, Our family I don't think really has that ish, really has that, but I'm curious if you think differently on that or if you've run into your own hilarious [01:00:00] situation where culture became a little bit of a, uh, challenge point in getting to know someone's family. I have not encountered that myself. Um, and honestly, as far as culture goes, I don't think there's a situation where our family would have a problem integrating with another culture.

That wouldn't be an issue. We're way too curious for that. Yeah, exactly. We're too curious. We're just we want to learn about this other culture. That's what we want to do. We don't want to keep you at arm's length. We want to bring you into the house and we want to give you tea and we want to give you some like milk and cookies and just ask you all kinds of fucking questions about your culture because we're curious.

We're gonna ask uncomfortable questions just because we want to know and none of it's malicious. So we would never have There'd never be that I can definitely see where it can be too much for people because that's what we do [01:01:00] But no integrating with other cultures Absolutely not. I mean, mom and dad, especially, yeah, our world travelers, they love going to other places and learning about other cultures.

And I'm actually encountering that in my job where we are working closely with people in other countries. And one of my favorite things is to ask these people from other countries questions about their culture, I want to know. And again, nothing malicious. I'm just curious. Yep. Yep. It's very much, um, we lucked out as I've told, as I've told our younger siblings many times, especially the youngest, um, they lucked out.

They got great parents. They got a good family. Right. Should be very happy about it. I mean, no family is without its problems. Every family has, has problems. And here's the part of the podcast where we list out all of the problems. . Yeah, exactly. When you look at the grand scheme of things and when you [01:02:00] actually, like you said, when you list out all the problems, we got fucking lucky with our family.

We did. We did. We did. Yeah. Well, this is good. I think, um, if we've learned anything today, um, it's been that, um, we learned that we can be friends. Yeah, yeah, friends, easy, friends, good, uh, friends, friends, awesome, um, fuck making more of them, but like, definitely get the ones that you do have. Uh, over to the family barbecue, or rather, yeah, that's got to do that this summer.

I know. No, yeah, it's on the list. Um, we also have to figure out when we're doing the family get together later this year because I have a wedding to go to. When we would normally do our family get together. So that'll be a fun discussion for the family group chat later on. Oh yeah. I'll let you bring that one up.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely, I'll definitely broach that with, uh, with the parents for sure. Anyway. [01:03:00] Um, cool. Well, this has been fun. Um, there are a million other things that we could absolutely talk about, but I also want us to be very conscious of the time. Both for you and I, but also for me, especially because I'm going to have to edit this.

So I think we'll call it a, we'll call it a day there, but thank you for, thank you for having a little sibling chat with me. I really love doing these and I think these are fun. We definitely need to do more of these. Yeah. I think if, I think if this goes well and people like it or screw people, if we want to do it again, which we probably will, we'll just do more of them and we'll pick some topics and chat about some fun stuff.

In future episodes, so cool. Cool. All right. Well, thank you and I will talk to you later. All right. All right. Have a wonderful evening. All right. See you later [01:04:00] Bye