Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
RECONNECTING WITH AN EX MAY BE TEMPTING, BUT...
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Jaimee joins Ross and co-host Madeline to discuss the reasons we like to look up exes on line and/or go to high school reunions. Tangents include: Sourdough Toast; Applebees; Old Folks Home; Jimmy in a box; Amy Grant; the smugness of couples.
Notes:
- https://lifestyle.allwomenstalk.com/reasons-to-skip-your-high-school-reunion/
- https://didyouknowfacts.com/15-people-share-bad-things-that-happened-at-their-high-school-reunions/
- https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/friending-an-old-flame-on-social-media/
- https://www.considerable.com/life/people/find-old-crush-facebook/
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
That happens at all ages, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's like a bunch of old homes orgies, that's a thing.
SPEAKER_02You said that with such conviction. I wish I had a video of that.
SPEAKER_10Old folks, homes, orgies, that's a thing!
SPEAKER_09Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and today, my guest is a dynamic, witty, and altogether splendiferous person, Jamie. Hello, Jamie.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Ross.
SPEAKER_09And our co-host this week is exceedingly literate, talented, and so smart that stray neurons chase her down the street like dogs chasing a letter carrier. Madeline! Hello, Madeline. Hello, I'm extremely flattered, is what I am. And welcome everyone. We're glad to have you. I always ask you to share the show. That really helps us. Also, it would be great if you could give us a high rating on Apple or any place that allows you to rate the show. And if they allow a review, give us a glowing review. This helps us a great deal. And we love hearing from you too, so please reach out if that's something you feel inspired to do. Okay, let's get going. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_05Let's jump in.
SPEAKER_09One thing we know about humans is we like to look up people from our past. Especially our exes, old flames, crushes that we had. Did they still say old flames? Is that a thing? If I said old flames, would you know what I was talking about?
SPEAKER_05I would know. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's one of those slightly old timey phrases that's that comes around in the game again in the way that so much stuff does.
SPEAKER_09Well, I am um wearing weird glasses right now because I broke my glasses.
SPEAKER_05Can confirm.
SPEAKER_09And uh Derek, our engineer here at Portland Underground Studio, which is our brand new home where we feel comfortable and loved.
SPEAKER_05That's right.
SPEAKER_09Found me a pair of how did you describe them, Madeline?
SPEAKER_05Uh I said you said middle-aged librarian. Librarian, and I said no middle-aged lesbian.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, and I I feel like that's an upgrade. Could be both. I feel like it's an upgrade.
SPEAKER_05Could be both.
SPEAKER_09We look back for different reasons, sometimes out of genuine curiosity, and sometimes maybe for less flattering motives, right? Mm-hmm. Now, why do you think, Jamie? Why do we why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01Maybe you kind of want to compare their current life to the life that you had when you were with them and see if you're doing better than them. Yes.
SPEAKER_09So, but do you do this? Do you look back, do you look up exes to find out if you're doing better than them?
SPEAKER_01It's like every couple of months, me and my best friend have a an ongoing joke. I'll text her and be like, oh, one of my old boyfriends reached out to me or DM'd me, you know, on Instagram, and it's so weird. So I live in a different state now than I did, you know, growing up. Um and I'll have I think it's a thing where like the high school that I went to was mostly Mormon, right? And everyone that went to the school was Mormon, and I was like the anomaly that I wasn't Mormon and I had the gay dad, so I was kind of like like a bad boy kind of a thing, but like, you know, like yeah, interesting and exciting. Yeah, interesting and exciting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09So every and you wore all leather.
SPEAKER_01All leather all the time. That was so cool.
SPEAKER_09And you had a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. No helmet. That's right. And face package. And cigarettes stuffed in my t-shirts rolled up, yeah. So I'll get like random messages from ex-boyfriends um who got married, you know, super young and have kids and they're, you know, still religious and everything. But they'll DM me and I'll be like, This is so weird. Like, I barely remember you. Like it doesn't even have to be someone that I dated, but someone that I knew had like had a crush on me, and I'll get like these DMs and I'll be like, Why are you messaging me? But I entertain it because I need to know why. There you go. Right?
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it always comes at a certain point where they're like, Oh, I'm having like problems in my marriage, relationship or something. Yeah. Right. But I don't know why it's me.
SPEAKER_09Well, you were the you were the you were the you were the bad, you were the bad human. You were the you were the outlier.
SPEAKER_05They had this life path lined up for them and you were the example of what else in the world. Right. You've probably been the danger years of like, well, I'm in this miserable marriage that I got myself into way too young. But if I had been with her all those years ago, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_09Now I'd be in hell.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_09And that's where I want to be. I took the straight and narrow path that the Mormon church told me to take.
SPEAKER_10Right. And and now I feel trapped. Yeah. Two roads diverged in a woods and mine.
SPEAKER_09But there was one person I know who was riding shotgun with the devil. And her name is Jamie.
SPEAKER_01Let's look around.
SPEAKER_09She'll accept me. She'll and that's the other thing is like, well, she was always going the wrong direction. So if I reach out to her, that's kind of like a safe place.
SPEAKER_01It's like Yeah, I can be naughty and reach out to her. But it's not like so naughty that you're and you're also not in the community.
SPEAKER_09So you're not gonna report back. So that's interesting. So you're the person that gets contacted.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Happens to me all the time.
SPEAKER_09But you're not so much of a person who looks back yourself.
SPEAKER_01No, not really.
SPEAKER_09Um once you break up with somebody.
SPEAKER_01I'm d I'm done. You're moving on. That's right.
SPEAKER_09That's interesting. We'll come back to that. How about you, Madeline? Um Do you look people up or do people look you up?
SPEAKER_05I look people up sometimes. I feel like there was a time in my life, like just post-college, where I was much more involved with Facebook and things. I feel like Facebook was invented. Well, we know that Facebook was invented because Mark Zuck Mark Zuckerberg uh was a Chad who thought that women should date him and he's a good idea. A rating. Yeah, exactly. So we know that was actually why it was invented. But then I feel like why it became popular was because it allowed for exactly this kind of thing, right? Sure. Um so I feel like there's a time in my life when I was a lot more involved in that and a lot more interested in like virtually spying on all of these people and what are they up to.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_05Um a lot less now. I'm definitely well, I mean I'm definitely not the person I'm definitely at least not aware of a being a person who gets looked up by exes.
SPEAKER_09Right.
SPEAKER_05Or any I don't have that many exes, to be honest. So I don't know. I wasn't cool in high school.
SPEAKER_09Is that is that part of it? Because I don't were you did you consider yourself cool in high school?
SPEAKER_06Or were you Listen, we've I mean we've heard the description.
SPEAKER_01I was very, very until definitely cool in high school. Elementary school, and like I I was so like painfully shy in elementary school. I didn't say a word until like sixth grade, and I would cry anytime someone tried to talk to me. Oh wow. Oh, it was rough. And then uh and then puberty happened. And puberty. Puberty is a hell of a drug. Middle school things started to kind of change, and then in high school. Middle school was terrible for me. I was just friends with everybody, I guess. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05See, that was me. I guess I I felt very well liked and supported in high school, but I wasn't cool. Yeah. If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01So I was friends with the cool kids, but I was also friends with like literally everybody because I used to be so uncool. So I was already friends with the uncool kids.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. If people are looking me up, it's because it's like, oh yeah, that girl was really nice. Like she was nice to me. What's she doing? Not like, oh, she's the one that got away or something. Right. That's that's not the thing.
SPEAKER_09Well, uh, some studies report that most people who do this who look up their exes are in a relationship. Often a marriage relationship.
SPEAKER_05Often an unhappy one, question mark.
SPEAKER_09Well, that's that's the thing, right? Um, but but you know, these studies are all based on self-report. So you assume it's under reporting. Sure, yeah. This one study suggests that 57% of Americans who say they've looked up an ex's online profile regularly are married. And so and there's this website called, I don't know if you do you know this website called Classmates.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, it tried to make me make an account on it when my tenure anniversary came up.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, they actually 70 million members. Wow, wow, and they suspect that many of them are members, so they can look up their exes and things. And um, you know, I think I'm guessing there are different reasons why people look up exes. Some people just like the it's kind of kind of fun to flirt a little bit. It's sort of harmless, you know, at least initially.
SPEAKER_05Until it's not.
SPEAKER_09Until it's not. Some people are just kind of unhappy. They get to a point in their life. Yeah, so I'm gonna reach back and find somebody from my past, like the bad girl Jamie, or something like that.
SPEAKER_05The one that got away, yeah.
SPEAKER_09If somebody and just start something, some kind of connection.
SPEAKER_05Right. My spouse and I are both too tired to do anything fun anytime at all anymore. Right. But I imagine that this person is still out there living it up more.
SPEAKER_09You've lost some of the excitement. Joy is harder to find, hard, it's just harder.
SPEAKER_01You're tired, you're focused on the kids.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, it's like this is my life, and that's what happens, especially like around 40. It's like, but this is my life? Like, this is it? Like it's this.
SPEAKER_01It's the finality of it.
SPEAKER_09So it's a little nostalgia, it's a little need for affirmation in your life. Maybe someone you knew in your salad days.
SPEAKER_06I know that one. You know that one? I know that one. I don't know what it means, but I know the expression. I don't know where it came from or why, but I know what it means.
SPEAKER_09I like, I like that you know it. How about Halcyon Days?
SPEAKER_06Yes, I know that one.
SPEAKER_09Boom. I can't track I can't trip you up.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_09Old Flame?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, got that one. Okay. Got check. Check, check, check.
SPEAKER_09If you think about it though, the people you knew, like in high school, were not even completely formed humans. God no. So that means, you know, they're like sourdough toast. You ever try to make sourdough toast?
SPEAKER_05Like make the bread too, or just toast it.
SPEAKER_04I honestly don't think I ever I eat sourdough toast all the time. It takes so long for it to get browned. It does. Sourdough does take a long time to brown it. Why does it take so long? It's like sourdough and English muffins.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, what's going on with English muffins? I think it's the moisture concept. Sourdough, maybe there's something about the starter as opposed to a traditional yeast bread. I watch a lot of great British bake-off.
SPEAKER_09Never, never order sourdough toast in a restaurant because they don't, they're not gonna waste the time waiting for it. They just bring it to you and it's like un totally untoasted.
SPEAKER_05Barely been kissed by flame.
SPEAKER_09Barely been kissed by flame. So you these people weren't done when you knew them anyway, and you knew them in this narrow slice anyway. They're reduced, and you don't didn't really have that much time and context with them. So, but nevertheless, they represent this fleeting moment where things, the future seem bright, perhaps you uh your situation was freer and different, and you weren't encumbered by job and by kids or whatever your life has become. So I can see the attraction of kind of checking people out. I can see the attraction of flirting with people, like going back and saying, Oh, let's just be friends and chit-chat and see how you're doing. Yeah. Um, I think it's ultimately a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Usually, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_09Whatever the reason is.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_09One reason it's a bad idea is that because you didn't really know these people, they're ti probably gonna be really different than you remember them.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_09In so many ways. Um when Facebook was new, it presented this opportunity to go look up all these old people. And people would find you and you would find them, and you would bring them into your friend group. Because, like, oh yeah, that guy who sat behind me in seventh grade. Yeah. I mean, and we weren't friends then, but hey, now hey yeah, why can't you be my friend? And then you find out, you know, the all the weird postings and the Oh, you got crazy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_09It's like, oh, that's right. I didn't really know anything about you, and why would I when you were 12? Right. Because you were still not a fully developed human being.
SPEAKER_05Have you ever had that happen in a good way? Where you where you look up or are contacted by someone who was just bug nuts, and then it turns out they've developed into like a cool and good human being.
SPEAKER_09No.
SPEAKER_05I've had that happen.
SPEAKER_09I just didn't think that did happen.
SPEAKER_05Oh, it's like a unicorn. It's so rare. There was this guy that I went to high school with, and what I remember him from most clearly was our school doing the day of silence for uh LGBT rights. Uh everybody's, you know, quiet for the day, and him showing up in a shirt that said, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and the principal making him turn it inside out. He friended me on Facebook um like a year ago, and it took me a long time to reply to it because I was like, I just don't even want to be connected to this guy. But I got curious and I clicked on his page, and there were all of these, like, all of this commentary, positive commentary on the Black Lives Matter movement and on queer rights and all this stuff, and I was like, oh my god, you grew up. You did it, you learned stuff. What? That can happen?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_05It was really positive.
SPEAKER_09That's never happened in my life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's rare, I think.
SPEAKER_06It's usually the exact opposite. You're like, you seemed pretty normal in high school. Oh, that's a Nazi meme. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_09Whoops. And that's the thing is that people, you know, everything's in motion, right? So they're in motion, you've been in motion, and this assumption that, oh, I'm gonna reach back. And one article I was reading, it suggests that, you know, one of the attractions is that here's somebody that shared a moment with me. We lived in the same place, same town, we went to the same school, we may have had other experiences that we shared. So it's like, hey, that's something in common. And we can use that as a basis. But because they've been in motion too, they may have mutated into a better form, as you're suggesting. But they also could have mutated into something very uh unrecognizable. And so, you know, there's a reason why we go different ways. There's a reason why we lose touch with people.
SPEAKER_10And the reason is because we don't like them. Yeah.
unknownYeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09We're in touch with all the people like you still talk to your dad.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_09He's still in the show.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_09So if he listens to this, Dad, you're still in the show.
SPEAKER_07He does. Hi Dad.
SPEAKER_09Not everybody's kicked out of the show.
SPEAKER_07There we go.
SPEAKER_09So in the old days, we would uh meet people and we would unmeet them and we would go on our way and we would never hear about them again. We'd never see him again, we'd never talk to him again. So my take on all of this going back and looking people up and then making I guess looking them up probably isn't so bad, although it's the gateway drug.
SPEAKER_05Oh, it absolutely is. It's addicting.
SPEAKER_09But if you don't go any farther than that, then it's probably okay. But if you go back and contact people, it's almost always going to be a bad idea.
SPEAKER_06For sure.
SPEAKER_09Bad idea because they're wigged out and you just don't want to know them. Or because it leads you to a dark place where you start looking to them for some sort of affirmation and validation which could get out of hand. Um so that's a thing that I think in general, once you start doing that, you're on the road to trouble. I was reading an article that says, well, if you're gonna do it, you should make it clear that you're in a relationship. That's assuming that you're in a relationship. Right. If you're not in a relationship, then you don't have to pretend that you're in one. But if you're like married, you should make sure expectations from the beginning. Well, you should make sure that your page of whatever site you're on shows a lot of pictures of you and your partner.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_09So that someone you're flirting with or c contacting knows, well, there's another person here. Um, as opposed to like not ever showing them or you know, curating your post so it seems like you're alone in the world.
SPEAKER_05Like honesty is a good policy in general.
SPEAKER_09Or your st does Facebook, I'm not on Facebook anymore, but it used to be able to put your status.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think you can still do that.
SPEAKER_09So you could say single in a relationship.
SPEAKER_06I always had it's complicated as a for without reason, just like conversation starter.
SPEAKER_09I thought it was funny, but then I've people would say, like, you know, that's signaling. You're putting it out there that you're available, and then I would say, well.
SPEAKER_05You're the you're the yellow. What are you proposing? What are you proposing?
SPEAKER_02What would you like to suggest? Uh-huh. Um you want to make it more complicated? Come on over.
SPEAKER_09So um you all they also in this article suggested that you need to think about the impact. This is something that would never occur to me. You need to think of the impact of the uh that you're contacting them has on their relationship.
SPEAKER_06Are you saying that you need to consider what your actions do to other people? Apparently, that's a thing.
SPEAKER_09I mean, I'm ready to learn.
SPEAKER_06Oh, Derek, I'm so sorry about the levels there.
SPEAKER_09I've I want all the levels, believe me. All of this helps me. So, um, so your marriage maybe or partnership may be strong enough to handle like reconnecting with somebody, but their relationship may not may not be. So you may be putting them at risk by reaching out to them. They also suggest that you should like talk it over with your partner, like, hey, I'm gonna be doing this, which seems to me takes the fun out of it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Wait, but I'm sorry, you're you're also suggesting that you should be open and honest with your partner about apparently.
SPEAKER_09I mean, light bulb.
SPEAKER_05Some crazy ideas in here.
SPEAKER_09Light bulb going off.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, high school unions must have been so much more interesting before the internet. You had no idea what you would find.
SPEAKER_09Okay, good. Let's talk about high school reunions. You were right on time with that. Um so yeah, that I mean the high school reunion was the the before we could do it electronically, it was the only way sometimes to go back, especially if you moved away from the area or you stopped being a Mormon, or those are really the two things that would happen. Only the two. I'm not a Mormon and I don't live here anymore. What are the other reasons? I can't think of any.
SPEAKER_07That's pretty much it. Those are the two reasons that are.
SPEAKER_09So high school reunions, that is a really a good place to do some social comparison. Yeah, for sure. Who's been to a high school reunion in this? Not a one.
SPEAKER_05I have not either.
SPEAKER_09Oh no.
SPEAKER_05Well, my first one, my tenure.
SPEAKER_09You're not out of high school. I know I'm amazing.
SPEAKER_05Well, my tenure was in uh uh was when we were doing Ross and I were in a production of Much Ado, and it was that month was my tenure reunion, so I couldn't get away to go home and attend it.
SPEAKER_09Oh, how did you feel about that?
SPEAKER_05Uh, medium, because the the class president was a was my best friend in kindergarten, still a lovely human being. So I really like her, and I knew that she would be reaching out specifically to a lot of other people that I that I liked and cared about. So I knew I knew it would be a good group of people, but also I sort of figured, yeah, 10 years, you know, give it a little longer. Keep keep letting them toast. Give it toast it up. Sour dough sour does. Exactly. They're my they're probably all still, I'm still a little doughy. They're probably still a little doughy. Brown is yet.
SPEAKER_09Brown up, you English muffins.
SPEAKER_05Exactly.
SPEAKER_09Um man, that is the metaphor for the day. So none of us. I've never been to you haven't either? No. Oh my gosh. So I had this thing. I want to know why you never went to one.
SPEAKER_01I never went to mine. Um I've I've only been invited to the 10-year. Um, and I thought about going and I had some people reach out to see if I was going, but it was another thing where it's like it's only been 10 years and I live out of state. I would have had to fly in. Yeah. And I'm assuming it would be, since it's in Utah, it would be like at an Applebee's or something.
SPEAKER_05Well, and you've got to be able to do that. I'm not flying back home to go to Applebee's.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_09Wait a minute. That it's in Utah, so it has to be at an Applebee's? Why is it?
SPEAKER_01It's I I guess if you didn't grow up there, that probably doesn't make a lot of sense. No, but like it doesn't. All of our like uh the like prom and like people's weddings and all that kind of stuff, they always had them in like the gym at a Mormon wardhouse, you know? Or like the gym of the high school. It was always just like a really like shitty venue. And like nobody drinks, right? Everyone's Mormon, so uh it just didn't seem like a fun party.
SPEAKER_05People actually drank in high school. I was like, that's just on TV. Nobody actually does.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, no, nobody's talking about it.
SPEAKER_05Were you also a Mormon? No, but I I was a teetotaler.
SPEAKER_09Okay. What where did you go?
SPEAKER_05Uh Pullman, Washington.
SPEAKER_09Oh, Eastern Washington. Eastern Washington.
SPEAKER_05It's a college town. So I think what happened really was that probably a lot of the kids who were partying were going to college parties, and I was not.
SPEAKER_01I was playing video games in my basement. Yeah. I legitimately walked out of a um high school party that there was a lot of drinking and there was a cop at the front door, and I walked right past the cop and got into a car and went to my house. Good for you. I'm I don't know how I pulled that one off. Very calm. Very calm. I was I had a mission in mind. Wow. That's how cool I was. There you go.
SPEAKER_09Ross.
SPEAKER_01Boom.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, no, you were, yeah, I'm really appreciating your level of coolness in a different way.
SPEAKER_05It's a really nice contrast to me. We bring something between the two of us.
SPEAKER_09What is that exactly?
SPEAKER_05Just the contrast, you know, the the highs and the epic highs and lows. This is great.
SPEAKER_09Um so I I had this, I formed this opinion about high school reunions very early. I was still in high school.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_09I think I was probably in 11th grade. I wasn't even a senior yet. And I was in a biology class, and the teacher was pretty popular, and a couple of guys showed up. And this is back at a time when anybody could walk on a campus at any time and walk in. You could just show up. No one cared. Um, so imagine that. Um, so these two guys showed up to s kind because they had graduated, they'd been away in college for whatever amount of time, probably a few months, and they were coming back on their break to see this teacher who they thought they had this great relationship with. Right? So I'm sitting there in the class, and these dudes walk in and they're like, Ta-da! Here we are. And the teacher is in the middle of something and she totally ignores them.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_09So they do their thing, they're expecting this reception. All the classes, we don't know who these people are.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_09I went to a big high school, like 3,500 kids. So you didn't know everybody. We didn't know who these goons were. So nobody's giving them anything. They're getting nothing from us, they're getting nothing from the teacher, and they're just standing there awkwardly waiting for whatever they imagined was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_10Like, oh, oh, let's put down class. Children, this is Joe and Marv, and they were really great students in my bio class. Right, right. We did field biology together, and we just they were my favorite kids, and oh, they're all grown up now.
SPEAKER_09And it's yeah, I don't know what they're imagining, but they were getting none of that. And I'm looking at this going, oh, these guys are goobs.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, they're total goobs. They thought they were cool.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, this is so weak. It's oh no, this is the weak, this is the weakest. I'm never gonna put myself in that situation, never gonna come back. That was part one. Part two was kind of what you guys are saying. Part two was this idea that in the first 20 years, so you get out of high school, you're 18 theoretically.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_09So my feeling is until you're at least 40, I don't care.
SPEAKER_06You're not toast yet.
SPEAKER_09You're not toast yet. You're whatever you're telling me is probably a lie anyway. You're lying to yourself or you're lying to everybody else. I want to see you after you're out of the show.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_09That's when I get interested. I want to see you when you are burnt. That's gonna be interesting.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_09I have not gotten to that point yet where I feel like but I feel ready to see what's going on. Well, now I think I'm I'm ready, but I I don't feel like making the effort. But now I would go to see because now there's no way you can make up a story about well, I'm not doing anything now, but I'm studying for for my realtor's exam. You know, you can't really tell a story because you're so old, you're you've got no game left. It's like if you haven't done it yet, forget about it. You're not gonna do it now. Forget about it. Like maybe you'll take a pottery class, but you're not going to be a potter.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_09You know, what you have now are interests. Yeah. You have hobbies.
SPEAKER_05No, I believe that someone can find new passions and change their life at any age.
SPEAKER_08They're done, Matt.
SPEAKER_05But I don't think it's common. But I think could they're cooked, they're out of the game. I don't know. Toast can still be used as breadcrumbs. You can still transform. I like that. Thank you.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. So it's an old crouton.
SPEAKER_07Exactly.
SPEAKER_09But um, and there's another little so I've never I've never been. I would go now. I've made contact, I have some friends from high school that are still my friends. I have also made a few contacts with people in high school. Uh most of those are gone weirdly.
SPEAKER_05Wait, I'm sorry, like people who are currently in high school. Because that's what it sounded like, and I was a little troubled.
SPEAKER_09It's getting weird. As long as it's 25 yards, I'm allowed to be around. I'm allowed to be on the other side of the phone.
SPEAKER_06Oh no.
SPEAKER_09No, no, obviously not.
SPEAKER_06Okay, I wanted multiple.
SPEAKER_05Why did your mind even go there?
SPEAKER_06I wanted to clarify for our listeners because the sentence you said, Ross, was I've made contact with some people currently in high school.
SPEAKER_09Well, I didn't mean to say that, and the listeners weren't paying attention until now. You everybody was fine, they're folding their laundry or they're on their commute. This is on me, clearly.
SPEAKER_10You're like, well, what about the time you were stalking those high school kids?
SPEAKER_06This is clearly my fault. Remember when you hid in the locker room? No, I fucked nothing. I didn't you said that just now. I didn't say that.
SPEAKER_09I'm just going along with this scenario. We might as well just go with it. Okay. No. So people I knew in high school I have reconnected with a couple of them. And it's usually been a bad idea for the reasons we have talked about.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's fair. I will say I am still good friends with a couple of people from high school. But that's like a constant relationship, right? As opposed to that checking back in thing.
SPEAKER_09But here are the reasons that I looked up that people tend not to go to their reunions. And they're all valid reasons, apparently. One is you had no friends in high school.
SPEAKER_00Fair. Why are you going back? Yeah, there's nothing to say.
SPEAKER_09To sit by yourself at the uncool table. Eat at your Applebee's table by yourself?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_09Ordering what do you what do you eat?
SPEAKER_01Like a virgin margarita. Eat with your virgin margarita. I don't know. Or skins, but yeah.
SPEAKER_09You mentioned financial reasons. You don't live around there anymore and you have to, you know, place. Get some scratch together just to go and be humiliated. It's like, why not just go to the dog track and voice? Um you were bullied.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_09And you're afraid you're gonna run into your bullies. Or maybe you were the bully and you're like sort of self-aware and you're like, I'm just gonna go kick everyone's asses. I better not go there. Right.
SPEAKER_01I will revert.
SPEAKER_09I will take their I will take their lunch money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Um fakeness, that's my thing.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_09That's why I said I want to wait.
SPEAKER_06Cheesy and fake.
SPEAKER_09I want to wait until people are like saying awkward things. You know, that's how old they have to be. I want everyone to be so old they're just now just so awkward. I my teeth ended up in the bottom of my crib.
SPEAKER_02Like what? Like what? That's what I want to hear. Okay.
SPEAKER_09I want to hear that from the class president. Um, I did connect with this dude, um, and it's a long story wide, because we weren't really friends in high school, but he did look me up here in Portland, and we did sit down and have lunch. And his favorite thing was to tell me about how all like the cool people are all in jail. He's just like, oh, you know, remember this guy, and well, kind of. Well, anyway, he's doing time. It's like but that makes it more interesting. Totally. But if they're doing time, they're not gonna be at the reunion, so then it's not I mean it's fun unless somehow they can get to they give them a special like a work release kind of a yeah, like work release for your reunion. So yeah, you're a serial killer, but but you want to make contact with you know with your old friends. Yeah, that makes sense. Uh old exes, you want to avoid them. People who you know, that's foreign to me.
SPEAKER_05I want to I want to spy on them.
SPEAKER_09But that's why some people don't go, it's because they don't want to like have to deal with the maybe because it you broke up with them and they never got over it or whatever. Um you were already in touch with the people you like, so why go back and talk to the people you don't know? It's that same thing. It's the same thing as the social media thing. It's like you, as I was saying before, it's like you were your paths diverged for a reason.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_09There's a reason you didn't like stay in touch with right. One of us would have made the effort if it was worth yes, you made a choice. The choice has been made. Yeah. Um it's like, you know, you order your food at Applebee's, you get your what do you get?
SPEAKER_01Delicious, I don't know, sizzling fajitas or sizzling fajas. I bet they have that.
SPEAKER_09You eat your fajitas, and then you'd be like going back and saying, you know, I wish I'd ordered what's another thing you can order?
SPEAKER_00Uh uh burger, burger.
SPEAKER_09I should have ordered a burger. I'm gonna go back and have the burger. No, you've already made your decision.
SPEAKER_01Live with it. You're eating sizzling fajitas.
SPEAKER_10You and you ate them. You ate them, you ate them. They probably weren't good, but you ate them. But you are in your stomach now.
SPEAKER_09They were sizzling and you ate them.
SPEAKER_08Yep.
SPEAKER_09Okay, so you're already in touch with the people.
SPEAKER_06I'm hungry.
SPEAKER_09I'm hungry, damn it. You you I get cranky when I'm hungry. You're already in touch with a few people you want to stay in communication with. You made your choices, so move on. You don't like the competition. That's another reason that people give. Like they don't want to go there and feel like they have to put on a show. Right. And that's again, why I think it's great to go when you're super old, because if Jimmy shows up in a box, that's his deal. Like he's not getting out of the box.
SPEAKER_01Jimmy the box.
SPEAKER_10Like Jimmy's in the box. Like, Jimmy, you're in a box. Yeah, I've been in a box. I can't get out anymore. I'm just gonna stay in his box. And you're like, okay, buddy.
SPEAKER_09There you are. Like it's and to me, it's not like ha ha, Jimmy ended up in a box. No, it's like it's like Jimmy's in a box. That's who he is now.
SPEAKER_05I've updated my mental listing. Yeah, it's like Jimmy.
SPEAKER_09The the the the journey that I can when I connect those dots from Jimmy back when he was passed out on my living room floor in my parents' house, to now he's in a box.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_09Like I can do that.
SPEAKER_05I can do the mental visualization. I can do the journey. Yeah, I can do the montage.
SPEAKER_09I can do my own montage. I can play my own little like uh Amy Grant Amy Grant tune in the background. Right. And then boom Amy Grant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was wondering about the Amy Grant reference. Oh, that was a poll.
SPEAKER_10For sure. Boom. He's in the box. I put that together and I'm like, okay, that's what I needed to see.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. And I'm done. Yeah. Like I'm out. I'm probably out before they get to the what? The sizzling hamsters? The hamburgers.
SPEAKER_06Sizzling hamsters. Sizzling hamsters delicacy. It just fell in there.
SPEAKER_01I don't know how I got in there. You know these hamsters. We're still gonna serve it. The hamsters are curious.
SPEAKER_09They're curious, especially with heated pants. Meat is meat. That's right. And then some people um uh are single and they don't want to be the lone goose at the reunion where everybody's over like.
SPEAKER_10Oh, you're it's a hookup thing. Yeah. I assumed.
SPEAKER_09Oh, well, I don't. Just like a big sex party.
SPEAKER_05I figured it was like, I know I'm gonna be a single person there. I know there's gonna be some lonely divorce.
SPEAKER_01Like Yeah, I could say This guy that's lit into my DMs is gonna be there. Yeah. So I'm and I know his wife left him. So I think we're having problems.
SPEAKER_09I think so. I on the one hand, I was gonna say something that was ageist, and I was gonna say, probably if you're younger, that's more of a thing. But I guess that happens at all ages, right?
SPEAKER_00Old folks about old home orgies. That's a thing.
SPEAKER_02That's a thing. You said that with such conviction. I wish I wish I had a video of that.
SPEAKER_10Old folks homes orgies. That's a thing.
SPEAKER_00There are articles about it.
SPEAKER_09There are articles about it.
SPEAKER_00Old folks home orgies. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Wow. Nothing could you, there's nothing you could say that would be less appealing. Nothing you could say that would be less appealing than it.
SPEAKER_01Hey, good for them. Get it on. Good for them. Get it in.
SPEAKER_02Whoa.
SPEAKER_01Whatever you're in.
SPEAKER_02Finally, somebody else says something weird.
SPEAKER_01Well, have you lights your fire?
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm not against steering list. You're not against old. I'm not against the biggest.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, old people getting down in their box.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_09But they don't, they're they don't want to go back to reunion, have to explain their whole single lifestyle.
SPEAKER_05Especially if it's recent, right? Like I can see.
SPEAKER_09Right, right. It's just like they don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_05Oh, where's Jared? I don't want to talk about Jared.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, or just everybody like the smugness of couples.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_09You don't, unless you're a single person, I I am a single person, you don't really have to deal with the smugness of couples. Yeah. But they will smug you.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_09And they just do it in little ways.
SPEAKER_05Yep. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not, but they do it.
SPEAKER_09Like they'll just come up to you and you're sitting there by yourself and they'll say, You don't have anybody, but I do. And it's just, you know, you can read between the lines. It's the little thing.
SPEAKER_05It's like, oh yeah, because we have a Costco membership, and it's like, I understand that since you have two people in your household, you can make it through Costco sized things.
SPEAKER_03I get it.
SPEAKER_09So I think once we all go to a reunion.
SPEAKER_03We should get back together. He will have an episode reading.
SPEAKER_09I really, I really would go to one now. Um it really would be it's time.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_09But I don't really care if I do. That's very fun. But I am I would be curious to see where people ended up. Uh it would be interesting. But at if I never do it, I don't mind that. Well, this has been great. I think I think people have learned to uh approach carefully their their desire to reach back because you may find out something you don't want to know about somebody. You may understand very clearly why you don't stay in touch with them. Oh yeah. You may find out that you're being used as a magnet for some sort of fantasy flirtation because you were the bad girl.
SPEAKER_05You are the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. There are a lot of films written and directed by young men that are very much look at this incredible, unobtainable, quirky, it's always quirky, perfect woman. She's so cutesy and I love her. She's usually played by Zoe Deschanel. Um and I'm like, I just aspire to obtain her because she's like a mark, she's a checklist, she's uh 500 Days of Summer does a really interesting commentary on that. Where if you if you just sort of watch it straight and you empathize with the main male character, you should watch it again and realize that he's a psychopath.
SPEAKER_09Thank you both for doing this podcast with me. I really appreciate your points of view, and I think we've helped people understand what the risks are of reaching back. So you've done a great service. If you like what we're doing, listeners, please help us by sharing the show. Follow us on Instagram, reach out to us in email or on Instagram, tell us what you like about the show. That means a lot to us, keeps us going. You can support us on Patreon if you're feeling generous. We appreciate your considering that. And we hope you will tune in to another episode. Because whether you are at an Applebee's reunion in Utah with a virgin, margarita, and some sizzling fajitas, or just an old person at a sex party, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.