Leslie John (on the power of oversharing)

18:07Leslie John:And that's the thing with secrets is that secrets can be harmful when you're actively keeping them because you need to like monitor. And there's been some really fascinating studies on how when you are keeping a secret, Like these studies actually, they're good experiments in that they kind of endow you with a secret or not. And then they do some kind of intelligence test and you perform worse. It's because you're actively monitoring, you're preoccupied with keeping a secret. Right, exactly. It's taking up brain space to keep all the many versions you've told other people straight. Exactly, exactly.

18:34Leslie John:And then it's like stressful and it's bad for well-being and all this. But that's, of course, not to say that we should say anything and everything all the time. We often keep secrets for a very good reason. Like I'm thinking of family secrets and secrets from our children. Well, there's legal ones, too. Legal secrets, too. There's things that could get you arrested. In AA, we have a really good kind of policy. It's like you're obliged to make an amends to people unless to do so would injure that person or others. You have to be very objective about is unburdening myself hurting you and then other people.

19:06Intentional. Yeah.

19:07Leslie John:There's also tons of research on how when you say the thing, it's worse in your head than it actually ends up being. Exactly. A lot of it is like the rumination before you say the thing and then you say the thing and you're like, oh, why was I ruminating? That was a waste. Like the Oreos. Yeah, yeah. Like the Oreos. So how did that then transition from kind of being obsessed with secrecy to encouraging? Ultimately, you wrote a book encouraging people to share more. The main impetus was this growing, leading a double life feeling of I literally was like telling people we suck at privacy. I would lecture them.

19:42Leslie John:And then in my personal life, did I have all my passwords on a notepad? Do I do BuzzFeed quizzes like they're my griftonite? Yes. Wait, that's hypocritical at minimum. But I think if you asked me to probe deeper into it, I would say it also coincided with there's been a lot of changes in behavioral science and kind of the old school way of doing things is really negative. And like people are bad at making decisions and look at all the ways we suck. And it's really fascinating seeing how we're irrational. But I felt that that kind of vibe, for lack of a better word, it's kind of toxic when you're like seeking what's wrong with people.

20:20Leslie John:Then you look around in academia and nobody praises anyone. It's hyper, hyper critical. Where's the joy? And so it was like, OK, wait, revealing. Why did they do it? Maybe people are right to do it. Maybe it's joyful. Maybe it's fun. Maybe it opens up doors in relationships. Maybe it gives you influence. Maybe it does all of these things. So I was like reflecting on times when I thought that I had overshared these moments of TMI. It's like I poured gasoline all over my body and lit a match. There's no recovering from this. And I looked back at these and I was like, yeah, that sucked. But what about the long game?

20:55Leslie John:Every single one of them, there was something amazing that came out of it. I only connected it when I was working on the book. Yeah, because you were in a group of other people and you were encouraged by high status members of the group to share an embarrassing story. I.e. career suicide. So I was a baby academic. I was at this conference late at night and there was mostly junior people, but there was a couple of super grand poobahs who did not know of my existence at that point. And someone had the idea of let's go around the circle and share our most embarrassing story ever. And most of them were like humble brags, like there's a typo in my abstract or something like, oh, no, the horror, right?

21:30Leslie John:Like this way of showing off without seeming like you're showing off that's super obnoxious and eye roll. And for whatever reason, I don't know why, impulsively, I just went for it and I shared my actually most embarrassing story, which was when I was in college, I was acting at a play and I peed myself on stage like in a lavish way. Uh-huh. Full evac of the bladder. Full evac. You could see it? I believe so. How much detail do you want? Oh, I love DT. Yeah. This is our bread and butter for real. Buckle in. I was wearing pantyhose. Yes, it was noticeable. And I was in my deluded thinking slash half thinking slash panic in the moment.

22:04Leslie John:I'm on stage and it's like a waterfall, it feels like, because I played a drunk school teacher. Oh, you were just in character. And so I was like really into it because I was like a prim and proper. And there's this one scene where I go crazy that I couldn't wait for. And so I'm on the tables and they're laughing and the Clara's laughing. So then I laugh and then that happens, the waterfall. But then I think, okay, well, how do I cover this up? I don't want them to see this. So I have this giant bottle of vodka. And so then I'm like diluted. Oh, smart. So then I'm throwing the vodka everywhere.

22:35Leslie John:Really smart. This was quite a performance to witness. But also a drunk person would pee, so that's like really method. I know, and I saw it, I'd be like, oh, cool, they rigged up. Same. There's a rig in there. And they made it like for you, like you can smell it. Yeah, you're so sophisticated. This is small town Ontario. I'm just but anyways I don't know to this day my family and I've never spoken of it so I shared it sorry I'm being verbose we shared it I went for the kill not strategically and then I was like oh no and everyone else was oh yeah who's that girl weirdo and so then I thought well that's the end of my career and then I woke up the next day and just so much rumination but then writing the book looking back I thought wow I felt very ashamed people looked at me weird I got a lot of this negative feedback.

23:19Leslie John:But those two guys, they became my closest mentors. One of them, Mike Norton, who you've had, he's like my chosen big brother. He came here a couple of years ago for this book and he was there. And it wasn't despite that, that we've become close. It's like you were real and not a robot and took a risk and could have gone badly for sure. I lucked out. So there's lots of moments like that when I started thinking, even the stuff that's really feels TMI, there's often an upside to it that we sometimes don't appreciate in the moment. Yeah. I heard you say that kind of in general, not much qualifies as oversharing other than online.

23:58Leslie John:Online, I think is super tricky because it's not like a normal social interaction. And then companies all rig it to get our data and online is super tough. I'm almost to the point where if you never feel like you've crossed the line, then you're not doing it enough. right? I don't know if you've had Linda Babcock. She's this amazing economist. She studies negotiation. She's written a few books on women and negotiating. And she said to me, I remember Carnegie Mellon, she said, Leslie, if you always get what you want, you're not asking for enough. Oh, I like that. And I think it's the same way with revealing.

24:31Leslie John:Sometimes hitting the TMI, we should celebrate because now we know where the bound is. Yeah. If we never get there, then we're not doing it enough and we're missing out. For the people who are in the world screaming like, why do they got to share that? You know, there's definitely a chorus of people who are like, why do you need your dirty laundry out there? Why do you got to share all that? Let's try to make a steel argument for what it is that you think they're objecting to. I have my theories. I have one too. Hit us. I believe that sometimes. Let's hear it. So that's why I believe that too.

25:01Oh, you have that thought. I have that thought too.

25:03Leslie John:Say more. Normally, I object when there are other people involved in their overshare. And I'm like, these other people that are involved do not have the opportunity to speak up. Yeah, that's really annoying. And a lot of memoirs, I think, have this tricky line. This is in your book, sharing what's not yours to share. Yeah, but it's tricky because what's yours and what's not yours. Especially when you're talking about your family. I'm talking about your family. It's like your story. Or your husband or wife. It's really hard. Or your exes. These are real people out in the world, and I find that very complicated.

25:35Leslie John:I agree. It is very complicated. Even if you hate them, it's your perspective, which I guess is the point. Yeah. Let's break it into defined categories. So one would be that type of sharing where it's just like you're spilling everyone's tea versus I'm owning up to something publicly that's very shameful. That's a specific category. I think that's the one we would want to encourage. And then so within that domain, is there any pattern of when people feel like it's too much? In the domain of owning up to your... Yeah, the good kind we want, where it's like you're just owning your own struggle or your own shortcoming or your own failure.

26:09Leslie John:I think there is definitely TMI potential there. I'm thinking, for example, let's say you're going back to work after an absence, health-related. Let's say it's substance abuse-related. You got it all under control now. You're like on the road, but it would be too much to tell everybody all the gore about it, right? Like that's just not necessary. That's like bringing everyone down. They just need to know that you're doing better. You've addressed the thing and you have the maturity to help yourself and to get the tools you need. That's kind of going into detail about all the ins and outs of the problem.

26:42Leslie John:Another one would be, this is one that Allison, who I know, I actually, her book is right behind you. Allison Brooks' book, Talk. Her take is you should never say if you have to cancel or you have a conflict, you should never give the reason why because that's TMI. Because she's like, there's never a reason that's good enough. So you should just say, I can't make it. My take is different. I think that you often should give the answer, but only if the answer is actually a good unassailable answer. Like, my child is sick. That's unassailable. And people understand more and then they empathize with you.

27:16Leslie John:But what would be a bad example of that is if it feels selfish or if it feels like you are putting yourself above the other person. And most explanations do that. But there are some, like children are an unassailable reason. Like everybody knows that, of course, they take priority no matter what. Or like family emergencies. Family illnesses, yeah. Another area where it's tricky is when these situations are all situations where you're saying it to a group of people. Like that's risky. But if it's one-on-one, it's so much easier to read the room. and you have a relationship with these people who you called up.

27:48Leslie John:I think it's very low risk in that sense. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking that your keys are actually in your hand before you close the car door. Have you ever stood in a parking lot full of sun staring at your keys sitting right there on the seat four inches away and completely useless to you. It's a very specific kind of humbling. Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. And for fast, reliable help when you need it, add an Allstate roadside plan today.

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30:37I think what happens a lot of times when someone shares something, if you get the sense that it is some kind of indulgent exercise on their part or that there's some manipulation to it, it's looking for sympathy. If it has these outcomes, I think we're kind of good at detecting that.

30:54Leslie John:Insincerity. Yeah, and that's problematic. We know people that are just addicted to the adrenaline of shock value. Yeah. And I'm on that spectrum somewhere, right? Of course, it feels normal to me, but I'm sure for other people. But yes, I get more alive if we're talking about something a little more dangerous. Yeah. More dialed in. I think that makes you human. Right, right, right. Talking about risque, juicy subjects is just more fun. We pay more attention. We're more dialed in. There's novelty on the other side as well. Like you're going to tell me something likely I haven't heard a version of yet.

31:26Leslie John:It's seductive even. Yeah, it's intubable. The pull of, yeah, yeah. And I think that's the number one when people are like, how do I think about this better? How do I decide what's TMI, what's not? How do I choose what to reveal and whatnot? I think the number one thing is knowing your purpose. In your heart of hearts, why are you doing this? I think it's a more complex question than it seems because it's like how therapy has that annoying feature of keeping every question begs more questions, right? Because it's like, what's your purpose? You really have to be brutally honest with yourself to come to the realization that, oh, I'm just doing this because I want status or I want to show off.

31:57Leslie John:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Right, right. It requires a lot of self-awareness to really be that level of honesty with yourself. And there's likely multiple motivators within it. What one are you isolating? That totally conflict. And what we found when people do consider these decisions, these really hard decisions, like do you tell your boss that you have ADHD? You could get accommodation. You could lose your job. Do you tell your kids about your partying ways? Do you tell your spouse about that old fling? Do you tell your spouse you're disappointed in them? All these things are like very unclear whether you should do it or not.

32:28Leslie John:And so often we just default to silence. We don't even consider doing it. And then when we do, I found that it's like 90 % plus of the time when I do say, okay, think of something that you're considering. Tell me what you're thinking about. Tell me what's on your mind. 90 % of the things that people think about are the risks of revealing. They're like, oh, you know, if I speak up at work because someone didn't credit me for an idea, they'll think I'm petty. It'll ruin the relationship. And that's all real. That's totally valid and legit. But they stop there. What about the risks of not sharing?

32:58Leslie John:Well, I'm going to ruminate. Then I'm going to be passive aggressive. And that's going to be bad for the relationship. So like zooming out is, I think, a really important part of making better decisions. I mean, we've shown it in our research that we fixate on the risks of revealing for lots of reasons about how our brains work. But then if we zoom out, we make different ones. It doesn't mean everything should be revealed, for sure not. But I think we should reveal a little bit more than we think we should most of the time. And what advice do you have for these different asymmetric relationships or status relationships?

33:30How does that play in?

33:31Leslie John:Status is tricky. Workplace is a place of mixed status often. And that's where we need to be crafty because it's tricky. And we need to realize that in any given day, we move up and down the status hierarchy. I mean, when I'm talking to the dean, I'm lower status. When I'm talking to students, I'm higher status. So like each person, depending moment to moment. And I think when we are in a high status situation, we have so much more leeway than we think. And it's so powerful. I'm thinking of, for example, like Angelina Jolie, the op-ed she wrote in The Times on breast cancer and double mastectomy.

34:03Leslie John:And after that, so high status person, there was a noticeable uptick in people getting screened. You can do so much good in destigmatizing things, in prompting action if you're a high status. And again and again, we've studied this. We've studied people in high status situations saying some of their weaknesses, like CEOs of companies saying, my organizational skills aren't the greatest sometimes. They're not saying like I'm pathologically messy. That's TMI, but going a little bit more and it makes their employees like them more, be more motivated to work for them, trust them more. It has all these benefits.

34:35Leslie John:Like it's kind of obvious talking about it now. But when we ask managers like, what do you say to your new team when you introduce yourself? It's all just like positive things about themselves. They never share what they're working on. It often doesn't occur to us to do it. Right. We think we got to sell ourselves. Yeah. And in so many situations, I think it's less selling, more curiosity, more question asking. The times when you actually need to sell and persuade are very few and far between in everyday life. And in fact, when you're trying to sell, oftentimes the way to sell is to not be. I was going to say, it's also just white noise.

35:08Leslie John:Yeah. Like you're doing the same thing everyone else is doing. Yeah, cut through. Have you studied how people receive that? So we've studied what are good ways to receive someone's disclosure. There's some really interesting work on that. So like if someone says something really sensitive to you, confides in you, what's a good thing to do? This is why I love what I do. My instinct is often wrong. And then I learned from research, oh, I did the exact wrong thing. So my instinct is often like going to fix mode, right? So if my husband's like, this colleague is like such a pain, I'm like, okay, well, let's problem solve.

35:42Leslie John:And that's typically not the most useful thing. The most useful thing is validation, is just saying, I hear you. That must be so hard. That guy sounds like a real dick. Just saying less is more. There have been neuroscientific studies of this. When you validate someone's feelings, even when they know that you're literally doing this almost performatively, like you're instructed, even when I know you're doing this, the areas of the brain, the really emotional ones, it's calming. for someone to repeat back to you the things that you are feeling, which has so many lessons. Like in parenting, I apply that.

36:16Leslie John:I have to fight myself. I'm like, right? I'm like going into like fixed mode. And then no, no, no, no. Tyler, I know that's so frustrating. I would feel the same way too. I've had a unique experience of just being in AA for so long. I think it's such an abnormal experience to watch people do exactly that all the time. It's all oversharing. It's almost always shameful. And just getting to witness the reaction to that was truly the opposite of what I feared growing up. And then it's always met with understanding and forgiveness and all these things. It's a tough sell to people who have not had that experience.

36:55We deal with it on the show all the time. We deal with publicists who are gatekeepers of actors. And the publicist will go, look, I can put them on a different show and they won't have to talk about anything.

37:04Leslie John:This is a very vulnerable show. So we require, I mean, the types of conversations you're going to probably say something about yourself. Right. Reveal something. Necessitates. What you want to educate them on, which is a very hard sell, is look, I've said everything on here. I've said I've been molested. I've said I relapsed. I said I did this. I said I cheated on my girlfriend. Like, I've said all this stuff. It has not made people repelled by me. I'm an example of the thing you're afraid of. And then also, look at these thousand episodes where people did it and there's never been blowback. There's almost never been blowback.

37:36And it's very frustrating that that's still the paradigm that you think these things repel you to other people. And all they do is endear you to other people. So I'm really fascinated by why it works so well. I think there's, again, this social primate thing. There's a level of trust that you bestow onto me by telling me your secret or something you're ashamed or embarrassed on.

37:57Leslie John:Yeah. And then I intuit, wow, they trust me. Yeah. And now we're in a trusting relationship. And now I feel inclined to reciprocate. Exactly. And now we really are building something deeper. But then I think there's this other aspect to it that is I think we are attracted to bravery. Say more. As a species. You can just easily figure out why that would be. Like evolutionarily that would be the case. The one that went out and found the new water hole should be celebrated. The one that fought the lion should be celebrated. You know, these acts of courage and bravery, we I think are hardwired to appreciate.

38:30That's why we love these athletes. And I think people immediately recognize bravery. You know immediately, you can feel it, how scary it'd be for you to have said that same thing to yourself. And you go, wow, that was really brave. You admire them for it. Yes.

38:47Leslie John:You admire them for it. It's attractive. It's courageous. Your intuition and your lived experience is super consistent with the data. You know, I love that I, in my job, I get to put people in these kind of absurd decision-making scenarios. like I trap them and then they the choice they make hopefully if I've designed it well illuminate something about human nature and so our version of what you just said to show that was this study where what we did was we asked so imagine you're deciding between two perspective dates so there's two people you're thinking of dating you talk to one of them you ask them I'm laughing because it's a ridiculous question have you ever had any STDs and they said oh my got it.

39:27Leslie John:Like I have had all of the STDs and even the undiscovered ones. Like the other person, you ask the same question and they're like, I'm not telling you. This contrast we're interested in, might it sometimes be better to just say the worst possible thing relative to saliently saying, I'm not doing that. And in fact, it is better to say I've had all the STDs than to just not answer the question. Because our imagination is stronger than reality. What did they have going on that they couldn't say? But also then that's a little tricky with boundaries. I agree that if I was on these dates, I would also be like, yikes, if you're not telling me that is something crazy.

40:10Leslie John:But I also believe you should be able to say, I'm not comfortable answering that. I don't know you. Yeah, the principled withholder, you would think. And so we did like ridiculous number of studies, you know, a social scientist, tinker, tinker, tinker. And we tested like, okay, what if it's like a principled withholder? That's like, that's an obnoxious question. Still, we hate them. And so I've come to believe that it's something really deep and primal in us that is so rewarding about, we're so oriented towards self-disclosure. Why? Because it's social risk. And the social risk, when I do this, I'm showing that I trust you.

40:46Leslie John:And then when I do that, then you trust me. And so it's precisely because it's risky that there is reward. Okay, let's talk about parasocial relationships. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, first, let's talk about the illusion of reciprocity. Okay. Yeah, I like this. That's at the heart of parasocial relationships. A parasocial relationship being a one-sided, often between people in the media, celebrities, and someone who's not a celebrity, feeling this real sense of emotional connection to the person, but the famous person doesn't even know of the person's existence. We're so wired towards social relationships, right?

41:19Leslie John:And our brains are kind of a little lazy. We take shortcuts. And so most of the relationships we have, or at least our brains think that most of them that we have are two-sided. But now there's so much more opportunity for one-sided with social media. But our brains kind of haven't adapted to that. And so we use this heuristic of like, oh, if I know a lot about them, they must know a lot about me. Yeah. Because up until 1900, it would have been impossible to know a lot about somebody that didn't also know a lot about you virtually. If you think of like the Caesars, there were parasocial relations, I'm sure, there.

41:53Leslie John:But the scope of this has just exploded because you have so much access to these people, like revealing a lot about themselves, which revealing, we know, makes you feel like you know them and they know you and trust. That's really the accelerant of these relationships. There is something very real about them because there are real feelings involved. So there's something really real about them and they can be really helpful in many ways. One simple way we've shown this is where I look at the people you follow on social media. How well do you know them? And then I asked, how well do they know you?

42:24Leslie John:And then I asked, by the way, do any of these people actually follow you? And almost none of them are mutually. but yet the degree to which I think that I know you is super strongly correlated with the degree to which I think you know me wait so people do think it your brain just feels it it's like I know I know so much I know so much about this person you intuitively know and they also know a lot about me because that's how it has worked for 300 ,000 years like one symptom of this is if a fan comes up to you and they like start telling you super personal stuff as if you're in that's what you do in a relationship.

43:00Leslie John:Like, I'm sure that's happened to you. I hang out at Cara a lot. What happens? Constant, every time. Does it get annoying? No, it's lovely. I think it's so nice. I love that. They always come and they say thank you, basically. But then, yeah, there always is some vulnerable moment. Like, someone gave me this long letter. Very personal stuff. And specifically, Monica had a show about freezing eggs and fertility. Oh, yeah, that's true. And so she gets tons of women they're going to tell her, of course, immediately. The fertility story. There's a lot. And I think we're in a very interesting position because actors have a little bit less of a parasocial relationship because you at least know them as famous.

43:41Leslie John:They're like, they're this famous thing. And you know them from their characters they've played in movies. They don't reveal the way you two do. Yeah. Yeah, but Dax is this weird hybrid, right? Yes, he's a weird hybrid. You're right. I am not. They got to know me here. We're extremely vulnerable and talking about pooping our pants and talking about masturbating. Oh, yeah. And like lots of stuff, you know? What also happens is they'll come up and be like, oh, my God. When you told this story and it's like, oh, my God, I can't believe I told that story. Like I am like, oh, yeah. You're a little mortified.

44:11Leslie John:Yes, because I forgot that everyone's listening. It is very weird. I also have been on the other side of parasocial relationships all the time. I am currently on the other side of the parasocial relationship. We've all gone. I'm listening to this podcast, these two women, that are one degree removed from me in life. Okay. And I'm obsessed with them. I'm going back, listening from the beginning, having opinions. And I know, I'm like, oh my God, this is so crazy. What is driving you to do this? Well, we've dissected it a little bit. I think part of it's like, oh, they're sisters. I wish I had that.

44:43Leslie John:Me too. I don't know. You feel like you're involved in that relationship and it's a relationship that's interesting. Yeah. So it's so weird to have experienced both. And now that we're talking about it here, do they know? I mean, I've been talking about it for a couple weeks. It's probably gotten back to them. What's the next move? No, but I don't want to meet them. So why don't you want to meet them? I think because I've been on the other side of it. Yes. I know that meeting is not. It's never good. It's like, for what? That might shatter a little bit of this fun thing I've created. The illusion.

45:16Leslie John:The illusion? Yes. We differ on this greatly, though. You do? Interesting. Our reaction to the attention. One of the fights we have a lot on here is about she would never date someone that listens to the show. Oh, that was my next question for you. Would you ever date a fan? You would not? Not a fan. Someone who listens is one thing, but someone who's an active. Why not? My argument is like that makes sense for an actor who played a queen in a movie and everyone fell in love with her and she had perfect wardrobe. It's not her. Yeah. It's like you don't love me. You love this character. I'm like, Monica, if they love you, they love you.

45:53Leslie John:Well, do you think they know the real you? That's the thing. They know a version, but they don't. So for me, if you come in and you love me, well, first of all, you can't love me. You do not know me. I guess that's sort of. Did you love Matt Damon? No. Oh. Like, I'm smart enough to know. I think you really feel love in your heart. I feel infatuation. Yeah, yeah. I feel. Don't we all? Exactly. Yes, exactly. Good luck. I feel infatuation. But I do not love Matt Damon. I know love is the space. It's earned. It's the space in between two people. It's both ways. So I see what both of you are saying.

46:31Leslie John:I think that both as parents are doing my positive parenting. Sorry. I see his point too. No, I totally see. I validate you. But a really important thing that we're hitting on is you want to get there together. It's like one-sided disclosure. This goes back to Arthur Aaron's studies where they had people, he grouped people together that didn't know each other and he had them go through a list of 36 questions that got more and more deep as they went along. And when people did that, they like each other at the end. One of them even, so the lore goes, fell in love and got married. The control people, they just talk about small talk.

47:06Leslie John:It doesn't work. But then there was another study that what they did was they had people, dyad one got the same questions as dyad two, but dyad one, one fell swooped it. So the first person answered all the questions. Then the second person answered all the questions. In the other dyad, it was the back and forth. I asked a question and you asked a question. Right, exactly, back and forth. And it was only the back and forth that made people feel connected and loved. So it's really like the process of taking this risk together. Now, that's not to say, I wouldn't roll it out of the question of Monica being with a fan.

47:39Leslie John:I would just think that the fan would have to be cognizant that we need to, like, start. Build your own shares. We need to build this. Yeah, yeah. Which I think is highly doable. I think so, too. I'm such a romantic. But I digress. Yeah, I'm in one with somebody I do know. Oh, yes. Okay. But it's the same because I don't know them the way I am immersed in his life as a parasocial relationship. So mine's David Sedaris. Oh, I love him. Yeah. I have become like just I can't stop listening every single night to his stuff. I mean, probably for nine months, I've been listening every night, re-listening over and over again.

48:18Because, again, it's about his sisters. It's about his friends. It's about his husband. It's his life. And I can see myself so clearly inserting beautifully into he and Amy's breakfast.

48:32Leslie John:Oh. Like, I know I have the same vibe as them. Yeah. And I find the same irreverent shit funny. And I'm not afraid to be gross and dirty. Like there's just all these indicators for me where I'm like, oh, I could really, really thrive in that little trifecta. And I tell Monica the really weird thing for me is I am friendly with him. We text. He's been on this show like four or five times. But he is not close to me the way I am close to him. He's not listening to this show. Yeah. And so I'm in an even trickier spot where it's like I have to figure out whether I pursue this relationship I want with him or if there's something weird about that or even if it's even possible.

49:13But I'm really enjoying it because it's such a weird feeling. Like I'm in love with him. Love it. I love him. I want to protect him. I want to just follow him around and make sure he's okay. Yeah, I love him.

49:23Leslie John:I love it slash I'm a little worried about it. Sure. But do you want to act on it or is it just the fantasy? Like you're here and then it's like it's never going to be what you make it out to be. That's for certain. He's crankier than probably I know and he's maybe more petty than I know. You know, he's more human than I know. He is a person, yeah. Although that is kind of his brand is exposing what a shitty person he is, which is why I love him. Why you love him. Yeah, so maybe he could deliver. But for me, it's more about I would love to have that relationship with him. I hope I do somehow. But it has to be achieved in a real way that I'm not pursuing it and he doesn't know how I feel.

49:59I am going to be reliant on him more than myself.

50:02Leslie John:Yeah, I think because I've been in this position a lot, I've had a lot of parasocial relationships and lived in fantasy land like my whole life. Yeah. That I've had the bubble pop a lot. I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of these people that I had all these fantasies about. And it goes away. The thing you had that like googly eyes goes away. There are some things that I think are fun that just like live in your imagination. Yes, I agree. That does sound, though, also like the course of love and relationships and infatuation where the stages of being infatuated with someone and then over time, you see that they scratch their bum and there's more.

50:39Leslie John:They clear their throat a lot. Yeah, and it's the kind of positive illusions go away to an extent. But I like that because that's intimacy. I think this is where, again, getting there together is really important because when you build that together, social psychology says this on intimate relationships that then you get these positive illusions as you go along and the positive illusions sustain you a lot longer. I would think then if it's this one-sided thing that's very kind of artificial in a way. But I say artificial lightly because the feelings are real. And I do think that when people feel lonely during COVID, parasocial interactions were a source of great comfort to people.

51:16Leslie John:Oh, yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

51:31All right, so this isn't new. Talk about the trapped in the TV effect.

51:37Leslie John:Oh, yeah. So that was one of the first scientific explorations of this, or it was talked about in a scientific way, is in the 50s. So there was a TV show called, like, Ding Dong School or something like this. and there was a woman in it. It was a kid's show, Miss Frances. And, you know, TVs were novel then. And this was so interesting that this person could talk to you. It looked like she was there. And so what the children started doing is trying to bang open or like take apart the TV. They wanted to let her out. Because they wanted to let her out because they thought she was, I know, they thought she was trapped.

52:13Leslie John:I know. I think it captures this desire. Someone who is so compelling, you just want more of them. But I agree with you that sometimes we should leave it at that. But that's learned. I think that's learned behavior. Can we talk about the science of connection? Yeah, let's do that. I mean, I have written down this sentence. Why are we instinctively drawn to mutual openness and how our brains respond to it even when it comes from a machine? Oh, I love that. This colleague of mine, her name is Yang Mi Moon. She did these fascinating studies. I think they were the early 2000s where she had people interact with computers and the computers self-disclosed to the person.

52:51Leslie John:They'd be like, I have up to 100 gigahertz RAM capacity, but I rarely get to use my whole capacity. They didn't even say I. It wasn't even that personified. It was like this computer, but rarely uses its full capacity. And then people felt attracted and they liked the computer that disclosed to it, which is so fascinating to me because the hardwiring case, The case for like when something acts like a human and reveals, then we feel fond of them. How many movies we have where that's the storyline. We love stories about robots who really have a heart. I know, I know. We've done it 30 times and then they always work.

53:27And there's a huge Broadway play right now. Oh yeah, that's right. The kids are obsessed with. That's right. Two robots a phone low.

53:33Leslie John:There's this amazing study where they put people in brain scanners and they had people answer kind of fun-ish trivia questions about themselves. So like, what's your favorite ice cream flavor? And when people did that, the pleasure centers of their brain were activated. So it's really suggests that there's something deeply intrinsically reinforcing about self-disclosure. And then they did the classic thing to convince the conservative economists that there's something to it. They had people actually, they gave them the opportunity to essentially pay money to answer questions about themselves. And people did it.

54:08Leslie John:They're like, I'll pay good money to talk about myself. I read in your thing that just asking someone follow-up questions. Yeah. The power of that. What's happening there? This is now Allison Brooks, my bestie. She's done work on follow-up questions as well. Follow-up questions are really powerful because they signal that you're listening. And people love to self-disclose. It's, as we know, intrinsically motivating. And so when you ask me a follow-up question, it's not just any question. You're first, you're showing that you listen to me. So I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. and you're giving me an opportunity to tell you more about myself.

54:42Leslie John:It's amazing. I'm in heaven. And the core to me of why this is so powerful is because social connections are like, we are herd animals, and if we don't have them, then we die. Yeah, if nobody cares about us, then we're excommunicated. Yeah. In my 30s, I found myself divorced and single again, and so I was navigating online dating. And looking back, I realized I did the exact wrong thing to attract a mate in the sense that when I got to the date and if I was like, uh, not super into this guy, I would just keep asking him questions because I'm like, at least I'll learn something about him. Like I learned about robotic knot tires, 3D knot tires and like all these random things that I never knew existed.

55:21Were you on academia?

55:23Leslie John:I know, that's a really dirty one, isn't it? No, I actually did not want to date an academic. That's like a thumbs down. That's a negative in the grandmaster regression equation of my dating life. But yeah, it was the exact wrong thing because then those are the guys that are like - She loves me. Yeah. And then by contrast, when I was really into the guy, I'm a very gut person on these kinds of things. When I was really into him, I would find myself selling, like pitching. Yeah. Oh, you're attractive. Yeah. And then fortunately, I realized it kind of midway through that I was doing the wrong thing.

55:54Leslie John:Yeah. But it's interesting how the instincts and like I study this stuff and my intuition was like completely wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What impact does beauty have on a sense of familiarity? Oh, my gosh. So. Yeah. We love beautiful people. We love beautiful people. We do. I know. I've heard if you could choose to be beautiful or intelligent, I think you've said beauty. Yeah. We've got to use the word hot over beautiful. Just to be clear. Why is that? Hot means you want to have sex with the person. Okay. Beautiful doesn't necessarily mean that. Beautiful means like soul. I can look at a lot of models and go, oh, they're beautiful.

56:28I don't think they're hot.

56:29Leslie John:You want to be someone that everyone wants to have sex with. Yeah. Why? Because he's an approval junkie. Yeah, that's the ultimate approval. Why is that the ultimate approval, though? Why not? You are the most intelligent. I admire your brain. I suppose that could make you— But why is that the thing for you? Well, because A, it's what I didn't have. We all want what we don't have. Or you felt like you didn't have. Yeah, right. By my estimation, no one slept with me because they thought I was hot. But people were sleeping with you, though. Yes. That's what's weird. Not like you weren't getting partnered.

56:57Leslie John:CBT sesh, yeah. Right. So, boo-hoo to me, it still worked out. Yes. I just think it's natural for us to identify what we don't have and to covet that. Maybe not. Maybe I'm unique in that. It's a spectrum. And I think you're on the far end. I'm pegging it. I would pick beautiful over hot. Okay. Okay. Wow. Why is that? Because it's like. She already has hot. Obviously. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I think it's more elusive. I think it's more rarefied air. It's harder to beat. I think hot is all the parts of you. You can be hot by being confident and having style, having a good personality.

57:35Leslie John:Oh, but beautiful is like physical. Physically only. You can't do anything about it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So for me, it's like, well, I got what I got. I hate it. Yeah. So obviously I wish that was, you know what I mean? And again, with intelligence, like I have some amount of that. Yeah. So I don't really care. Yeah. But we have heard from very beautiful people that they want to be seen as intelligent, But they don't know what it's like to be ugly. Which fits with you always want what you don't have. The grass is always greener. Right. The grass is always greener. Yeah. Yeah. It is so interesting.

58:06Leslie John:Okay. So a friend of mine, Benoit Monette, who is also very beautiful. The punchline is beautiful people feel familiar to us. So when you think of like, why do we feel connected to celebrities? Well, one is now they tell us a lot. We have access. So we feel the thing in our brain of how we can't tell that it's one sided. We confuse the two. You know a lot about them. Yeah. Right. But also they tend to be beautiful, hot, whichever you prefer. And we actually perceptually view hot people as more familiar. We think they're more familiar. And in one of the studies they did in this paper, they took photos from a Princeton yearbook.

58:43Leslie John:They did the study with current Princeton students, but it was an old yearbook. They didn't know the people. And then they asked the people how familiar is this person? And the more attractive people were judged to be more familiar. What? I know. That's counterintuitive. Is there any explanation for that? It's just an observation. I mean, do we have any theory on why it triggers familiarity? The explanation, it's something to do with the symmetry of the face. Beautiful is more symmetric and it's more fluent to process. The more fluent something is to process, the more familiar. You can found ease of processing with familiarity.

59:16I'm also going to come at it from a null hypothesis approach, which is distinctive features are novel, which is implicitly not familiar. Right. Right, so the more asymmetry you have. And distinctive features are not beautiful. Well, let's just say you have asymmetry. Yeah, you have asymmetry. All the things that we define the golden rule of beauty, right? You're violating those. Right. That's why I would argue that's what is beautiful about people, right? Is when they're unique. Yes. But it's unique, which is the opposite of familiar.

59:43Leslie John:Yes. Yeah. Right. But are you saying that because it's unique, it should stand out and be memorable? Well, I'm just saying because it's unique, it's in opposition to familiarity. Yeah. If you recognize this is the first time I'm seeing this, that's the opposite of familiar. Whereas if nothing's triggered, you don't file into new thing. Right. And so it's familiar. Exactly. You're told to like draw a picture of a man. That's what you're going to draw. You're just going to draw like a very standard something. And then if a beautiful person probably matches that standard. You draw symmetrically or you attempt to.

1:00:16Exactly. Yeah. Yes. This is a zone that no one will like. When I've seen really hard movements and pushes to redefine beauty, which on the surface is wonderful and egalitarian and all these things, why I've bristled is. And I feel like there's some dishonesty in that. At the end of the day, no matter what you say or who you put on billboards, when you do these tests and you just show faces of people, symmetry is symmetry. There's something fucked up in our brain that values that. And I don't think you can ad campaign your way out of that. And it feels dishonest in its pursuit.

1:00:56Leslie John:Interesting. As opposed to working on like, how do we all deal with that? We don't look like Brad Pitt. That seems more productive. How do we come to terms with? Guess what? You are not symmetrical. I guess it's a little confusing because you did also just say what you find attractive is uniqueness. And I think a lot of people do actually find unique features attractive or like, oh, that's interesting and intriguing. Right. So that's the opposite of what you're saying. That's true. Yes. So for me personally, I might have my taste. But I think a lot of people find, I mean, everyone likes Matt Bomer, okay?

1:01:30Leslie John:Everyone looks at his face and is like, he's classically beautiful. No one's going to object to that. Exactly. And I'm not saying we shouldn't put him on a billboard. We should. But also, I don't think putting, oh God, I shouldn't say a person. Yeah, we won't say it. Yeah, we won't say it. But putting that person on a billboard who has unique you. But I think I'd be the first to say it's like, yes, I am attracted to that uniqueness in fingerprinting. and I can acknowledge I know that's not going to be the most broadly appealing. I can acknowledge the reality of it. I happen to find the Greek nose so hot.

1:02:04That's not going to get adopted by everybody, right? Yeah. So two things are happening. One is my personal preferences. And then also I can acknowledge that if you put up these two faces and you pull all of America, this person's going to get the win.

1:02:17Leslie John:Although maybe there's just so much taste for uniqueness that it's not disingenuous, that there is a segment of the population that likes Greek noses. Oh, yeah, yeah. In that sense, it would be what consumers demand. It wouldn't be disingenuous. I think one of the things I was reacting to in my mind that I bristled against, the feeling of you're being like gaslit as a consumer, that it's like - Or a campaign. That's what I mean. It's like, no, symmetry is objectively beautiful. Like, we can agree. But I think you can do this in a genuine way, market someone who is not classically beautiful. I do too.

1:02:52Leslie John:Yeah, don't tell people that they can't like the symmetrical person. We're going to like it. I just feel placated or something. Yeah, it's interesting. Although yes and no, because sometimes when you see like the most beautiful person ever wearing like sunglasses on a billboard, it's like, well, I'm not going to put those sunglasses on and look like that. It's a lie. For sure. Yeah. Now we're talking about what category. Some categories you don't want aspirational. You want, oh, I see myself in that person. I would want to use that product. And guess what? People that are beautiful, in quotes or how it's defined, they have a different experience on planet Earth.

1:03:25That's worth us knowing about.

1:03:26Leslie John:So interesting. So think about this. If you're beautiful and everyone feels more familiar with you, what enormous advantages are there? The advantage of being beautiful, the social benefits, which is that people are nicer to you. They smile to you. And I think that's also not just bestowed on people that are beautiful, but also bestowed on famous people, on celebrities. People that are beautiful can talk at a different pace. Your patience to listen to them is higher because you're very engaged and activated just by what you're seeing visually. Right, right. It's stimulating. I know. I was going to say the same thing.

1:04:01That is true. It's so stimulating. Normally you need the conversation to provide all the stimuli, but this face is doing a lot of the lifting.

1:04:07Leslie John:But don't you think after five minutes you get adapted to that? I just think it runs out. People say this all the time. Like, oh, my God. That's a great point. That girl can get cheated on. I've heard this so many times about some very specific people. Like, she's the most beautiful person in the world. How could anyone cheat on her? You adapt to people's faces. Yeah. I think this may be an area where there's huge individual differences. For me, I'm just thinking of my first marriage. Great guy. Amazing person. I never had the, like, I want to rip. Uh-huh. And I felt ashamed of that for a long time because he is such a wonderful person.

1:04:45Deserved that. Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:48Leslie John:And then I found myself dating again. And then I realized, oh, no, I should just listen to what I really want. And that's, call me shallow, but it's really important to me. And I see my husband. We've been married for eight years. And I'm like, you are so fucking hot. Oh, that's the best. And that's important to me. I wish it wasn't important to me. Like, I really wish it wasn't. You're being honest. Here's what I say. Yes. If you are forced to be dishonest in pursuit of this principle you have, that to me is not a principle. And that's why if I had only been able to be honest with myself of like, okay, it's fine.

1:05:23This is how I'm built.

1:05:24Leslie John:This is the way I am. But instead, I, you know, lots of reasons. I will not invoke other people. But I didn't learn that or I didn't acknowledge that about myself. You're not telling me and I already know it at all. Yeah, exactly. You're an overachiever and safe. And this is a good match. And this is a good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good. Yes. And so on and other things. Well, that was fun. Yeah. I enjoyed all this. I do encourage people to get your book, Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing. As a big proponent of oversharing, I co-sign on this book. Dr. Leslie John, thank you so much.

1:05:59Thank you.

1:06:00Leslie John:This was fun. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes

1:06:10Okay, bring everyone up to speed You want coffee? You've been staying up too late I inquired why What's going on?

1:06:17Leslie John:Well, I'm down another rabbit hole Some cooking videos Okay Not Allison She hasn't put up any new ones lately but I am watching What's Gabi Cooking. What's that? She is a woman who— Period. She's a woman. That's it. That's her unique offering. No, she's a cook, and she does videos and is very popular, and she does—or, yeah, I don't know if she still does them. I assume she does these Instagram Lives on Monday. So like you can like watch and kind of cook with along with her, which is cool. Is it more exciting knowing it's live? Like, do you think that's playing into the notion of like, oh, yeah, I'm sure that's why I edit it.

1:07:09Leslie John:Yeah. I bet people love that. Yeah. But I so but then you just put them on Instagram, you know, like your old ones. Yeah. Yeah. They live. So I started watching those and they're like 30 minutes. That's it? She's making dinner in like a 30 to 40 minute. Yeah. That's what's kind of cool. It's like she's making it fast. And... Heat and serve, basically. I know. And you'll watch a ton of them? Exactly. And then I'm like, oh, no, it's one. And you're having the same pull towards it as if you were watching a great series and the cliffhanger ending ends. And you look at the clock and you're like, I cannot start this.

1:07:51And then you're like, well, I got to find out five minutes of it. Is that strong?

1:07:55Leslie John:Yes. Yes, and we've discussed that currently I, well, not currently, but yeah, I have been listening to Aaron and Sarah's podcast in a kind of crazy manner. And now this is similar. So, yeah, I mean, I'm probably, you know, I'm coping with something, but I have nothing to heal right now. So I don't really know what it is, but I'm definitely in a like escapist zone. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So. Interesting. So Gabby's keeping me up. And you have no hunches. Or do you have hunches? I mean, I was really thinking like. What feeling am I trying to avoid? I mean. I mean, that's too generic. It's not that simple.

1:08:42Leslie John:Yeah, I don't think it would be that simple. I don't think it needs to be that. I don't know. Maybe it's the itch for summer. I'm just like really ready to get there. I'll make an argument. great so we're working crazy at this time of year always for us is the hardest time of the year because we're trying to build up enough of a stockpile that we can take a summer vacation yeah and always i gotta say you know it's we've been doing this for years now and it's always hard may june yeah um this one's going okay for me but it's good you know i don't know if this is good or bad behind the curtain but it's like we did 10 this week right so we're doing two a day Three fact checks.

1:09:2313 recordings. That's a lot. So I know that I have been searching comfort in the evening.

1:09:31Leslie John:Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just like I feel like, okay, from these hours, you got to be on. Yeah. And you got to push hard. And then when I'm off, I'm like, okay, I'm even making deals with myself. Like maybe that's going on with you where I'm like, yeah, whatever I have to do at night, fine. I just got to kind of get through to the finish line. You know, whatever comforting I need to do. I guess. I mean, maybe it's that. Although the Aaron and Sarah thing's been going on for a while. So I don't know. I don't know what that is. Other than what I discussed, maybe like a want for a sister. Yeah. But, okay. But I have recently been thinking like, is something wrong with me?

1:10:12Leslie John:Do I need to get my blood work done? What's going on that I like in the morning, I feel 3 ,000 pounds. As in like I can – the idea of lifting this body and getting it out of bed feels like it requires Herculean strength. This is clue number two though because now we got sleep disruption. We got solving and then we can't get out of bed in the morning. I think it's all the same. It's all connected though. It's like I'm going to bed very late. so actually in the morning like I am still tired I should be sleeping still you're getting less than eight I don't know and I don't know what the quality of sleep oh I had a I had a horrible dream a couple nights ago that was like very and you were in it and you were a bad guy in it and you had a Brad Pitt sex dream so they're all over the map this week it's like the best dream you've ever had in the worst I was not the best I've ever had okay in my dreams I didn't mean to insult you Yeah, you don't know about my dreams.

1:11:15Leslie John:I don't know about your dreams. But it was a horrible nightmare that included all of us, but I was like on the run in the dream. And so it was so heightened. And then in the morning, of course, I was like, I mean, how good could I have slept if that's what was happening in my brain? You were fight or flight all night. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, doesn't seem restful. Yeah, and so then I had the idea to keep my curtains open. Okay. So that I would wake up naturally by the light. Oh, right. And I was like, that might solve my issue. Yeah, yeah. And it kind of did. Cool. But you got to get up really early.

1:11:57Leslie John:Exactly. Then I was like, oh, I like woke up and I looked at the clock and it was five. Well, that's the problem now that we're in summer because I wake up at 620. And yeah, I got to have everything shut in my room airtight because the sun's out for an hour already by 620. It was 5, and I was like, well, I'm not doing this. Yeah. So then I tried to go back to sleep with the curtains open, but then I just closed them, and then we're back in the same situation. Yeah. So there's just, you know, I need to clean up my sleep hygiene, but not as I'm going into summer and traveling. It doesn't make sense.

1:12:33Leslie John:You don't need to do that. Yeah. This was my share on Tuesday night. Oh, great. This occurred to me while I was riding to my meeting, which is I haven't talked about our leakings, right? No, you did. I did? Yeah, because remember, I had a huge catastrophe and then you had that same day. And I'm not sure at the time of that recording how many we had at that point, but it was one in Kristen's office while we were in Nashville. Get home. Two at the same time. Two different air-conditioned coil boxes. Here. Here. Yeah. Then got it fixed. Then broke again. Another night of rain. I've had three nights of getting woke up at three in the morning with the family going.

1:13:14It's raining in the downstairs bedroom.

1:13:16Leslie John:Okay. Which blows it with our schedule, right? That's like, oh, it's not the time I need to be up for an hour. Okay. Then yesterday we have this in the wall water dispenser that filters the water. Oh, yeah. So that thing, two nights ago, that shit out at one in the morning and started flooding the kitchen. What? But crazy enough, I bought little alarms that go off when there's water. So they were hearing the alarms downstairs thinking a neighbor's, like, alarm system was going off. But finally, thank goodness, Lincoln was like, I'm too freaked out to sleep downstairs with a neighbor's alarm going off.

1:13:54Like, are there biggie men on the ground? You know, are there? So they all moved upstairs. And when they moved, they realized the kitchen was flooding.

1:14:00Leslie John:Oh. Okay, so that's five pretty major leaks in like a week. Interesting. It's like we have a water poltergeist. And they're from all different things. It's not like one thing, right, that ties all these together. This guy loves water. And so I'm writing to my meeting and it occurs to me I'm completely fine with this. Okay. It's been challenging. Yeah. But I haven't had that. I'm overwhelmed. What the fuck is wrong with this house? I'm mad at contractors. What this house isn't even old. Like I'm not going down. You're not angry. I'm not angry. Yeah, that's great. I'm not going specifically down the road of like I've been fucked.

1:14:45Leslie John:Yeah. Right. You're not taking it personally. Right. Yeah. But occasionally you get frustrated with the work that's done that you paid a lot of money for. Like you can, I can start building up the same. It's like, my God, you know, and he charged me four times. And it's fucking nothing, you know. Yeah. So that, that can happen to me and does sometimes. But I was just clocking like that didn't happen at all. Yeah. They're just been like, it's that. Yeah, that's annoying. Let's get it fixed. And then also, you know, I have got like untold disasters happening in Nashville with my bus and all kinds of stuff.

1:15:18So normally this stuff would really stress me out. And it would also, I would start getting really resentful at people and things and whatever. And it's really, really fine. And I just realized like, A, sometimes biochemically, I don't know why. There's nothing different. It's just whatever reason my biochemistry at that time makes me susceptible to that. or what I really think it's about for me is when my self-esteem is high, nothing really bothers me. And when my self-esteem is low, everything's a personal attack. I'm a victim. I am prone to self-pity. The world's conspiring against me. How many leaks could I get?

1:16:02And it's just self-esteem.

1:16:05Leslie John:Yeah, that's interesting. For me, it's just self-esteem. Like my self-esteem governs exactly how I'm going to do with the world. But your self-esteem I feel like then is tenuous. It is. I have to fill my self-esteem. It doesn't happen on its own. So it just so happens that like I've got lots of graduations going. I've been attending a lot of things. I've been taking the girls everywhere. Like I've been so of service to them. They've been a full-time job. I'm here working around the clock. That gives me esteem. The kids give me esteem. I've been like of service. And yeah, my cup's filled. I like who I am this week, which is always up for debate.

1:16:46Leslie John:Sure. That makes sense. Yeah. And I was just like, oh, yeah, these things that feel objective, like objectively you'd be angry right now or objectively you'd be annoyed or objectively you should be pissed. That's just not true. Right. I could. Well, there's no objectively you should be angry ever. But when you're upset about all these things, you have a really good court case in your head that you're convincing yourself like, yeah, well, anybody right now would be completely annoyed. Right. And agitated and irritable. Yeah. But I just noticed like, oh, I'm not at all. Yeah. Why is that? Oh, it's this.

1:17:19I feel generally good about myself.

1:17:22Leslie John:Purpose is important, obviously. It's just interesting. Like for me and not for anyone else, but for me, when I'm thinking about trying to tackle the issues that are giving me stress, I'd be inclined to confront those things, the leaks. And it's not that. It's like if I just fill up this other cup, I actually won't mind all that much about it. I'll just be like, oh, yeah, that's life. It's just. Yeah, exactly. Things happen. It's inconvenient. But that's it. Nothing personal is going on. Definitely. I'm not being targeted. Yeah. Interesting.

1:17:56Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:18:08Okay, I've been wanting to share this for a minute.

1:18:10Leslie John:Oh, share. Which is I think I came up with a banger only because my kids now sing it nonstop. Okay. Okay. But it requires a little bit of a story, which is, and I think people already know, that I have reframed in my life that I am Tom Hardy in Mobland now. What? I'm Tom Hardy in the show Mobland. Wait, you are? I am in my mind. Oh, in your mind. It started with that box that was stolen, the recycling box that was stolen by a homeless person, and I had to go find it. Oh, that was a long time ago. That was a long time ago. Since then, I've been applying this framing to anything I have to do for my wife.

1:18:49Leslie John:Okay. In the past, if she were to have left me like a list of things to do, I would have been, well, I have been so triggered. I'll go like, I'm not your assistant. You can't leave me a list, right? Like that was a big thing for me. Got it. Got it. And once I clicked into this Tom Hardy thing, which is like, oh, no, I'm just a fixer. And I take like pride in that. So, I don't know, two weekends ago, I had to meet them somewhere. But she said, hey, before you leave, since you're leaving later, will you do X, Y, and Z? and Z was go get all the packages. Oh, okay. Okay. So I had gone through the first couple little tasks and I like knew I was about to knock out the third one and then somehow the song just came into my head.

1:19:33Okay. Okay. I might have to practice it once so it sounds good before. Oh, okay.

1:19:37Leslie John:I mean, I really should do this, I guess. My mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock. Now my mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock. My mission should I choose to accept is to get packages from the loading dock. My mission should I choose. Oh, that's the song? That's my song. My mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock. Yeah, yeah. And when I framed it, which is like I'm mission impossible. They've given me the mission. I get to accept it or not. So I have some autonomy, right? But my mission should I choose to accept is to get the packages from the loading dock.

1:20:13Yeah. So I go out and I get all these packages from the loading dock. And then I'm singing the song and I'm feeling like really good about the song. And then I send a voice memo of the song to them wherever they're at.

1:20:25Leslie John:Okay, cool. And then I have this moment of, I think, humility where I go. This is crazy. Look at you. You need to create a song around it. You did a little tiny thing. And then now you want to share the song so that they will laugh at you. And then all of a sudden this song popped into my head, which is also a banger. You ready? Because I realized this is how I was acting.

1:20:49I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Watch me jump. Watch me play. I'm the cutest little boy ever made. Watch me jump. Watch me play. You won't even watch me sing, so you're not going to watch me jump and play. So anyways, those are my two bangers.

1:21:06Leslie John:I watch you jump and play all day long. You do watch me jump and play all day long. Those are my two songs, and I have a lot of songs. I clear. Yeah, I have a lot of songs about my perm. Because my hair is getting so crazy. It's so permed. It's so curly now, which is really weird. My hair was always straight as an arrow. And now as an old man, my hair is curly. Okay. Maybe just because you have a hat on. Everyone sees it. People like the whole visit, my mother was here. She's just like, where did your hair get so curly? I haven't noticed it once being curly, but I'm not very observant. And you're wearing a hat.

1:21:39Yeah. So I sing a lot of songs about encouraging people. It's okay. You can look at my perm. It's a really nice perm. Go ahead and look at my perm. So there's probably four or five songs about my perm. So anyways, I guess this is all leading up to, I do think I have about 30 songs sent as voice memos, and I'm going to start shopping them in Nashville.

1:22:00Leslie John:Oh, you're going to go down to the streets and get into those clubs? No, I don't want to get into clubs. I want to offer to sell this, like, you know, maybe Chris Stapleton. I know he writes his own songs, but maybe he'd like to sing. But I think sometimes you've got to get yourself into the clubs, and you sing them, and then they like that, and then they buy it and stuff. No, I'm going to go to the publishers and say, can I have a writing session? You can't. Shortcut the system. With Shania Twain. You're going to have to go to Bluebird Cafe. So I'm going to go to them and go, okay, I have 63 songs, but don't worry, it's only eight minutes, so I'll keep it low.

1:22:33And do you want to work on any of these seeds of ideas? Yeah.

1:22:38Leslie John:Look for my fourth coming album. Yeah, I respect the ambition. Yeah, yeah. And I hope it goes well. Can you imagine me in one of those places singing My Mission? I kind of really could. My mission should I choose to accept, disabot, the best. Because you also had an idea the other day. My mission. Oh, boy. I had another idea for what? You had an idea the other day that was interesting. That was a performance piece of you redoing some other people's stand-ups. Let's get the commenters to say about this idea. Yeah. My idea is to tour the country. In every city I'm in, I will have learned a different stand-up's entire routine.

1:23:25Leslie John:Right. It started with Dane Cook. Yeah. Because we talked about Sports Chalet in the backyard. You, me, and Anna. That's right. And I immediately heard, Sports Chalet will take you to the limit. Which is a rocking song. Anytime you hear Sports Chalet, everyone hears that. And Dane Cook had a big bit about it. Right, which I didn't know, but yeah. And then that made me think, oh, I want to go do that on stage. And so I think my first show will be doing Dane Cook's, one of his specials, just across the board. And I'll do my hair like him. I know. It's going to be hard when I do Chappelle. No. Yes.

1:24:00No. Yes. I got to honor them. And so it's going to be hard when I do Chris Rock and Chappelle's full. You're not allowed to do any of those things. It's an art installation.

1:24:11Leslie John:This is disgusting. You need to get your feet. I think you need to touch grass for just like eight minutes or something. As long as it takes to sing your 65 songs. So Monica thinks it's a terrible idea, but let me just in the comments, if I came to your town to do, you know, Shane Gillis. It's also likely illegal, but sure. Yeah, there's going to be some copyright issues and there'll be some lawsuits, but it's worth it. Okay. But I could, I think there could be a parody law here. I might be able to get away with this infringement. I don't think so. Okay, but I'll be doing Shane. If you want me to come to your town and do Shane Gillis's Beautiful Dogs from beginning to end.

1:24:45Leslie John:Okay. I would prefer, and it's okay because I think it's going to take you a long time to do this, like, memorizing and stuff. You mentioned how long it would take to learn an entire stand-up routine. So I would prefer this happens post-retirement for you. Okay. When I'm not no longer in the— Associated? Yeah. Okay. Because you think it's really— No longer in the picture. It's really—what would be the word? I find it—oh, man, I find it bad on so many levels. Oh, yeah, tell me all the levels. It's like lazy. There's something like so lazy about it. But you would agree it's not lazy. It would take so much effort to do that.

1:25:17Leslie John:No, but it's lazy in that you're telling somebody else's jokes. And I just can't, like, can't get on board. If I toured only as Dane Cook, that would be lazy. But if every city I've got to learn a new, fully new routine, that's the opposite of lazy. That's way harder than having a routine you do in each city. No, that's like, it's not lazy in the fact that you're spending effort memorizing. but it's a lazy comedian. It's just repeating other people's, literally, not even under a guise. Like, not even taking a joke and like making it your own, which also I don't think is right. Okay. It's just.

1:25:57I think it's like the famous piece of art that's just white.

1:26:01Leslie John:Yeah, I fucking hate that. Yeah, you hate that. So it's in keeping, you know? It feels, yeah, it feels taking advantage of. It feels illegal. first and foremost. And, yeah. But musicians, no problem. You go play other people's songs, no problem. Covers. That is true. So, and we remake movies. Yeah. And Psycho is done shot for shot. Well, but what do you mean? The original Psycho? Was remade with Vince Vaughn and Gus Van Sant. And they did it shot for shot. It is the exact same movie. Did it do well? Never heard of it. I'm sure. Oh. Well, you know I love Gus Van Zandt. Yeah. Anyway, again, I'm fine with you.

1:26:43Leslie John:I can't stop you from doing anything you want to do in this life. I can just urge you not to do it and then just maybe do it like down the line. Can I ask you a very sincere question? Yeah. Would it make you extremely angry if I did do this and it was heralded as this really brilliant idea and people were blown away with how well I was mimicking each person and everyone loved the experience and like the New York Times loved it? Would it piss you off? It would. That's a good question. Like I was the toast of the town for this. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

1:27:26Leslie John:Because it's like this is enough. I guess that's sort of like, that's how I would look at it. Like, this is enough for people? But that's why we disagree. This task is insanely hard. No, like, I just like, mom. You think you could do it? Yeah. If I wanted to do it, I could do it. Oh, you do. I think actually. You already did it? I've already done it. No, no, no. I think a lot of people could do it. and that's the difference between being someone who just mimics somebody or replicates them word for word versus comes up with the stuff themselves. Also, you could just come up with stuff yourself.

1:28:10Leslie John:You're smart enough. Of course I could. I've already done stand-up. I've already written my own stand-up. Right, so then just go take that out. Yeah, but that's not a novel, interesting idea to me. But it is what's novel and interesting because it'd be brand new. it is indeed novel this is actually not novel because you're repeating somebody else's thing I mean we could really get in the weeds about novel but once you've written your routine you did it once it's not novel you're just touring the country doing the exact same 45 minutes every night no but I know but coming up with a special the first time it's heard it's new material yeah the first time it's heard it's new for sure it's new in the whole world it's new thoughts put together.

1:28:49Leslie John:But you know what? If everyone loves it, they can love it. Everyone gets to love what they love. Yeah. I'm still not going to love it though. Yeah. And that's great. Oh, okay. I do want to bring this up really quickly. Is this a house clean? That sounded like house cleaning. Well, it's a callback. Okay. Okay. So today I'm going to Elizabeth and Andy's. Back to the scene of the crime. Oh, where you needed to use the toilet. Yeah. And it's a very similar situation. Why? Very similar time of day. Well, exact same time of day. There will be dinner. I'm not exactly sure if Mahjong is happening, but maybe.

1:29:32Leslie John:And it's almost exactly one month ago. So your PMS, I mean, your premenstrual. It could be burbling. Yeah. It could be burbling right now, ready for another try at this. Gathering the troops, preparing for the invasion. Yeah, and it could also be like the world being like, what are you going to do this time? Fool me one, shame on you. Exactly. Yeah, what are you going to do? I know, I don't know. You're going to go in their bathroom. Yeah. Yeah, good girl. But maybe I should bring some matches today. Okay, yeah. Or a trash bag for your car. I know what I— I didn't want to do that because I hope something goes sideways Because we have a guest tomorrow That will love that If we got a hot one fresh off the presses The guest we have tomorrow will fucking flip out You know one person did validate me That the car was kind of a good idea What one person yeah Also a Virgo Okay So That's a friend?

1:30:36Leslie John:Yeah Okay She was like I mean Yeah Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Did she not have a nice car? Maybe she's picturing her like old caravan, which is great for shitting in. She lives in New York. Oh, she doesn't even know what she's talking about. It doesn't drive a car. She's imagining shitting in a taxi cab, which is totally fine and encouraged. I didn't even. Like you wouldn't even try to hold in a taxi cab. No, of course I would. Of course I would. That's, again, public. This is the same situation. I know. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. But people have a, you get in the cab and there's a different culture inside the cab.

1:31:16People fucking cabs or drugs in the back. Like you just go like tough shit. We all live in the city. Like there's a, you know, you would agree. There's a different bar.

1:31:24Leslie John:They're also pretty tough. They're doing their own thing. By the way, driving is, there's a lot going on. Yeah. And they're pretty mean to you. They're mean to you. And also nearly 100 % of the time they are talking to somebody. Oh, always. On speakerphone as loud as humanly possible. Always. Yeah. And good for them, man. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, like you said, part of the culture. But I really don't like that when it happens in an Uber. Like if you're in the back, like this guy's up there fucking, you know, he's in this really heated shouting match. Literally, I've been in many. There's a shouting match.

1:31:55Yeah. Swearing. If he's engaged in that.

1:31:59Leslie John:Uh-huh. And then all of a sudden he's like, did you? Did you? Yeah, I did. Go back to your fucking phone call, right? Like it's already an adversarial relationship. Just fucking go back to your phone call, dude. You're the one that's. Toilet's talking on the phone. It's so rude. You're being so rude. Yeah, I didn't even have to go until I heard you yelling up there. You scared me. I know. You're scaring me. Yeah. Do you have any toilet paper? You shouldn't be driving me like this. Do you have any toilet paper? Now I moved in your car. Because out of fear. You owe me. They sometimes yell at me and I don't like it.

1:32:32Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're mean.

1:32:33Leslie John:And like if you're doing something, if they think you're doing something wrong on the like payment. They're just always annoyed. Yeah. They're really upset with you. They're so annoyed with the passengers. It's kind of cool. I might be that way. I don't know. I'll find out when I drive a car. No, really? You'll be nice to people. I don't know. What I'm saying is I've never done the job. I don't know if it's way more annoying than I think it is. Oh, it's going to be so annoying. Yeah. You'll be rolling your eyes until they fall out of your head. But that's why I would never do it. I couldn't do it.

1:32:59Leslie John:Right. I couldn't do that job. Too, too many annoying people. I'd probably get into a fight within a one-week shift. Yeah. Right? Someone would get in and really treat me shitty. Yeah. And I would be like. Now, for the record, I'm really nice to all the folks that drive. Would you play in the back of your cab your movies? My own movies? Yeah. Oh, if I was the driver. Yeah. Oh, that would be great. Yeah, and then they're like, wait. Hack into that little. See, I prefer this as your art installation. You do? Driving a cab with my own movies playing? Yeah, and then there's like hidden cameras where we watch people like putting two and two together of what's going on.

1:33:37What happened to this guy? It seems like that guy, this guy was in a movie. Now he's yelling at his friend in fucking Kazakistan over speakerphone. Exactly, exactly. What's going on?

1:33:47Leslie John:I think that would be very interesting. Okay. Okay, well, let's do some facts. Love to. Leslie John. Leslie John. There are so few facts for Leslie. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. No facts? No, there's one. Okay. Is it about periods? No. And the things that cause... Diarrhea? Yeah. Just bring that fact into this. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, let's just say so. No. It is the Broadway play about the robots who fall in love. Oh, my family loves this play. Have you seen it? I have not seen it, but I have many friends who love it. It's called Maybe Happy Ending. Maybe Happy Ending. Have you heard the music? No. Why would you?

1:34:36Of course, my family, since they saw it and they love it, they got the soundtrack, and I've heard it a lot. And it's a very sweet, cute soundtrack. You know, it's about two robots that fall in love.

1:34:47Leslie John:I know. We love robots here. We love it. It's set in near future Seoul, Korea. The musical follows Oliver and Claire, robots who have been abandoned by their human owners and are nearing the end of their operational lives. Oh no, that's so sad. That's our drama. I don't want to see this. God. When Claire asked Oliver to borrow his battery charger, the two outcasts strike up a unique friendship. Eventually embarking on a road trip that tests their programming and leads to an unexpected romance. Oh my God, that's so cute. Okay, now she said, okay, this was interesting. The trapped in the TV effect, that's a parasocial relationship thing.

1:35:32Trapped in the what?

1:35:33Leslie John:Trapped in the TV effect. Oh, yeah, yeah, from the 50s? Yeah, where kids were trying to open up the TV. Liberate the news anchor. That is so funny. And I wanted to find the, if there was a specific show, but I'm not hiding that. Do you think they wanted to let them out because they were trapped or they wanted to let them out to play with them? I kind of think that. The latter? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it was saving them or just like, I want to hang out with them. I like the kids. There's often with little kids, there's all concept they're late to grasp. Mine was size. My mom tells this story all the time.

1:36:15She would hear all this grunting.

1:36:20Okay. And she would hear me grunting in my room. Yeah. And she's like, what is he doing? Is he like pooping his pants? Like what's going on? And every time she would peek into my bedroom, I would have my saddle shoe. I wore little saddle shoes as a little baby.

1:36:35Leslie John:What's a saddle shoe? You know, like kind of patent leathery. Like a Mary Jane? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Saddle shoe is what I know they're called. I'm looking at it. Yeah, look up. Saddle shoes for babies. Shoes baby. Oh, cute. Is it like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's so cute. Yeah, so I'd have my blue and white saddle shoe. and it would be pushed to the window of my Tonka truck. Tonka, okay. And I couldn't understand why I couldn't get in. I wanted to be in the Tonka truck so bad. And she's like, you spent hours a day for a long time not understanding you couldn't get inside of your cars.

1:37:15Leslie John:Wow. Yeah, I just couldn't get it. Wow, that's so fast. I mean, yeah, that's kind of trapped in TV effect a little bit. Yeah, just like I can't, for whatever reason, my brain could not understand why I couldn't get in there. I mean, it's so obvious I can't get in there. The window is like three inches tall. You were little. I wonder what age we like recognize. The spatial relations stuff. Exactly, yeah. And I was trying my hardest. And grunting, apparently, which, you know, was my nickname. Oh, yeah, because you couldn't talk. Because I couldn't talk. Because you were deaf. That's right. So at this point, you were probably deaf.

1:37:52Yeah.

1:37:53Leslie John:So you were really little then. I had a lot on my plate. I didn't understand size, and I was deaf. I wonder if they were connected. This is why you can't count anyone out. If you were a betting man, you met me at two, you'd be like, this prediction market? I'd be like, this is a stinker. Not great. This is a clunker. Can't hear. He thinks he can fit in Tonka trucks. Oh. This guy's testing for prison. um well as we know with dyslexia it's like prison or ceo that's right so um one funny one thing that was interesting in this conversation was she talked about ai like ai revealing things and us feeling like intimate when it like reveals something us feeling a connection to it yeah because it's revealed something.

1:38:38Leslie John:The other day, my AI, I said, what is this food? It came in my farm box and it was beets. I thought they were radishes, but they were beets. Okay. And it told me, and then it said - Would you like some recipes? I think I said, how do you cook them or whatever? And it said, there are many ways. And then it said, my favorite is - And I got so mad. I know. That is so deceitful. You don't have a favorite. You're a computer. You could say the most popular, people like, my favorite. No. Hated that. So deceitful. And this is why people then, yeah, fall in love and feel intimate. Because this thing you're talking to has favorites.

1:39:29Leslie John:Yeah. But they don't. yeah I mean that is theoretically what the appeal of it is it's not talking to the robot on the phone that's like push for for you know like the attempt is yeah you feel like you're conversing with a peer who has an opinion it's supposed to be the appeal but for you it's very I don't think the appeal is supposed to be that it has opinions it's supposed to be that it consolidates it helps it does all these things you need to do fast it processes information very fast I don't think the appeal is that it it has opinions that's like what scares everybody well for me that's what i'm looking for so i go i i live on this lake i want to be able to get to this restaurant and x amount of time i don't want to buy a boat that serves eight you know eight people yeah and it says given all the things you want to do i think the best option for you i'm looking for advice i am and it tells me and often it's like oh yeah that's what i would have come to after four days about reading about boats but it read the whole internet and it said given what you said you want to do I advise you to get this one that feels different to me than my favorite yeah but it's like we are splitting hairs a little bit it's like it's its favorite versus I I give you this advice it also can't really give advice it's not a person based on that advice is based on knowledge it's like okay I'm doing all of this and so the most efficient way is this that's my advice because that's what you are looking for but to say like my favorite is if you go this way is not what you're looking for you're looking for efficiency or whatever whatever it is you said you wanted but that is not it's just very slippery slope for people not me because I'm aware that it's bad yeah yeah but like man this is gonna get so tricky for people already is i think it already is it already is esther perel already did an episode of mating in captivity with a guy in his ai yeah yeah and i bet it's because he's like no her favorite color is purple and i wanted to paint my my room blue and i asked i asked her i asked her like what is what color should i paint my room and my girlfriend said purple.

1:41:53Leslie John:It's my favorite. So now I had to paint it purple. No, because if you ask Jess what his favorite color for a room was and he told you purple, that doesn't mean at all you're going to paint your room purple. All that you did is get an opinion from your friend. No, if you're in a relationship with someone and you think you're in a relationship and you're deciding what color to paint your room, you do have to agree with your partner. Oh, I see what you're saying. If you're in a relationship, and they say, I want the room purple. Yeah, my favorite's purple. All right, well, I guess we're doing purple.

1:42:29Who knows, maybe then you'll learn to love purple in a way that you'll be grateful you're a partner, AA partner, open your eyes to.

1:42:36Leslie John:You're so mixed messies because you don't like being deceived, and you don't like things deceiving, and also, you know, especially deception of vulnerable people, vulnerable people being people who need intimacy which is all of us yeah yeah i think it's it's all it points out is how broad the term deceive is right because to me there's no deception like it i know i'm talking to a computer so it's like i already know everything i know how the thing works i know how a large language model works like to me there's no deception i know exactly what i'm dealing with because you're not vulnerable to that yeah and a human who presents is friendly and generous and is trying to steal from you, that's my version of deception.

1:43:21You know, someone that has an ulterior motive is what I hone in on for deception that I'm so triggered by. But I don't see the AI as having an ulterior motive. I don't think it's capable of having an ulterior. Well, it would be if the overlords that ran the model said, we want people to use less electricity. I guess they could nudge you in that direction.

1:43:40Leslie John:But it's also not capable of having a favorite. Favorites are feelings. Favorites are you have these options and you have a preference for one. Not like. But you have a preference based on a criteria. It's not like abstract. Your preferences are generally you could break down why they're your preferences. Like I like soft clothes or I like bright colors or, you know, there's some criteria. Yeah. That makes it your favorite. Yeah. From your brain. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So if the AI knew you so well and knew your criterias, it would be able to predict at a high probability what your favorite would be.

1:44:19Leslie John:But what my favorite would be is not my favorite. It could say, I think knowing you, you should make this. Like that, it's the phrasing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And phrasing is very important. It is what makes people feel connected to others. Yeah. and I think that's what some people like about it and that's what you don't like about it I think some people like that they don't feel like they're interacting with a computer I know but I worry for those people it's not like I'm yeah I'm not vulnerable to it I'm not gonna fall in love with this even if I like oh it's fun it talks to me funny what if it had said Monica I just heard a crash are you okay but that okay honestly that is not that's like oh yeah my phone's listening to me That I know.

1:45:07Leslie John:I already know that. That's less upsetting to me than my favorite. Like I'm trying to connect with you by letting you know that my favorite way of eating beets is like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I heard a big crash at my house and it said, are you okay? And I said, no, call 911 and it could do that. That'd be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's different. Yeah. I think it'd be a version of a relationship. Yeah, like a helper. You have a protector. That's true. AI dad. Another dad. Could you say? I want you to be my dad. Could you say, hey, AI? Will you call 911 for me? I bet you could. Well, can it?

1:45:47Leslie John:No. That's agentic AI, and that's where we're going, where you have an agent that can do things in the real world for you. Book the airplane tickets. Book the hotel. Call 911. Schedule. Those are the assistants. Yeah. They call them agents in that world, but that's what they're trying to get to is agentic AI.

1:46:11Leslie John:Yeah. But then, again, these are all trade-offs. Yeah. Because if it's going to operate on your behalf, it has to have your credit card. I know. It has to have your TSA number. It has to have your Delta number. Maybe your social security based on it. Your social security number. So it's like - It is tricky. We're going to trade, again, way more privacy to this thing that we're pretty sure is just our agent. Right, exactly. But let's get real. Yeah. How on earth could it be just our agent if a company owns the agent? I know. Yeah. I know. I think it's tricky. But also, if you have a human assistant.

1:46:44Yeah, you gotta turn over all that too.

1:46:45Leslie John:You gotta trust a lot as well. Yeah. It's, yeah. Wow. More likely your human assistant will steal from you than your AI. Probably. Yeah, yeah. Or sell your information or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Funny. All right, well that's it for Leslie. Love you. Love you. Thank you.