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Group Chat Politics · All About Friendships

0:09
Speaker 1: I've read the same message 14 times and I still
0:12
Speaker 1: cannot tell if she's mad at me or just bad
0:14
Speaker 1: at punctuation. One thumbs up emoji. That is the whole reply.
0:19
Speaker 1: 14 words from me, pouring my heart out about the
0:22
Speaker 1: reunion dinner and I get a single yellow thumb the
0:25
Speaker 1: size of a grain of rice. So now I am
0:28
Speaker 1: lying awake at 2 in the morning, screenshotting my own conversation,
0:33
Speaker 1: sending it to Edzil with no context, just the words, bro,
0:37
Speaker 1: decode this.
0:38
Speaker 2: And I replied with a thumbs up emoji, which he
0:41
Speaker 2: is still mad about. Welcome to the gold shop, bro. Population,
0:45
Speaker 2: everyone you know. There's not a single person who says
0:47
Speaker 2: what they actually think.
0:48
Speaker 1: I have not forgiven the thumb. The thumb was a
0:51
Speaker 1: war crime and you know it. 14 words of vulnerability
0:55
Speaker 1: answered with a yellow oval. My therapist heard this story
0:59
Speaker 1: and added a second weekly session, which I now pay for,
1:02
Speaker 1: by the way. So the thumb has a literal dollar cost.
1:07
Speaker 1: I am invoicing you.
1:08
Speaker 2: Send the invoice to the cop child. I will react
1:12
Speaker 2: to it with a thumbs up.
1:14
Speaker 1: Welcome back to All About Friendships. I am Paul. I
1:18
Speaker 1: am the one who triple-texts, double-checks the read receipts, and
1:22
Speaker 1: treats a one-word reply like a crime scene that needs
1:25
Speaker 1: forensic analysis.
1:28
Speaker 2: And I ain't that sad. The one who reads everything,
1:30
Speaker 2: reacts to nothing. And replies three days later with perfect calm,
1:35
Speaker 2: like I was never gone. Today, we're fading into the swamp.
1:38
Speaker 2: Group chat politics. The side chats. The screenshots sent to
1:42
Speaker 2: the wrong frag. The fragile vanishes for a month.
1:45
Speaker 1: Endless surfaces.
1:46
Speaker 2: A toony morning with a bomb. And the ancient unsolved
1:49
Speaker 2: mystery of how to leave a group chat without starting
1:52
Speaker 2: a single word.
1:54
Speaker 1: If you have ever muted your own family, screenshotted your
1:57
Speaker 1: own friends, or rehearsed a casual, Hey guys! Before re-entering
2:03
Speaker 1: a chat you have been ignoring for six weeks, tonight
2:06
Speaker 1: is your intervention. And your absolution. Let us get into it.
2:12
Speaker 2: Intervention and absolution. In that order. The first, the weekly catch-up.
2:17
Speaker 2: Because even prosecutors need to hydrate and gossip.
2:27
Speaker 1: But first, our weekly catch-up. Because I cannot prosecute group
2:32
Speaker 1: chats on an empty heart. Edzo, how was your week?
2:38
Speaker 1: And do not say peaceful. You said peaceful last time
2:42
Speaker 1: and it made the rest of us look emotionally unstable.
2:45
Speaker 2: My week was restorative, which is a different word with
2:48
Speaker 2: the exact same energy, so.
2:49
Speaker 1: You are welcome.
2:49
Speaker 2: I went hiking on Saturday morning with three college buddies,
2:51
Speaker 2: sunrise trail, fog everywhere, birds doing their thing. Halfway up,
2:54
Speaker 2: my friend remote stops, looks at the valley, takes the
2:56
Speaker 2: deepest breath of his life, and says, guys, I think
2:58
Speaker 2: I finally understand inner peace. And then his phone buzzes,
3:01
Speaker 2: he looks down, and his face just collapses. 200 unread
3:04
Speaker 2: messages from our own hiking group chat, from the three
3:07
Speaker 2: guys standing right next to him, sending memes about the hiking.
3:10
Speaker 1: Well, on the hike, no, he achieved enlightenment, and the
3:14
Speaker 1: group chat dragged him back down in under four seconds.
3:19
Speaker 2: The notification sound echo of the mountain lake nature itself
3:22
Speaker 2: was disappointed in us. Remo turned his phone off, put
3:27
Speaker 2: it in his backpack and said, inner peace can wait
3:30
Speaker 2: until we reach the parking lot. And honestly, that is
3:35
Speaker 2: the most wisdom I have heard all month.
3:38
Speaker 1: Wait, rewind. I need the details of this serial trial.
3:41
Speaker 1: Who argued that serial is soup? I need names. I
3:44
Speaker 1: need the prosecution's full case. Because I have opinions, and
3:48
Speaker 1: they are strong, and they involve broth.
3:50
Speaker 2: Chris is a visionary and I will not hear otherwise.
4:20
Speaker 1: Oatmeal is a breakfast chowder. This is the kind of
4:23
Speaker 1: galaxy brain thinking that group chats were invented for. Please
4:27
Speaker 1: tell me somebody made a chart.
4:29
Speaker 2: Somebody made a chart. Our friend Luis, who does data
4:32
Speaker 2: energy for a living and cannot turn it off, produced
4:34
Speaker 2: a full classification matrix. Rows for temperature, columns for raw, viscosity, cereal,
4:38
Speaker 2: cold soup, oatmeal, hot chowder. Yeah, I could roll up
4:41
Speaker 2: a buffet. It's up on technical ground. But when I
4:43
Speaker 2: looked at the chart, looked at the actual mountains they
4:45
Speaker 2: found in us and said, we carry this debate up
4:48
Speaker 2: a volcano. when we could have just eaten in silence
4:50
Speaker 2: like our ancestors.
4:52
Speaker 1: Your ancestors did not have charts, Edzil. They stared at
4:56
Speaker 1: the mountains and felt feelings they could not name. Louise
4:59
Speaker 1: named them with rows and columns. I am Teen Chart forever. Although, counterpoint,
5:07
Speaker 1: and I say this with love, four grown men conducting
5:10
Speaker 1: a soup tribunal via voice note while physically standing next
5:14
Speaker 1: to each other is proof that droop chats have rewired
5:17
Speaker 1: our brains beyond repair. You could have just talked with
5:21
Speaker 1: your mouths in the air for free.
5:24
Speaker 2: We did talk, eventually, at the summit phones away. We
5:29
Speaker 2: sat on a rock and watched the fog burn off
5:31
Speaker 2: the valley, and nobody said anything for ten full minutes.
5:36
Speaker 1: It was perfect.
5:38
Speaker 2: Then Ramon whispered, still a chowder though, and we all
5:43
Speaker 2: lost it. Ten minutes of inner peace. destroyed by oatmeal taxonomy.
5:52
Speaker 2: That is friendship. Enlightenment with footnotes.
5:57
Speaker 1: See, this is why I do not hike. My idea
6:00
Speaker 1: of a sunrise is the glow of my phone when
6:02
Speaker 1: someone finally replies. My week was the opposite of a mountain.
6:07
Speaker 1: My week was a kitchen. I tried to cook. And
6:11
Speaker 1: before you say anything, I wanted on the record that
6:14
Speaker 1: nobody was injured, the smoke alarm only went off twice,
6:18
Speaker 1: And the final product was legally food.
6:21
Speaker 2: Define legally food. Yeah, that's done. You've cooked yourself. You
6:23
Speaker 2: made something in this crud, this pasta, Jason.
6:26
Speaker 1: It was risotto. It said risotto on the box. The
6:30
Speaker 1: box cannot lie. Look, the point is, I invited two
6:35
Speaker 1: friends over for dinner. I stood over a pot for
6:38
Speaker 1: 45 minutes, stirring like my life depended on it. And
6:42
Speaker 1: at the end of the night, my friend Dana scraped
6:44
Speaker 1: her plate clean and said, Paul, this is genuinely good. Genuinely.
6:50
Speaker 1: With her whole chest. I have never felt pride like that.
6:54
Speaker 1: Gordon Ramsay could never. And then she stood up, hugged me,
6:58
Speaker 1: and whispered, Do not ever tell anyone I finished it.
7:01
Speaker 1: I have a reputation as a food critic to protect.
7:04
Speaker 2: So you're cooking as a secret gene now. You have
7:07
Speaker 2: become a guilty pleasure.
7:09
Speaker 1: That.
7:10
Speaker 2: is somehow better than a compliment.
7:13
Speaker 1: I am putting it on my tombstone. Here lies Paul.
7:18
Speaker 1: Genuinely good. Do not tell anyone. But notice something, Edsel.
7:23
Speaker 1: Notice how I hosted dinner, created memories, and strengthened bonds
7:28
Speaker 1: while you stood on a mountain judging your friends for texting.
7:32
Speaker 1: The better friend standings have officially shifted. I am up
7:36
Speaker 1: one to nothing. The scoreboard does not lie.
7:39
Speaker 2: First of all, we burned the school board last episode.
7:42
Speaker 2: That was the entire thesis. No ledgers, no standings. General
7:46
Speaker 2: Rusty does the math. Second of all, I brought trail
7:49
Speaker 2: makes for four. The grown man and Carrie Brimel's water
7:52
Speaker 2: bottle for two miles because his shoulders were sore. If
7:55
Speaker 2: it were standings, which there are not, the mountain Carrie
7:58
Speaker 2: would count them. I'm not falling. Listen to me. Fine.
8:06
Speaker 1: Fine. No standings. But your birthday is in three weeks,
8:10
Speaker 1: and I want the record to show that I already
8:12
Speaker 1: bought your gift, it is already wrapped, and I remembered
8:15
Speaker 1: without a single reminder from anyone.
8:18
Speaker 2: Growth.
8:19
Speaker 1: Last year I texted you happy birthday man at 11.58
8:22
Speaker 1: at night with no punctuation, and you replied thanks bro
8:27
Speaker 1: with no exclamation point, and we both pretended that exchange
8:30
Speaker 1: was warm.
8:31
Speaker 2: I like exchange lips. and my screenshots falter under evidence.
8:35
Speaker 2: I look at it whenever I need to feel humble,
8:37
Speaker 2: but I appreciate the growth. Truly, three weeks only is
8:41
Speaker 2: a new personal record. What did you get me?
8:45
Speaker 1: Nice try, nice try, detective. If I tell you, you
8:49
Speaker 1: will spend three weeks pretending to be surprised, and you
8:53
Speaker 1: are a terrible actor. Your surprised face is just your
8:56
Speaker 1: regular face with your eyebrows slightly higher. I have seen it.
9:02
Speaker 1: It haunts me.
9:03
Speaker 2: My eyebrows carried the full weight of my emotional range,
9:07
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't know to apologize for them. All right,
9:10
Speaker 2: dinner host. With a planner, reformed scorekeeper, are you ready
9:13
Speaker 2: to talk about the group chat? Wizard Ramon turned his
9:17
Speaker 2: phone back on in the parking lot, and I am
9:20
Speaker 2: told there were 400 messages by then, including a full
9:24
Speaker 2: debate about whether Cialis Soup conducted entirely in voice notes,
9:29
Speaker 2: some of them over a minute long.
9:32
Speaker 1: Voice notes over a minute are a war crime and
9:34
Speaker 1: I will die on this hill. Yes, let us go.
9:39
Speaker 1: Somewhere out there, a group chat is blowing up right
9:42
Speaker 1: now and somebody just typed a paragraph, deleted it, typed
9:45
Speaker 1: laughing emoji instead and felt their soul leave their body.
9:50
Speaker 1: Tonight is for them.
9:56
Speaker 2: We are back.
9:57
Speaker 3: Paul has stopped yelling about voice notes.
10:00
Speaker 2: His pulse is approaching the normal.
10:01
Speaker 3: Range for a man his age, and we are ready
10:03
Speaker 3: to map the terrain to allow us to find the beast.
10:06
Speaker 3: A group chat is the only place on earth where
10:08
Speaker 3: 12 adults with jobs and mortgages and children communicate exclusively
10:13
Speaker 3: in reaction gifs, inside jokes from 2016, and logistics that
10:17
Speaker 3: could have been a calendar invite. There's a family dinner,
10:20
Speaker 3: a courtroom, a comedy club, and a hostage negotiation all
10:23
Speaker 3: happening at the same time forever with no closing hours.
10:27
Speaker 1: And no rules. That is the problem. Nobody agrees on
10:31
Speaker 1: the rules. So tonight, public service announcement. I have identified
10:37
Speaker 1: the seven species of group chat citizen. Memorize them. Identify
10:42
Speaker 1: your friends. Identify yourself. And sit with the shame quietly.
10:48
Speaker 1: Species number one The Ghost. This is the friend who
10:52
Speaker 1: reads everything and says nothing for three weeks. You can
10:55
Speaker 1: see the read receipts. You know they are in there,
10:58
Speaker 1: lurking in the digital shadows like a raccoon in the walls.
11:02
Speaker 1: And then, out of nowhere, at two in the morning
11:07
Speaker 1: on a random Tuesday, they drop a five-paragraph bomb about
11:13
Speaker 1: something everyone stopped discussing 19 days ago.
11:19
Speaker 2: The ghost resurfaces with the confidence of a man who
11:22
Speaker 2: was never born. No, hello, no, sorry, I vanished. Just
11:25
Speaker 2: a strong opinion about the restaurant everyone already ate at
11:29
Speaker 2: last month. And the worst part is the opinion is
11:32
Speaker 2: usually correct, which makes it impossible to stay mad at them.
11:36
Speaker 1: Species number two, the screenshot smuggler. This friend treats your
11:41
Speaker 1: private messages like currency. You vent to them at midnight
11:45
Speaker 1: about a bad day, And by breakfast, your words are
11:48
Speaker 1: circulating in three separate threads with the caption, Look what
11:52
Speaker 1: Paul said. Your pain is content now. Your vulnerability has
11:56
Speaker 1: been screenshotted, cropped, and deployed as evidence in a trial
12:00
Speaker 1: you did not know you were attending.
12:03
Speaker 2: The smuggler always says, they were just worried about you.
12:06
Speaker 2: They were just asking for advice on how to help.
12:10
Speaker 2: And sometimes, that is true. But a screenshot strips out tone, timing,
12:15
Speaker 2: and trust. And delivers your worst 10 seconds to people
12:19
Speaker 2: who only get the exhibit. Never the context. LucasDugo's chat,
12:27
Speaker 2: the equivalent of reading one page of a novel and
12:31
Speaker 2: reviewing the whole book.
12:33
Speaker 4: Biggest number three, the react ghost. This friend has never
12:37
Speaker 4: typed a word in the history of the chat, not one.
12:40
Speaker 4: But they are always there. Every message gets a reaction
12:44
Speaker 4: within seconds. Funny story, laughing emoji, sad news, crying emoji.
12:53
Speaker 4: Somebody announces an engagement. Heart, confetti, champagne, fireworks, the full parade.
13:03
Speaker 4: They communicate entirely in hieroglyphics. Archaeologists will study their record
13:07
Speaker 4: and conclude they were a deeply supportive emoji deity, with
13:11
Speaker 4: no opinions and infinite enthusiasm.
13:13
Speaker 2: The Wright Goss is honestly the ideal citizen and I
13:16
Speaker 2: aspire to become one. Zero drama. zero misunderstandings, pure acknowledgement.
13:20
Speaker 2: You can never screenshot atoms up out of context. You
13:23
Speaker 2: can never misread the toll of a heart emoji. It
13:25
Speaker 2: is a communication strategy with legal tact, surface. Meanwhile, speeches
13:29
Speaker 2: on the floor, and this one is personal because it
13:31
Speaker 2: lives in my family shack, the Dawn folder. Every single morning,
13:35
Speaker 2: at 6.45, without fail, my aunt will burn a sunrise
13:39
Speaker 2: photo with an inspirational quote in curly font. Every blessing....
13:45
Speaker 5: And nobody ever replies.
13:48
Speaker 2: Two years. Hundreds of sunrises. Zero responses. And she has
13:53
Speaker 2: never once asked why. It is the most consistent, one-sided
13:56
Speaker 2: relationship in my life. And I would ride it if
13:59
Speaker 2: she stopped.
14:00
Speaker 1: Do not mock the Dawn forward. That sunrise is load-bearing.
14:05
Speaker 1: The day the sunrise does not arrive, the whole family
14:08
Speaker 1: will panic. Somebody will drive to her house. Those forwards
14:12
Speaker 1: are a heartbeat monitor disguised as clip art. Okay, renumbering
14:16
Speaker 1: live on air because science demands it. The Senate is
14:19
Speaker 1: now species number five. The side chat Senate. The shadow government.
14:24
Speaker 1: Every big group chat has a smaller group chat about
14:26
Speaker 1: the big group chat. Same people minus one or two
14:30
Speaker 1: or a totally different configuration where the real opinions lives.
14:34
Speaker 1: The main chat says, Great idea. Love it. So excited.
14:38
Speaker 1: The side chat says, Absolutely not. Who invited him?
14:43
Speaker 2: And.
14:45
Speaker 1: How do we kill this without anyone crying?
14:48
Speaker 2: The Senate is load-bearing and I will defend it later.
14:50
Speaker 2: But yes, it exists in every circle and if you
14:53
Speaker 2: think your friend group does not have one, I have
14:56
Speaker 2: difficult news about which chair is empty when the Senate convenes.
15:00
Speaker 1: Do not look at me like that. Moving on. Species
15:05
Speaker 1: number six. The novelist. This person does not send messages.
15:09
Speaker 1: They publish chapters. You open the chat and find 14
15:13
Speaker 1: consecutive bubbles. Each one a full paragraph telling a story
15:17
Speaker 1: with a beginning, a middle, a twist and a moral.
15:22
Speaker 1: Everyone else just watches the typing indicator appear and disappear
15:25
Speaker 1: for nine minutes like it is a loading screen for
15:28
Speaker 1: their patients.
15:29
Speaker 2: And species number seven the one we promised to solve
15:32
Speaker 2: tonight the exit artist or more precisely the friend who
15:35
Speaker 2: wants to become one because leaving a group chat is
15:38
Speaker 2: the most socially dangerous maneuver in modern friendship there's no
15:42
Speaker 2: casual exit the app announces your departure to everyone like
15:46
Speaker 2: a child prior all has left the chat in six
15:49
Speaker 2: words a public resignation from a community you still have
15:52
Speaker 2: to see but every birthday dinner for the rest of
15:55
Speaker 2: your life.
15:57
Speaker 1: It is a breakup text sent to 12 people at once,
16:00
Speaker 1: with no explanation allowed. You cannot leave a note. You
16:03
Speaker 1: just vanish and let everyone invent their own reason. He
16:07
Speaker 1: thinks he is better than us. She is mad about
16:10
Speaker 1: the poll. They finally snapped after the serial debate. So tonight,
16:14
Speaker 1: the taxonomy, the war stories, the ethics of the side chat,
16:18
Speaker 1: and a clean, graceful, drama-free exit protocol. And I am
16:22
Speaker 1: going first, because my confession is worse. Full disclosure incoming.
16:27
Speaker 2: The floor recognizes the defendant. Proceed with the confession. And
16:31
Speaker 2: remember that everything you say can and will be less doubt. Okay.
16:40
Speaker 1: Deep breath. Full disclosure. No aliases can protect me from
16:45
Speaker 1: this one. So I am just going to confess and
16:47
Speaker 1: accept my sentence. Two years ago, I am in two
16:51
Speaker 1: group chats with overlapping members. Chat number one. the main crew,
16:55
Speaker 1: eight of us, planning a weekend trip to the lake.
16:58
Speaker 1: Chat number two. A side chat with three of those
17:01
Speaker 1: same eight people, where we are privately panicking because one
17:05
Speaker 1: member of the main crew, let us call him Victor,
17:08
Speaker 1: has suggested very enthusiastically that we all go whitewater rafting.
17:13
Speaker 1: And Victor is a wonderful man. Victor is also the
17:17
Speaker 1: only person I know who got motion sickness on a
17:20
Speaker 1: Ferris wheel. A Ferris wheel. It goes in a circle
17:24
Speaker 1: at the speed of a brisk walk. So the side
17:28
Speaker 1: chat is trying to figure out how to veto the
17:30
Speaker 1: rafting without crushing Victor's spirit.
17:34
Speaker 2: For the record, this is the Senate functione, exactly as designed. Continue, defendant.
17:46
Speaker 1: Thank you, counselor. So I'm lying in bed. It is midnight.
17:49
Speaker 1: I am half asleep and I type what I believe
17:52
Speaker 1: is a hilarious and loving message into the side chat.
17:55
Speaker 1: And I quote from memory because the words are burned
17:58
Speaker 1: into my soul. Love Victor with my whole heart. But
18:01
Speaker 1: if we put that man on a raft, he will
18:03
Speaker 1: decorate the entire river. Somebody please redirect him to the
18:07
Speaker 1: fishing dock before I have to perform a citizen's rescue. Funny, affectionate,
18:12
Speaker 1: roast adjacent, but clearly loving. I hit send, I put
18:16
Speaker 1: the phone down, I fall asleep smiling.
18:19
Speaker 2: Oh no, I know that smile. That is the smile
18:24
Speaker 2: of a man who sent it to the royal chat.
18:27
Speaker 1: I sent it to the main chat, to all eight people,
18:30
Speaker 1: including Victor. I woke up at six in the morning
18:33
Speaker 1: to 43 messages, and the first thing I see is
18:36
Speaker 1: my own text, sitting there like a dead fish on
18:39
Speaker 1: the table. And underneath it, Victor has replied with a
18:42
Speaker 1: single message. Just five words. Decorate the entire river.
18:49
Speaker 2: Five words that ended a man's whole week. What did
18:53
Speaker 2: you do?
18:54
Speaker 1: What could I do? I called him immediately. 6.15 in
18:58
Speaker 1: the morning. I apologized with my entire chest. I told
19:02
Speaker 1: him the side chat existed because we cared about his experience,
19:05
Speaker 1: not because we were mocking him. I told him he
19:08
Speaker 1: was right to feel hurt. I offered to go rafting
19:11
Speaker 1: with him, just the two of us. motion sickness and all,
19:15
Speaker 1: life jackets and ginger candy and whatever it takes. And Victor,
19:19
Speaker 1: bless him, laughed for a solid minute and said, Paul,
19:23
Speaker 1: I know I get sick on boats. I suggested rafting
19:26
Speaker 1: because I thought everyone else wanted to go. I have
19:29
Speaker 1: been terrified for a week and nobody asked me directly.
19:34
Speaker 2: And there it is, the lesson buried in the wreckage.
19:37
Speaker 2: The side child was trying to protect Victor from a
19:40
Speaker 2: conversation he desperately wanted to have. They all spent a
19:44
Speaker 2: week managing around him instead of 30 seconds talking to him.
19:48
Speaker 2: The screenshot did not create the problem It exposed the workaround.
19:52
Speaker 1: Fafaf, Mink, think. Think. We went fishing instead. Best trip ever.
20:02
Speaker 1: Victor caught a fish so small we threw it back
20:04
Speaker 1: out of embarrassment, and he still talks about it like
20:07
Speaker 1: it was a shark. He has a photo of that
20:10
Speaker 1: fish on his fridge. A fish the size of a
20:12
Speaker 1: french fry, displayed like a trophy marlin. Every time I visit,
20:17
Speaker 1: he points at it and says, Remember the river I
20:20
Speaker 1: almost decorated? It became law. The most embarrassing text I
20:25
Speaker 1: ever sent became the funniest story in the group. That
20:28
Speaker 1: is the thing nobody tells you about group chat disasters.
20:31
Speaker 1: If you apologise fast and own it fully, the blast
20:35
Speaker 1: crater becomes a swimming pool. Everybody swims in it for years.
20:39
Speaker 2: Locator becomes a pool. That is disgusting and perfect. But
20:43
Speaker 2: notice the condition. You called within hours. You named what
20:46
Speaker 2: you did. You offered the raft trip as penance. The
20:50
Speaker 2: disaster became over because the repair was immediate. If you
20:53
Speaker 2: had waited a week, drafted a careful paragraph, and added
20:57
Speaker 2: a winky face to soften it, Victor would still be
21:00
Speaker 2: showing that screenshot to new friends as a warning.
21:04
Speaker 1: Speed plus sincerity. Minus winky faces. And I have never
21:10
Speaker 1: sent a late night message without checking the chat name
21:13
Speaker 1: three times since. I check it like a pilot checking
21:17
Speaker 1: the runway. Chat name, member list, recipient, then send. Paranoia
21:24
Speaker 1: is now my love language.
21:30
Speaker 2: My turn. And mine is quieter, but it changed how
21:35
Speaker 2: I rate every silent friend I have. About a year ago,
21:38
Speaker 2: there is a group chat with five of us from
21:40
Speaker 2: my old neighborhood. The childhood friends grew up on the
21:43
Speaker 2: same street, same everything. And one of them, let us
21:47
Speaker 2: call him Andre, goes dark. Not dramatic, no announcement, no fight,
21:52
Speaker 2: no incident he no can point to. He just He
21:55
Speaker 2: stops opening the cha. Weeks pass. Sumo tads him about
22:00
Speaker 2: a pretty dinner. Nothing. Someone sends old photos from high school.
22:05
Speaker 2: The kind that usually gets 11 laughing egolchis.
22:08
Speaker 1: In 4 seconds.
22:09
Speaker 2: Nothing.
22:09
Speaker 1: Oh.
22:11
Speaker 2: And slowly, the remaining 4 of us start doing what
22:13
Speaker 2: groups do. We start writing his story for him.
22:17
Speaker 1: Oh, I know this phase. The fanfiction phase. He is
22:21
Speaker 1: mad about something. He thinks he is too good for
22:25
Speaker 1: us now. Somebody heard he got a promotion and forgot
22:29
Speaker 1: where he came from.
22:30
Speaker 2: One guy says Andre always thought he was better than
22:32
Speaker 2: the street. Another says he probably found new friends at
22:35
Speaker 2: the new job. I am ashamed to say I contributed
22:37
Speaker 2: a theory involving a girlfriend none of us had met.
22:39
Speaker 2: We were four grown men riding a supercar about a
22:42
Speaker 2: fifth grown man based on zero evidence and total confidence.
22:45
Speaker 2: Then on a random Wednesday at 2.14 in the morning,
22:47
Speaker 2: Andre appears. First message in six weeks and it is
22:50
Speaker 2: one long pair. His father had a stroke six weeks earlier.
22:53
Speaker 2: to see him had been at the hospital every single
22:55
Speaker 2: night afterwards sleeping in the chair handing him doctors and
22:58
Speaker 2: bills and his mother's crying and he did not tell
23:01
Speaker 2: anyone because and these are close to his exact words
23:05
Speaker 2: he did not know how to say it in a
23:07
Speaker 2: place where everyone was singing memes man The chuck went
23:12
Speaker 2: silent for a full minute. Real silence. Four guys staring
23:16
Speaker 2: at their phones, feeling about two inches told. Then everybody
23:19
Speaker 2: showed up. Roots to the hospital, full foots battling. Somebody
23:22
Speaker 2: started a collection for the bills without being asked. I mean,
23:25
Speaker 2: Troy's father recovered, by the way. Slowly, but he recovered.
23:29
Speaker 2: And in fact, only later, that the two-in-the-morning message took them.
23:33
Speaker 2: Three nights to write. He typed that and deleted it twice.
23:36
Speaker 2: The third night, he just closed his eyes and hid.
23:40
Speaker 1: So the ghost was never a ghost. He was drowning
23:44
Speaker 1: quietly while everyone graded his attendance. Okay. That is the
24:10
Speaker 1: most Edsel sentence ever constructed, and I hate how right
24:14
Speaker 1: it is. My instinct, when someone goes quiet, is to
24:18
Speaker 1: take it personally for 11 days and then send a
24:21
Speaker 1: meme as a probe, like a sonar ping, to see
24:24
Speaker 1: if the friendship is still alive. Hey, look at this raccoon! Translation.
24:30
Speaker 1: Do you still love me?
24:31
Speaker 2: The meme probe is a legitimate diplomatic instrument and I
24:35
Speaker 2: respect it. but pair it with one honest sentence once
24:40
Speaker 2: in a while the icon opens the door the sentence
24:45
Speaker 2: walks through it.
24:53
Speaker 1: I write story number three and this one has no
24:56
Speaker 1: aliases no let us call him anything because it is
24:59
Speaker 1: us me and edzel our own friendship, our own private
25:04
Speaker 1: two-person chat, and our own completely stupid three-day cold war
25:08
Speaker 1: over absolutely nothing. Edzel, do you want to tell it?
25:14
Speaker 1: Or should I? Since I was the villain.
25:16
Speaker 2: So when we are at the wedding on the 15th
25:18
Speaker 2: of September, which takes real time, I will narrate because
25:22
Speaker 2: your version involves sound effects. About eight months ago, a
25:25
Speaker 2: Saturday afternoon, I text Paul a simple logistical question. What
25:29
Speaker 2: time are we meeting for dinner tonight? And do I
25:32
Speaker 2: need to bring anything? Straightforward. Borrowing. Eleven words. Two replies.
25:36
Speaker 2: And I remember this exactly. Because I stare at the
25:40
Speaker 2: keyboard that hour. He replies, whenever.
25:43
Speaker 1: Plus a plate.
25:44
Speaker 2: Whatever. Seven letters. No emoji. No exclamation point. No antedil whatsoever.
25:51
Speaker 1: In my defense, which is weak but real, I was
25:55
Speaker 1: carrying groceries up the stairs with my phone wedged between
25:58
Speaker 1: my ear and my shoulder. And I typed whenever with
26:03
Speaker 1: my nose. My nose. I was being efficient. I thought
26:10
Speaker 1: I was being breezy and flexible. Whenever, man, I am easy.
26:17
Speaker 1: That was the spirit. But Edzil received it as a guillotine.
26:22
Speaker 2: My dank, connoisseur thinking connecting pointy experience front antenna resolved
26:26
Speaker 2: in 10 minutes or so I thought so when the
26:28
Speaker 2: severed letter giggity and I hide my brain connected to
26:32
Speaker 2: unrelated events with total confidence. He is still mad about
26:35
Speaker 2: the scheduling. He is being short with me. He does
26:39
Speaker 2: not behind dinner. So I dig what an immature adult
26:42
Speaker 2: would do. I replied, okay, four letters, no emoji, no energy,
26:47
Speaker 2: the pettiest possible mirror. And then I put my phone
26:50
Speaker 2: down and felt. Ten years over the rest of the
26:52
Speaker 2: other day.
26:53
Speaker 1: And I saw Alkay and my brain did the same
26:56
Speaker 1: gymnastics in reverse. He is mad. He is punishing me.
27:02
Speaker 1: Over what? The schedule thing is settled. Is this about
27:05
Speaker 1: the risotto? I did not even cook the risotto yet.
27:09
Speaker 1: So I did not reply for the rest of the afternoon.
27:12
Speaker 1: Which Edsel read as confirmation. Which made him go quieter.
27:17
Speaker 1: Which made me go quieter. Two grown men. Best friends
27:21
Speaker 1: for years. Hosts of a podcast about friendship. Conducting a
27:25
Speaker 1: silent war through a messaging app over the words whenever and... Okay.
27:30
Speaker 1: Eleven total letters. Three days of frost.
27:33
Speaker 2: Day two was the worst. I'd have to force separate messages.
27:37
Speaker 2: Hey man, are we good? Is everything alright between us?
27:42
Speaker 2: Did I do something? Each one longer and more pathetic
27:45
Speaker 2: than the last. I deleted all four.
27:48
Speaker 6: Because sending our way good felt like admitting something was wrong,
27:52
Speaker 6: which felt like losing a game nobody was playing. So instead,
27:56
Speaker 6: I sent him a meme. A raccoon in a trash can,
28:00
Speaker 6: with the captions, demanaging my emotions. No context, no words,
28:05
Speaker 6: just a raccoon.
28:06
Speaker 1: And I stared at that raccoon for 20 minutes. Because
28:10
Speaker 1: was it an olive branch? Was it a cry for help?
28:14
Speaker 1: Was he calling me the raccoon? Was I the trash can?
28:19
Speaker 1: I analyzed a raccoon meme like it was a treaty document.
28:23
Speaker 1: And then, finally, on day three, my pride ran out
28:27
Speaker 1: of fuel and I just called him. An actual phone call.
28:32
Speaker 1: With voices. Like it was 2004, he picked up on
28:37
Speaker 1: the first ring. I said, are we fighting? He said,
28:41
Speaker 1: I do not think so, are we? I said, I
28:45
Speaker 1: do not think so either. And then we both laughed
28:48
Speaker 1: for a full minute, went to dinner that night, and
28:53
Speaker 1: never spoke of the guillotine again. Until tonight.
28:58
Speaker 5: The moral is brutal in its simplicity.
29:00
Speaker 2: Eleven letters caused three days of frost. One phone call.
29:03
Speaker 5: Ended it in 11 seconds. Texting is the worst possible
29:07
Speaker 5: medium for emotional data. No tone, no face, no timing.
29:10
Speaker 5: Just glyphs on glass. Interpreted by the most anxious.
29:14
Speaker 2: Lawyer in the world.
29:15
Speaker 5: Which is your own brain at midnight. Whenever we feel
29:17
Speaker 5: a chill in the chat now, we have a rule.
29:19
Speaker 5: The rule is, call before the third day. Never let
29:22
Speaker 5: it reach day three. Day one, you notice.
29:24
Speaker 1: Day two, you wonder. Day three, you call.
29:27
Speaker 2: No exceptions.
29:28
Speaker 5: The call is always shorter than the spiral.
29:31
Speaker 1: Call before day three. And listeners, if you are in
29:34
Speaker 1: day two right now with somebody staring at a whenever
29:38
Speaker 1: or an okay or a single you, thumb, this is
29:41
Speaker 1: your sign. Make the call. Be the first to sound
29:45
Speaker 1: slightly awkward for 11 seconds. Awkward is cheap. Frost is expensive.
29:52
Speaker 1: And nobody ever regretted the call. Ever. In the history
29:56
Speaker 1: of friendship, the call always wins.
29:59
Speaker 2: The stories are told and the wounds are opened. Now
30:03
Speaker 2: we argue about the ethics. Because confession without legislation is
30:09
Speaker 2: just gossip. Take your corners.
30:15
Speaker 1: Eret, gloves on. Because your stories were beautiful and now
30:20
Speaker 1: I have to be the villain of this segment. Here
30:22
Speaker 1: is my position, plain and simple. Side chats are betrayal
30:27
Speaker 1: with extra steps. If you cannot say it in the
30:30
Speaker 1: main chat, you should say it to the person's face.
30:33
Speaker 1: Or you should not say it at all. Every side
30:36
Speaker 1: chat is a courtroom where the defendant is not present.
30:39
Speaker 1: You are building a case about somebody in a room
30:41
Speaker 1: they cannot enter. That is not venting. That is a tribunal.
30:46
Speaker 2: Sub-log opening. Dramatic. Legally questionable.
30:49
Speaker 1: Here is my counter.
30:50
Speaker 2: Equally plain. Side chats are not courtrooms. They are kitchens.
30:55
Speaker 2: They are where you take something raw and make it
30:58
Speaker 2: safe to serve. When I am frustrated with a friend,
31:01
Speaker 2: I have two options. Option 1, I fire a hot
31:04
Speaker 2: unprocessed reaction straight into the main chat in front of
31:07
Speaker 2: 12 people at midnight. When I am tired and sloppy,
31:12
Speaker 2: option 2, I take it to one trusted person first.
31:16
Speaker 2: Say the ugly version out loud. Hear how it sounds.
31:20
Speaker 2: Get talked down from the ledge. and then bring a calm,
31:24
Speaker 2: fair version to the actual conversation. The side chat is
31:28
Speaker 2: the reason the main chat stays kind.
31:30
Speaker 1: But that is the fantasy version. In practice, the side
31:34
Speaker 1: chat is not a kitchen. It is a comedy club
31:37
Speaker 1: where the absent friend is the permanent headliner. Nobody goes
31:40
Speaker 1: to the side chat to process. They go to perform.
31:44
Speaker 1: They go to deliver the funniest possible version of their
31:47
Speaker 1: complaint and collect laughing emojis like applause. It does not
31:51
Speaker 1: diffuse the frustration. It rehearses it. By the time you
31:56
Speaker 1: talk to the actual person, you have already done five
31:59
Speaker 1: sold-out shows trashing them.
32:01
Speaker 2: Then the problem is not the room. It is what
32:03
Speaker 2: you do in the room. The kitchen can cook a
32:05
Speaker 2: meal or stop the fire. Same room, different choices, and
32:08
Speaker 2: I will prove it with your own life course. On
32:11
Speaker 2: Victor's rafting plan, had you panicking? Where did you put
32:14
Speaker 2: the side chat of retrusted people? You worked through the worry,
32:18
Speaker 2: found the funny endgame, and landed on the fishing dock solution.
32:21
Speaker 2: The Senate produced good policy that night. The disaster was
32:24
Speaker 2: not the side chat. The disaster was your tongue hitting
32:27
Speaker 2: the wrong thread that midnight. Do not blame the kitchen.
32:31
Speaker 2: because you served the meal in the wrong dining room.
32:34
Speaker 1: Ajection! That is my own story being used against me
32:37
Speaker 1: and I resent how effective it is.
32:40
Speaker 2: Fine.
32:41
Speaker 1: The Senate can function but you are describing the best
32:43
Speaker 1: case Senate and I live in fear of the median Senate.
32:47
Speaker 1: The median side chat has six people, no purpose, and
32:52
Speaker 1: a name like inner circle with a lock emoji. And
32:55
Speaker 1: the lock emoji is doing a lot of heavy lifting
32:57
Speaker 1: for a chat where everybody screenshots. So let us draw
33:01
Speaker 1: the actual line because I do not defend all side
33:05
Speaker 1: chats either.
33:06
Speaker 2: Apparently.
33:08
Speaker 1: Against my will, here is my test. A healthy side
33:12
Speaker 1: chat has an expiration date. You vent. You get perspective.
33:17
Speaker 1: And within a day or two, the real conversation happens
33:20
Speaker 1: with the real person. The side chat dissolves because it
33:25
Speaker 1: did its job. A toxic side chat has no expiration date.
33:31
Speaker 1: It becomes a permanent second government. Months of commentary about somebody.
33:38
Speaker 1: Zero minutes of honesty toward them. That is not processing.
33:42
Speaker 1: That is a hobby.
33:43
Speaker 2: The expiration date test passes unanimously. The Senate now has
33:51
Speaker 2: term limits and I am framing your concession.
33:54
Speaker 1: Do not frame anything. But let me push on the
33:58
Speaker 1: other one. Screenshots. Because your kitchen has no doors, Edsel,
34:03
Speaker 1: anything said in any side chat can be screenshotted into
34:07
Speaker 1: any other chat in four seconds. So your safe processing
34:11
Speaker 1: room is actually a room with glass walls and 12
34:15
Speaker 1: people holding cameras. My rule is simple. Never type anything
34:21
Speaker 1: anywhere that you could not survive seeing on a billboard.
34:25
Speaker 1: If the Senate convenes, assume the Emperor is reading the minutes.
34:29
Speaker 2: That word is wise and also completely unlivable and you
34:32
Speaker 2: know it because you are the same man who sends
34:35
Speaker 2: me voice notes at one in the morning that begin
34:37
Speaker 2: with the words do not screenshot this if that body
34:39
Speaker 2: needs one. Wim, where you get the unpolished? Now said
34:43
Speaker 2: is not to abolish private conversation. The answer is to
34:46
Speaker 2: shrink the circle and harden the trust. My side shots
34:50
Speaker 2: have two people in them. Mine's on one. Because every
34:54
Speaker 2: additional member multiplies the screenshot surface. That's three people is
34:58
Speaker 2: a conversation. Eight people is a past conference with snacks.
35:02
Speaker 1: Two person maximum. Now that is a rule I can sign.
35:06
Speaker 1: Because here is my nightmare scenario. And it has happened
35:09
Speaker 1: to me twice. You say something mildly spicy in a
35:13
Speaker 1: side chat of six people.
35:16
Speaker 2: Harmless.
35:17
Speaker 1: A 2 out of 10 on the spice scale. Somebody
35:21
Speaker 1: screenshots it, sends it to the main chat with no context,
35:25
Speaker 1: and suddenly, your 2 out of 10 observation is being
35:28
Speaker 1: read aloud like a war primes indictment. The screenshot is
35:33
Speaker 1: never the conversation. It is a single frame ripped out
35:37
Speaker 1: of a two-hour movie, and everyone judges the film by
35:40
Speaker 1: the frame So we.
35:41
Speaker 2: Agree on two laws already. One, sidechats expire. If you
35:45
Speaker 2: are still discussing the same person in the same sidechat
35:48
Speaker 2: two weeks later, you do not have a processing room,
35:50
Speaker 2: you have a residence, and it is time to move
35:52
Speaker 2: out and have the conversation. Two, small circles. The bigger
35:56
Speaker 2: the sidechat, the thinner the trust. And I would add
35:59
Speaker 2: a third from the Andrei story. When someone goes quiet,
36:01
Speaker 2: the sidechat does not get to write their shorty.
36:04
Speaker 1: No fanfiction.
36:05
Speaker 2: One private check-in beats 40 messages of speculation.
36:08
Speaker 1: And I will add the fourth. From my river decoration incident,
36:12
Speaker 1: check the chat name before every send. Every send. I
36:17
Speaker 1: do not care if you have sent 10,000 messages in
36:20
Speaker 1: your life. The one time you do not check is
36:23
Speaker 1: the one time Victor is in the thread. Chat name.
36:26
Speaker 1: Member list. Then send. Tattoo it on your thumbs.
36:31
Speaker 2: Four laws. Bipartisan support. Zero objection system. The Senate has
36:35
Speaker 2: produced actual legislation. But we still owe the people the
36:38
Speaker 2: hardest one. the exit protocol. Paul, you have left group
36:42
Speaker 2: chats I haven't watched the announcements. Walk us through the art.
36:51
Speaker 1: I have left four group chats in my life and
36:53
Speaker 1: I have the emotional scars and the missing birthday invitations
36:57
Speaker 1: to prove it. Exit number one. The Irish goodbye.
37:01
Speaker 2: No warning.
37:02
Speaker 1: Just gone. The app announced it. Within an hour, somebody
37:06
Speaker 1: texted me privately. Hey man, Everything okay? Which sounds caring,
37:12
Speaker 1: but is actually an interrogation with a hug emoji. I said, yeah,
37:16
Speaker 1: just decluttering. Too many notifications. And for six months, every
37:20
Speaker 1: time I saw those people, there was a three-second pause
37:24
Speaker 1: where everyone remembered I quit the chat. The Irish goodbye
37:28
Speaker 1: is fast. But the awkwardness has a half-life of uranium.
37:35
Speaker 2: Because silence invites invention. You left a blank space and
37:40
Speaker 2: 12 people filled it with 12 different motives. All of
37:44
Speaker 2: them were seeing the truth. So, what is better?
37:48
Speaker 1: Ends at number 2. The farewell address. I wrote a
37:52
Speaker 1: whole paragraph. Love you guys. This chat moves too fast
37:56
Speaker 1: for me. Nothing personal. Hit me up directly. Anytime. Peace
38:01
Speaker 1: and blessings. You know what happened? Six people replied, no,
38:05
Speaker 1: do not go. Two people started debate about whether the
38:08
Speaker 1: chat really moves too fast. And one person, I swear
38:12
Speaker 1: this is true, started a poll. A poll about whether
38:17
Speaker 1: I should stay with options. I had to watch 12
38:22
Speaker 1: people vote on my departure in real time. I left
38:25
Speaker 1: here my own going away party.
38:27
Speaker 2: You got filibustered by a poll. That is democracy at
38:31
Speaker 2: its worst. So the silent exit reads suspicion and the
38:37
Speaker 2: loud exit reads a hostage negotiation.
38:40
Speaker 1: What actually works? Exit number four. I skipped three because
38:45
Speaker 1: three was a disaster involving a voice note I do
38:48
Speaker 1: not wish to discuss. Exit four is the method and
38:51
Speaker 1: I stand by it. Three steps. Step one. One honest message. Short, warm, final.
39:00
Speaker 1: Something like, hey everyone. Trimming my chats down for my
39:04
Speaker 1: own sanity, love you all. My door and my messages
39:07
Speaker 1: are always open one on one. Step 2. Answer the
39:12
Speaker 1: first wave of no replies with love. Once and only once.
39:18
Speaker 1: Thank you guys, seriously. See you at dinner on Friday.
39:21
Speaker 1: Step 3. Leave within the hour. Do not linger for
39:25
Speaker 1: three days watching people discuss your exit. The lingering is
39:30
Speaker 1: what turns a goodbye into a siege.
39:33
Speaker 2: Short, warm, final, and fast. I endorse this with one
39:37
Speaker 2: amendment from the other side of the table. If you
39:39
Speaker 2: are staying in the chat and somebody leaves, well, let
39:42
Speaker 2: them leave well. Do not chase them into the private
39:45
Speaker 2: messages demanding the real reason. Do not start a side
39:48
Speaker 2: chat to analyze the exit. Just reply with laugh and
39:50
Speaker 2: move on. The grace of an exit is the group project.
39:53
Speaker 2: The leader writes the message. The stairs write the aftermath.
39:57
Speaker 1: And if you are the one who left, show up
39:59
Speaker 1: in real life within two weeks, go to the dinner.
40:02
Speaker 1: Show up to the game. Nothing says it was not personal.
40:07
Speaker 1: Like your actual face at the actual table. The chat
40:11
Speaker 1: is not the friendship. The chat is the group project.
40:16
Speaker 1: The friendship is everything outside the phone.
40:19
Speaker 2: The chat is not the friendship. Say that again for
40:22
Speaker 2: the people screenshotting this episode into their side chats.
40:28
Speaker 1: The chat is not the friendship. Savor it. Screenshot it.
40:33
Speaker 1: I consent to this one screenshot. This is my billboard sentence.
40:46
Speaker 1: That is the stet of the Friesian, smaller of AAA26,
40:51
Speaker 1: meant proceeds of AAA2. This is the S. C-C-Y-B-S-B-A-A-T-T C-L-I-C-L-I-C-L-I-C-L-I
41:07
Speaker 1: Emma R. Explained. Axe suit.
41:12
Speaker 2: Siving.
41:13
Speaker 1: Sains. O. Skin. Densel.
41:17
Speaker 2: But. The O.
41:19
Speaker 1: Start. Taking. Little. O.
41:24
Speaker 3: One.
41:29
Speaker 2: Two lightning rounds before we engrave the constitution because the
41:32
Speaker 2: people demand rulings. Lightning round one.
41:35
Speaker 1: Weave receipts.
41:35
Speaker 2: Blue ticks. Sing labels. The surveillance system built into every chat. Paul,
41:40
Speaker 2: you're famous for pro-receipt. Make your case in 30 seconds.
41:43
Speaker 1: Weave receipts are honesty infrastructure. Without them, every conversation is
41:47
Speaker 1: a void. Did they see it? Are they ignoring me?
41:52
Speaker 1: Is their phone dead? Did they die? My brain will
41:56
Speaker 1: always pick the worst options. With receipts, I know the truth.
42:00
Speaker 1: And the truth is manageable. Seen at 9.41, no reply
42:05
Speaker 1: by noon.
42:06
Speaker 2: Fine.
42:07
Speaker 1: They are busy. I can live with that. It is
42:10
Speaker 1: the not knowing that murders me. Uncertainty is the real surveillance.
42:15
Speaker 1: It surveils my sanity.
42:17
Speaker 2: And my counter is that red receipts turn friendship into
42:20
Speaker 2: shift work. The moment you see that I saw it,
42:23
Speaker 2: a clock starts. Every minute without a reply becomes a statement.
42:27
Speaker 2: I am in a meeting. I glance at a funny
42:29
Speaker 2: video you sent. I smile. I put the phone down
42:31
Speaker 2: to pay attention to a human being in front of me.
42:33
Speaker 2: And now I owe you a debt with interest compounding
42:36
Speaker 2: by the hour. Receipts do not create honesty. They create
42:39
Speaker 2: performance anxiety with time stamps. My ruling. Receipts on for
42:43
Speaker 2: your inner circle offered by chaotic chats. Transparency scales with trust.
42:46
Speaker 1: Oh, that is so reasonable. I want to appeal.
42:49
Speaker 3: Fine.
42:51
Speaker 1: Inner circle on. Chaos chats off. Ratified. Now, lightning round two.
42:58
Speaker 1: And this one is spicy.
43:01
Speaker 3: Muting.
43:02
Speaker 1: Is muting your friends disrespectful? Or is it self-care? Because
43:07
Speaker 1: I have muted chats I love. Chats with people I
43:11
Speaker 1: would take a bullet for. Muted for months. And I
43:15
Speaker 1: feel guilty every single day. Which I believe is the
43:19
Speaker 1: correct amount of guilt. Present, but not paralyzing.
43:24
Speaker 2: You eating is the most honest feature ever built and
43:26
Speaker 2: the guilt is a bug, not a feature.
43:27
Speaker 1: Here is the reframe.
43:28
Speaker 2: Mooding is not ignoring people. Mooding is scheduling people. You
43:32
Speaker 2: are saying I love you and I will catch up
43:33
Speaker 2: with you at 8 tonight instead of in 47 my
43:36
Speaker 2: contraps across my workday. The alternative to mooding is not attentiveness.
43:40
Speaker 2: The alternative is resentment. Nobody ever saved a friendship by
43:44
Speaker 2: reading every message the second it arrived. But plenty of
43:46
Speaker 2: people have snapped at a friend they love because the
43:49
Speaker 2: 50th notification of the date arrived during a stressful moment.
43:52
Speaker 1: So the mute button is a friendship preservation device. You
43:57
Speaker 1: are not silencing them. You are saving them from your
44:01
Speaker 1: worst self.
44:03
Speaker 2: Exactly. Mute the chat. Keep the friend. And if anyone
44:06
Speaker 2: ever confronts you with you muted us, the answer is yes.
44:09
Speaker 2: And that is why I still like you. The mute
44:10
Speaker 2: is doing load-bearing emotional labor.
44:12
Speaker 1: Respect the mute. Respect the mute. Engrave that on a
44:16
Speaker 1: chat settings page. Alright, my pulse is normal. My positions
44:20
Speaker 1: are compromised. My receipts are staying on. Time for the constitution.
44:30
Speaker 2: Try to bring it home. Tonight, we mark seven species,
44:34
Speaker 2: survive three confessions, and pass the actual laws. Let us
44:39
Speaker 2: engrave them. The group chat constitution. Seven articles. Paul, read
44:44
Speaker 2: them like you mean it.
44:46
Speaker 1: Article one. Side chats expire. Vent. Get perspective. Then have
44:51
Speaker 1: the real conversation within days. A side chat that discusses
44:56
Speaker 1: the same person for weeks is not a kitchen. It
44:59
Speaker 1: is a residence. And you need to move out.
45:02
Speaker 2: Article 2. Small circle. The bigger the private chat, the
45:06
Speaker 2: thinner the trust. Three people is a conversation. Eight people
45:10
Speaker 2: is a press conference with snacks.
45:14
Speaker 1: Article 3. No fan fiction. When someone goes quiet, you
45:18
Speaker 1: do not get to write their story. One private check-in
45:22
Speaker 1: beats 40 messages of speculation. Send the raccoon, then send
45:28
Speaker 1: the sentence.
45:29
Speaker 2: Article 4. Screenshots are exhibits, not conversations. Never form a
45:34
Speaker 2: fragment as if it were the whole film. And never
45:37
Speaker 2: type what you could not survive on a billboard. Unless
45:41
Speaker 2: it is to your one trusted person. In which case,
45:45
Speaker 2: still be careful. Because thumbs....
45:50
Speaker 7: Are traitors just give five leave well and let leave
45:54
Speaker 7: well short warm final and fast and stayers do not
46:00
Speaker 7: chase do not analyze do not convene the scenic about
46:04
Speaker 7: the exit then show up in real life within two
46:08
Speaker 7: weeks because the check is not the.
46:10
Speaker 2: Friendship 46 trust brands the sales with trust Receipts on
46:15
Speaker 2: for the NR Circle. Oh, for the KS Chats. And
46:19
Speaker 2: Article 7. The Wisk could mean milk the chat. Keeps
46:22
Speaker 2: a friend and name the apology for scheduling your attention.
46:26
Speaker 1: Seven articles, ratified unanimously. Effective immediately.
46:30
Speaker 2: Real talk.
46:52
Speaker 1: Send one check in tonight. Not a meme, not a probe.
46:57
Speaker 1: One honest sentence to somebody who has been quiet. You
47:01
Speaker 1: have been quiet, man, just making sure you are good.
47:05
Speaker 1: That is it. That is the whole assignment. And if
47:08
Speaker 1: they reply with a thumbs up emoji, do not spiral.
47:13
Speaker 1: Some of us communicate in yellow glyphs, and we still
47:17
Speaker 1: love you.
47:22
Speaker 2: Panic cleans our time and tonight the spotlight fits so
47:26
Speaker 2: well it's almost slush bitches every group chat as it
47:30
Speaker 2: on folklore because the screenshot that resurfaces once you hear
47:34
Speaker 2: the legend of the guy who left and rejoined 11
47:38
Speaker 2: times the unsolved mystery of who started the rumor about
47:42
Speaker 2: the pole so in honor of legends myths and stories
47:46
Speaker 2: that refuse to die we're shutting out the.
47:49
Speaker 1: Mystical The mystical archipelago. Okay, I'm listening. Because if there
47:57
Speaker 1: is a podcast that treats legends with respect, my group
48:01
Speaker 1: chat's folklore deserves an episode. Tell me everything.
48:06
Speaker 2: Fascinating folklore, myths, and supernatural tales from across the Philippine archipelago.
48:12
Speaker 2: Real stories, old stories, the kind your grandmother told you
48:16
Speaker 2: with the lights on. Creatures in the rivers, spirits in
48:20
Speaker 2: the mountains, history is hiding inside ghost stories. It is
48:24
Speaker 2: the rare show that makes you feel wonder and goosebumps
48:27
Speaker 2: in the same 10 minutes.
48:31
Speaker 1: Unmix. So the same feeling as opening a group chat
48:36
Speaker 1: with 200 unread messages. Wonder and Goosebumps Mystical Archipelago Podcast.
48:43
Speaker 1: Go follow it. Go listen. Get your legends straight from
48:47
Speaker 1: the source, and the next time your side chat starts
48:50
Speaker 1: writing fan fiction about a quiet friend, remember, some stories
48:55
Speaker 1: deserve better storytellers.
48:58
Speaker 2: That here is my challenge to you listen to one
49:00
Speaker 2: episode about a creature or a spirit you've never heard
49:03
Speaker 2: of and then bring it to your group chat drop
49:05
Speaker 2: the legend in the main thread with zero context watch
49:08
Speaker 2: the ectosts emerge from the shadows watch the novelists to
49:12
Speaker 2: publish their theories nothing revives dying chat like a good
49:17
Speaker 2: monster folklore is the original group ticket real talk as
49:10
Speaker 2: we wrap up tonight open your most chaotic group chat
49:12
Speaker 2: scroll up a.
49:13
Speaker 1: Little Find one message you skimmed past, one joke you
49:42
Speaker 1: forgot to laugh at, one question nobody answered. Reply to it.
49:47
Speaker 1: React to it. Let one person know they were heard.
49:51
Speaker 1: It takes eight seconds, and it might be the only
49:54
Speaker 1: acknowledgement they get all day. Be the notification somebody smiles at.
49:59
Speaker 1: And while you are in there, do the audit.
50:02
Speaker 5: Count your chats.
50:03
Speaker 2: Count the ones that spark joy and the ones that
50:05
Speaker 2: spike your blood pressure.
50:07
Speaker 1: Mute two without guilt. Leave one with grace, using the protocol.
50:11
Speaker 2: Short, warm, final, and fast. And send one check-in to
50:15
Speaker 2: somebody quiet. Mute two, leave one, check one. That is
50:19
Speaker 2: the whole homework assignment of friendship maintenance in under five minutes.
50:28
Speaker 1: Mewtwo, leave one, check one. I am doing it the
50:32
Speaker 1: second we stop recording. Starting with the fantasy league chat
50:36
Speaker 1: where I have not set my lineup in six weeks
50:39
Speaker 1: and everyone thinks I died. Fantasy managers, if you are listening,
50:44
Speaker 1: I am alive. I am just bad at sports.
50:49
Speaker 2: And if this podcast is helping you survive the group chats,
50:51
Speaker 2: the side chats, and the screenshot economy, take 30 seconds
50:54
Speaker 2: right now. Hit follow, leave a five-star review, and share
50:57
Speaker 2: this episode with a friend. Got 17 mutual group chats
51:00
Speaker 2: I push every time the phone buzzes. Or send them
51:02
Speaker 2: to your own main chat with no context. Just drop
51:05
Speaker 2: the link, watch the typing, and the key does multiply.
51:08
Speaker 2: That is engagement and also mildly diabolic. Can we support it?
51:14
Speaker 1: Next time on All About Friendships, The Vanishing Act. When
51:18
Speaker 1: your best friend gets into a relationship and disappears off
51:21
Speaker 1: the face of the earth. The cancelled plans. The one
51:25
Speaker 1: word replies. The slow realization that you have lost your
51:30
Speaker 1: emergency contact to somebody with great hair. How to survive it.
51:35
Speaker 1: How to say it. And how to welcome them back
51:38
Speaker 1: without a single told you so when they resurfaced.
51:42
Speaker 2: The relationship disappearance is the final boss adult friendship. And
51:45
Speaker 2: we are going in with zero iron run for honesty.
51:48
Speaker 2: Until next time, check the check deck, change the circuit,
51:52
Speaker 2: send the check in, and remember that the check is
51:54
Speaker 2: not the friendship. You are somebody's favorite notification. Act like it.
51:59
Speaker 2: Catch you next time, everybody.
52:01
Speaker 1: Catch you next time. And Ramon, if you are listening,
52:05
Speaker 1: put the phone down and look at the mountain.
52:21
Speaker 3: Thank you.