49: I'm Swamped Playing Solo Darts, Babe!
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We're here to help America's number one podcast. Don't look it up. Jake. Yeah. We got a great one. We got a fun one. We always say that. Yeah. But we mean it. Well, I do mean it. I don't think we've had an episode that, well, we have had calls I don't like and we haven't heard them. No, we haven't. So it's what we're going to say to the audience. Walk me through. We're not 100%. Walk me through your headspace when the call isn't good. What do you start thinking? No, you walk me through what you think my headspace is. Here's what Jake starts to do is I can tell he's not into it. Yeah.

he starts kind of calling out like, let's get to it. What's going on? But sometimes they do get to it. Absolutely. Sometimes it's a good note. Other times you can tell it's going off and then Jake will give the John Candy Blues Brothers three orange whip. Wrap it up! And he'll do that and then he'll kind of let me go like,

Yeah, okay. Well, what I would do is I would probably, you know, maybe see if your husband can actually share the car with you and maybe you guys come up with a schedule or something like that. And then Jake goes, all right, Lacey, thanks for the call. Yeah. So a lot of those in the middle of it. And Kevin and I will look at each other. Garf just seems committed no matter what. I'm in. And even if the tone... If I was on the Titanic, I'd still be trying to breathe underwater. I think that's exactly right. Well, you'd be going like, I think there's a chance that we're going to get back right up to the water and we're going to do this thing. What if we lived on the iceberg? Yeah.

Gareth, where are you going to be on your tour? Where can they find you? GarethReynolds.com. Go to GarethReynolds.com. I'm going to be all over. I mean, just go to GarethReynolds.com. I'm going to be in the Midwest. I'm going to be starting in Vegas. I'm going to be ending in New Orleans. All over the place. All over. You can see the outfit if you like. And we should also say, you know, our YouTube is starting to do better and better. So even if you don't watch the show on YouTube, just go there and subscribe just because it's a good... We feel that dopamine. Yes. And we enjoy it. Without...

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Hi there. Hi. You hear him? I gotcha. Hey. Sorry if we're a little delayed. You're actually our first call in... Like, Jake and I are together in studio for the first time, and we dressed exactly the same. And it's a little weird for us to be...

person at head gum. Yeah. We're watching each other do the show. Yeah. So this is a special one. So no pressure, but your call should be really good. You know what I'm going to do? This all has to be really good. I'm going to shake this off and just do our show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just do our show. That's a good idea. All right. I'll start. Okay. Uh, uh,

How old's your city? What year is your name? I'm going to start. I'm going to start. What are you calling about? I'm going to start. Okay, why don't you start? Can I get your name? Can I get your name, please, buddy? Yeah, my name is Zach. How old are you, Zach, roughly?

I am 35 years old. Great age. And, you know, where are you in America? You sound American. Great country. Best country on Earth. Yes. Yep. I'm on this side of the pond. I'm calling from Syracuse, New York. Oh, Syracuse. Real nightmare. So, Zach, 35 from Syracuse. What can we do for you today, buddy?

So a little predicament. I have a beer fridge, a small beer fridge. And my wife and I just moved into our first home. And I just kind of threw it in the dining room to start. Very man move. But we have a baby on the way. So I need to kind of move that thing out of the dining room and put it somewhere it's going to be used more. And I'm torn between the basement.

the garage. Now, I don't know if you guys know Syracuse, but it's

But it's cold, pretty chilly for about six months of the year. Let me interrupt for a second. I'm out of Chicago. Gareth is out of Wisconsin. We know what you're talking. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My only big question to you that I'm judging is who the fuck puts a beer fridge in the dining room? I love the move. I love the move. It's definitely no baby move, but it also feels like a no. Yeah. That's a in college move, my man.

That's yep. I'm a, as a 35 year old, I still have the college mentality of a 22 year old. I respect. I think I understand what this call is. You're about to have a baby. You're making a big jump and symbolically what's the best place to put this to start your new life. Is that where we're going, Zach?

Yeah, yeah. I thought I nailed it. I thought you were right, but I mean, he went soprano in the voice, so there's something more going on here. Okay, so does the plot take it on this one?

All right, keep going, my friend. No, so there's pros and cons for both. I smoke a bit of pot from time to time, usually once after work. Sure. And if I put it in the garage, I can... Yes, yes. No shame in that game. I used to do bongs in the morning, and we're talking about within the last two years. Go ahead, Zach. So if I put it in the garage, now I can...

I can smoke freely. I can pee freely. Just dip outside and I don't have to worry about a bathroom. My friends and I can play darts in the garage and I don't have to worry about it. But it's cold as fuck out there for like six months of the year. But if I put it in the basement, I can't smoke pot inside. I got to worry about going upstairs to the bathroom.

and my wife and the new baby it's like we don't know you the layout of your house well enough to know that you could sneak one hitters in your inside house bathroom but whatever system you're working i love it okay so you could the downside keep going no smoking in the basement just the bathroom no smoking inside and the wife is going to hear us in the basement if we were in there

Yeah. So the layout is. But hold on, Zach. I'm going to jump in here. So the basement, if there's no bathroom and you're considering having people over with a baby and a new mom, I'm going to just tell you it doesn't work because if you're down there having a couple of beers, smoking weed and you tell a loud story and people laugh and it wakes up your fucking three month old baby because you and your two buddies got high.

Fucking pack your bags, Zach. Yeah. Either way, you're going to the garage. It ain't going to fly, my man.

Is that what you're telling me? So the basement? Well, I'm saying, is the basement any world you can soundproof? How quiet is it? Is this a beer fridge for just you? Is this for you and a bunch of buddies? It's pretty much just a beer fridge for me. You said darts. You playing darts alone, my king? Yeah, man. Gotta let off some steam after work, you know? Absolutely. Hold on. You play solo darts?

You know. Have you ever? Are you just trying to hit bullseye? You can put a monkey up your ass. I'm asking if you do, my man. Okay.

Do you play solo darts? I do not currently. Okay, good. I do not currently. Jake, you're forgetting how great weed is. You're right. You could smoke weed and then be like, I'm going to just play first guy to 35. I'm going to go play darts. Yeah, you're right. I'm going to go play 301 against myself. You're not wrong. Solo 301. Honey, do you want a hold?

I'm pretty swamped out here. I'm at 290. I'm shaking a little. It's going to be hard to hit all these proper. So, Zach, is the question, where do we put the beer fridge, the garage, or the basement? And are we missing anything when we hear about the garage and we hear about the basement?

I don't think so. Just the garage isn't insulated. It's freezing as hell out there even now, but it's, you know, it's quieter and it's away from everything. What Jake pointed out is pretty true. I think you're just, there's like, yes, there is, you know, the risk of hypothermia in the garage, but you're going to have to just get that party warmth going. And, um,

First of all, I just love how much you love your beer fridge, that your beer fridge is kind of the catalyst for the lifestyle. So wherever you move it, it's kind of your orb of partying. It's going to be where I'm around, yeah. Yeah, I think the garage feels— But hold on, hold on, hold on. Because I hear where we're going. But I've also—look, on a couple of these, I've turned a little bit Columbo-ish, but I think that's more the caller than me.

Because you've said two things. You said you're mostly drinking this beer alone and smoking weed after work. You've also mentioned friends and noise. So is this mostly, and I'm not judging you, Zach. I'm just trying to get a real picture here. Is this mostly you come home from work alone? You have a couple of beers, you smoke weed alone? This is a good question. Because if so, I don't want you freezing in that garage. Alone. That could be basement, my man. How often out of a hundred times are you having friends?

And this is not a judgment. You nailed it. It's me. It's just me. You're solo. Okay, so. 90% of the time it's solo time. You are. Okay. One more thing. Yeah, you are good at the one more thing. So then I'm going to change, Zach, because look, in college, you seem like a likable guy. And I'm sure you had a bunch of buddies and you guys got loud and you had a lot of fun. It does change with kids.

And when you've got one, my guess is in a few years, you're going to have two. And that 90-10 split is going to probably go to about 95-5. And you're going to be spending a lot of solo time in there. So I'm going to say your comfort matters too. And I'm going to say, let's build that basement to be two things.

Your beer fridge weed zone and also a place for your kids to hang with dad's zone. Wow. Bean bags. You know, the kid is going to become your new friend. It's a reality. So put his own in there. When the weed goes away, you have a couple of beers and you got a five year old. You can have a screen down there.

Good for kids movies, some Pixar stuff. Put a Pixar movie in. Crack a beer. You could throw a little softcore porn on there. Throw a little Cinemax on there if you like. Go ahead, Jake. Cut that out. Why? That has to stay in. I haven't said something for a minute. Go ahead. Hold on. Zach, we don't live in untrue bits.

You think he should watch soft core pornography with his new baby? No, no, no. I'm saying the baby's out. Oh, yeah. No, I'm not suggesting we. I thought you read your diary. This toddler put a fucking soft core with his child. You animal. Okay. You mean? I mean, I get it.

But no, that's not what I'm pitching. So you're pitching 90s basement Skinemax. Yeah, well, you've got a screen down there. Great for the child, right? To just be like, oh, how good is that? You're pitching Midwest basement of our childhood. Yes.

So those, if you went to somebody's house and their dad had a beer fridge in the Midwest in the 80s. Stack of Playboys. There was a stack of Playboys. There was cable TV. And you'd be like, looking back now, gross. Mr. Watson masturbating. Yeah, yeah. We were in Mr. Watson's wax shed. Nasty, actually. All those nerd dads drinking an IPA as he slowly stroked. And back in 1986, their wife said, no idea. Well, I think carbon.

Carl. He likes the article. There's always the article. Always. Just murdering that suburban dick. Oh, Zach, please don't tell us we're pitching you a masturbation check. No, no. We're just saying a little something. This is a place to smoke a little weed, have a beer, and relax after work. Yeah.

So let's get away from the Skinamax that Garrett was talking about. My guy put us in a zone I want to get out of. All right, go ahead. Zach, where are you at? You want to live in the masturbation shack or you want to get away from it? You're pushing the Skinamax so far. It's not the title. It's a co-star. I'm going to say let's get away from the masturbation shack. I don't like that we're aligning. Okay, go ahead. Here's what I'm going to say that's negative about the garage, and I'm going to say it kind of solidly, and you know this. I'm not telling anything that people out east don't know.

Those winters will kill you. Yeah. Those winters will kill you. And if you try to have a hit a weed and a beer, you're going to be sitting out there like you're ice fishing and it's going to suck. Yeah. And you'll never be. I don't want to have to throw on my winter coat to go hang out after work. No. Cause then guess what? Zach, you're a weirdo.

You're not a cool dad relaxing. You're a weirdo who's freezing to get away from your kid. And then if you have to warm yourself up, we know what you're doing in the garage. You're working on a little bit. You got the screen, the whole nine.

Zach, don't transition fast. Let it sit. What we're saying. No, not we. You. Right. You are trying to turn this into a masturbation shack. I'm saying. And I'm saying I'm not interested in Zach's saying. I'm saying there's a lot of downside to the garage. And if you had to go out there, then maybe we come back to the jack shack.

But you're right. Let's stay away from that because we're saying the garage. Don't sigh. Zach, I'm going to make a deal with you. I'm not bringing up a masturbation check again. Are you going to bring it up?

I will not bring it up. So if it comes up again, let's just all get quiet. Because it's just Gareth. He's trying to do the thing he does recently. He dressed like me today, which kind of weirded me out. We look good. And he says we about his ideas. If it happens again, Zach, let's just both get quiet. All right. Okay. Back where we were. Sorry about that. Right where we were. I agree. Agreed. So I think the garage sets you up for six months of the year being a weirdo in the cold.

Uh, I think the basement, I think here's how you win. Uh, I'm ready to pitch. I think you set it up in the basement, but you make it slightly toddler friendly. I think that I'm on, I'm good with that pitch. I think you basically, you keep a, since you're not hosting, which you kind of said you're not doing, it doesn't matter. It's just for you. You can easily go out, do a one hitter outside or in the garage, or I guess if you have a smoking bathroom, which sounds like a great deal you've made with the wife, uh,

That's all that matters. Do you have a smoking bathroom? That's what he said. He said he could go do the smoke in the bathroom. No, he said he could go up to the bathroom. No, I just meant the bathroom to go take a leak while I'm drinking beer. Where are you going to smoke the weed, then? You okay, my man? No, I'm pretty hot. The weed was going to go in the garage.

All right. Well, either way, it doesn't matter. I think keep it down in the basement. I think that's right. Yes. I don't I mean, personally, I don't have kids, so I don't know why you got to include the kid, but I get it. So Gareth is a don't worry about the kid. Just create the basement. But we're both into the basement. Zach, where are you at, man? What do you think you're going to do here?

Well, I think I'm going to work on the basement. I mean, maybe finish it, but split it in two and make a dad zone and a kid zone. I love that, man. Because you know what you could eventually get into with the wife is you could say like, hey, I got the kid in the basement. You go relax. You're living dad zone. Your kid's in paradise too. That's a nice win. Yeah.

I'm glad you guys pointed me down this road. Yeah, I think I was trying to give you different directions, but the point is we ended up at the same destination. Zach, I think this is a big win, but I would 100% don't even think of the garage again. You're out in Syracuse. You got to respect that. That's all right. We'll go. We appreciate this call and good luck with that baby, man. You're about to have a big adventure. Good luck with that beer fridge. Same deal. I can't wait for both. Thanks, guys. See you. Bye, bud. Thank you.

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Yes, my name is Jack. Where are you from, good looking? I'm originally from England. From England? No accent. I'm originally from England. Yeah, I'm living in Charlotte, North Carolina right now. Oh, I just heard it. Where in England are you from, mate? May I ask that question for you? I'm from a town called Reading. Oh, of course I know Reading. Yeah, it's right next to Bluing. And we'll be right back. That's lovely, mate. Good for you. What brings you to Charlotte then? Well, America, my dad's job brought me to New York and then down to Charlotte for work.

How old was you when you moved over? Sorry, what's going on, mate? I said, how old was you as a boy when you hopped the fucking pond, yeah? Oh, God. Starting over there in beautiful town and you fucking hop over to the big fucking hop and you look up and you see the fucking statue of liberty. So let me say, your tactic at this point is to just muddle the accent with a bunch of nothing.

hoping that we don't know. It's not about nothing, Jack. What's your problem, mate? Let me show you what I can do to help you. I'm on the everything I fucking can. But I'm also sitting here, man. Jack, you're going to need to wait a minute, mate, until Jake comes back. Jake, no, don't do this. I'm fucking eating a fucking patty, man. I'm also going to... What are you eating? A fucking patty sandwich, man. A patty sandwich? I'm also... I'm fucking afraid to give one of these, motherfucker. What, you can punch him? Yeah. Why? Jack, where are we at?

I'm loving the accent. Thank you, man. Well, I'm more... Bad at it. Jack, what's the problem? What can we help you with, bud? So basically, at work, I'm a designer. And for work, I'm not super...

I'm not really outspoken. I'm more extroverted outside of work, but inside of work, I'm sorry, I keep myself a little bit more. But I want to be more, feel like myself. I want to be more outspoken at work. And so last Halloween, I thought it'd be a fun thing to like,

get more out of my shell sort of like shows shows the the the team where i work there i'm more fun maybe win a costume contest sure um i came into work fully dressed as legolas from world of rings um with can we pull up a photo yep wait give us one second jack because i don't know the look yeah yeah one second what is the name of the character

Legolas. Legolas. He's an elf. He's a wood elf, I think. A wood elf? Okay, sure. Did Jack send a photo in of him? He did. Oh, great. We got a picture of you. So hold on one second, Jack. We're going to post this. And then for anybody listening, you can also watch it on YouTube. We're here to help. Just type that into YouTube and you're going to see the photo as we see the photo. And if you're not somebody who wants to do that, then Gareth will also describe it. Is that correct? Absolutely. What we're looking at here is...

It's a long blonde wig. I was wearing boots and a cape. And pointy ears. You can't really see in the picture. Oh, it was a zoom. It was a zoom. So these were all your coworkers. Wait.

Hold on. Now I'm getting. Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay. Now. All right. I love you, Jack. Oh, Jack. Okay. Now, uh, it took me a minute to find you cause you're kind of stashed in the corner. But just to describe what's happening, this is a zoom chat and nobody is dressed. Not only is nobody dressed, nobody looks amused in any way by anyone. You're wearing a long blonde wig for some reason. I would call you a traditional English man. You have a mustache and glasses.

And then you're dressed like the Orlando Bloom character from Lord of the Rings. So you have a blonde wig. What else are you wearing? Because this is just the shot from the shoulders up. What else are you wearing to show your costume?

So I'm wearing boots. I'm wearing a cloak. Sure. Can I just jump in real quick, Jack? Yeah. Two things that'll not show up on a Zoom window. So those are just kind of for daddy at home, right? Yes. I mean, I'm in the office. I'm in the physical office. I go in. Oh.

Oh, so, okay. So everybody sees you in the office and is, what are all these other people on the zoom then? So some, some of the people are in, I didn't know where the meeting was, so I just entered it through zoom. Some people in my office, like what, at home, some people come in. I was, I was in office surrounded probably by, I think it was like 150 people in my office. Oh God. I was the only person. Oh my God, Jack.

I'm a little overwhelmed with both joy, confusion, and terror. But by the way, Jack, I will say, this is a hard one, but you won. It's great. You won. It's hard, my man, but you won. It's a great risk. Look at his face. I know. You're in a nightmare. Your face... Yeah, you're in a nightmare. Your face completely indicates this is not what I expected. You know, this is a... I thought better. This is a premise that...

I've seen in scripts and I've said unrealistic. Yeah, you're like... Too broad. Bring it back to earth. Too broad. A guy dresses up with long blonde hair. Wait, Jack, to be clear, nobody else in the office wore a costume? Literally no one in the office. I was like... I was so confused. My question is, did you put any feelers out there to anyone else at work? Hey, we doing costumes or anything like that? Yeah, I asked my...

The people on my direct team, like the week before, I was like, I'm coming in in a cool costume. By the way, Jack, that's different than what I said. Just to be clear, there's a difference. Yeah. I said, did you ask anyone else if they were doing costumes? And you said, yeah. I told everyone the week before I'm coming in in a costume. Yeah. He's right, Jack. He's right. Okay. So I got some responses. I bet you did. Oh, you got some yeses. And nobody else did it.

And then no one came through. Okay, so Jack, you take over now. Where are we at? We kind of know what the problem is, but I'd like to hear it specifically from you. You're back in controls. Yeah, so sort of to take a little turn, I sort of came up with one idea that I think, like, part of the reason I'm not super confident is because

I really like the people I work with, but my team isn't like full of, I don't really have any young guy who's my age that I can be like super close with or go to lunch with or something like that. And that's sort of what I'm looking for. But I have, this sounds weird, but I sort of like scoped out a guy who I've had a couple of interactions with in a break room.

And we've gone along well. This is giving me a stomachache. And wait, what did you just say? He's got a guy he's stalking that he wants to be friends with. What was the last thing you said before Jake? He saw me in the break room. Yeah, but what did you do? You went up to him? No, we've had conversations, natural conversations. Basically, I'm a madman.

How do I approach another guy and ask him out to go to lunch? Yeah, but hold on, hold on. This is a fantastic setup. We're on your, the setup, the setup. This whole setup is just salivating. Now, if the question was, how do I make a friend with a guy I work with is fine. I'm looking at you on the Zoom and in the bottom right corner, you are a hundred times the weirdest guy there.

If you were the guy with donuts behind, I would go, easy, offer a donut. If you were the guy in the top right, I would say, find a shared hobby. If you were the guy wearing a long wig, a cloak and boots, I would say, find a friend outside of work. The reason why you're set up of the fact that you're dressed up like Legolas or whatever his name is for work is fantastic is because

I think you did put yourself on a little bit of an island. You sort of... A glorious island. By the way, good news, Jack. People do know who you are. Don't think that you're getting lost in the shuffle. People know who you are at work now. Maybe they didn't before. After Halloween, they did.

So it's the problem is basically that's the setup. You showed up. You feel like, oh, you've maybe only further alienated yourself. Now there's a guy at work you want to be work friends with and you don't know how to approach him. So I got a pitch. I mean, not a quite pitch, Jack, but look, now we know the setup. We know you're in a danger zone.

we're all in the mud, right? We're face down in the mud. Let's get out of the mud together. I got a mud solve. Dress up like Legolas every day. Pretend it's how you roll. I feel like that's going deeper in the mud. Agreed. So here's what I would say. What about this guy? And when I say terms like like, we're not teasing, we know it's a friend. What do you like about this guy? Every conversation we've had, being brief has been like on similar interests. We,

What are those interests? Movies, TV shows, like pop culture. And he's my age. I feel like that's amazing. But when you're talking about these things, are you talking about the same stuff? Because like, you know, Gareth and I do have the NFL. We've got our careers. We've got stuff that's linked us over the years.

that there's stuff we can always kind of text about or bullshit about. So just the idea of pop culture, it's too much. If somebody's like, look, I'm like, I really love pop culture. And they're like, me too. Let's talk The Bachelor. I'm going to go like, I don't have a lot to say on that. So is it the same movies? Is it the same shows? Yeah, similar. Just like sort of like,

nerdy-esque like Star Wars. We talked a little bit about the new Dune movie. Very quick, brief interactions though. This is easy. The first big nerdy thing that comes to Charlotte, either it be a Comic-Con or a big movie or whatever that you know he will also like, you lead out first and go,

You know, I would love to go to this thing. My wife's not interested. Any interest in getting dinner and going? So he knows you're not like, it's just as a buddy, want to get a drink and go see this thing. It'd be fucking awesome. I like that. You could probably, when does it, Dune's not out yet, is it? No, but I've had like three, three or four interactions. That's my thing. It's like, we're not at that in terms of guys. How long have the interactions been? Super short? Jack walks up and goes, do you like my costume? And the guy walks out. I would say short.

Then Jack would say like, have you seen my new boots? And the guy goes like, fucking stop following me. Look, man, I'm trying to do my own thing here. I can't have you bringing me down. And then he goes like this, you like weird stuff like me? And he goes, oh, God, you scared me. I didn't know you were in here. I'm taking a dump.

So, Jack, I think early it's early. I saw. So I think we got to find a way to kind of I think I like I like Jake's pitch. But yeah, we don't want to like creep him out. We don't want to lose him early. Do do people from work eat lunch in the same place? You all kind of go off campus. I mean, people sort of take their own lunch whenever they're free. But is there like a common eating room?

Not in our office. We sort of got, we're in like a very like, there's a lot of restaurants around this area. I gotta say, Jack, I'm getting red flags. Do you guys ever work together? Are you on email chains together? Are there things like that going on? Nope. Nothing. So he isn't a totally separate part of your designer job? Yeah, not a designer at all. Did he mention your costume?

I don't know if I've seen him in that day. Orlando. Yeah.

Yeah, correct. Like I'm talking under 10 minutes. Is this correct? Yeah, probably at 10 minutes. So Jack, we're not, I'm saying this, look, some of our advice is we pitch, we get you there. But what the premise of this goddamn show is, is we are on your team. We're friends in a bar and I'm telling you as a friend, don't push this. I'll tell you why. You're a fucking designer. You got a great job. You got a wife. You're a happy guy. You're a little introverted. You're looking to be more yourself at work.

Well, sometimes it takes time. You let out hard on Halloween. And Jack, we didn't win there. Right? Now, in terms of when you're an old man looking back, you won massively. Oh, if you're us? Oh, it's a win. Yeah. And if you're... Look, when you're you and you look back, you're such a fucking king for doing this. Yeah. But you're a king for...

for keeping the wig on when nobody else wore it because you could simply just go to like... I would chicken out. I mean, you must have been wearing something underneath. At lunch, you could have probably gone home or something. There's got to be a TJ Maxx nearby where you probably could have bought a shirt and just looked like you were having fun.

Half a Zelda. We went to a Halloween party, my wife and kids and I, and she put something on me because I didn't have something. And there was a whole plan, but what it ended up being at the end was just essentially like a trash bag, like a cape. And I walked in and one dad goes, what are you, trash? Instantly took it off. Ha ha ha.

I got one. I have a lot of respect for you. I think Jake's right. I'm going to hit you with some psycho options in a minute, but let me just tell you my favorite one. One time I waited so long to buy a Halloween costume and finally last minute agreed to go to a party. And the only thing left at the costume shop, that weird one on Hollywood and like Franklin or whatever, was a stoplight where you're the stoplights or a baby.

And I was like, my buddy was like, do the baby, man. And I was like, yeah, fucking all right. And so he bought the baby costume. And as I'm like thinking of what the baby costume is, I'm slowly going, I mean, it is a diaper and a bonnet and a rattle. And so I'm kind of going like, wait, what the hell is this? So I'm like, eh.

I don't know. So I'm at my buddy's place and he, I, if I don't want to take like a bag to the party, as I put it on, I'm like, I can't do this, but I've painted myself into a corner. So I'm like, I bring, I come out in the baby costume, probably take a couple of bong rips and everybody's laughing. And then I have to leave my clothes at my buddy's place. And so I just put my wallet down the front of my dye dye. And, um, and I go to the party. And as soon as I show up to the party, I'm like, this was the dumbest decision I've ever made. Everyone was like, I,

Even at a costume party, everyone was like... It was too much. Yes. Everyone was like, what are you doing? So I eventually... I ended up walking in the rain and I had to wait in like a 15-minute long ATM line to get cash to take a cab home. And it was a big swing. Yeah. And it was a big miss. And I'll tell you what he's not doing that night.

is forming a male friendship with a stranger. I met another baby. And so, but that's where we're at with you, Jack. I think this is what I would say. I think Jake's right. You might just have to wait for this. You know, I think, you know, maybe talk to him a little more, but you don't want to overdo it. But I have some psycho pitches. You want them?

Okay. Here's some psycho pitches. He's probably on social media, right? You could probably look him up. You could probably find him on Instagram or something. Follow him. Nothing wrong with that. I don't think that's too crazy. Another pitch would be you're probably on an email together. Is there anyone else at your work who has a name similar to him? You could accidentally email him with a question about design stuff and then say, oh, my bad. I thought you were the other whatever. And that could potentially start a little bit of a conversation. So.

Something maybe along those lines. The weirdest one I have, you could follow him at lunch, see where he's going, scope it out a little bit, and then set up a meet cute where you see him at Baja Fresh. And, you know, you're waiting in line. You go, oh, hey, you like burritos, too? I love burrito. Oh, you're in a fucking five minute line. There's a little bit of an opportunity for some banter there. You could potentially move that into a sit down lunch. You two together. OK, so here's where we're at, Jack.

I'm saying you gotta let this flower grow more organically. Right now, you just gotta seed in the dirt. Gareth is saying, follow him on social media. You could email a name close to his and say like, hey, Borlando,

Great meeting. I had this thing. What a mistake. Hey, Orloff, do we need to get that design project in by Friday? I'm thinking if I have the weekend, I could probably make it a little better. 10 minutes later. Oh, dude, sorry. I didn't mean to email you. My email filled that in. Anyway, how good does Dune look? Orlando's going to see right through that, and then you're the weirdest guy he's ever met. Depends on the name. Three...

Follow him at lunch. But he doesn't know that. You're saying that like he knows he's being followed. He doesn't know he's being followed. If you do that, do not wear your Halloween costume. Absolutely. That's baked into everything I said. Create a meet cute with a guy you met a few times at work. Bump into each other. Drop your library books. Three and four together. You also like doing... I also like mild salsa. Meet him at the little salsa bar. Jack...

Our friend, where are you at? Yeah, I think we're sitting around one or two. I follow him. I think I'm on LinkedIn with him. So I think we'll maybe get a social media follow and see if anything progresses from there. Yeah. I would say... Yeah, I don't want to force it. No, Jack, you can't. Whenever people try to force something, the other person always senses it. I would say you got a good thing cooking. Socially, your job isn't where you want it to be.

But maybe just give this time. You could walk into the break room when he's there on Bluetooth and be like, I know, dude. That was what... Hey, we like to party. That's what we do. All right, I'll talk to you later. That was my best friend. You know, make him want it more. I'm looking at Jake's face and I'm not even gonna let him talk. Jack, we want you to keep us posted. Let us know if anything changes.

And hopefully it does. But yeah, don't overplay your hand here. Look, you tried that once. You ended up with boots and a wig on it once. I had a wonderful time partying with all my male friends because I'm not alone on a Friday. Hey, how you doing, Orlando? Hey, Orlando. Nice lunch quiche. Hey, Jack, all the best to you, man. And you won Halloween, man. Yeah, thanks, guys. You're a favorite. By the way, Jack, next Halloween, I would wear the same outfit. Double down. Double down. All right. Thanks, guys.

We're Here to Help is hosted by Jake Johnson and Gareth Reynolds. The show is produced and edited by Kevin Bartelt and the associate producer and editor is AJ McKean. Our social media director is Caitlin Tanwakio and our video editor is John DeBruyne. The theme song is made by Oliver Raleigh and you can check out his music at OliverRaleigh.com. That's Oliver R-A-L-L-I dot com.

The album artwork is by James Fosdyke. You can find him on Instagram at James underscore Fosdyke, D-I-K-E. And if you'd like to see me do stand-up on the road, go to garethreynolds.com. And if you'd like to be on the show, email us your question at helpfulpod at gmail.com. All of the advice given on We're Here to Help is for entertainment purposes only, and all listeners should be adults and make their own decisions.