I’ll start this little episode preview/dive-in with two stories, because aren’t narratives how the human brain processes most things? Indeed.
My 30th birthday
I think I’ve written about this in other blogs, but I forget where. I turned 30 on November 7, 2010. That’s a while back now. I was at Astoria Beer Garden in Queens, NY. I’d say maybe 20-25 people came out for some day drinking. At this moment of typing this, on September whatever-day, 2019 … I don’t think I talk regularly to a single person from that party. Now, I’ve had some events in that time — I’ve moved two-three times (NYC, Minneapolis, Texas) and I got divorced. When you get divorced, you actually also divorce the friends of your ex, so in my case, some of it makes sense.
I started dating a girl who was 29; we now live together. In the first six-eight months of us being together, I went to a ton of 30th birthday parties. At every one, I was always like, “Man, wonder where these people will be in eight-nine years, as more of them have kids, move for work, buy houses 20 minutes away, etc, etc.” I had lived it, so it was interesting.
I took my girlfriend to meet my parents in probably October 2018 and somehow, we ended up at Astoria Beer Garden, where I hadn’t been in years. I was sitting at a table with her, maybe 30-40 feet from where I had turned 30. It was about eight years later almost to the weekend, but it felt like an eternity.
When David Wolinsky (the guest on this episode — find him here and here) and I first connected online — I think via LinKedIn, ha — he had some stories about people turning 30, and our lives in general seemed to be in the same place, so I felt like he’d be a good guest. And he was.
Just Be Social
I got divorced in around March 2017. A few months before, I had done this little road trip deal with some people I was starting to get to know through Twitter. I wrote about it here. That thread, which is called #JustBeSocial, are some of my closer friends now here and there — and David and I talk about this in the episode too. You get to this place in your mid-30s, especially if you don’t have kids and a lot of people in your orbits do have kids / have moved, where you get these “Internet friends” that become actually really close friends and you can crash on their couch if need be. It’s almost like the Internet is good for connection. Who knew?!?! But seriously, Just Be Social helped me through pockets of my immediate divorce really well and I think it’s important to have a mix of IRL and digital friends as you age. For real.
So where’s the episode audio?
Here you go:
Not sure yet how I want to do show notes
This will evolve, as will some elements of production (I say “like” too much, for example). For now, though, I can tell you some things you’ll get in this episode: you’ll hear about sitting in bathtubs drinking wine, getting free drinks at airport bars, golden retrievers wearing dress shirts, the two paths of life for a man over age 32, old man Improv, cricket emojis on lead generation efforts, whether work-life balance really exists, and whether your 30s are the period where you start to think you deserve more.
Hope you enjoy, and come back for some more down the road.
(And PS, some stuff you might like if you liked this episode: Talking about dudes being depressed, stuff on loneliness, how your life changes 28 to 35, and how much people truly care about “big issues” in the world.)
