Episode Transcript
FAWN: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Hi everybody.
At the core of it is how to have sustainable friendship. Not just friendship, but sustainable relationships. That relationship could be friendship, it could be marriage, it could be whatever you want. Whatever it is, it's a relationship. Mm-hmm. With whatever, with trees, with nature, with your person.
With your dog, cat, it all works and it's the thing I get asked a lot.
What is your favorite, fill in the blank. What's your favorite ice cream? What's your favorite show? What's your favorite thing to wear? What's your favorite place?
What's your favorite country? What's your favorite? Whatever, My entire life, I've never been able to answer that question. Maybe I'm an oddball, but we were talking. Mm-hmm. Matt was going on an interview yesterday and started in my mind. Turning like the wheels were turning wheels turning.
Mm-hmm. You were talking about, okay, on my way there, I'm gonna play my favorite music.
MATT: Right.
FAWN: To get in the mood, I guess.
MATT: Yes. Well, to pump me up.
FAWN: And then you said, [00:01:00] do you even know my favorite music? No. Did you ask me that?
MATT: I did,
FAWN: I got quiet because every time you pose that mm-hmm. I get really sad because, no, I don't know your favorite music.
was starting to beat myself up. Like I got really sad, like, oh, I'm such a bad partner because I dunno your favorite band. That's so stupid. 'cause music is so important to you. Right. I'm like, am I a selfish person? Yeah. But. But that's where my mind was racing and I ended up facing my computer again.
Mm-hmm. As I was thinking about what I was, just, what we had just said, and the fact that I didn't know your favorite band, and I started thinking, and then, I said. Yeah. Well, is that a fair question? Because it seems like it's always changing.
I don't know what you're right. I'm like, I don't know. And then I'm like, does he know your favorite music? what I even like to listen to knowing the answer deep down is, I don't have favorite music. [00:02:00] It depends on my mood. It it, the moment depends on the season. It depends on what's happening. Sometimes I'm really mad and I'll listen to something you would never think I would listen to.
It depends. I don't have favorites. It changes. Right. And it's radically changing. Right. So I turned to you. I'm like, do you even know my favorite music? And I stumped you? Well, I
MATT: said, it's that
FAWN: guy whose name ends with
MATT: a and o.
No,
FAWN: you, you paused for a second and you were like, and then you just thought of the last thing I happened to be playing. Exactly.
MATT: Because that's how it works with you. I think I'm like,
FAWN: but that's not my favorite. I needed that. And the last few days I've been listening to that particular genre or artist maybe, but.
It's not my favorite, but yeah, I've been relishing in that the last day. But you were kind of chuckling because you really didn't know, did you?
MATT: I mean, we can play around with a, a, a bunch of different things, but
FAWN: Yeah. Okay. I'm making this way too long, but the, the point of this conversation today [00:03:00] is my hypothesis is that it's dangerous to have a person or a thing.
Whenever you're looking at, in front of you to think, you know, their favorite thing. I feel like when you do that, you put them in a stagnant, anchored position forever, and nothing, nothing stays the same. Even a rock will move. Things change all the time. It's kind of like putting a placeholder on something when you say.
This is their favorite or this is this way about this mm-hmm situation. I think it creates such an anchor that as life moves on and you have that bookmark on that person as being a certain way, life happens. The wind comes along. You grow apart. It's like anchoring a boat somewhere and then you're swimming away.
The tide takes everything else away. Mm-hmm. That's why I don't hold you with anything like this [00:04:00] is Matt's favorite thing, and I think I told you the other day, I only know the favorite kind of shirt that you like to wear, but that's it, because that's all I wear.
I don't know. I really don't know your favorite ice cream. I don't know your favorite anything, Matt, because I don't hold you to that.
MATT: Right. And people would say contemporarily that, Ooh, that's not good.
FAWN: Well, okay, so now that I've fumbled my way to explain what the show is about today. You know what I'm talking about right now?
I do because Can you explain it to our friends that are listening what we're talking about?
MATT: Okay. Without getting No, with getting too like pathological about it. When I was young, I listened to Iron Maiden then later, and that was my favorite band, and I was all about it and da da da da and then later it was a different band and then later it was a different band and now it seems like
I get favorites very quickly and they come and then sometimes they go, sometimes they linger as like a [00:05:00] favorite but not the favorite. And it can be just a mood and honestly, you know, when I was younger I had a favorite ice cream and that was it. And now it's like, well, give me something chocolate with stuff in it.
Life is good. Why even things that, my focus, even
FAWN: things that we hated it, it's not necessarily just about things you love, like your favorite thing. It's about like, oh, I really can't stand this. I used to, when I was a kid, hate avocados. And I'm slowly coming around at the taste
MATT: to
FAWN: beets, but, but now I love the avocado.
Right? I totally appreciate the taste of it, but when I was a kid, the taste of it was kind of tasteless, but at the same time, gross, right? Like it had a taste that I couldn't tell you what it was, but it was gross to me.
MATT: I wouldn't sit down and eat an avocado,
FAWN: Yes. At the risk of sounding [00:06:00] like a total hippie, you know, people make fun of. Vegans and the avocado toast. I'm just saying avocados were disgusting to me. Right. Even the color, I hated it. It is an interesting color. And now I appreciate it.
MATT: It's very much a seventies style color, right? Yeah. Oh my God. Those
FAWN: seventies kitchens with a, yeah, the, the green, stoves and the green refrigerator. We had an an avocado refrigerator. Oh, I can't stand that. Thank god it wasn't sunrise yellow. But see, that is depressing to me.
That kind of mm-hmm. Color. And I, by the way, I see that color when I'm in la. the, to me, the air in la the atmosphere is this greenish yellow. It's the same as the avocado when I was a kid. It's my kryptonite. I don't like it. I, I have no energy in LA because green, yellow, right?
Whereas like the Pacific Northwest is blue green and that gives me energy. Do you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Does that even make sense? I know it sounds crazy, [00:07:00] but certain places I see as if I'm wearing glasses mm-hmm. That have that tent
MATT: right.
FAWN: Anyway, I'm kind of fearing off subject again, but um, yeah, it's not just favorite things either. It's like your perception of a particular thing. I feel like it's important to allow yourself to maneuver without saying, this is it. This is my favorite thing. This is what I dislike. This is it, and this is this person's favorite thing, and it shall be forever.
Forevermore. When we do that, we don't grow together because change is inevitable. Well, and I think that's a key to having a sustainable friendship, is to not hold anything on anyone. Anything. Right. Anything.
MATT: Well, right. And then, but let's be careful. It's interesting. It makes me wonder why, why this happens.
You know, particularly as parents, we know that our kids change. Oh my God.
FAWN: And then they get upset because we're like, oh, this is your favorite. They're like, mom, I grew [00:08:00] outta that. Do you know what I mean? Yes. They get upset.
MATT: Well, they love the Yokai. They didn't like the Pokemon, they liked the Yoka watch.
And you know, we play the games and yada yada yadas and, and now they could, don't care.
FAWN: But that's just it. That's why kids get upset because we've stayed in there. Right, and we're forcing them to stay,
MATT: but like do we then, but why do we do it? But do we then perceive perhaps a certain lack of maturity in others if they changed?
If they change what their favorite is?
FAWN: What do you mean? Like their fickle?
MATT: Yeah, like their fickle or their, I
FAWN: think that's the danger. Yeah. I think that's the problem. Because you look at them as fickle, right. How dare you change your mind. And I think that's that old mentality, and I think that's why kids stay away from their parents after a certain while.
That's one of the reasons or friendships lose their friendship. Right? Their bond because. You've changed and the other person refuses that change because they're [00:09:00] comfortable in labeling you whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Because it, it, I guess it does take effort to be in that open space to, you know, to open-minded space because you're constantly having to guess and you're constantly having to analyze this person.
Right,
MATT: right, right. And, and honestly, it. There's, it's, it's almost like the two sides of pay attention because look, I paid attention enough to know that your favorite band when you were 13 was Iron Maiden, but then you stop paying attention.
FAWN: Yeah. Like, I did my job, I'm done now. You know, like, you know, but I guess that's why a lot of people stop making friends because they feel like it's too much work, but it's not because all you have to do
is to sit back and watch a movie, basically. Don't try to figure things out. Just watch a movie so you're in front of someone that you've been friends with or someone new. [00:10:00] Watch a movie that is them. Just watch them. You don't have to figure things out. That's the way I go. Right.
Even with our kids, I don't know their favorite, uh, anime. I had to ask them the other day. Mm-hmm. And as soon as they told me, guess what? And it may seem like I'm a bad mom, it erased from my memory in one ear or the other. Right. Kinda right at the moment, I understood the genre. Do you know what I'm saying?
Mm-hmm. I understood, oh, they're actually going for kind of violent stuff sometimes, or, oh, they're really going to this absurd kind of viewpoint, right? I needed to know the gist of it. Mm-hmm. Not the exact show and particular episode and exactly what the characters are called. It's just too much for me.
The best I can do is go, huh. This is the feel of what they like right now. Right. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm.
MATT: Yeah, but, but something else that just dawned on me was, okay, [00:11:00] so I have to own up. I watch American football. I have had different favorite teams. It seems like every time I tell somebody that a new team is my favorite team, they're like, oh, doesn't matter from, or two.
I feel like though,
FAWN: that's different.
MATT: I get abuse. It almost feels like, but
FAWN: that's different disappointment. Favorite teams in sports is different because that's tribal. So in a way you're creating community by saying, I'm with this tribe. Ha ha, we're gonna play against your tribe today. Do you know what I'm saying?
I think that's different
MATT: in, in its way. Yes. But it's also another reinforcement to, you're not allowed to change,
FAWN: but you've also moved around and you have many different hats. Like literally that is, you have a Bronco hat, you have a Ravens hat, you have whatever. Like
MATT: that is definitely true. You have a Seahawks, a
FAWN: Brewer's, you know, Jersey.
Depending on wherever we go. Like the hats change sometimes. Yes, sometimes. And sometimes they don't. They think you're from there, which is interesting. And [00:12:00] that's a, that's always fun. That's actually been a way to have people start conversations with you because they're like, oh, you're a Ravens fan.
You know? Are you from Baltimore? I'm from Baltimore. And you're like, you can have a conversation with them. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes.
MATT: But again, this is why it can be different to change favorites though. Because if you are switching tribes and you have friends in a tribe and you switch away, it can be challenging because they've lost a point of connection with you.
FAWN: Mm-hmm.
MATT: Which is why if you, if you are a fan of a sports team, make it a bad sports team so then the person can always like, tease and mock you about it. 'cause then you can have a conversation.
FAWN: Can we, can we veer away from the sports we can? Because I feel like that that is something totally different.
Mm-hmm. But just going back to. Seeing, seeing one another. Mm-hmm. And not holding anything on the other. That's been my theory for a long time, is [00:13:00] not holding anything on anyone.
MATT: Right. I completely get it.
FAWN: Except I don't know if this factors into our conversation. So, as you all know, I, I broke away from my family.
And at the end of it, , when we were, I don't know how to say this, I had to say to someone, they're like, well, how can you, how can you do that? How can you just like break yourself off? I'm like. I have to do it for starting a new life. Mm-hmm. Because I have tried, I have tried many, many decades of like, try to make it work and it's not working.
I have to recognize that and I, and I'm not saying I'm angry with them, I'm saying I have to move away from it. Right. Right. For to, to have health Right. To, to be healthy. But I am not angry. So I was trying to explain to this person, this was a long [00:14:00] time ago. This was like 25 years ago. Mm-hmm. And it was a cousin, and I'm like, I forgive, I have forgiven, but I will never allow myself to forget the behavior.
So that's different. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I ha there are some things that you have to hold, like this person has not changed. So in that way, like I said, you have to allow people to change. There are some instances where the person is just unable to or unwilling to change, and no matter how, what kind of light you see them in, it's not going to happen because that's their way of living.
No matter what you do, no matter what kind of light you see them, what, however way you hold them, they are what they are. Sometimes you have to walk away
MATT: and you're talking not about favorite ice creams and favorite sports teams, but you're really talking [00:15:00] about this person is a scorpion and they will always be a scorpion.
FAWN: Right? So I'm keeping them as a scorpion to remind myself. You're gonna get hurt.
MATT: Right.
FAWN: Whereas, because I was just saying, well, I'm not gonna hold you to your favorite ice cream because I don't wanna
MATT: limit you.
FAWN: I don't wanna limit you. Thank you. Yeah. I don't wanna limit your existence. I know that you're an ever flowing, ever changing, being. We all are.
Certain situations though, require you to definitely use that label, like that's a scorpion. It is their nature to sting you. It's just their nature. So I just wanted to add in that. Okay. I just wanted to add in how I can't talk. I just wanted to add that into our conversation today. So I'm not making this blanket statement like, oh, everybody changes, you know, don't hold anything but do mm-hmm.
Do hold some things, do hold cer certain things. But as far as favorites, like as far as like [00:16:00] the relationships that you really want in your life, I think in that case, I will not hold you to a favorite ice cream. I'll not hold you to a favorite color or a meal, or a place or anything. Mm-hmm. Like when we met, I'm like, we gotta move.
And you're like, I am not a fan of change.
MATT: I am
FAWN: not. And I said, uhoh, uhoh, rro. Are you sure you wanna be with me? Because we're gonna move. And so you see,
MATT: fortunately I put my foot down and now we've only moved like four times.
FAWN: No, we've moved. Wait, hold on a second. It's been way more than four. Oh, has it?
It's been way more than four, but you know, no, I'm thinking about, I'm
MATT: thinking about zip codes now. I'm not necessarily thinking about places, I think, but no, I we're think more than zip codes i's, I think it's more than four.
FAWN: Yeah. We've had more, way more than four zip codes, so, but my foot down though, so, and the thing is no, but here's what happened.[00:17:00]
Here's the thought I had. Mm-hmm. And I think this is where I wanted to start the show off with, and I couldn't remember it. Oh my God. Please don't let me forget. Is that I feel like I'm forgetting as I'm talking. Oh, no. Hold on. Mm. Oh, here's what I think is happening with us. And maybe that should be kind of like a generalization for everyone.
But I've noticed you did not like change. I love change. Moving... oh, I loved moving. But I realized that as time went on, especially since we've been together mm-hmm. Every time we've moved has been a situation where I'm, I'm forced myself to sit down and go, I think I can die like this. I think I may die if I continue with this kind of, um, emotion.
And what I mean is I have gotten so upset at [00:18:00] movers mm-hmm. Who are criminal. Criminal, like horrible people that come into your home. And there have been times where it was just me and the babies and I've had to do everything, uh, all the moves actually I have taken charge of. I've packed our entire household and unpacked our entire household like a machine.
Right? And usually you're at work. So it's always on me like doing everything. And I also did it because I knew you hated to move, you don't like change. So I took that on, but I realized you are more like comfortable with that. And I, and we've kind of reversed because I feel like as partners, it was give and take and I think you took some of my love of change and moving and now I have the thing of.
No thanks. I don't wanna go anywhere anymore. Does that make sense? It does,
MATT: it does. And [00:19:00] I, I do have a different kind of understanding of, of moving, changing rapidly the subject of the podcast. But I do, and I actually, yeah, I had a, uh, a Coex coworker kind of asked me about, you know. Was pondering, moving and asking for my advice, and I'm like, well keep these 27 things in mind, particularly if you've lived in the same place for a very long time.
Because it isn't necessarily an easy breezy thing because guess what? All your favorites are gonna shift if you move. You're not gonna be able to go to your favorite store, or, you know, you're not just gonna be able to have your favorite coffee drink or, you know, your favorite, uh, god, your favorite.
Everything is gonna tend to shift.
FAWN: And I think that's good. It keeps you young, it keeps you, keeps you
MATT: limber. Yes. It
FAWN: keeps you limber for sure. It also keeps you. Flexible, which is limber. I know. It keeps you [00:20:00] curious. It keeps you, it does open. It keeps you, did you say humble?
MATT: Mm. I wouldn't say humble, but yes, I think it, I think it does.
FAWN: I mean, and you know, we haven't even had to really, I mean, we've had some culture shock for sure. Mm-hmm. And homesickness, even though home is wherever we go, we know that we've always had that attitude. At the same time, when you go somewhere, you have to understand that it is so different and it is uncomfortable, and there's a certain depression that sits in, which is what people call homesickness.
Mm-hmm. It is a sickness, like you just don't feel good. Either it shows up emotionally or physically. Right. Have you noticed like college students go away and then all of a sudden they catch the flu, you know, or get sick. Right. I
MATT: got sick right, right away when I started school.
FAWN: Or like, remember we moved and then you rolled your ankle.
MATT: Yep.
FAWN: Yeah. That
MATT: sucked. It,
FAWN: it you have to be grounded. Yes. Now we're totally veering off into other subjects, but that's it. It it's all about, uh, dealing with [00:21:00] change. Dealing with is terrible. It's all about
MATT: embracing change. Embracing change. Yeah.
Change in yourself and change in others.
FAWN: Flowing. Flowing with change,
MATT: getting into the flow. Yes.
FAWN: And being centered at the same time, kind of going with the waves so you don't roll your rank hole, you don't get sick, but you just go with the flow and things are easier.
MATT: Yes.
FAWN: You're more open to other favorites that you don't know about yet.
Right. Okay. There's a ton I can talk about, but I just wanna keep it simple today and just say, let's think about our favorites and why do we have favorites? Because it's comforting. There's a certain comfort in not having to do anything.
It's like getting out of bed. You just wanna be comfortable, so you don't wanna figure out this person's favorite anything. So I'll just reiterate, it's not really a work because all you have to do is watch a show,
MATT: Yes, I totally get it.
FAWN: And the world is your show. You just, all you have to do is look
MATT: true.
FAWN: Alright. [00:22:00]
MATT: Alright.
FAWN: Okay.
MATT: Okay. Alright. Be well everyone.
FAWN: Have a beautiful every day reach out to us. Say hi 'cause we get lonely too. Bye.
