Leslie John

You don't start super deep.

You start maybe on a more shallow, but then you go back and forth, ping pong back and forth, and you get increasingly...

more vulnerable with each other.

This comes back to even Arthur Aaron's studies, right?

The 36 questions where you get people to ask and answer questions to each other, and that makes them like each other and forge friendships.

And so this encounter, this is what I call a reciprocity fail.

When one person puts out an olive branch, they put themselves out there and then they're shut down.

So what happened to me, I was trying to get an academic job.

I was on the academic job market.

I'm in my like...

Banana Republic black suit, which, fun fact, after the fact, I realized I still had the stitching and the double vent in the back.

I had unstitched tits.

So rookie.

So endearing.

So in this rookie academic job market, what you do is there's a big hotel and all the different universities that are recruiting, they rent out different suites.

And so every hour on the hour, there's this

jamboree of rookie candidates moving from room to room to pitch themselves so I found myself in the elevator I get into the elevator and there's one clearly a job candidate in there the elevator doors close so we're literally in a steel vault and I say I let my guard down I just say oh I'm so exhausted

My whole body just was like exuded exhaustion.

And then what did the fellow job candidate do?

He straightened right up and he said, oh, this is such an exciting and fun opportunity to get senior faculty to weigh in on all of my research.