850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
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This is not a setting where Chris was used to learning anything important, much less having his whole world rocked by something somebody said. He was 15, in health class, in San Juan Capistrano, California. As Chris remembers it, it was the beginning of the period. Class was just beginning to settle down. The teacher was also the school's basketball coach.
You know, in my memory, he's sort of the standard issue, I don't know, tallish white guy coach with like neatly parted brown hair. And, you know, the bell rings, class is supposed to start. And we're all just, you know, talking over him, not listening. And he's trying to get class started. And I think he's getting understandably a little annoyed about And then at one point, one of the girls said loudly, like, we're all going to be friends forever. And then he gets our attention and said something like, you know, just for your information, you're not going to all stay friends forever. And let me tell you a little bit about, like, how friendships work. He says, like, in a couple of years, you know, high school is going to end and you're going to all scatter to different jobs or colleges. And you're going to start falling out of touch with each other. And eventually you're not going to talk to most of any of these other people. And now you might... Can we just pause?
That is such... It's real. It's very true. But, like, what a funny thing to say to a bunch of kids.
Yeah, it's like suddenly he had our full attention.
But then the teacher kept going. He wasn't done. He got very specific and said, OK, you might stay in touch with a few friends from high school.
He said, like, well, then you're going to get into your 30s and your 40s and it'll be harder. You know, you'll be working and then, you know, some of you might get married. And your free time, a lot of that should go towards your spouse. And if you have kids, oh, like, whatever little free time you have left, like, that'll go to the kids. And finally, he said, like... The only friends you're going to be left with are the parents of whatever kid your little toddler or whatever randomly sidles up to because they both like the same part of the playground. Like that person, that parent, that's going to be your friend.
That is a very thorough and vivid and not inaccurate picture of the future that it's amazing that he went into that much detail.
Yes. By then we were like, I remember a sort of like stunned silence at that point. And maybe there's like one person who said like, no, or like, no, he's wrong, or we're going to stay friends or something. And then the class began and I don't remember anything else from that day.
Because he's actually one of the producers on our show, Chris Bedderev. And he says he remembers the other kids in class kind of shrugging this off. Like, yeah, whatever. But he couldn't. Did you think it was true?
Absolutely. I thought that he, I remember thinking, oh no, I hope that he's wrong. But it sounds like he's right. That's what I remember thinking. It had the air of truth. Like, partly because it was so specific. The playground detail, especially.
Before this moment, Chris hadn't bothered picturing what the future was going to be like very much. He had a vague sense that things were going to get better and better. But now, thanks to this random speech by this otherwise forgotten teacher, he realized the future he was facing... It's going to get...
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