LINKS

Check out the mix tape and brutal liner notes that inspired this entire episode.

And you can listen to Eric's other podcasts at your whim. Find him on Join the Party, Games and Feelings, and Tell Me About It. 

TRANSCRIPT

Melissa: Hello, I'm Melissa Locker. 

Courtney: And I'm Courtney E. Smith. 

Melissa: And you are listening to Songs My Ex Ruined, the Show where we talk about songs have been ruined by our exes. 

Courtney: Ladies and gentlemen, today we're joined by Eric Silver, who isn't just going to tell us about a song, although there will be a song. He's going to tell us about a whole mixtape that ruined his entire music experience as a human being. So, Eric is the head of creative at Multitude Studios. And before we get into the song, what are some of the podcasts you're working on over there right now? 

Eric: For sure. First of all, thank you so much for having me on. I need to share this ridiculous story that's weighing on my heart and shoulders. 

Melissa: Yes, please drag us to relationship hell with you. 

Eric: Oh, you'll, I'll have the whole thing. So the, the shows that I'm working on, I'm currently hosting three shows: Join the Party where I am, the dungeon master of our this D&D podcast, where we use the rules of D&D to tell a story. Right now we are telling a pirate story set in a world of plant and bug people called Verdestello that I made up. It's really fun. It's kinda like One Piece meets Red Wall. It's a lot going on. I also have a games advice podcast called Games and Feelings. It's a like a classic comedy advice podcast, but it's all about questions about games — board games, video games, tabletop, RBGs, escape rooms, bar trivia, et cetera.

Melissa: Oh, you should let me come on and talk about my feelings about how I will always have a grudge against Dungeons and Dragons because my brothers refuse to let me play.

Eric: Melissa, nothing would make me happier than for you to come on and do that. 

Melissa: Because screw them and screw the game. 

Courtney: Okay, feelings.

Eric: And also I'm the co-host of Tell Me About It, which is a game show where people talk about their favorite things but it's all set up by a crazed multi-billionaire forcing them to be on a podcast. 

Courtney: Okay, I need to listen to that. I'm going to subscribe. All right, so Eric, before you take us into Dungeons and Dragon fandom, first let's ask the question of the hour, which is: Tell us about a song that an ex ruined for you?

Eric: I absolutely will. I think we're going to center around “The Boxer.” This particular cover by well- I don't know if it's a cover because I've never actually investigated it, because this song got ruined. But it's “The Boxer” featuring Mumford and Sons and Paul Simon.

Courtney: So it is a cover. It's a cover of a Paul Simon song. 

Eric: Okay, that's what I thought.  I figured that. 

Melissa: I was like Mumford and Sons definitely did not have anything to do with that originally.

Eric: I didn't know if Jerry Douglas was like the originator of it, just from the way that things bop around in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But yeah, the fact that it's a Paul Simon song, I think is also part of why it's been ruined so much for me because, uh, it's such a New York City song to me. Especially because it's been slotted in the single most devastating mixtape I've ever received in my entire life.

Melissa: It is an actually incredibly New York song because it was filmed at St. John whatever church at Columbia's campus. It's definitely drenched in New York history. 

Eric: Paul Simon in general feels really entrenched to New York. Like I love New York state, I love Long Island. I love the City. I love where I grew up in Westchester. I love upstate, and going as far as like Lake Placid and Buffalo and Rochester. I love everything about our wonderful state here, the Empire State. 

Melissa: Even Staten Island? 

Eric: No, no one likes Staten Island. 

Courtney: The free ferry's nice, though, come on. 

Eric: Like being on the ferry, exactly. And like Paul Simon is such like a New York guy. He's, he's like 5’3” and fucks. And I'm like, that's the most New York City thing, New York state thing I've ever heard in my entire life. The thing is though, is like, I'm so not like a music person.But like this, I had to come on this show because this song on this mixtape is so indelible to my time in New York City, and the absolute worst ex I've ever had that I had to dig this up when I heard about this show and I had to share it with you and the entire like world around this. Because this mixtape was created and it's called “Sad Songs for Eric.” And this one is the, “The Boxer” is slotted right in the middle. I went to NYU for five years cause I got my master's degree in English education in like a five year program. And I met this girlfriend who I'm gonna call Clementine, uh, because her name is also related to, um, an Americana folk song, figure it out on your own time. So Clem loved to make me mixtapes. And it was like really my love language for a while because of course, cause I went to NYU and I was born in the ‘90s. I, uh, really loved Garden State and like being that kind of fucking guy and like making mix tapes on 8 tracks and giving them to girls that I like. 

Courtney: Oh, Eric.

Melissa: Did you say this song will change your life? 

Eric: I swear. And then I put, I put my headphones in your, of your ears. Yeah, so like getting these mixtape was such a love language. And she would write actual liner notes as well. Like she would do the song and like pick out a few lyrics and sometimes she would write something else. And I think this was near the end of our relationship, when I was about to graduate, and she gave me this mixtape called “Sad Songs for Eric.” And each one had a song and the reason why I would listen to it, and the reason why I was sad and why I would pull up this song. So it's like these songs, some of them I really like, but I cannot shake the sadness that that Clem put into these songs. Like she pre-bullied me, she pre-depressed me by tying these songs to specific situations that I would be sad, because of course we were dating, so she knew all of my insecurities. 

Courtney: Oh no.

Eric: And that's why they're all, and that's why they're all here. And you can all read the mixtape because I have to link to it in the episode description. Please read along with me. 

Melissa: Who doesn't think it's so romantic to have all your, you know, anxieties and weak points reflected back to you in song form? I mean, what a kind and gentle theory. 

Courtney: Yeah, today's episode sponsored by the avoidant attachment style which would be brought on by someone making you this mixtape.

Eric: Well, exactly. So, like I really love the cover. I also love covers and I think that Clementine knew that. And also it was 2014, so Mumford and Sons were super hot at the time. So, I really love this song and the reason why I would be sad is it’s “the one where New York City makes you feel small.” Which — totally true. I was 22, 23 at the time, and I was living in this terrible apartment on 2nd Avenue next to like a B&H Diner down where like the Gem Spa shut down. Like it was really close to St. Mark's. And like they kept the garbage cans inside of the hallway and I was on the first floor, so there were rats running around all the time and I didn't get any natural light. So, I felt this and she knew it, and then she put it right in the middle of this mixtape. And I'm like, “Yeah, you're right. This song does make me feel like New York City, and like feeling swallowed up by the over 8 million people here.” But the, some of the other songs really fucked me up because they were really mean looking back on it. 

Courtney: Everything about the concept of this mixtape makes me want to say just no. It feels manipulative, but it also feels like, why would you want to make this for someone? You could just as easily put “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” and it could be songs about New York that make you feel ebullient, just like wonderful. The best you could be. Like this is the place you want to be. All the songs that will make you feel like the best person you could be, instead of songs that send you spiraling into a raging depression. Like, how does that spell love? 

Melissa: It's better than “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” 

Courtney: I've done that at karaoke, by the way, and it's very good to like send out broadly to a room and just be like, you know who you are. 

Melissa: But putting it on a mixtape for someone you're dating? Probably not. 

Courtney: No, really rude, deeply rude.

Eric: It's like this one goes out to my fiance. “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” here we go. 

Courtney: “Just hop on the bus, Gus.”

Eric: Yeah, I feel like Clementine thought she was being sneaky or like pre-preparing me for when she was eventually gonna break up with me. Cause she definitely knew, cause there's also “Wild Goose” by M. Ward, which again is a very 2014 song to put on this mixtape. And it says “the one where Clementine leaves you.” Like she knew. She put the mixtape together to make me feel it, and now I'm still thinking about this mixtape 10 years later. It was just absolutely wild that someone would do it and get in there like that.

Courtney: I'm on board with: she's a terrible person. This is like, so mean. 

Eric: Oh, definitely a terrible person. This was the part of my dating life where I just didn't know that like I could want more. It was still very much in a place where I was like, “It's cool that girls like me enough that they want to kiss me and date me.” And like, that was enough. And you were like, oh, I like that you like me. And then I'm there and I'm going to stay in a relationship with you. Like she, she was definitely super mean and she, I also knew it. There was a time I remember, her family came to New York City and like I met them and everything. And there was a moment where like, I don't know, someone was talking about some TV show and I was like, “Oh yeah, no, I heard of that and whatever.” And I hadn't heard of it because I just like wanted to keep the conversation going. And she stopped her sister and her and her mom who was there, and like the other people, I think it was some of her friends, and she was like, “Oh, I understand why you do that. When, why you say that you don't understand stuff when you say that you do. You just want, you just wanna be in the conversation. That's wild. I never noticed that before.” I'm like, you just said that in front of your mom and sister? And of course I was just like, “Ha ha.” And then, then everyone like looked down at their shoes and then we just like moved on. I cannot believe that I let someone treat me like this, but I guess like that's what happens when you're living in New York City and dating people when you're 23.

Melissa: Did you end up breaking up with her or did she break up with you? 

Eric: Oh no, she broke up with me. You couldn’t tell by how, how I didn't know what was going on? 

Courtney: What were the circumstances around which she gave you this mixtape? Was it like when things were good? Also what was the format?

Melissa: And is she a massive Friends fan?

Eric: Yeah, the premise of the mixtape is every single one of these is “the one where you blank,” where she said the sad thing. It must have been near the end, I don't remember exactly. But I think this must have been like when Spotify was just like, oh, this weird Scandinavian company has all these songs. And we first started putting playlists together, so it was either like super early Spotify, but I don't think all, all these songs would've been here. So, I think it must have been on a thumb drive. Some of these other songs… I think this one isn't even the most devastating like one because that's why I think this song has been ruined for me, that like, I love this song and it has all the components of things that I like. New York City, voracious Jew Paul Simon, it's a cover which I love. And of course like it was, it isn't necessarily devastating the the sad song thing that she did, but some of these other ones are devastating.  

Melissa: Can we talk about the Magnetic Fields song? Like, ugh.

Eric: Yes, that's the one I was going to talk about. “The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” by the Magnetic Fields is in here. And that's “the one where you're in love, but you don't think you deserve it.” 

Courtney: It's really not okay to put anything from 69 Love Songs on a mixtape for anybody. Like, first of all, you shouldn't constrict that to any certain relationships. It's such like this interesting, beautiful, broad piece of work about art. 

Melissa: Yeah, but I do feel like people have been making like “The Book of Love” a wedding song.

Courtney: Uh huh, and they should stop.

Melissa: Yeah, they should. 

Eric: Yeah. It's, it really is weaponized emotionality for people in the, in the 2010s to use a Magnetic song. I also associate, “Papa Was a Rodeo” with Clementine as well, cause I think she played that song a lot and she must have put it on a different mixtape. But it's another one that's like secretly a love song, but really like, about, we're secretly about to break up or like we can't be together.

Courtney: Is there a time when you still listen to any of these songs or to this mixtape as a whole? 

Eric: I do not listen to this mixtape as a whole, it kind of exists just as a relic, especially these, these liner notes. But, you know, Clementine and, uh, did introduce to me music in a way that like, you know, a real Garden State situation where like you're just a guy floating through the world and you bump into women who tell you things. It's just the way that you try to live, I was living my life in my early 20s cause I didn't know any better. Because like I also really love The Who my dad introduced me to. The who I have very, very early memories of listening to “Baba O'Riley” and being like, why is this song called “Baba O'Riley?” And like listening to Who's Next? in the greatest hits cause he was such a classic rock guy. But there's a song on here called “Real Good Looking Boy” that never popped out to me. And of course the one for that is “the one where you hate your body.” And I'm like, “Oh, thanks for just weaponizing wow my fucking, uh, body image against me,” which she knew.

Courtney: That's just mean. She's an asshole. 

Melissa: They’re so mean. 

Eric: The other thing about this is that I was very into slam poetry at the time. That was kinda like the thing that I was honing my craft at. I started the NYU slam poetry team and we were like a three time collegiate champions. We were very good at it. And I was kinda like on my way out cause I was still at NYU, so I still kind of ran it or was a part of it but I was in grad school and I was trying to figure out other stuff. So, I met Clementine doing slam poetry. So the thing about slam poetry is like, it's a competition, right? And everyone says like, oh, you sound like this when you do things. That's not the worst thing about slam poetry. The worst thing about slam poetry is you weaponize your trauma for points. So, Clementine was in this, so she knew all of my insecurities cause I kept putting them in poems. Not only because we were dating, but like she literally could read them and they were being used for competition. So like a lot of these were literally in here. I mean, that's also when I heard about like Frightened Rabbit and The National for the first time. And of course those two songs are “the one where please, like me, please like me, please, like me.” And “the one where this is how I imagine your anger is.” That's how I heard about Frightened Rabbit and The National, her just fucking stabbing me in between the ribs with my insecurities.

Courtney: The deeper you go into this, the more I dislike her. Did you answer the question that Melissa put forward previously? Was she a big Friends fan, and that's where “the one where…” naming convention came from? 

Eric: No, I don't think she was a Friends fan. It's poetry form. This was the po the repetition of this. She might have gotten it from there, but like, yeah, using that as like a list poem, uh, was very much in vogue for what we did in slam poetry.

Melissa: And yet also the same exact format for every single Friends episode. 

Courtney: Serious question: is the National’s mid aughts catalog pretty much just ruined for everyone, wholly? Like surely everyone has someone in their life who's ruined something from the National for them at this point? 

Eric: Yeah, I'm definitely looking at this list holistically while being on a music podcast. And it's almost like she chose all of the like most seminal 2010s bands, especially mid 2010s bands, and then took a song that was like a deeper cut that hurt me. That was like the sadder version of something else. Like for example, like there's a Jimmy Eat World song on here. There's a Counting Crows song on here, the National, and Magnetic Fields. And like there was a Ben Folds/Nick Hornby song on here, which is the most like poetry thing ever to ever to put on here. Oh, and like there's an M83 song on here too. It's like she tried to weaponize this as the saddest thing she could think of, and then put it on me. Which I don't really understand why someone would do that to another person. 

Courtney: So when I, a music snob, looked at this list, I thought, “This person is a psychopath.” Because I enjoy some Jimmy Eat World songs. When I was in college, there was a time when I liked Ben Folds. Um, Mumford and Sons? I'm not gonna comment on, but there's all these true indie rock things on this playlist. And it's just interwoven with, it's truly a, um, like a bad movie soundtrack where the music director didn't know the difference between signaling a certain aesthetic and songs written by songwriters, which is a different genre, and they're all mixed together. And by the way, a lot of men. And I was just like, this person has no limits. This person has no like way of classifying music in their mind. It's just like whatever, vibes, here for the vibes. I really am annoyed by people that make playlists that are “for the vibes.”

Eric: I think that like the fact that she just wanted me to be as sad as possible, it's like she wanted me to come on this podcast and talk about it.

Melissa: That was nice of her.

Eric: It's like I'm going to associate myself with these songs and when you feel sad, which you do a lot because you're 22 and you haven't been to therapy yet and you are expressing yourself through poetry… 

Courtney: And Taylor Swift’s “22” was freshly out.

Eric: Yeah, exactly. It's like she wanted to get in my head and all of the musicality went out the window. It was like the theme was Make Eric Sad. 

Courtney: Yeah, the theme was she's an asshole. 

Melissa: Yeah, I am very sorry that this was injected into your life. And I have to say, I am really excited to be able to close this little document and not look at it again. Because it's mean and I don't like it. 

Eric: That's fair. 

Courtney: And I also want to say, I have another problem with it, because this was such an issue in the 2010s. Like at that point, Spotify did start in the U.S. in 2011, and illegal file sharing had been huge for a while. And eMusic was really like the go-to digital music store in this era, the early part of the 2010s. And it was like I was reading these bands, like Cults, giving interviews, talking about how it doesn't matter if you signed to an indie label or a major label and we can sign to Columbia cause nobody cares. And a lot of the signifiers that music people would talk about to like figure out how deep your knowledge was and what you know were going away because of the way technology around music worked. So, this playlist epitomizes that to me. It's somebody who doesn't care that, like, this is someone who's five albums in on their major label deal versus what does it mean to put, you know, a band like the National that went from a very small indie to a bigger indie to the biggest indie inside that indie label group. Like those things all have meaning, and there's no appreciation for them in this playlist. It's just like brutality. 

Eric: Get 'em, get 'em. It is funny that you said the thing about all the men that are on this playlist. I never thought about that until now, especially when you look at the bookends of this, of this mixtape. The first one is “Sentimental Heart” by She and Him.

Eric: Which is the most, again, 2014. 

Courtney: That's the most male gazey female singer in the 2010s though, Zooey Deschanel.

Eric: Yeah, and like the, the one for that one was “the one where you're softer than you'd like to be.” So it's like she also was underlining that, like the weird masculinity and me trying to figure out what that meant. Because like, you know, I didn't know at the time that like you could just like have feelings and be a guy, but it's like it was a whole talking point for such a long time, I think with the men who associated themselves with Manic Pixie Dream Girl media. As I definitely did when I was in my early- and mid-20s. But the wild thing is the last song on this playlist is one that I actually listen to a lot when I'm feeling like really frustrated and stymied and upset. So it's like this mixtape again, gave me music I love. The last song is “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley. An absolute devastating, incredible song that I listen to as loud as possible in my speakers when I want to scream.

Eric: It's like she knew what she was doing because, again, she knew me really well and she decided to give me something that I didn't know. As you should with mixtapes, right? You give people music you think they would like. Even though this was weaponized to hurt me, it's like she couldn't the book, the bookends of this, the first one was the most obvious, and the last one was something that like, it was almost a present nestled within this ridiculous, sad weapon of a mixed tape.

Courtney: I wanna go back to something that you just said. A decade later, how do you feel about manic pixie dream girl media now?

Eric: I, uh, don't like it. I mean, you know, it's like I, obviously, I think that guys who grow up in that like hipsterized version, where it's like, “I was never a cool guy. I was never like a jock who like disrespected his girlfriend.” And like, you know, I had real, of course I was in my early- and mid-20s, I had real like nice guy feelings. I didn't like make a Reddit account and start harassing people, but I felt that way especially cause I just, I didn't have good self-esteem. I let people treat me this way ,and I thought if I was just nice, they would be nice to me. And since then I've definitely developed out of that. I still do love 500 Days of Summer because I think that when you analyze it in the many, many ways of looking through all the way through it, you realize that like, Joseph Gordon Levitt was one of those nice guys, and Summer was just a woman who wanted to casually date. And she didn't want that and he went overboard. Um, and I went through that whole cycle as well. I watched it a lot because I empathized with Joseph Gordon Levitt, and then I looked at it and I'm like, I really like this as a piece of media that responded to a really popular thing at the time. And also like, was in direct conversation with like The Graduate and those relationships. And coming all the way around on like Zooey Deschanel and, She and Him and all of her movies and then, and then like New Girl stuff is like, she's also come all the way around as well. 

Courtney: Hmm, okay. I think that's interesting. So let's bring it back to Paul Simon and Simon and Garfunkel via Mumford and Sons. I am going to assume that you've listened to all the iterations of this song and not just the cover of “The Boxer” now? 

Eric: Yes, I have. 

Courtney: So do you have a favorite version of “The Boxer?” Do you have one that you can stand? 

Eric: Honestly, it's still this one. There is a thing in my heart that loves hearing Mufford and sons go, “la la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la” and like playing a banjo. There's still like a little thing in my heart. There was such for a long time, I think when like there was such an indie rock sound and looking for that, especially cause like I was at NYU, hipster Central, you know, and like just wanting like a guitar and a banjo and a bunch of people going, “Hey ho.” Like that, that sound- like I still want to go see Vampire Weekend live. You know, I still want that very badly. Although I know it's like very cringe, I'm not gonna say that I don't like hearing that. But of, of course, the original’s great. Paul Simon is such a, you know, he's a 5’3” Jewish guy who fucks. Like he, and he brings that power to all of his music. what can I say? 

Courtney: Yeah, he's one of the few people that can walk on SNL anytime that he wants to and really what's more New York than that? 

Eric: Yeah, if Loren Michaels like, wants you to come over, I, you gotta respect it. He doesn't want anyone over. 

Courtney: Just don't, don't marry him. That's our hot tip on Paul Simon. Don't marry him. 

Eric: Absolutely. Absolutely not. I'm worried that what I said before was like, “Yeah, yeah, manic pixie dream girl — shit, really good.” I don't feel that way. 

Courtney: No, I didn't think you did. That's not how it came across. I'm just always, I don't know. There is a whole group of men who were very into that. You are one among many And I wanna ask every single one of them slowly and methodically: So, how do you feel about that now? How do you analyze that now? And I think you answered that question well.

Eric: I, I think that also, I just like the deconstruction of it, like the trope. You know, the deconstruction and realizing that like, uh, these guys are assholes. It's, it's a pretty interesting, um…

Courtney: And also women are not NPCs. Women are not just the like side piece of decoration in the gameplay. Women are autonomous and have their own way of thinking. It's interesting that there was a whole period of filmmakers that would put them into movies just to thwart the hero without explaining their motivation or point of view at all.

Eric: Yes, exactly. It's like the moment you realize that the most interesting person in the room is that, is that woman is it, whether it's like Ramona Flowers or Megan Fox and like they're so fucked up and me and interesting in that way. And the guy is so deeply boring. Like that's what I like about it, how Scott Pilgrim just sucks so much. And Michael Cera embodies that so much. He's like, he's not interesting, he's not talented, he's not nice. He's just like a boring, nothing who happens to be our main character or like our, our narrator or like our eyes. 

Melissa: But that's Michael Cera’s entire like body of work, is just playing the boring nothing dude. He gets like the amazing person to like him.

Eric: Yeah. And he's really good at it. He's good at being like the wallpaper. And uh, I think that once you start, like understanding it at that level it’s like, oh yeah, that's at least these ones that are like, uh, trying to turn that trope on its head. Um, that's when things start to get interesting. 

Courtney: So I want to say about this mixtape and its creator: I don't think this is a manic, pixie dream girl situation, although I could see how it would play as one in your head at the time. We confuse manic pixie dream girl and avoidant attachment a lot because their Venn diagrams are very close. But I think this is somebody who had really poor communication skills with avoid an attachment style, and this was them trying to talk to you about wanting to end the relationship and not knowing how to really do it ,or being brave enough.

Melissa: For listeners at home who may not have done therapy, could you explain what avoidant attachment is? 

Courtney: Sure, I mean, this is uh, my dime store education on such things, but there are three attachment styles. Well, there's more than that, but there are three in the attachment style book, and that's anxious, avoidant, and secure. Obviously, you want to be secure and like 50% of people are securely attached. You probably are, if you're listening right now, there's a good chance. But avoidant attachment is a person that, through their fear of rejection or some other sense of self-doubt, finds it difficult and uncomfortable to have expectations placed on them in a relationship, any kind of expectations. And it might start out fine with them, but eventually they're going to dump you. And the best way to fix that, if you think that describes you, is go to therapy. 

Eric: Fair. 22-year-old me loves that you said that, and hopefully we can speak to him through this temporal time loop. Yeah, my understanding is that Clementine wanted to be both like, she wanted to fashion herself as like a manic pixie dream girl for me, that she was interesting enough for me to love so, clearly and brightly and uncomplicatedly. And that I was just like a little doofus and just like uncool guy who thought she was neat. And then at the same time she pushed against it because she didn't like that I was- because like again, I was, I let her do whatever she wanted to me. Like I let her walk all over me. So, she probably is like, “Oh, this guy's so uncool. I need to let him, I need to let him off. But he's also so nice, so I don't want to dump him.” And I'm sure she tried to express that through this playlist that, look at all the insecurities this guy has. I'm going to dump him very soon.

Courtney: Avoidant’s really love control, and this is a way, exploiting one's insecurities and not communicating clearly, these are all ways to express control. So I'm sorry that that happened and I'm sorry this song got ruined for you. 

Eric: It's okay.

Courtney: But it sounds like you made a lot of gains, which is what my therapist would tell me. You don't lose the gains in your relationship or the things about you that changed and the things you learned about yourself just because the relationship ends. 

Eric: I'm really happy that I found this mixtape thing again, these liner notes. I have a really hard time of thinking about myself, even like a year or two earlier. I feel so different than I was in college and you know, when I see a photo of myself, I'm like, “Oh, who is that guy who looked like such a child?” But you know, finding an artifact like this, it was like, you know, I really was a person who had feelings and was in like this complicated relationship and didn't know what to do. And I feel like at least now I have people who are coming in to affirm me that this was so messed up. And, it was fun revisiting it if only to be like, I cannot believe this exists.

Courtney: And also we've only had maybe four men on the podcast so far, and two of them have chosen Mumford and Son songs. So what is that? 

Eric: Whoa. 

Courtney: Why? 

Melissa: Like I said, I'm very glad that I'm able to close that playlist and move on with my life, and I hope that you can too. 

Eric: Yeah, I- listen, I believe me, I have not thought about this thing in years. So, the fact that your show sparked this, and I got to dig it up out of like my digital artifact box was honestly really fun. 

Melissa: Well, thank you for playing internet archeology with us today. We appreciate it. And I think we should make sure everyone knows that you are happily married. Things all worked out.

Eric: It all, yes, it all worked out., I respect myself. I have a wife who respects me as well. Uh, we make mixtapes for each other and none of them are sad and mean. 

Courtney: Aww, we love to hear it. 

Melissa: Yay! Perfect.

Courtney: Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this sad and mean mixtape with us and letting us judge your ex-girlfriend. But where can people find you, Eric?  

Eric: Um, you can find me on the birding corpuses of social media at @EL_Salvero, e-l underscore s-a-l-v-e-r-o, my name if I was a lucha libre wrestler. And then you can find me on any of these shows on Join the Party, on Games and Feelings, and Tell Me About It. I'm playing games. I'm having fun. It's a, it's a good time. 

Courtney: Nice, awesome. Thank you again. It was so great to really burn down some Mumford and Sons with you.