Scott is mad at his snow guy. He really needs to get plowed. Dan did get to shovel. And he somehow ties  Screech, Pete Townshend, baseball and online dating together. 

There are two major themes of today's show:
First, are you the star of your own story? Are you the star of your own life?

"I’m not No. 1 on anyone’s list. And I’m not sure I’m even No. 1 on my own list."

Second, we compare online dating to baseball. Dan tries to swing for the fences, even if he knows he's more likely to strike out. Scott is happy getting on base and then seeing what happens.
 
"I’m going to swing myself right out of the league and you’re Barry Fucking Bonds."

Some more quotes from the show, in chronological order:

• "I have made life choices where I am not anyone’s No. 1. "

• "I just want somebody whose got my back as much as I’ve got theirs."

• "There are people who would prioritize you, but you don’t prioritize them. And that’s the irony of it." 

"I guarantee there are people listening to this screaming at their radio, or at their listening device, “You are such a fucking hypocrite." 

• "I’m choosing to prioritize people who aren’t prioritizing me. That doesn’t mean there aren’t people who want me to prioritize them first. I need to figure that out, and I haven’t yet."

• "I’m going to swing myself right out of the league and you’re Barry Fucking Bonds."

• "Baseball’s not all just about hitting. It’s about fielding. It’s about defense, too. It’s a whole game… I’ve honed my skillset so that I’m great in the field. And when I come up to bat, I want to get on base, because I know once I get on base, good things can happen.

"I don’t need to hit a home run. I need to keep the game going because I feel good things can happen if I’m still playing. If I’m still in the game. "

• "Unlike the guy with the foot fetish we talked about earlier, for all the ladies out there, I definitely slide into third base head first." 

• "I am still at a point…where I need to figure out, am I choosing not to be a singles hitter, or am I incapable? And do I need to develop that skill, to stay in this game and be productive." 

• "Your [dating] profile at 30 and your profile at 35 and your profile at 45 cannot look the same. 

• "Are you the main character, or are you the comic relief? And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re every character and it depends on who you’re playing that scene against."

• "Sometimes we are the supporting cast of our own show. We don’t always have to be the lead. I think it’s okay to not be the main character and still be happy."

A snow show.

Dan misses shoveling. Scott misses companionship.

Three theme songs for the show today. Scott doesn't know Snow. Dan thinks he can sing like Michael McDonald (and tries to) and Scott gets a lesson in The Steps.

Dan finally came up with the best response to someone asking if he's ready for a LTR. And a woman he's been trying to date for months asked him for help with her dating profile.

Scott can't figure out how to be friends with women after dating doesn't pan out.

"I haven’t figured out how to be friends with people, who I genuinely like. Like, maybe they’re not meant for me to be dating, but I like them as a person and I would like to be friends with them. But I haven’t been able to figure out how to convert. I think people who match with me and engage with me want to be with me or not."

A few other quotes from the show:
"I don't have a shovel. I’ve got a spatula and a ladle." 

"Everyone listening to this knows Snow."

"Bunker in, you wait until the snow stops and you get on Tinder."

"They can fight for our country and drive a car. They can’t go on Tinder?"

"I survived a year. Congratulations to me for not dying."

"They don’t want to date me, but I can fucking help them."

"The days are long and the weeks and months are short."

"Joke’s on them."

In this episode...

Scott travels to Miami. Dan breaks Bumble.

This is not a joke. Jump to the 47 minute mark to see how Dan actually broke Bumble, accidentally figuring out a way to message women first.

• To start the show, the Levy Bros. talk about Scott's trip to Miami (with plenty of music to go with it) and what it's like to have to balance co-parenting when it comes to your kids picking a college.

• We talk about how far you'd travel to match with someone on a dating app.

• We give some really great tips on how to maximize your search function on these apps — and how to NOT get overwhelmed. And, with Valentine's Day coming up fast, Scott talks about how he doesn't have love in his life.

Scott: "When I’ve not been with somebody on Valentines Day over the past 8 years…I spend that time figuring out what I want and narrowing my search.
This is the time that I usually spend to focus in on what I’m looking for.

"It’s a reminder that I don’t have love. Except for my kids, and I need to figure that out. And my brother."

Dan: "I was going to say, “what the hell’s this. I put up with your shit every day. If that’s not love...”


Some more quotes in order of when they appear:
• "He’s got a third eye."

• "Bienvenido a Miami."

• "I don’t know many people that can afford college, no matter where it is. It’s expensive." 

• "In New Jersey, you’re an hour away from everything."

"• Would you take a trip to the Netherlands, and would you pay for it all, or would you…go Dutch?"

• “'There’s somewhere out there for me.' You’re in that romantic phase. You’re willing to go where the love is for you.

• "This is a Mom-ism, but there’s a lid for every pot. And you get to a certain point in your life where you want your lid. And that might not be in close proximity."  

• "It’s funny because even people who I’m with, by the end of the date, they went from the beginning being like, 'I don’t need help,' to like, 'oh my God, this is overwhelming.'”

"I literally had somebody say to me they almost had a panic attack with how much this is all about. They said, 'I thought my profile was good and now I’m, like, freaking out.'

"Don’t freak out. Just let us help you."

• "This weekend, I hung out with a person who was 30. It was the greatest old man feeling in the world. It’s amazing."

• "They want you to be wowed by the volume of people on these apps. It’s part of the game."

• "When I’ve not been with somebody on Valentine's Day over the past 8 years…I spend that time figuring out what I want and narrowing my search.
This is the time that I usually spend to focus in on what I’m looking for. 

• "Make sure you get all the information that you can before you waste time pining over someone who is never going to respond to you."

• "It’s more important to women that you’re tall than you’re a Trump supporter."

Nicole Ananda, from Ananda Integrative Healing Group is our guest on this two-part episode. Scott, Dan and Nicole? This gets fun.

In Part 2, we talk about Nicole's practice, and what they do to help those with sexual dysfunction. We also talk a lot about Jesus. And whether or not you should go into a date with a list of questions you want to know. 

Oh, and watch until the very end, when Dan nearly has a heart attack. 

On what Ananda Integrative Healing Group does:

"I do run a clinical practice for people with sexual dysfunctions and intimacy issues. I employ two sex therapists and clinical therapists on my team. And we do surrogate partner therapy, which is basically experiential sex therapy. 

"It’s helping people work through intimacy issues and relationship issues, which is really the heart of it. It’s not sex. Everyone comes to me and says, 'fix my dick, it’s broken,' and we fix all of the other things that are causing that problem, which are childhood traumas and negative life experiences and anxiety and all of that. We help them work through it in an experiential way in a safe container."

On personal trauma leading to dysfunction:

"There’s Big T Trauma, and little T trauma."

"Most people have grown up in some sort of traumatic situation where they weren’t able to be their fully-expressed authentic selves and be met with love an acceptance and encouragement and so they end up with all kinds of maladaptive behaviors and ways of seeing the world that they need to then work through as they get older."

On Jesus and spirituality:

"Jesus started showing up for me in my spiritual journey and I was like, ‘what the hell?’ And then I just realized how much I resonate with Jesus’ energy. Christ energy is amazing. If you look at the words of Jesus and what he taught people, it’s love everyone and we’re all one. Love the prostitutes and the lepers, and that’s not what Christians today are doing, not all of them."

"We help connect people with the deepest parts of themselves that no one else is really even addressing. I feel like that’s why our programs work well, and we don’t do it from any kind of religious perspective. It’s just more about really being in touch and connected with yourself and another human being. And once you do that you can translate that and generalize it outside the work that we do, and learn to do it anywhere, and with anyone."

Other quotes from this half of the episode, in chronological order:

"That interview process would be wonderful I would love for someone to actually ask me questions and want to know who I am and whether I’m a good match for them."  

"It’s not like I’m not looking to have fun and experiences too, but I have a lot going on. I’m running a business — two businesses. I’m a single mom, right? I don’t have time for just fucking around."  

"The whole dance of dating is about getting to know someone and figuring out whether or not you’re compatible."

"If there’s a weird thing out there that someone can do, there’s a whole group of people out there who want to do it. It’s amazing."

"There is such a thing as TMI."

Nicole Ananda, from Ananda Integrative Healing is our guest on this two-part episode. Scott, Dan and Nicole? This gets fun.

We talk about finding love online, if you can create chemistry with someone and how it's difficult to put the version of yourself out there to get back the type of person you want.

If you are a strong, confident person, how do you put out there who you are and what you’re looking for and not end up with a project?

Some quotes from this episode, in the order in which they appear:

"Someone feels empowered to talk dirty today."

"You’re the worst matchmaker ever."

"I think the majority of them just want to, you know, fuck me. I have no judgement against that, but it makes it a lot harder for me to parse out the people who are serious about getting to know someone and possibly having a relationship."

"Can you have chemistry on a dating app, when someone says they are looking for chemistry?"

"Nicole, your face is telling me I’m an idiot."

"Not everybody is thinking about curating their dating profile when they’re taking pictures. They’re usually out doing something…"

"Do I get a finder’s fee if you actually date him?"

"When you’re in the top one percent, it sucks. I would rather be average, because I’d have such a giant pool of people — I know I sound like such a narcissist, but I don’t really mean it that way. It sucks, because it’s so much harder to find someone who can be my equal and meet me where I am."

"You two were talking about stuff that I didn’t have written down and I almost threw up under my desk."

"That physical part fades fast. It can last for a night, it can last a few weeks, it can maybe stretch itself out to a few months but if you’re not connected mentally, emotionally, spiritually, that physical stuff just really fades."

"I don’t care about that. That’s not me. If you want to come over and watch a movie, we’ll watch a movie. Don’t think that just because you’re coming here I’m either going to try to have sex with you or murder you. Those are the two things that everyone thinks is going to happen, and I’m not going to do either of those unless you want to."

"The No. 1 killer of women is men. The No. 1 killer of men is heart disease. So we do need to be careful, because we could walk into a situation that’s unsafe." 

"I don’t know a single woman — I don’t know a SINGLE woman — who has not be sexually assaulted in some way. Or harassed. Or coerced. Not a single woman. For me, I can’t even count on two hands the number of times it’s happen, or even remember them all, it’s been so many. This is what life is like for us in a patriarchy."

Do you ever miss your old life? As a divorced parent, do you ever just must being in your old house, working on home improvement projects? Being present all the time?

That's what we talk about in this episode. Sometimes you just wish you were homeward bound.

"I’m here. In stasis. It’s like sitting in purgatory. Waiting to go one way or the other. Like, am I going to get a house or am I going to live on the street? Tune in! Let’s find out…"

And this is a common refrain from Dan:
"I joke around about this now, when you tell someone they’d be better off without you, eventually they’re going to agree with you and they’ll be like, ‘Let’s try that.’ and that’s what happened. And now, a year out, it’s kind of like, well, yeah, fuck I was right. 100 percent.'”

Scott and Dan discuss this feeling, and Dan asks about the feeling when your ex's significant other ends up becoming a part of your kids' lives. Just, one day you have your life and the next day mom or dad introduces you to some person who all of a sudden is a part of your daily routine.

The show definitely is heavier than some of the previous episodes, but the Levy Bros. do end on a lighter topic, somehow comparing dating profiles to soup. And it works. So let's go with it.

Some quotes from the episode:

"Everything always processes through my brain. So when my brain is like, ‘no, dude, one plus one equals two,’ and you’re like, ‘but three is so much better.’ And it’s like, ‘no, one plus one equals two,’ and it’s like, ‘yeah, but can’t it be three for a little bit more?’"

"Music helps me get through my days."

“I cry myself from my ex’s house…I’d cry myself back home and maybe I’d cry myself when I got back into my house. And you know what? It felt good. It sucks, but it felt good to just let it out.”

“You didn’t want the Jewish kid going into fifth grade with a giant cross on his back.”

“We can keep teasing the pregnant lady.” 

“I’ll tell you one thing, though…if you’re dating a pregnant woman, then you can’t get her pregnant. There’s some logic to that.”

“I go back to the grocery store [analogy]. Don’t get mad at the 4000 items you don’t want. Get mad at the store for not putting your items in a more accessible place.”   

Today we talk about the weekend — one of Scott's first as an eligible bachelor once again — and, well, The Weekend. And NJ music history.

Really, we talk about the notion of opposites if they do or do not attract.

"If Paula Abdul can date a cartoon cat, clearly opposites attract."

Q: You have to be on the same page when you’re parenting, but when you’re dating, do you have to be on the same page?

Dan: "The parenting thing I think you have to be on the same page no matter what. You can’t have opposites attract…one parent won’t let a kid run across the street to get a ball and the other one is letting them do heroin in the basement. Maybe that’s not the exact opposite of one another."

Scott: " I don’t believe opposites attract. I think that a healthy relationship, you each have certain things that you’ve done — your own unique experiences that make you special and different — I think you need to want to do things and be like-minded with your partner. I don’t believe that opposites attract, no.

"If I go out and we don’t have a lot in common, I’m not interested."

Some other quotes  and exchanges from the episode: 

"I’m not going to have to break up with anyone. I’m just going to talk about them on the show and that’s how they’ll know that we’re done."

"Just because you don’t know what anyone else has going on doesn’t mean you should care. Sometimes it’s not my problem. If you’re bitter, if you’re sad, if you’re angry, and you’re going on these dating apps, don’t take that out on me."

---
"Did I ever tell you about the woman I tried to hate fuck?"

"Was it the pregnant one?"

"What? No! What kind of person do you think I am?"

"I don’t know…sometimes."

"It was a Trump supporter." 
---

"She’s not a Trump supporter. She, quote, THINKS HE’S HOT. How can you ever put your lips, face, any part of you on another person who thinks that individual is hot."

"…which means by six degrees of separation, I fucked the President. "

"I don’t ever talk about politics. I have more important things to talk about."

---
"I would happily scrub someone else’s floors if just every once in a while I could have somebody over to wash my dishes. I just don’t want to wash my dishes all the time. I’m tired of it."

"It’s amazing and depressing in many ways that your escape is you having someone wash your dishes while you scrub their floor."

"I don’t want to pay someone to do it. I want to do it with someone. I would like to get back to a point, this many years later, where I’m washing and she’s drying. How’s that. We’re doing it together."

"That’s adorable. You should say, “I’m looking for someone who’s into S&M,” and then in parentheses, “Scrubbing and Mopping.”

"Looking for a partner who’s in to S&M (Scrubbing & Mopping)"
---

"This woman is terrible. I hate this bucket list. I’m never putting another woman with a face tattoo on my bucket list."

"Then I wrote back, “I am a gentleman. I’m not going to drive to Ohio to fuck someone.” Scott, aren’t I right? Isn’t that the gentlemanly thing to do?"

"She said to me, this is the greatest compliment I’ve gotten from someone in, maybe, my entire life. “Your brain is impressive and terrifying.'"

"I’m trying to help. I’m not trying to help you. I’m not saying you need the help. I’m saying I’ve found really nice women who I think I would be a good match with, but I live too far away from them, so I’m trying to help them by giving them access to you! You didn’t get that? That was the biggest compliment I could ever give you."

"We’re selling hope. Politically-independent hope."

This episode is about dating apps and online dating, because Dan isn't the only Levy boy navigating wonderful world on online dating apps! Scott is back, like Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money. And Dan is doing kung fu with a pool cue.

Here are some quotes from the episode:
- "Have you seen some of the women that I’ve matched with? I think it’s gambling."

- "Some men and a lot of women… who are looking for the same types of things."

- "You don’t want the person in charge of your hair picking your shoes."

- "The first thing you need to do is figure out what you’re looking for." 

- "You read words so literally…"

- "My goal is to get them off-app to talk."  

- "You never know what anyone has got going on. The apps make it a game. Gameified."

- "Patience and persistence and at the end of the day, you just need one. If that’s what you’re looking for."

--------
- "Can something be organic if you’ve predetermined where you want it to go, and secondly, how do you know there’s chemistry if the experiment is being done in real time?

"How can you determine chemistry if you’ve told the person you’re looking for chemistry?"

- "Plenty of Whitefish would be a terrible site to go on."

- "By the way, Plenty of Whitefish is people who they want to match with to see if you want to storm the Capitol. "

- "That was amazing and hilarious. I combined both racism and anti-semitism into both popular events and dating apps. I think it was one of the best things I’ve ever said, thankyouverymuch. Plenty of Whitefish dot com."
--------

- "Eat shit and get fucked. At two o’clock in the morning." 

--------
"The first date that I went on — well the second date, because I made out with that pregnant woman in the parking lot of that burger place — but other than that..."

"That might rival the homeless woman. My first date I made out with a pregnant lady in the parking lot of a burger joint. Talk about a baptism by fire."

"I can fake it, I can trick these people into thinking I’m a fully-formed human and reboot my life."

--------
---"You could just disappear after what happened this week with all the stuff in our country and say, ‘this is not the time for me to try and match with somebody. This is ridiculous.’ Or you could say, “I need a distraction. I need to go on there and mindlessly look at attractive people and judge them, and say left or right left or right left or right. And either way is fine.”

-"Or, you could say, there’s a lot of crazy stuff in the world. Life’s too short to live it alone. And you want a partner. And you want to find somebody."

--------
-"Sometimes the frivolity of a conversation is purposeful."
-"Bro, you say at least three or four words and episode where I have no idea what they mean. And I’m a really smart person."
-"I just think that you are on a different level, which is fine because some people appreciate that and some people will feel dumb. I don’t feel dumb."
-"I’m not trying to make anyone feel dumb."
-"I don’t think you are."
-"Well, you a little bit. "
-"I don’t feel dumb."
-"You know what they say about guy’s with big vocabularies."
-"They talk a lot?"
-"That’s where I was going to go. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. I’m like the Milton Berle of vocabularies over here. "

--------
-"Do you realize there’s a microphone in front of you?"

-"Pontificate is a smart person word for thinking."

-"I know what pontificate means, douche."

Our first official show of 2021 focuses on a saying Scott has been using for years: You never know what anyone else has got going on.

"Fooled ‘em again. Made it through another day where everyone thought I knew what I was doing. And I don’t feel like I knew anything. I don’t even know how I made it through the day."

That line, from early in the show, illustrates Scott's mentality, professionally and as a parent. How much do people keep to themselves, so as not to let the outside world -- or your kids -- see that you aren't always in control?

"Do you feel like it’s okay to be able to show your emotion in front of your kids?"

Dan's brotherly reply?
"Scott Levy is the one person who could sell ice to an eskimo but doesn’t know what ice is made of."
and..
"I can’t believe I’m the one giving you advice. This is awesome! 2021 is THE BEST."

Other lines from the episode, totally without context:

"When we were younger, I hated playing RummiKub with you."

"I don’t have any skeletons in my closet because I threw them all on the floor. Who wants a bone? Who wants a femur? Anyone? Clavicle?"

"Tell the people what they’ve won."

"You’re watching The Good Wife for the third time?"

"Playing chess against yourself….THAT is a difficult game to play."

"I marvel sometimes — I never understood how mom had everything together...As I became a parent, and a divorced dad."

"Everyone is going to laugh in vomitous fashion." 

"You're like mom and I'm like dad. You need to hold everything together and not let anybody see how difficult it is. And I need every single person to deal with my shit, because I can't deal with it myself, so I need you to deal with it."

"Sometimes I know, and don’t care."

"I can talk fast. I choose to talk slower and more deliberately because I get my point across better. That’s a learned skill."

"Your pauses are very pregnant. You’re having triplets sometimes with the pregnancy of your pauses."
"It’s deliberate."
"It’s a pain in the ass. Get to the point I need to edit this!"

"As the year kicks off, we need to be more mindful of what other people may have going on that you’re not aware of."

"One day you have frozen peas on your elbow and they’re like, 'dad, what the hell are you doing?'"

"Sometimes you still have to carry the groceries in."

"That was amazing."
"Thank you."
"Well, not amazing enough to get past me."

"By the way, we are divorced dads, but we’re humans. And that’s a lot of what this show is."

A quick video where we talk about our parenting resolutions for the new year. Happy 2021!!!!