We’re back! And we’re still talking friendship dynamics. You have probably heard the trope about how, when out with their friends, ladies love to talk about their feelings and fellas just want to name baseball players they remember from when they were twelve. Is it essentialist? Sure, but also…it sure feels like there’s some truth there.

This week, we hold the trope up and look at it from as many angles as possible, like a gorgeous gendered diamond. Does Garrett host a makeshift version of the Newlywed game for Sarah and her husband? Does Sarah reveal some surprisingly nuanced thoughts about “Waterfalls” by TLC? And somehow, by the end of the episode, do we discover a new lasagna-based benchmark by which to judge the quality of male friendship? Yes, yes and yes.

It’s fun, you all. And we probably don’t talk too much about Tony Shalhoub’s mustache, though that’s debatable.

Links:

* All the cool liberal families are getting landlines (Vox)

* We didn’t actually talk about the legendary “BBQ dad” Craigslist ad but Garrett always wants an excuse to repost it so here it is (Reddit)

* “Against Hating Men”— includes the screenshots of the tweets we discuss (Mindy Isser’s newsletter)

* Theorizing Mankeeping: The Male Friendship Recession and Women’s Associated Labor as a Structural Component of Gender Inequality by Angelica Ferrara and Dylan Vergara (Psychology of Men and Masculinities)

* “Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of Mankeeping” (New York Times gift link)

* Were you curious as to Boomer humor columnist Dave Barry’s take on Mankeeping? Well, he’s got one!

* Sarah Wheeler’s favorite TLC songs (Spotify) (Publisher’s note: Sarah DOES have a fifth favorite TLC song, and it is “Case of the Fake People.” Glad we set the record straight!)

* “She wants to talk, you just want to watch Youtube” (Make Men Emotional Again)

* Read Boymom by Ruth Whippman (a perennial This Week in Breeders recommendation)

* Men calling their friends to tell them good night

More:

* This Week In Breeders is a podcast! And you can listen to it wherever you like to listen to podcasts (Apple; Spotify; everywhere that groups of men get together and wordlessly grunt their non-feelings at each other).

* But if you really want to stay updated, you should go to thisweekinbreeders.org and subscribe, so that you get episodes delivered directly to your inbox.

* And then, after you do so, you should be like “but now I really want to support this podcast, and I’d also love to listen to their bonus episodes, like the really incredible one they just did about how they used to spend recesses in elementary school” and opt for a paid subscription.

* Or maybe you want another way to help us out, which is very kind of you. Would you consider dropping us one of those five star reviews on your preferred podcast app? Or telling your friends? Thank you!

* In every case, thanks for being here, pals!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thisweekinbreeders.org/subscribe