Authenticity in Relationships
The guys discuss the significance of community and friendships, emphasizing the challenges adults face in forming deeper connections. They explore the role of vulnerability in friendships, the importance of intentionality, and how to navigate surface-level interactions. There’s great value of being known and learning from Jesus’ example in building meaningful relationships. And perhaps the greatest podcast intro that has ever happened on the face of the planet featuring Christopher Walken, Mike Tyson, and Morgan Freeman.
Leave us a voicemail online and send us your experience or thoughts to info@notquitethereshow.com
Visit nqtshow.com and visit here to see all available platforms this podcast is now available on!
Why is real friendship so hard to find as an adult, and how do you build it? Mike Mobley and Chris Howard land here: friends aren’t made for us, we’re made for friends. So take the first step, be more vulnerable than feels comfortable, and serve your friends the way Jesus served his disciples, without keeping score. It starts with the Cheers theme song (Chris loves it, Mike can’t stand it) and turns into an honest talk about surface-level small talk, the 90/10 vulnerability most of us settle for, Mike’s season of isolation that taught him the value of friends, what makes a real friend, and why skipping community is riskier than it looks. Below: the key takeaways, the Scripture discussed, and the full episode transcript.
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Chris grew up loving Cheers, even recording its audio to listen to on Saturdays. What drew him was the community: Norm walks in, everyone shouts his name, and everyone has a role. Mike hates the theme song, but he agrees we’re all hungry for that kind of belonging. Churches push small groups for the same reason. You can’t know a hundred people in a room, so you need a smaller circle, like a life group or a softball team, where you can go beyond the first step with someone.
Why We Stall at the First Step
Guys ask, “What do you do?”, shake hands and call it a friendship. Then we look around the room for the snacks, like at a middle school dance. Women may wait longer before calling someone a friend, but Mike thinks both get stuck in the same place. Going deeper means bringing someone up to speed on your story, and that takes time and vulnerability. Maybe you opened up before and got burned. Or maybe, like one man who told Mike, “I’m all set on my friends,” you just don’t think you have the time.
Isolation Taught Mike the Value of Friends
Mike didn’t value community until later in life, after seasons of isolation, depression, laziness and apathy crept in when he was on his own. Once he felt the difference, he could taste it: he comes alive with friends in a way that’s impossible alone. Chris, an only child, had to learn it too, and he admits some friendships aren’t as strong as they could be because he didn’t invest or let people in. Mike’s picture: most of us share 80% and hold back 20%, maybe 90/10 with close friends. There’s freedom in moving past that.
What Makes a Real Friend?
For Chris, it’s shared history and inside jokes, but mostly someone you can tell anything. They listen first, and then they might offer advice, point you back to the Word, or speak honest truth. Mike says surface-level conversations that never go anywhere, even on round 20, feel empty and fake. Social media can make us think we have a hundred friends. So ask yourself: do I have a handful of people I can really be known by? Chris warns that when a spouse is someone’s only friend, that’s a heavy weight for one person to carry.
Friends Aren’t Made for Us. We’re Made for Friends.
Mike is a big believer in pursuing people first. Some will respond and some won’t, and that’s okay. Chris shares a phrase his family has been talking through with his daughter: friends aren’t made for us, we’re made for friends. When we think friends exist for us, we get possessive. Mike connects it to his favorite verse, 1 John 4:19: we love because he first loved us. Chris points to The Chosen’s picture of Jesus meeting his disciples where they are: vulnerable, truthful and always seeking them out. If we serve without expecting anything back and let the Lord refill us, what do we have to lose? It works in marriage too.
Don’t Wait Until the Trial Hits
Someone might say, “I’ve got a couple of people. If I need something, I’ll reach out.” Chris calls that shortsighted, because you never know how long you have with people. Mike calls it a prideful stance that assumes we control our lives. When a trial hits hard, you may need people physically there, and you may barely be able to reach out. Nobody’s life is a straight line, and you never know someone’s story until you ask. So text, call, show up and pursue. It’s always worth it.
Scriptures From This Episode
1 John 4:19 (we love because he first loved us)
The conversation also draws on Jesus’ example with his disciples, as pictured in The Chosen.
Go deeper: Scripture on Friendship · The Teen Daughter Takeover: What is a Real Friendship? · A Convincing Case for Small Group Community with Vince Rice · Real Community Shows When There’s Trouble · Do You Have A Transparent Community? · How To Find Community With Others
Full Transcript, Not Quite There, Episode 24: Authenticity in Relationships
Intro: Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. You want to be where you can see our troubles are all the same. You want to be where everybody knows your name.
Chris: You look tense over there. What’s going on, buddy?
Mike: I hate this song so much.
Chris: This is one of the greatest songs.
Mike: I’m sorry. Hot take: I hate this song.
Chris: What’s the matter with this song?
Mike: It’s so visceral. The beginning of Cheers or the beginning of I Love Lucy, when I was a kid, I would jump to the knobs on the TV, or the remote, to change the channel so fast.
Chris: You don’t like good things?
Mike: Two seconds into that, it’s like, no!
Chris: What is it about those theme songs?
Mike: They’re the worst. I don’t know. It was just old and weird, and I didn’t want to watch it. Like nails on a chalkboard for some people, or chewing food loudly. My wife hates that sound.
Chris: So no Cheers from Mike on this one.
Mike: The pain of hearing it. Even though I love our guests. Morgan, thank you for being here.
Chris: I think that was a nice gift.
Mike: It was very nice of them to send those clips in. We do appreciate you guys being big fans of the show.
Chris: Anytime those guys get together and want to produce some stuff together…
Mike: Something special happens. But I hate that song.
Chris: That makes me a little bit disappointed, Mike, because that was such a big part of my childhood. And I know you might be wondering why a show for adults was part of my childhood.
Mike: That’s why we weren’t friends when we were kids. We wouldn’t have clicked. I would have been like, “Turn it off.”
Chris: Here’s what I used to do. I would record just the audio from Cheers so I could listen to it on Saturday, during the Sabbath, when I wasn’t supposed to be watching.
Mike: Like a whole episode?
Chris: The episode. I would take my tape recorder, and that would give me something to listen to on a Saturday when I wasn’t supposed to be.
Mike: You were like an OG podcast listener. That’s actually kind of impressive.
Chris: Well, my mom was in the restaurant and bar industry. So being around that, and Cheers with the whole bar atmosphere, there was something about it I was interested in. Not the drinking part.
Mike: I was going to say, were you sitting at the bar throwing back the shots?
Chris: I think I was wondering what it was like. My mom would go to work at night, and I’d be at my grandparents’ house, and I was kind of wondering, okay, what is this life?
Mike: Where everyone knew her name. Terrible song. Can we just agree we’ll never play that again?
Chris: I can’t agree to that.
Mike: Can we agree? Never. I Love Lucy, we can negotiate. We’ve got to come to a happy medium.
Chris: Lucy’s out the door. Thank you.
Mike: The second that starts, I’m so angry.
Chris: One of the greatest things, when I think about it, is when Norm would walk in and everybody would shout “Norm!” They all had their different roles and different personalities. That always appealed to me.
Mike: Clearly there’s more meaning to it for you than for me.
Chris: I might put more meaning on things just a little bit. We talked a whole episode about my driveway replacement, so that’s true. But I like the thought of that. I like the community aspect of it. We’re big on community, right?
Mike: That’s a good point.
Chris: Community is something we’ve been talking about on here, knowing that it doesn’t always seem to be easy, especially for men. And don’t take this as me saying it’s not important for women, because it’s important for women. Women are great. We support women.
Mike: I feel like women struggle with this just as much as guys.
Chris: You don’t think it’s a little bit easier for them?
Mike: You know, it’s funny. I thought that, but call me crazy: the more women I’ve met as I’ve gotten older, I think it’s similar. Maybe slightly different in method, but deep down a lot of the principles are the same. Guys, what do we do? “Oh, hey man, what do you do for a living?”
Chris: The first thing we ask.
Mike: Basically. I don’t want to say we size each other up. It’s not always like that, but it’s a quick evaluation. “What do you do?” And sometimes you shake hands, and you might meet someone else, and you’re like, “Oh yeah, we’re friends.” Guys are really quick to say, “Oh, we’re friends, we’re friends.” But I think a lot of women will wait until it’s a little deeper. Still, there’s some type of blockage, I think, for men and women, to go beyond that first step, which is interesting. Okay, so Cheers. You were older than me back in the day, because you’re like 75. So congratulations on that.
Chris: Thank you.
Mike: I was probably a little infant, changing the TV channel. A little baby head, falling over on the couch. So I’m assuming that show was appealing because of the community. It seems to stand the test of time. Whether it’s 75 years ago or recent, we’re hungry for it. We want the community factor, but it’s still a challenge, right?
Chris: It is. I think everybody wants to belong to a particular tribe or group. When you’re growing up and playing sports, or in activities with similar interests, you’re trying to find a group of people you belong to. That’s part of what we do in our church world too. We advocate for life groups. We advocate for being in community somewhere you can be known, somewhere you can gather on a regular basis. And that’s not just our church. It’s churches all across the world.
Mike: Good context. A life group is basically a small group. You go from a large gathering on a Sunday, or a large gathering in any context. Let’s say there are a hundred people in the room. You can’t know a hundred people. You can try, but it just can’t happen.
Chris: So you need some type of smaller breakout level of community.
Mike: Like you said, it could be a sports team, like a softball team you’re playing on. It could be a small group at a church. Some smaller level where you can actually try to go beyond the first step with someone. That’s the key, right? And I’m not the expert at this, but I think we’re afraid a lot, even though we want community to go past the first step. Have you ever been in that situation where you go, “Hey, so what do you do?” And they tell you, and they ask you, you answer, and then…
Chris: What snacks did they put out?
Mike: And then that’s about it.
Chris: Snacking and looking for somebody else to talk to, right?
Mike: Looking around the room like at a middle school dance. You don’t want to make direct eye contact with anyone. It’s just awkward. Why are we so…
Chris: Why are we afraid?
Mike: Why are we afraid? I’m sure you’ve been there.
Chris: Yeah. It’s hard to nail down. It really is.
Mike: Are you getting afraid right now?
Chris: Well, it’s just me and you and an audience out there listening. What’s to be afraid of?
Mike: No big deal.
Chris: I think bringing people up to speed on who you are and what you’ve been through can be challenging, unless you’re somebody who can do that with ease.
Mike: That is hard. It takes time. It takes vulnerability.
Chris: I think that’s the key right there: vulnerability.
Mike: You’ve got to be willing to open yourself up, over and over again. And not to go off on too many tangents, but maybe that’s also why making friends is harder when people get older, men or women. It’s the thought of, “I’ve got to do this again and start over.” I’m not saying I’m right, but I’m assuming there’s some variant of that.
Chris: There could certainly be some events that happened as a result of sharing before, where maybe it wasn’t well received. Or maybe you did open up to somebody, and it didn’t make your relationship any deeper. There was no reciprocation. So you might be hesitant about letting other people in. Having been burned before could enter into it.
Mike: And sometimes maybe we just don’t want to make the time. I’ve literally had someone tell me, “I’m all set on my friends.”
Chris: Locked down. Not taking applications.
Mike: There was a part of me that was like, “Well, okay, you’re very confident, and I appreciate the directness.” But it was very interesting. Clearly this person, in this season of life, believed there was no chance to make time for anyone else. And I know he’s not alone in thinking that. We may not say it to each other, but I think sometimes we’re thinking, “Man, where’s the time?”
Chris: I can see where you might feel that way. But I think the most dangerous thing is not having the self-reflection to say, “Okay, I actually need to be close with people. I need to let people in. And I need to be there when other people are letting me in.” Not even being aware of it is one of the biggest dangers.
Mike: I don’t think I really valued community until a little later in my life, and I think it’s because I had to experience isolation, depression, being alone, not being challenged, getting lazy or apathetic: all these issues that seem to creep into our lives when we’re by ourselves. Early on it was hard for me to see. Everyone’s like, “Community, community, friends, have your buddies,” and it was hard for me to jump on that wagon. I was like, “Are you just saying that because everyone else says it?” But experiencing the other side, not having a lot of friends, gave it so much more value. I could tangibly taste and feel it: friends are critical. I can come alive with friends in a way that’s impossible in isolation. It’s hard, though, because you want people to know that without having to go through the negative consequence of no friends. You value friendships. Was that just an innate desire? Did you just know that?
Chris: Not as an only kid growing up. I really had to learn the value of that. And I’ve had my missteps too. I’ve lost friendships by treating them casually. Or maybe “losing them” isn’t the way to say it. They just aren’t as strong as they could be, because I didn’t spend the time, or wasn’t vulnerable enough, or didn’t let people in. Having learned that, it’s more valuable to me to be as vulnerable as I can, especially these days as I’m getting to be 75.
Mike: When you say “vulnerable,” it gives me a mental image. I think sometimes we’ll share 80% of ourselves and hold back 20%. And with our really close friends, maybe we’ll bump it up to 90, but we’ll still hold back, at least in my opinion, the last 10%. Maybe there’s a 95-5 friend out there. But I think we’re just so afraid to be a hundred percent authentic, with mixed motivations as to why. But there’s so much more freedom. I’m not saying I have friendships out there where I’m a hundred to zero, but I want to keep striving to be more than 90-10.
Chris: And I think that’s good for your friendships, because the smaller the group of friends… at least, I can’t talk right now.
Mike: That’s all right. You’re 75.
Chris: The smaller the group of friends, the more you’re unloading on them, and it gets a little heavy. So I do fear for relationships where the wife is the only friend the husband has, or vice versa. Not only do they have to be friends, they have to wear so many different hats in that relationship. Not to have any good friends you can be authentic with is just a heavy weight to bear.
Mike: So, just for fun, how would you define a really good friend? What defines a real friend? Not, “Oh, I know an accountant named Jimmy. I met him on the elevator.” Obviously not him.
Chris: I love that the friendships I really value are ones where you have history together, things you’ve done together. The activity, the history, the inside jokes all add a lot. But when it boils down to it, a friend is somebody you can talk to about anything in your life. You can say, “I’m struggling here,” and know they’re going to listen first. They may offer advice. They may not. They might just listen and say, “Hey, you’re going to figure this out, because I know you, and you’re going to get in the Word and spend time with Christ.” Or they might say, “This is what I’m hearing, and here’s some honest truth.”
Mike: Some of my best friendships… I mean, maybe start small, but spend more and more time with people, and start sharing more. Any relationship takes time. There’s no way we can be best friends overnight.
Chris: Sure. And with somebody you haven’t spent a lot of time with, the history might be similar things going on in life: being parents, the different roles you play as husbands, and for the ladies, as wives. Different shared experiences, whether you’ve shared them together or not.
Mike: I appreciate you including the ladies, that you’re talking about women too, not just men.
Chris: Not just men.
Mike: “This is just for the ladies.” Is that what you said? I’m just kidding.
Chris: That’s exactly why, Mike. This is why I’m not fully vulnerable with you, Mike. You tear it out of my heart.
Mike: We’ll listen to some Cheers music at the end of this to heal your heart.
Chris: I would love to hear that sweet piano music.
Mike: Or I want you to listen to some Creed. Some good Creed. Nickelback. Maybe some techno: “boots and cats and boots and cats.” Okay, we got way off topic. So I was talking with a buddy, coincidentally, earlier today.
Chris: A good buddy? A buddy you can actually really…
Mike: A good buddy. And we talked about how, as you get older, it seems easier to keep up with friendships when you can mutually encourage each other and talk about like-minded things going on in your lives. Without that, we were talking about how hard it is to keep up with friendships. It takes intentionality. But it made me think: if it’s just surface-level… I don’t know if this is coming from an older guy, although I think I thought the same way when I was 20. If we’re just going to be surface-level and that’s it, that’s empty to me. I walk away from those conversations like, “What was that?” It felt like a waste of time for both of us. It just felt fake. That’s what it is.
Chris: What kind of topics are you talking about, where it stays surface-level?
Mike: Oh, like, “How was work this week? How was your summer?” Things you could write in someone’s yearbook when you’re signing it, and nothing else. Those interactions where you walk away, and if it happened again or never happened again, nothing in our lives would be different. It was literally just taking up space. That’s when it feels fake to me. And I know sometimes you have to do that to start friendships. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean when you’re on round 20 with someone and it’s at the same level. It’s just not going anywhere. I think those are really hard to keep up in general, and as you get older, they kind of fizzle away. It’s probably fair to say maybe they should fizzle away, and you should go to the next friend where you can find like-minded things.
Chris: I guess the question is, who would want that? Just meeting for meeting’s sake?
Mike: When we say it like this, I don’t think anyone would want it, but in practice it happens a lot. Maybe that’s social media too. I think people sometimes walk around thinking they have a lot of friends: “Oh yeah, I know like a hundred people.” But do they really have that many friends? I don’t know. I think sometimes we’re a little fooled, me included, thinking the community is there. That’s why I was asking you what you think a real friend is. I was trying to have some self-reflection: do I really have a handful of men around me that I have that kind of relationship with?
Chris: And if you don’t, there’s opportunity, right? There’s opportunity to go a little deeper in those friendships. I think a lot of it has to do with leading the way. And guess what? You’re going to find out sooner or later whether it’s reciprocated. But if not, at least you made the effort.
Mike: I was talking with Matthew about that, about making friends and pursuing. I’m curious what your take is on this. I’m a big believer in just going ahead and pursuing friends. Take the first step. I guess the worst thing is they could say no, and yes, that does sting. I don’t want to overlook that. But if I look at ten people in a room and pursue all of them, some will respond and some won’t, and that’s okay. I think it’s a little unrealistic to think everyone has to respond to you and be your friend. Whenever I take that posture, things seem to go better. And there are different seasons of life, where some friends are closer than others, and that’s okay. But I don’t seem to be lacking friends in my life. The rub is: do we take those first steps and pursue, or do we expect them to come to us?
Chris: I think we pursue. And this is something we’re working on with Clara too, with the changing landscape of friendships. You may have a group of friends, and that group may change. There might be new people coming into it, and people leaving it. And what we’ve been talking about a lot lately is: friends aren’t made for us. We’re made for friends. So move forward and pursue those friendships. Be a good friend, and let your concentration be there. If we get into the habit of thinking, “My friends are here for me,” we get a little possessive. That’s not good for anybody, because if those friendships change, it feels like you’ve lost something, rather than having made something stronger or contributed to something.
Mike: I like that phrase a lot. Say it again.
Chris: Friends are not made for us. We’re made for friends.
Mike: Friends aren’t made for us. We’re made for friends. That’s really good. I like that. I’m going to steal that for our own kids. And they’re going to be like, “Dad, that wisdom was so great.” And I’ll be like, “Thank you.”
Chris: “Friends are friends forever.”
Mike: That’s another one we don’t like. Okay, are you going to tell me you like that song? Our friendship is changing during this. Isn’t that song from the early ’90s, like Christian…
Chris: What’s wrong with the early ’90s?
Mike: I like the ’90s, but not “Friends Are Friends Forever.” Kumbaya Christian. Oh, you like it, don’t you?
Chris: No, actually, Mike, that wasn’t one of my favorites.
Mike: You had me. I thought you liked that one. It’s okay. You can like it.
Chris: It was a little too friendly for me. I couldn’t identify with it.
Mike: Yeah, that’s too much. I can’t do that. No, I really like “we are made for friends.” We’re made for relationships. They’re not made for us. I want to keep that in my head, because it keeps me as the pursuer. And if there’s no response, that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world. You try, and you trust whoever responds. Those are real friends anyway. If you’re having to chase someone down to respond to you, it’s not really a friend, at least in that season. But I really like that: we are made for community, for relationship, for friends.
Chris: I think that lines up with your favorite Bible verse.
Mike: “We love because he first loved us.”
Chris: That is exactly what it is. And again, we’ll go back to The Chosen, because I’ve just enjoyed watching it again. What a great picture of Jesus serving his disciples and meeting them where they’re at. Whenever they’re going through struggles, he’s getting on their level and trying to be as much of a friend as he can, while telling the truth, while being God, while doing everything we know Jesus to be. That’s a great example to follow. It’s the best example to follow. How would Jesus approach this friendship? Certainly vulnerable, certainly truthful, certainly seeking out that person. There’s a lot we can learn from our Lord and Savior about how we approach that, and it never gets selfish. And I think it creates stronger friendships as a result.
Mike: Because you’re just emptying yourself out and serving one another. If you take the posture of, “I’m going to empty myself. I don’t need to be refilled by this person. I’m here to serve,” and you trust that you get refilled by the Lord, then I’m just going to go for friends: be there for them, pray for them, text them, call them, think of them, hang out, whatever. What do we really have to lose at the end of the day?
Chris: I don’t think so. If we have the wrong expectation that it’s going to be reciprocated, then we can get hurt. So that tests the motivation to begin with. Are we doing it so we can have it done back to us, or are we doing it just for the sake of serving that person? And guess what? It works in marriage too. That’s our number one friendship, right? Whenever I’m selfish, whenever I feel like my wife’s not giving me the attention I want, that’s usually because I’m not serving her the way I need to be serving her.
Mike: Do you start jumping up and down, screaming, throwing yourself on the ground and running in circles like Curly from the Three Stooges, if you’re not getting attention at home?
Chris: No, I’m not a child.
Mike: Wow. I took that seriously. I can’t even look at you right now. I didn’t realize it was such a serious response. Our friendship is changing.
Chris: If the answer is yes, there’s a big problem there too.
Mike: That’d be a big problem. No, I don’t get that right either. It’s just selfish. It sounds gross saying it, but when I do it, it’s a selfish “gimme,” like “gimme in response.” And if we really want to go deep, I’m using the person for my own satisfaction, whether it’s my wife or a friend, for validation or whatever it is. So maybe the encouragement, for us and for anyone listening: there might even be people you’re thinking of right now. We would say it’s worth it to take the first step every time and pursue. It might be a phone call or a text. I don’t know what that is for you, listening. But it’s such a worthwhile pursuit. Let me ask you a question, though. Someone listening is going to go, “I don’t need to do it. I don’t have the time. I don’t really see the need. I have a couple of people in my life. I may not really talk to them very much, but they exist, so if I ever need something, I’ll reach out. What’s the big deal?”
Chris: That gets very shortsighted, because you never know what’s around the corner. I don’t mean to be a fatalist, but you never know how long you have with people. If you have a support system built on just a few people, they might not be there when you need them the most. So it’s better to practice the art of being vulnerable, getting to know people and letting them in to know you, because you just never know.
Mike: You know, this is going to sting, and it’s for me first before anyone else: I think it’s also kind of a prideful stance. I know that’s a big word. But I think it underestimates how powerful real, good community is. Like you said, you don’t know how long someone’s going to be around. You also don’t know what trial is right around the corner, about to hit you. Sometimes a trial hits you so hard that you need people physically right there, ready to go, because you can barely even reach out to them. So sometimes it’s a bit of assuming that you have control of your life: that you’re in charge of your schedule and to-do lists, and when you get in the car, you’ll make it from point A to point B. We’re just not promised that. We’ve talked about our stories in past episodes, and anyone can go listen to those. My life has been this up-and-down, detoured, weird map of a journey. I look back, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it has not been a linear, one-path thing at all. And my guess is that no one’s life has really been that way. So the need for community is so real, especially as we get older. But in any season, I don’t think we’re exempt from it.
Chris: You just pointed out something that helps the conversation here: you never know somebody’s story. It might look like a linear path for somebody. You might not ask. You might just assume, “This is what they’re about, this is what they do, so they must have walked this path.” And you have no idea unless you actually reach in and offer to listen and get to know that person.
Mike: So you mean, like, take them to a bar, right?
Chris: You may go to a bar. Or you might go to something like what we have this weekend, the men’s retreat.
Mike: Much better.
Chris: If you’re getting together with people, the fall is a great time for it.
Mike: When it’s not 105 degrees.
Chris: As we get into wintertime here in Texas, or wherever you’re at, people tend to gather. It’s a good way to get to know people, to be known, and to make some friends.
Mike: Friends that are…
Chris: Friends forever.
Mike: You’re doing it. You’re singing it. No. Stop.
Outro: Thanks so much for joining us. Please consider rating and reviewing our podcast and hitting subscribe on whichever platform you prefer. Remember to keep moving forward, because we’re not quite there.
