Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: "Share & Tell & Neg"

Hosts: Pablo Torre
Guests: Sarah Spain, Charlotte Wilder
Date: March 28, 2024

Overview

This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is a lively, free-flowing conversation between Pablo, Sarah, and Charlotte as they riff on themes of aging, self-awareness, the bizarre world of “pickup artists,” digital memorialization, and personal growth—interrupted by equal parts wisecracks and honest reflection. Each brings a personal story or observation, resulting in a show that’s part confessional group, part cultural critique, and always rich in wry humor.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bodies Betraying Us / Getting Older (00:27–04:45)

• Charlotte’s Birthday: The episode kicks off with Pablo celebrating Charlotte turning 35, segueing into the aches and pains of getting older. The group compares back pain remedies and travel hacks.
  • Charlotte: “Welcome to 35.” (00:48)
  • Sarah: Recommends paying attention to back pain early—back problems often originate elsewhere in the body and ignoring them makes things worse. She describes the spine as “jelly donuts on top of each other,” emphasizing management before surgery is required (03:12).

2. The World of Pickup Artists & “Alpha Douche” (05:27–23:24)

• TikTok Pickup Artist Clip: Pablo plays a viral clip of a self-styled “alpha” dating coach proclaiming, “You do not have to accept her rejection.” This launches a hilarious and insightful breakdown of pickup artistry culture, its language, and its implications.
• Decoded Lingo:
  • Mystery and ‘The Game’: Pablo introduces the infamous “Mystery” and the pickup artist lingo (e.g., DHV—Demonstrate Higher Value; IOI—Indicator of Interest). Pablo likens these elaborate routines to an NFL coordinator’s playbook (12:07).
  • Sarah: Critiques this system: “What they are always doing instead is trying to figure out how, if they just better understood the female mind and tricked women into liking them, they could get the women they want. Instead of saying, let me look for a woman that wants me, and then just be myself confidently...” (08:42)
  • Charlotte: Notes that these systems repackage normal human behaviors (like teasing and flirting) into manipulative tactics with “code names.” (17:27)
• Negging Clarified:
  • Sarah: Explains negging as “finding something negative to say about you, but it’s not full on... it infers some sort of confidence.” (16:49)
  • The group notes the power imbalance these systems seek to correct often lead to making the other person insecure instead of fostering connection (18:05).
• Lived Experience:
  • Sarah: Shares how, as a woman in her 20s, she felt pressured to “act like a dumbass who needed help” on dates to avoid intimidating men. “And it worked.” (21:46)
  • Charlotte: Tells a story about escaping a bad date with a fake “dishwasher emergency” (22:52).

3. Digital Memorials & QR Code Gravestones (23:46–32:49)

• Sarah’s Topic: The trend of QR codes on gravestones links to digital memories, such as a video of an elderly couple’s last dance—sparking a debate on how we remember and commemorate lives.
  • Sarah: Sees beauty in expanding storytelling: “The gravestone should ultimately show you permanence and the end. The QR code would tell you that what you get after their death is still all the memories of who they were in life... and that it’s worth remembering and telling a full story.” (27:24)
  • Charlotte: Prefers the finality and mystery of traditional gravestones. “Those memories that would be on that QR code are in the heads of the people who love them... and at a certain point those memories are gone. And that’s okay.” (28:45)
  • Pablo: Worries QR codes turn graves into a “social media profile,” eroding the universal constraint and sense of permanence old gravestones offered. (29:32)
  • Sarah: Counters that we’ve always expanded our storytelling tools—QR codes are just the next evolution from oral stories to print, to photo, to video (30:24). Playfully wonders: “What if someone put a sex tape or a video about not accepting rejection as their QR code?” (32:29)

4. Reflections on Aging, Career & Self-Image (32:49–47:06)

• Charlotte’s Topic: Shares a decade-old blog post on turning 25, then reflects on how each birthday has felt less fraught and more freeing with age (33:55). “I was really bummed I was never nate to the 30 under 30. And then I felt this sense of freedom. And now I’m like, thank God. I keep becoming the best version of myself.” (34:58)
• Sarah: Offers a reality check—especially as a woman in media—about being “squeezed out” in her 40s: “I started to feel what every woman in her early 40s starts to be told to feel, which is, you’re gonna get squeezed out… there’s this giant divide from about 40 to maybe 65...we just don’t really want to look at you anymore because you remind us that aging happens.” (36:17)
  • Encourages embracing wisdom and self-surety that comes with age, despite industry pressures.
• Pablo: Expresses gratitude for not worrying about appearance in the same way, noting that it makes his experience of aging different. He also “cannot even begin to relate” to his old self, recalling his cringeworthy Tumblr habit of posting every meal for years (42:24).
  • “I was the definition of the thing you make fun of as like a millennial on the Internet, telling me what he had for lunch... in exhaustive detail for years.” (42:47)

5. Maturity, Self-Reflection & ‘The Pond’ (43:48–46:47)

• Sarah: On emotional maturity: “Your brain is not yourself. You can step outside and look down at it and decide to question... maturity for me is that idea: if I’m about to react to something... is the person I want to be someone who reacts that way? And can I choose to react differently?” (43:48)
  • Shares a teaching metaphor: “You’re not the fish, you’re the pond. You get to decide that all these things swimming around in you have a place, but when they get their moment and when you notice them and when you use them, you aren’t that thing that can’t stop itself.” (44:47)
• Charlotte: Jokes about how “this is water,” echoing classic self-awareness readings of one’s 20s. (45:11)

6. Closing Loop: How We Want to Be Remembered (46:47–49:56)

• Pablo: Connects the episode’s disparate threads: “Everybody is trying their best to be remembered the way that they want to be remembered... that is the beating heart of every sad sack dude who wants to attend a pickup artist boot camp. That is at the core of the couple who wants to be remembered dancing unto eternity through a QR code on their gravestone. And that is 25 and now 35 year old Charlotte trying to figure out what adaptive embarrassment is.” (47:46)
• Sarah: Objects to Pablo’s suggestion that people are remembered for less than they want: “I would like to posit that instead of being remembered for less than we imagine, instead we far underestimate the incredible impact that we have on every single person that we meet. And therefore our memory is much more about the collective feeling that we gave other people...” (49:19)
• Charlotte: Suggests focusing less on legacy and more on how we’re perceived right now (49:49).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sarah (on pickup artistry, 08:42):
  “What they are always doing instead is... trying to figure out how, if they just better understood the female mind and tricked women... instead of saying, let me look for a woman that wants me, and then just be myself confidently...”

• Charlotte (on legacy, 28:45):
  “There is something to me more moving and spiritual about imagining that those memories... would be on that QR code are in the heads of the people who love them... and at a certain point those memories are gone. And that’s okay.”

• Sarah (on emotional maturity, 44:47):
  “You’re not the fish, you’re the pond. You get to decide that all these things swimming around in you have a place... but you aren’t that thing that can’t stop itself.”

• Pablo (on episode’s through line, 47:46):
  “Everybody is trying their best to be remembered the way that they want to be remembered...”

• Sarah (on impact, 49:19):
  “Instead, we far underestimate the incredible impact that we have on every single person that we meet.”

Section Timestamps

• 00:27 – Celebrating Charlotte’s birthday; aches of aging; back-pain gadgets
• 05:27 – “Alpha Douche” TikTok: Dissecting pickup artistry and its cultural impact
• 12:07 – The “playbook” of Mystery and “The Game”; pickup artist terminology
• 16:28 – The psychology of negging
• 21:01 – Women’s counter-strategies; acting “less competent” on dates
• 23:46 – Digital memorials: QR code gravestones
• 32:49 – Charlotte’s birthday reflections: aging, ambition, 30 Under 30, and freedom
• 36:17 – Sarah on ageism and “the industry’s” marginalizing of women over 40
• 42:21 – Pablo’s Tumblr confession; distancing from one’s past self
• 44:47 – Sarah’s “fish/pond” metaphor and emotional growth
• 47:46 – Threading together all the themes: desire for meaningful remembrance
• 49:19 – Final thoughts: legacy vs. in-the-moment impact

Tone & Style

The episode is playful, candid, and insightful. The trio’s dynamic weaves humor (“These better be written down in front of you”), cultural analysis, and unfiltered personal storytelling, resulting in a podcast that is as vulnerable as it is irreverent.

Summary

In this episode, Pablo, Sarah, and Charlotte offer a complex, entertaining meditation on how we try to shape the way we are remembered—whether it’s through the awkward language of pickup artists, a digital legacy coded on a headstone, or merely the blog entries and social relationships we build as we age. With each story, the hosts reveal the core human drive for significance while exposing how easily that quest can drift toward cringe, comedy, or comfort.