At 44, Billy somehow pulled off the impossible: he joined an already-established adult friend group.

In Episode 25, Billy tells Joe how one invitation led to a 5K, an EDM festival, kayaking, pickleball, admission to the group chat, and something that is surprisingly difficult to find as an adult: a genuine sense of belonging.

They talk about the strange initiation process of entering an established group, why making friends becomes harder after 40, and Billy’s trick for getting himself out of the apartment when staying home feels much easier. Joe also shares how marriage, parenting, and raising four children have changed his social world.

Then the episode takes a more emotional turn when Billy asks whether he and Joe would still become friends if they met for the first time today. After nearly 25 years of friendship, is compatibility what keeps people together, or do longtime friends actually help create the people we become?

Finally, the guys open a nostalgic tab about the old internet. They revisit eBaum’s World, MySpace Top 8 politics, homemade websites, abandoned blogs, Billy’s inexplicable Teletubbies page, and the days when learning HTML was simply part of making your profile look cooler than everyone else’s.

Was the old internet genuinely better, or do we just miss who we were when it still felt new?

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you successfully made close friends after 40?
• Would you still become friends with your oldest friend if you met today?
• Which old website would you bring back?

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CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome to Episode 25
01:11 Billy accidentally joins a friend group
05:48 Friendsgiving and an invitation from the past
08:31 Friends from completely different worlds
12:42 The group-chat initiation ceremony
15:32 Does having a social life become exhausting?
17:03 Billy’s trick for making himself show up
22:08 Unicycles, scooters, pickleball, and trying new things
27:34 Does Joe envy the single life?
29:43 How marriage and parenting changed Joe’s social world
36:07 Adult children, empty nests, and failure to launch
41:33 Would Billy and Joe become friends today?
45:23 Which old website should come back?
47:15 MySpace, custom profiles, and Top 8 politics
50:26 Billy’s terrible homemade website
53:53 The abandoned blogs we left behind
56:27 AI, short videos, and shrinking attention spans
58:03 One unfinished tab and the outro

#OpenTabsPodcast #AdultFriendships #InternetNostalgia