I have friends everywhere. They just don’t know me.

Why some of the longest-lasting relationships in my life are entirely one-sided.

Jones and Adam have joined me on hundreds of walks around my neighborhood. Dave, Jeff, and Devindra drove with me on late-night trips to Washington, D.C. and Wrightsville Beach. They’ve been with me through job changes, the isolation of the pandemic, and the slow decline and passing of my dog, Ace.

We’ve been through so much together, and yet they have no idea who I am.

I’ve never met Jeff, Dave, or Devindra, the hosts of the Filmcast, which I’ve listened to for over a decade. If I passed them on the street, they wouldn’t know me. It’s nearly the same for Jones Angell and Adam Lucas of the Carolina Insider Podcast, which I’ve followed to since 2018. They don’t know me either.

Carolina Insider primarily covers UNC sports, but it’s quirky and odd, with “Story Time” and “How Do You Justify That?!?” segments. Adam and Jones also have strong opinions on the proper flavor of green Skittles, the “secret” Chick-fil-A menu, and the best way to get rid of flies. It feels less like a sports podcast and more like catching up with a couple of familiar buddies once or twice a week. Similarly, while the Filmcast focuses recent movies, what sets it apart is the frequent, lighthearted back-and-forth banter about everything from theater popcorn size and pricing complaints to limericks about recent releases to tactics for smuggling sandwiches or burritos into movie theaters. Both shows have a core topic, but the personalities and the interactions between the hosts make them different from dozens of shows on the same topics.

These two shows are among half a dozen podcasts I’ve listened to for years, whose hosts have become oddly familiar. After hours and hours in my ears and my head, you tend to feel like you know them more than you actually do.

Each show publishes once a week, sometimes more often than that. I’ve listened to Carolina Insider for at least 500 to 600 hours over the past eight years — more time than I’ve spent with my brother in Los Angeles or my best friend, whom I see once or twice a year. If I think about all my friends from high school and college, I’ve easily spent more time with the Filmcast’s Jeff Cannata than with all of them, combined, over the last decade.

When I say that out loud or write that here, it feels absurd.

I fit the classic stereotype of a middle-aged family man with few close male friends. It’s not that I don’t have friends, but sustaining adult friendships takes time, effort, and schedule flexibility that I rarely have.

So why do these strangers play a bigger role in my life than real-world friends?

Part of the reason is convenience. I can listen to the Filmcast walking the dog at 3 a.m. I can listen to Carolina Insider on the drive to the gym. If I’ve got nine minutes on the road to Target, they’re ready when I am. Most of that is impossible with the real people in my life.

But convenience isn’t the whole story. Most people in my life outside Chapel Hill don’t care about UNC sports. So, if I’m still processing a bad March loss to Duke, there aren’t many people who want to talk about it — not even in my own household. But Carolina Insider has plenty to say. The same goes for the Filmcast. On Monday night, I saw Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, and left the theater at midnight with nobody to discuss it with. But David, Jeff, and Devindra were ready to go on my ride home, processing it right alongside me.

The strangest part is that, after hundreds of hours with these people, I feel connected to these people even though I’m nobody to them.

To be fair, I did meet Jones and Adam once. One of the traditions surrounding the Carolina Insider show is that they make time before games to take an “arms crossed, serious face” photo with listeners. Before a UNC game a few years back, I walked down the steps near the Smith Center press area and asked to take a photo with the guys. They happily agreed. I thanked them and told them how much I’d enjoyed listening over the years. They thanked me for listening, and we took the photo — all three of us, arms crossed, serious expressions, exactly as Carolina Insider listeners are supposed to do. (And then a second, without the serious faces.)

Jones Angell, Adam Lucas, and me, in the “arms crossed, serious face” pose

You could mistake us for friends.

Jones and Adam have no doubt taken thousands of those photos and forgotten almost everyone they’ve posed with, including me. But every time I see these images, they make me smile. The photos didn’t change anything: they still didn’t know me, and we’re not friends. But to me, it felt like a reunion, even though we were meeting for the first time.

For the Filmcast, the personal connection deepened in a different way. In an episode from June 25, 2024, Jeff talked about watching Ghostlight, a film about a community theater troupe. About 33 minutes in, he started crying as he talked about what the movie stirred up — the realization that acting in theater productions, something he’d done for years, would likely no longer be part of his life. “For the vast majority of my adult life, I did a play every year. At least one every year, since I was 19,” Cannata said. “And then I had kids, and I haven’t done a play since.”

A few moments later, as he tries to explain how the movie made him feel, his voice breaks, and he can’t find the words. It made me want to put my arm around him. I felt like I had a friend who was struggling with a genuine sense of loss.

It’s not the kind of moment you expect from a podcast about movies. But that’s exactly why it stuck with me.

One of the most moving experiences as a listener was hearing how Jones and Adam dealt with the death of Eric Montross, a former Carolina player and friend of the show who died of cancer. In the first show after Montross’ death, Jones turned to Adam and said, as he struggled to get the words out, “Adam, I’m not sure how we’re going to get through this... but we will.”

For years, guests had signed off every episode of the show with a running gag — saying “See you later, Big Grits” in their own voice and style. “Big Grits” was a nickname Montross picked up from a diner waitress on a road trip in Memphis. Suddenly, what had always been a lighthearted tradition carried a different weight. Do you retire it out of respect? Does continuing the bit feel insensitive? Ultimately, the tradition returned. In the end, it felt like a touching, playful tribute to someone who mattered deeply, an extra layer of meaning beyond the inside joke it had been before Eric’s death.

I didn’t know Eric Montross personally, although he was in one of my classes at Carolina in the 1990s, and I watched him play on the 1993 UNC championship team. Montross was just slightly younger than me, so his abrupt, sudden death affected me, stirring my own thoughts about mortality. Listening to Jones and Adam process their grief helped me get my head around it, even though they didn’t know I was there.

So do these deep connections with strangers make me pathetic or crazy?

Ultimately, there’s nothing unhealthy or unusual about my connection to podcast hosts. After all, that’s what the best podcasts are designed to do. They create community. They build a culture. They connect.

It’s hard to build and maintain lasting friendships as an adult, especially if, like me, you work remotely, raise kids, and deal with all kinds of grown-up challenges. I don’t think I’m unusual to want connection outside of all that. I just found it somewhere unexpected.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but I suspect I’m not alone.