Asking men to call their friends and say, "i love you" | interviewing strangers

Hi. Hello. How are you? Good. Nice to meet you. Alex. Alex, how was your day? Pretty good, yourself? Good, good. What are you doing? I approach strangers. Oh, okay. That's what I do. I have conversations with strangers. Okay. About what? Anything. I wanted to ask you. When was the last time a male friend of yours called you and told you, like, hey, I'm just checking up on you. I love you, man. Do you remember? Like that. Like that probably. Actually, you know what? I actually have a few friends. Actually, somebody texted me right now how I'm doing. He always does that. He always calls you and checks up on you? Yeah. He just says, hey, how's it going? How's everything? Yeah. Today, I would say that. I text. So today. Easier for a man to text than actually call. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So today, my project is to make or, like, give someone the opportunity to call one of the people they love and be like, hey, I'm just checking up on you. I love you. I hope you're doing good. I'm busy right now, but let's get together and do something sometime. You know? And that's it. OK. Do you have anyone you could call and tell them you love them? I have a lot of people that I can call. Yeah. Someone you think needs it right now? Let me see. If they need it right now. Hey, Eric. I hope you're doing well, bro. I was just calling to tell you I love you and I hope you get well, healthier soon. OK? Take care. And call me when you get a chance. Bye. Yeah. Why'd you call him? Because he's been dealing with a liver transplant from when he was 20. When he was 20, he was having problems with his liver. He's, sorry, kidney transplant. His kidney. His mom gave him one. It's been, like, 12 years after that. So, about being 30, let me see, 38, he started failure. And then he had to go through the whole process again. And now, like, it's been, like, about probably eight months where he got a, no, actually, like, four months that he got a donor. So, he's actually got another transplant right now. So, right now, he's been kind of, like, in that adjustment process. Like, he's been, he's always happy. Every time we talk, he's always happy. Never complained about anything. So, I usually check up on him, like, we probably at least talk, like, three times a week just to make sure. I don't see him much, but we talk. He's, like, my friend from high school. So, always keep in touch. Your heart is with him, huh? Yeah. I've always been there with him, like, the whole time. Homie's struggling, that's all. Yeah. Check up on your friends. Since he was 20, he's been dealing with this. So, I can't imagine myself going through the same thing. So, that's why I always making sure that he's doing okay. He has a daughter almost the same age as my daughter. So, I can't imagine. I pray so much health for him. Thank you. I know he worries about his family more than himself. He worries about his daughter more than anything. He's fighting that because he's a single dad. So, yeah. He's a single dad. Yeah. He's a single dad, yeah. What about you? Are you doing okay? How is your mental health? I'm great, dude. I'm great. I mean, I'm Christian. Thank the Lord. I'm, like, my faith. Yeah. I'm doing great. Actually, my wife and I work with youth. That's our ministry that we work on. Even though I'm not that young anymore, but we're, yeah. Yeah. Nothing to complain. I mean, I'm just happy to be here. Happy to be able to enjoy this beautiful weather. Spending time with my friend. That's a friend that came just from Guatemala right now. He's visiting. So, we took him out to eat. And, yeah. My daughter and her husband doing fine. So, my wife is doing fine. So, nothing really to complain. So, just blessed. I would say that. Oh, blessed. And you have that smile on your face of blessed, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. Nothing to complain, honestly. Yeah. Well, thank you for doing this, man. This is really cool. I really love that. No problem, man. Thank you. I hope your friend feels your love, you know? Thank you. Appreciate it. That's so important. All right. That's my family right there if you want to take a shot of my family right there. Yeah, of course. Yep. I would love to. Tell them what happened. Hi, how's it going? How are you? Just did an interview with him. It was so cool. Nice to see you. Hi. That's my daughter. That's my wife. Hello. Hi. How's it going? That's my friend from Guatemala. Her husband. How are you? Hello. How are you? Nice to meet you. How you doing? I know you have your headphones on. I don't want to bother you for too long. Oh, that's good. So, I go up to strangers and basically I make content with strangers. And today's project is most men don't get a call, especially from their homies, to tell them, yo, bro, hope you're doing good. I love you, man. Yeah. And just thinking about you, that's it. If you would want to do that, that'd be awesome. I'm Sofie, by the way. I don't know if I introduced myself. Sofie? Sofie, like coffee, but Sofie. Oh, okay. And what was your name? Alpha. A-L-F-A. Oh, Alpha. That's awesome. What's up, man? What's good, Sebi? Long time no hear, man. I just want to... You what? You're back? Yes, I'm back. I just wanted to call and say I miss you, man. I love you. I'll see you in a minute. Thank you, man. You know what I'm saying? I'm just with my family. They're here. They're leaving tomorrow. My mom and dad. Oh, man. Send them the love and wishes and everything. Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, hopefully we catch up this week. Oh, yeah. For sure, yeah. We'll find something out. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to text you. I'm going to let you go. All right, bro. Thanks for the call. No problem. Take care. You too, bro. Peace. Perfect. Why do you think the homies don't tell each other their feelings, you know? It's hard for me to call my bros up and be like, I love you, man. I hope you're doing good. Why do you think guys are not doing that as much? I mean, there's layers to it, obviously. It has to be the reflection of society, reflection of the upbringing, also personal, the personal relationship between them two or whatnot. It's pretty simple. It's that. But society makes it complex, but it's actually really simple. Also that. Obviously, it's like masculinity. It's like, oh, no, I don't want to do this too corny or whatnot. But it's like, how else is a relationship supposed to develop? Well, if it wasn't taught, it's understandable. Honestly, my mom has seven kids. So I have two older brothers. So we always showed affection in that way. And I think I like, I think it's kind of like Orange County area. So when I came out to L.A., it was more like I brought that same type of tradition to also the community and everything else. So that's pretty wise. So I'm really grateful, really, to have it. How's it going? I'm Safi. Nice to meet you. I'm not selling anything. So I go around and I talk to strangers. And basically I'm doing a segment where men tell their friends that they love them. So basically how it would go is, hey, bro, just was thinking about you and wanted to tell you I love you. I'm busy right now, but hopefully we could do something together soon. And then just let them speak. And I'm doing this because men don't really. When was the last time someone told you they loved you on the phone? That wasn't family? Yeah. It's probably been a while. It's been a while, right? Would you like to call somebody and just give them that love and hang up? Yeah. But wait, I want to record it, okay? Yeah. Yo, Ale, just wanted to call and tell you I was thinking of you and that I love you, man. Hope all is well in Miami. Hope you're having a good time. Hope you're smiling. Hopefully you're enjoying the South Beach weather. Can't wait to visit you soon. Yeah, keep me posted. Give me a call back if you get this message. And, yeah, man, just wanted to tell you I'm thinking about you, love you, and hope you have a good day. That's awesome. I love that. I guarantee you when they get that voice mail, they're going to be so hyped. Yeah. Okay, let's do it and see how it goes. How is your mental health right now? It's okay. I mean, I think LA is a tough place to be, especially because I feel like for me, a lot of my identity is built upon my relationships and friendships and stuff like that. And I think it's funny that you're catching me on today because today's just been a good day of reflection. And I think there's a lot of vices here where it's easy to be like, if you're having a bad day, you can go to the beach and whatever. And I think on the surface, a lot of those things can be good until they start turning into things that you're using to escape from how you're actually feeling. So today I was kind of just like, normally on my weekends, I'm like always go, go, go, go, go, because then you don't have to think about anything if you're always moving. So today it was kind of funny that I was kind of just like taking a slow start to my morning stuff. Thank you so much for doing it. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going around asking more people. You're the first person who did it today. I asked two other people before you. One person asked. They said no? No, they both said yes, but they didn't have anyone to call. And I was like, that's exactly why. You need people to call. What if you were having a bad day right now? If you can't tell someone you love them, then how are you going to tell them like, yo, dude, I'm going through a rough time. I'm having a really hard time right now. I wish I could call you. The fact that they weren't able to call someone, it screams exactly why this project means so much to me. Yo, you got to be the first one to reach out. Sometimes no one's going to find you. You have to be the one to find other people. That was sad, but very wholesome at the same time. Maybe he's going to go think about it like, whoa, how come I didn't have anyone to call? I got to make some deeper connections. Yeah. So why did you call the person you called? Oh, that's like one of my... It's funny because I texted him, but before I called him, I kind of knew instantly who I was going to call because I was texting him on my way here. He popped up in my mind. I've tried to do this thing in my adult life where whenever someone pops in my mind, I'll just text them. I won't even think about it because I feel like if someone pops up in your mind and you don't do that, then you're either reaching out when you actually don't want to be reaching out or you just don't reach out at all and then you kind of lose friendships in that way. I have a rule. If I'm ever walking around or doing anything and anyone pops up, my mom, my mom, friends, people, relationships, whatever, I'll shoot them a text or give them a call or whatever. It doesn't matter. So I guess this particular guy, we haven't talked in a long time. We haven't talked in a good amount of time. We were like best friends when we were kind of in our early or mid-20s. He used to live in San Francisco. He recently moved to Miami. He got in a relationship. I've seen his Instagram. I see he's doing well, but we haven't actually talked. I don't know. We've always been able to just shoot straight with each other. I know that you said, but I know that I told you no one's called me in a while, but if anyone were to call me and tell me that, I think he was one of the first people that I had a friendship with that was a guy that we regularly say, I love you on the phone. I love you, man. Hope you're doing well. We've always had that type of relationship. Why do you think it's weird for guys to say that? I think it's just vulnerable. I don't know. It would be interesting to see how comfortable guys are even with saying that to girls or girls versus guys. I think in general, it's just vulnerable. As guys, you're just kind of supposed to have everything together all the time I don't know. I think a majority of people probably grow up with dads that don't necessarily say that super often. My dad never did. My dad was a jerk. Who knows? That's very interesting. It's hard to say it in the way that you asked me to. It's not like, I love you, bro. I actually have to say, I was thinking about you, man. I hope you're doing well. Intention changes the whole pitch, right? Totally. That is so cool. I hope that was a wholesome moment for you. Yeah, man. I'm glad that you asked me to do it. I'm sure he's going to appreciate that message. Hopefully, you guys reconnect. Yeah, absolutely. Safi. Nice to meet you. Jason. Thank you so much. Hi. I don't sell anything. Tell me. Safi. Nice to meet you. Safi? Safi. I'm a street photographer. Okay. I go up to strangers and I take their photos. Okay. But this time, I wanted to do something different, okay? Tell me. So, a lot of men don't tell their friends they love them. Okay. Like, hey, bro, I love you. Hope you're doing good. When was the last time someone told you in a phone call they loved you? Just randomly. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while, right? It's been a while. So, what I'm trying to do is if you have maybe 10 to 20 seconds, call one of your friends. Damn, I don't have anyone right now. You don't have anybody? Top of my head, you know. Brothers, cousins, someone it's been a long time you've talked to. No, really. I don't even know on the spot now. I'm like, who do I call now? Well, you can always call me. You know, maybe you're the guy who needs a call. What's your name again? Rehan. Safi. Saifullah. Where are you from? Afghanistan. Afghanistan, Pakistan. Yeah, man. Life out here, especially for the brown brothers, is hard. It's tough. And even our dads don't tell us. Someone needs to tell us. Take my number down, man. Anytime you need a homie, play basketball. You look like a fit person. You probably play basketball, huh? Soccer. Soccer, I love football. Do you play? I do, it's fun. Yeah, you have a soccer league, a double league? I'm starting and I'm...