Skip to content

John and Rainn Wilson Talk Romance

2012-08-13 · collab / interview · John, Rainn Wilson · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life (also: Health) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: guest or collab, self promotion

John puts Twitter followers' romance problems to Rainn Wilson, who advises that someone just dumped must feel and grieve the loss before moving on; after a comic detour into cysts and Rainn's drained scrotum, John recalls learning that a breakup hurts because it mattered.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Monday video: John has talked to Rainn Wilson, like Ze Frank and Wheezy Waiter; a Twitter romance question: 'I just got dumped. What do?'

  • ★★ John says that, like Ze Frank and Wheezy Waiter, he recently got to talk to Rainn Wilson, and he asked Twitter for romantic problems they could solve together. — 00:00:00 · Craig Benzine, Twitter

00:00:24 — Rainn's advice: feel the feelings; a breakup is a death with a grieving process to be processed before moving on

  • ★★★ Rainn Wilson: Rainn advises someone just dumped to feel the feelings first: a breakup is the death of a relationship, with a grieving process that must be fully processed. (hedged) — 00:00:24
  • ★★ Rainn Wilson: Rainn says people urge the dumped to get back out and have fun, but you can't really move on until you've felt the pain; then you can move on in many ways. — 00:00:24

00:00:58 — Detour: Rainn's scalp-cyst analogy, John's drained arm cyst, Rainn's drained scrotum (hydrocele) story

  • ★★ Rainn Wilson: Rainn likens moving on too early to a scalp cyst that was not fully removed: if the doctor doesn't get it all, it grows back. — 00:00:58
  • ★ John says he recently had a cyst inside his arm drained by his doctor, who drained it into a cup to show him what was inside. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Rainn Wilson: Rainn tells of having his scrotum drained for a hydrocele: one side swelled far larger, a syringe took about eight ounces, it refilled, and surgery removed a membrane. (playful) — 00:01:20

00:02:15 — Back to breakups: 'roll with it'; John dumped at 22 and told 'it hurts because it mattered'

  • ★★★ John recalls being dumped at about 22 and devastated; when he asked why it hurt so much, someone he cared about told him it hurts because it mattered. — 00:02:15
  • ★★★ John says this taught him that some things in life hurt because they were important, and, as Rainn says, a breakup is a real loss that needs to be grieved. — 00:02:49

00:02:49 — Thanks, SoulPancake plug and its new YouTube channel; 'YouTube channel pointers' giraffe-sex thumbnail joke

  • ★★ John thanks Rainn and asks viewers to check out SoulPancake at soulpancake.com and on YouTube, welcoming it as an important voice on YouTube. — 00:02:49 · YouTube
  • ★★ Rainn Wilson: Rainn says SoulPancake talks about life's big questions and will explore them on its new YouTube channel. — 00:02:49 · YouTube

00:03:35 — 'Most dangerous animal' gag, mutual love, sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description says a nine-minute extended cut of the conversation is available on Hank's channel. — video description · hankschannel
  • ★ The description calls this a very special Monday talk that does not supersede John's Tuesday video. — video description

Humor (significant)

  • John and Rainn compare where their cysts were and how they were drained — 00:01:20

    “This is, by the way, what old people talk about.”

  • Rainn describes how much bigger one side of his swollen scrotum was than the other — 00:01:47

    “A golf ball and a baseball.”

  • Having set out to give romantic advice, John reflects on where the conversation went — 00:02:15

    “the one thing that I was confident about is that we were not going to discuss scrotal swelling”

  • Asked whether he has any YouTube channel pointers for SoulPancake's new channel — 00:02:49

    “the thing that's worked best for us is just to use giraffe sex as the thumbnail”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: grief · Rainn Wilson

Also: Craig Benzine · cyst · hydrocele · SoulPancake · Twitter · YouTube · Ze Frank

Only in the description or credits: hankschannel

Also centred on grief: Rest In Awesome, Esther · Thanks, Lemon · You Are Here · Hard Week · About THAT Scene in Looking for Alaska · Esther Day 2026: Some Thoughts on Loss

← Previous: I Don't Have a Favorite Pony · Next → To Be Anything At All: Thoughts from Places, Chicago and LeakyCon 2012