“My closest friend is a fish”: Responding to the loneliness and anxiety of our day
The Daily Article
The Denison Forum
4.9 • 576 Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Diver Rex Colubra has posted that his best friend is a fish he named Elvis. Whether joking or not, the story illustrates Americans’ increasing loneliness and anxiety. How have we come to the place where half of all Americans have three close friends or fewer? And how might we as Christians be the antidote to this malady?
Author: Jim Denison, PhD
Narrator: Chris Elkins
Subscribe: http://www.denisonforum.org/subscribe
Read The Daily Article: https://www.denisonforum.org/daily-article/my-closest-friend-is-a-fish-loneliness-anxiety/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's Friday, September the 29th, 2023. Good day and welcome to the Daily Article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins with the Denison Forum, narrating today's article written by Dr. Jim Denison. |
| 0:16.0 | Rex Calubra is a Wisconsin diver who has developed a unique relationship with a wild, small-mouth bass, |
| 0:23.4 | he named Elvis. |
| 0:24.8 | Calubra was exploring a lake in 2021 when, quote, |
| 0:28.9 | all these fish were coming up to me. |
| 0:31.1 | I noticed one was sticking closer than the rest, end quote. |
| 0:35.0 | When he returned to the lake a few weeks later, he brought crawfish snacks for his new |
| 0:39.3 | friend. |
| 0:40.3 | Since then, he has visited Elvis about a dozen times documenting their reunions for his over 174,000 |
| 0:48.3 | TikTok followers. |
| 0:50.3 | Calubra states, quote, he's completely obsessed with me. |
| 0:53.3 | He follows me around and just stares me in the eyes. |
| 0:56.9 | Skeptics might wonder how the diver knows Elvis from the other fish, but he says Elvis has a unique mouth disfigurement, likely from a fishing hook. |
| 1:06.5 | In quote. |
| 1:07.4 | Calubra refers to Elvis as My Underwater Lover, Aquapy, and Buddy Beneath the Waves. |
| 1:14.9 | In a November 22 Instagram post, he states, my closest friend is a fish. |
| 1:21.0 | New York Times columnist David French reports that between 1990 and 2021, the percentage of Americans reporting that they had no close friends |
| 1:30.7 | quadrupled. Almost half of all Americans surveyed reported having three close friends or fewer. |
| 1:37.8 | The Wall Street Journal notes that 27% of respondents to a recent survey reported symptoms |
| 1:43.4 | of an anxiety disorder up from |
| 1:45.8 | 8% in 2019. |
| 1:48.2 | Half of 18 to 24-year-olds report anxiety or depression symptoms. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Denison Forum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Denison Forum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.