It is a misconception that if more people are around us, there is no room for loneliness to crawl. In this episode, Patrick Michael Ignozzi — American television executive who is the Vice President of Development and Syndication for the ABC Daytime Media Group — proves to us otherwise and shows how we all still experience loneliness in our lives. Sharing personal stories as a producer, Patrick talks about socialization and shares how he navigates life in the limelight in a world that has increasingly become lonely.

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Erin Talks About the Early Days of Her Career with Patrick Ignozzi

I’m with Patrick Ignozzi. Patrick and I go way back, don’t you think?

We’re talking at least twenty years or close to twenty years.

Let’s talk about our first 24 hours together, but let me set the tone. We were at The View. I was already there for a few months. 

I think you were there for about a year actually, maybe a little less than a year.

I was a producer at The View.

The View ABC Daytime, you probably heard of the show. If you haven’t, there are a lot of things that have been written about it.

Did you join the team?

I did, yes. I was brought in 1998 which was an amazing experience for me.

We were twelve. We were young. 

I had a lot more hair.

You did not. You have not aged. 

I have aged. You’re saying that. You haven’t age, you look exactly the same.

I’m fatter. 

No. you had a pink cashmere sweater the first day I met you. It was my favorite sweater you ever wore because you’d wear it once in a while, while you were working. I used to call you Christie Brinkley. Actually, I still do.

I pay you to call me Christie Brinkley. 

Upbringing has a lot to do with the state of who you are and what you've become. Click To Tweet

No, you don’t pay me. You can’t afford my rates these days.

I couldn’t. Speaking of why I couldn’t afford your rate, you plowed through the success ladder. You took the ladder and you dumped it.

Fifteen years as a producer there and I was one of the senior producers, which was great. It was a great team and there were great people we worked with. I miss a lot of them. I then became a Vice President of ABC and I’m an Executive Consultant at other networks and do a lot of other creating shows.

You’re a fancy pants. 

I would say I’m more of a guy that likes to create television, podcasting and digital series. They’re a lot of fun.

I would say other things about you. There’s a book out. Being that we’re both from The View, both Barbara Walters-trained, mentored by, we probably should acknowledge it for what it’s worth, which is 30 seconds.

The team’s great, the shows run beautifully. I will say that what is written in books is people’s stories and their recounts. For us, we had an amazing experience with a great team. I’ve often said, and even when I left the show, my proudest moment of ever working there was the team coming together between 9:00 AM and 12:00 PM. We got ready for the show and taped the show at 11:00. It was such unity and it’s one of the best shows that’s ever been produced in network television and history. It was a great experience for many of us.

I worked with Barbara Walters prior to that. There’s a lot to be said about everybody. I will only say positive things. It was my experience. She’s a tough woman. She’s a trailblazer and is super smart. Bill Geddie, everybody, I worked with that whole group prior to The View. It’s been a great experience for me personally. I think that maybe more people should have gotten interviewed to get a fair balance of the story.

One of the lessons out of working on a show like that is very strong women had great opinions or interesting opinions, whether you agreed or not. Having that experience of working with women coming from a male perspective helped make me grow and balanced out the type of career that I wanted to have. Some days were better than others, but it was an experience of learning from some of the best in the business. I think if you have someone like Barbara Walters on your resume and you can actually say you worked with her side-by-side for a number of years and many of my other colleagues who did as well, you feel like you’ve got the best teacher. Not to mention the other hosts that were there, Meredith Vieira especially is another great one. Star Jones, Rosie O’Donnell, all of them had their own ways of working, Joy Behar especially going out there and giving their opinions and giving it like it is and not holding back. A lot of people appreciated that, whether you liked or not. That’s probably the best part of it.

I thought that all the women that I’ve worked with and produced, you always knew where you stood with them. They always knew where they stood with us and as producers, we stand equally. I loved that they shoot from the hip that they shot from the hip. I will say that when you leave a show like that, when you have such a tight-knit group, there’s a topic of loneliness.

Who doesn’t experience loneliness at some point in their life?

When you leave a big group and you have a great run, even if you work at a regular office and you’re filing papers, that Monday that you’re not there, you feel that. You feel joy because your life’s shifting. There’s a sense of loneliness. We don’t normally get all deep, you and I, but I’m going deep with you.

When I was running a lot of the TV shows at one point, when we unfortunately had to make layoffs, we had to do it on a Wednesday or Thursday because you were trained to let people know that Friday was still a work day, but you might not be coming in that Friday, but you had the time to absorb it and the weekends were harder. Saturday and Sunday, were the hardest point parts for people to absorb this traumatic experience. It’s awful. Everybody goes through it at some point in their career and no matter what you do. I remember people saying, “What am I going to do?” The loneliness feeling that they felt and psychologically doing it during the week helped people cope better. I know it sounds a little crazy, but think about it. You have that day on Friday where you found out the day before Thursday, but Friday was still like a workday. You were worried about it, but somehow you got through it better and it wasn’t on the weekend. You were able to absorb it on Thursday and Friday and then the weekend came. It’s interesting psychologically when certain things happened.

What if you don’t have a lot of friends?

That’s a problem.

 

You get laid off from work or you quit your job and then to your point, corporate’s giving you a favor by absorbing it but you’ve got no friends. On Saturday and Sunday, what are you doing, writing letters to people saying goodbye? Making friends is hard for people. It’s not difficult. I get lonely, but it’s not a difficult thing making friends. Eric, my son is fourteen and there are kids that are always by themselves. Do they grow up being by themselves?

I’m going to say this about loneliness. I don’t think anybody goes through up here in their life where they don’t feel lonely. If you’re married, you’re probably can still feel as lonely if you were a single person. It depends on what your personality is. Your upbringing has a lot to do with state of, who you are and obviously what you’ve become. I will say this, you can be very lonely and have a lot of friends at work. Work friends are certainly different than your real friends. I don’t want to say work friends aren’t real friends.

I think if we polled the audience and asked how many people out there actually considered people at work their friends, it would be an interesting statistic out there. I think a lot of us make a mistake if you aren’t married or don’t have kids you use your work friends or want your work friends to be that replacement to what you might not have had for many years. You have to be careful. You have to draw the line somewhere to say, “This is my work life and this is my personal life.” It’s hard to not to mix the two. Most people will say to themselves, “I work with these people.” Most of the time we spend more time with people we work with than we do at home.

My brother once asked me, “Who’s your twenty?” I’m like, “What?” 

What does that mean?

He’s like, “Who’s your twenty?” I said, “It’s not that I didn’t hear you, Brian. I just don’t understand the question.” 

Who are your twenty friends?

He said, “If you have a dinner party, there are no hurt feelings and you have to invite just twenty.”

Would I be one of the twenty on that list?

You will now.

It depends on what you’re serving too. Actually you’re not supposed to ask that but I would, you know me.

I have stories. If you’re friends with the girl and she’s married to a woman or the guy or whatever, normally you would feel obligated to invite them as a set, but now you’ve got two from your twenty taken. Now you only have eighteen left. That’s not the rule. The rule is, “Screw the spouse. I don’t care. Invite your twenty.” I made my twenty and you can’t have 21. You’ve got to do twenty which means you’ve got to kick some people out. 

I can easily do that.

You can name twenty?

I can’t name twenty. I can name five, but I would say that for me personally, that’s the way I’ve always been my whole life. You have five, maybe three people on your phone. I used to use the feet, the hand. Can you count three people on your hand? I still do that.

We spend more time with people we work with than we do at home. Click To Tweet

I thought we were supposed to do that for sex. Once you got up to six, you’ve realized you’ve had sex too much.

I guess I’m lonely so I only have three. I don’t know.

There are so many directions I can go into this.

This is interesting because this brings up a great story that we were both talking about on loneliness and set up, because this is fascinating for many people out there.

Is this the place that we found?

Yeah.

There’s this apartment building called Tribe and it’s in San Francisco and New York City.

A couple of other cities around the country.

You move in there. You have housemates. It’s for people that need to make friends. I’m wanting to like it but also make fun of this.

It is when I first read it and we were talking about it, I thought this is like an extension of going to college. Many people don’t go to college. They still live at home or they go out and get an apartment with a roommate or what have you. Our generations and generations before us were grown up to say, “You go to college if you are lucky enough to do that and get your degree.” You now are moving out on your own, maybe with a roommate or if you’re lucky not to have a roommate. I never had to have a roommate. I was lucky that I always was able to afford my own place. I love that because I don’t think I could share after four years in college. In my freshman year, we had suitemates and four guys had to share one bathroom. I had friends who were in a dormitory where they had a bathroom on the floor. They had to share it with 30 other people.

That was me. 

I’m not into that. College is about socialization. To me it, was about getting your degree but it was learning how to live with other people, learning how to do your own laundry, learning how to fend for yourself when it came to food or whatever or you went to the cafeteria maybe. Maybe you had a part-time job to make extra money in order to get the extra niceties that you wanted to have in your life.

Did you have a part-time job? What were you?

I sure did. I worked in a pizza parlor for a little bit. I also worked on campus in an office. I loved it.

I was a cocktail waitress in the Poconos.

 

You were? Did you serve alcohol?

Yes. Remember that show, It’s a Living?

It’s a living circa 1983, five women worked in a restaurant in Los Angeles.

One’s name was Jillian, I remember. 

Her name was Ann Jillian. I think she’s an actress or she was an actress. She did some movies too.

I worked at this restaurant. It was Italian owned by Indian Americans called La Mirage. I didn’t get it. It was a good gig. 

I guess the question would be, would you move into a place where you had to share all those amenities? Also this Tribe place, from what I understand is you buy a bed, you rent a bed. I think it ranges from $750 up to $1,900 depending on what neighborhood.

It’s furnished.

You share a kitchen and a living room space. Would that help you deal with loneliness? First of all, I guess the question is, would it help you deal with loneliness? Also Erin, do you think that this is great for people that have transplants from another city? Let’s say you’re coming from Omaha, Nebraska and you’re moving to Brooklyn, New York. Do you think this is a great idea for people to actually try this?

I don’t know. I feel like we coddle everybody in this world now. In school, a kid can’t defend himself or he’s sensitive or she’s sensitive. Now, they’re being bullied or somebody makes a comment that crossed the line and now they’re a bully. We walk a fine line with it in the office, we’ve got the Me Toos. Again, I’m not dissing it. I’m not saying they’re not valid cases, but I do think that the coddling of America is starting to get me a little, like we can’t do or say anything anymore without needing help.

We have apps that help us date and I’m grateful because it’s how I met Rudy. I’m not bashing it but I’m also going like, “Where does it stop?” If we’re coming from like a farming community and suddenly we’re in the big city, I love for a tribe for that. If somebody’s shy or can’t get their head out of their phone, you’re an ass. People are like, “He’s just shy.” No, you’re rude. I don’t know if you can’t stop looking at your phone if you deserve to live in a place with housemates because we’re holding your hand to socialization.

It’s a good point. In the article that we read, I remember it said something that they polled 20,000 people and half of those 20,000 people admit that they were lonely at some period. I don’t know who doesn’t think that they’re lonely. If you move into this tribe and you actually are part of a group of people that you’ve never met before, are you looking for someone to watch TV with at night? Are you looking to be in a kitchen and making scrambled eggs with? What are you actually searching for? Are you searching for a soul mate like that you can’t seem to find? That’s where I had an issue with it. If this is cost-effective, and this is the only way you can live in a place and it helps, although the rates at $750 up to $1,900, that’s expensive. Maybe not in New York so much, but that is around the country, in various cities. The big question is, why are we doing this? Are we paying to buy friends maybe? Are we paying to have another option to say, “This is where I want my life to go. This is how I want to do this.” For me, I don’t think I could do it.

I am a little envious of the concept that I didn’t think of it. I’m saying it’s brilliant.

Especially if it’s a $1 million company.

That’s what I mean. I am a little two-faced about this. I’m a little two-faced about the coddling as a mom, all the examples I mentioned. I could also now make the whole reverse statement and have been on both sides of those situations. Nothing is definitive, but we have co-op workspaces. I get lonely so much. Sometimes I’m in a crowded party and I feel lonely. 

Very strong women have great and interesting opinions, whether you agree or not. Click To Tweet

All of that happens all the time. I could walk into a party and say hello a few times and then I’ve gone to parties sometimes if I’m alone at the time. I will let go in there and I would be like, “I don’t know anyone here.” I’ll look for the food right away and a cocktail and then I’ll be like, “I just had dinner.”

People find that surprising about people like us because I actually think I’m shy at times. My family, refutes that. They’re like, “That’s not true.” I’m telling you, I never want to walk into a restaurant first. I always have Rudy or my friends who I’m with lead, even if it’s a male and they look rude because they’re not letting the lady first. I’ve asked them. Maybe it’s a past life and I went through saloon doors and like I got shot right away and now I don’t want to re-enact it. I don’t know. Sadly enough, I actually think that probably happened. We have moms’ group. Every Facebook, every town has a mom’s group. There are certain ways for people to get friends, but I do think that it’s hard to make friends sometimes. If you’re not counting our work friends, then how many friends do we all have? That’s the question we should ask my brother. Take away your work friends. Who is your twenty? He would do it. He would fill it up in a second.

I also think that social media has become the new friend. I’ve seen people out to dinner and I’ve looked at this a lot who are literally sitting at the table and their phone is their plus one. It’s the person that they’re conversing with. They’re on the phone talking but mostly they’re texting or they’re on social media liking posts and all that. That’s great. I’ve seen that more and more. I used to think years ago that was crazy when you saw that. I would go out to dinner by myself or lunch and I would be looking at my phone and I thought, “This isn’t that abnormal. How many of us do that?”

I do think for the Tribe situation here that we were talking about, so many of us are on our social media and we consider that like a friend or some type of colleague or wingman. Sure, we get home at night and then it’s like, “I’ve been on social media all day. What do I need to do, continue to do that at night?” That’s where the loneliness comes in and many people out there are living that way. I’m not saying it’s wrong and I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying that maybe we need to look at that and to see, “How does that work for us? How does that make us feel and how does that project onto our lives?” I still have an issue sharing the kitchen and the bathrooms.

I don’t know if making brownies is going to satiate my need for friends or my need to remove my loneliness. I don’t know if I’m going to find that by living with somebody.

It’s an interesting concept. It’s an idea that will work for some people, but it may not work for others. The real key is to say, “Why are we doing this and why do we need this?” Some people might say, “This is crazy. I’d rather live at home again.” The question is, “Is that also great? That brings me to another question and I don’t want to go off-topic too much, but when should kids move out of the house? I have cousins that are living at home at 28, 29 still and I’m like, “I moved out at eighteen after college.”

It’s about why people are at home. If you stay home as an adult and you have a good relationship with your parents, at some point you’re going to be trapped there. 

Especially if they’re paying the rent.

One parent dies, then you’re with the parent. Are you going to leave the one that survives? 

I’ve interviewed many experts over the years and independence as a big thing and it might be better. It depends on how serious the issue is. A lot of people out there are in that situation because they have to be or they feel obligated or it is a real serious medical concern. I wonder though, what does that do for the young person? How does that affect their life? That’s a serious issue.

I should be careful with what I say. I also know that sometimes the presence of the kid is cramping the style of the parent that they live with. 

How long do you think Eric will live with you? He’s fourteen as you mentioned.

He’s going to always live here. 

That’s something we need to talk about. It’s tough though.

Honestly, he’s not going to be here long.

 

He’s ready to go.

He’s already like, “I should go to prep school.” He’s going to a prep school but he’s living here.

You only have one. That’s actually sometimes harder.

I’m going to hold onto him as long as I can, but I also try to be the house that people want to hang out at because I’m going to be the worst when he leaves. I do know that I need to let him leave. I’ll share something. I never felt like I could leave New Jersey. Now, I’m happy I’m here. I never felt like I could leave my family. I felt like that would make them sad. I didn’t ever want to let them down, but technically if I had my way years ago, I probably would have moved somewhere else or felt at least I had the option to move. I’ve never felt easy-breezy about moving because I don’t want to see the look on my parent’s faces when I tell them.

There’ll be that time when you make that decision.

Yeah, when they die.

We hope not for a long time obviously. How often would you say you feel lonely throughout the week?

There are times where I’m by myself the whole time.

You could be by yourself and not be lonely.

I would say for times where I’m cerebral in my brain and I’m abundantly aware I’m by myself. I don’t know if I’m at peace with it or not, but I do realize that there are times that I don’t talk to too many people. I used to live in New York City.

I never saw your place in New York City.

It was so great. It was a studio with exposed brick. It was so nice and Barbara used to give me a ride home because I lived at one side of the park and she lived on the other and it was awesome. That was fun.

You love it when you get a free ride in Manhattan.

Exactly, because I didn’t like the subway stops there.

We didn’t have Ubers back then. It was all cabs, but the cabs weren’t as expensive as they are now. That’s another thing I guess.

Social media has become the new friend. Click To Tweet

I was walking down the street one day and this woman completely by accident bumped into me and it wasn’t even a big bump. It was like more like a brush. 

You’re trying to get mugged or something?

No, I wasn’t trying to get mugged. Who tries to get mugged? I’m like, “Chill, Erin.” In my head, I was like, “What’s going on?” I realized I hadn’t touched someone in two weeks. I’m not even being gross, but a hug or a handshake or a high five, I wasn’t on a softball team. There was no comradery. I don’t know if that’s lonely because I was working with people, but since when do you wrestle your co-worker?

You shouldn’t touch anyone in the workplace anyway. The question is, can you even handshake? We talked about this. There’s a great article where they said 75% of people polled said they want to eliminate the handshake. I look at it like this, I always read somewhere that the Greek philosopher said, “Your hair is the center of your soul.” I remember growing up thinking that your handshake was the first impression. You look at someone and then there’s a handshake and the firmer your handshake, the stronger you were or the more dominant you could be or whatever it was. Maybe confidence was the issue. Now, it’s like we’re eliminating that.

I’m only for it because of germs. I don’t want to get sick. When you’re in the workplace, you’re probably more prone because the more people you are around, the sicker that you can get. The common cold, the flu, I’m talking that type of illness. For that and spreading germs, I understand it, but people now are going a little bit too far and saying that there shouldn’t be any contact at all. Now I wonder, when are they going to come up with a law that says you can’t sit too close to somebody in a chair or you can’t be touching somebody’s elbow when you’re at a table? Is that where this is going to come from? I’m very open-minded about a lot of people’s viewpoints and I appreciate them and respect what people think and what they want to say. I’m not sure that that is a great idea. I wonder if that’s a form now of creating even more loneliness because you’re giving up a simple gesture. Obviously, it becomes a little bit more than a gesture and somebody who’s feeling up your arm or something like that. It would be like, “You have too much hair, Patrick. I like your watch.”

I get it. It’s coddling. Some people don’t want to be touched, so now we’re going to do laws.

We won’t need Purrell anymore.

What’s funny is when President Trump was Donald Trump of The Apprentice, I was his producer. 

He didn’t shake your hand?

No, he did. I wrote a big thing in the packets, “Ladies, don’t try to shake Donald’s hand,” because he was almost like a Howie Mandel. I write this whole thing and I prepped everyone. I’m on autopilot that morning as a producer. I go into the office, I’m like, “Hey, Donald,” and he shakes my hand. I wasn’t even trying.

You didn’t even call him Trump. You called him Donald.

I called him Donald of course. He and I spoke on the phone prior. We had this whole thing. I already knew. It’s autopilot. I wasn’t trying to get him to shake my hand. Shake hands or not, I’m a pretty flexible chic. If we’re doing it for the right reasons, okay. If we’re doing it because it’s going to hook people, 1% are making a big deal about it because they feel like it’s infringing on their rights. They’ll probably have something to say about it because I usually do.

I want to know who the 75% people they polled because that was interesting. I didn’t get that part of the article of who these actual people are. Who are these people in the workplace? Are these people or generally talking about it in general when you meet and greet somebody? I feel like that’s part of common courtesy. It’s part of a position that you have when you are meeting somebody. It’s the first introduction that you have with somebody that either you’re going to be either have some type of relationship with or cordial engagement with. That’s what it’s all about.

I wonder how sterile our interpersonal communications will one day be. 

However, wouldn’t it be great if we never had the cold and flu because of it again?

That would be sterile.

We wouldn’t need the flu shot anymore.

That’s what I mean. I’m very two-faced with it. I’m a chameleon with it because I see the good and the bad with it. I think that sometimes it leads us in a path that we can’t turn back. Thanks for coming.

It’s been a great pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. It’s good to see you.

Will you come back? 

I certainly will.

Check us out soon. You know where to find us.

About Patrick Ignozzi

PATRICK MICHAEL IGNOZZI VICE PRESIDENT, Current Television, Development and Syndication, ABC Television Network

Patrick as of 2016 serves as Vice President of Development and Syndication for the ABC Daytime Media Group. He also serves as Vice President of Current programming for “THE CHEW” and “WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE”.

He was the Senior Producer for ABC Daytime’s highly successful live talk and Emmy Award winning entertainment program “The View,” currently in its 17th season on The ABC Television Network. He held that position for 16 years.

Patrick also served as the Supervising Producer for “The View” and won the 2002 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Producing for “The View”. He has also produced several highly rated segments for “The View,” which earned him his sixteenth Daytime Emmy Award nomination, along with his fellow producers, for “Outstanding Talk Show.”

Before joining ABC, Patrick held the position of Producer for King World Productions and was both traveling booker and researcher for NBC’s “Today.”

Patrick is a graduate of Seton Hall University, holds a B.A. in Criminal Law and a minor in Spanish Literature.