This is pod Popular Podcast for the People, The Great Love Debate. It's
the Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate. It's a Great Love Debate.
Hi again, everyone's Brian how he welcomed to The Great Love Debate,
the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am at
the very fine studios of Pod Popular Podcasts for the People. I am in
the pre dawn hours in the desert Scottsdale, Arizona. I am running the
controls myself, which I don't like to do, but I have some thoughts.
So I have some pre dawn thoughts here in the gloaming, as they
say, as the sun comes up. And because I get asked thoughts on
a lot of things, what are your thoughts on this? What do you
think about this or that? And and most particularly them, what do you
think of them? And as I opined, and I dove pretty deeply into
a recent podcast I think it was two or three podcasts ago, I don't
think you can ever really give accurate thoughts about anyone's relationship because I don't think
you ever have all the information and can understand the unique elements enough to say,
oh, that's what's going on there, But I do think you can
comment on aspects of a relationship or a world in which a relationship exists in
sort of an abstract or a five thousand foot view of it. So at
the time we're recording this, not just the early dawn time, but the
overall time, it's late fourth quarter twenty twenty three. And we will remind
you again, if you are just listening to this in the first quarter of
twenty twenty five, you have quite the homework assignment to catch up on because
you have about five hundred episodes of this show to listen to, so get
at it. But as of this morning, and knowing her, this could
change any minute. Taylor Swift, who we have touched on quite a bit
on the show, from her music, to her fandom, to her relationships
to I think one show a couple of years ago, we blamed her for
the worst fashion trend of the last decade, the high wasted look, the
high wasted pants, and the high wasted bikini. It's horrific. So I
think we did an episode literally about that and ramifications of that. But as
of this morning, and as of this recording, she is in some sort
of relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. So I don't want
to talk about whether they like each other, or if they are fit for
each other, or even if they're really into each other, because, as
I said a few episodes ago, I'm not sure they know, so there's
no way we would know. But there are a couple elements at play here
that I do have some thoughts on, because I always have some thoughts,
hence the show. Two aspects of the two of them that interest me are
the fame element and the distance element. So we'll we'll get pretty deeply into
the distance in a minute, but let's touch on the fame, because it
always puzzled me and fascinated me that two famous people would ever get together.
Two entourages, two sets of fans, two very big bank accounts, two
egos, two public personas, two publicists, two managers, two agendas,
and millions of eyeballs, her fans, his fans, those eyeballs, that
energy all coming together on these two people, I think it just has to
be impossible. People are looking at them. I'm recording about that, so
you know, people are looking at them and saying they're so different. It's
amazing how they connected. I'm not sure they're so different. He has millions
of adoring, mostly male fans, she has billions of adoring, mostly female
fans. I imagine even the two of them trying to leave the house to
go to dinner is just fraught with a million land mines. Do your people
drive? How big is your entourage? Where can we go? Do we
alert the press? Who pays? I mean, who pays when they grab
a drink? It should be him, of course early on. But what
happens when when they book a private jet? Is it her jet? I
mean, he's crazy rich, but she is oprah rich. So obviously two
people with common professions. They're both ostensibly in the entertainment business. They should
have some similarities that at least give the other person an understanding of what they
have to deal with every single day. Ben Affleck, for the last you
know, two decades, is and has been, you know, as famous
as it gets. And when he was married to Jennifer Garner, they were
pretty similarly aligned on their career status, probably had some balance to it,
started a family together, et cetera, et cetera. But now that he's
with Jlo, back with j Loo, she's not just famous. She is
a generational icon, She's just jelo. Is that masculating for him? I
mean, is it a relief for him that she's the one that everybody mostly
cares about. I'm not asking those questions to give the answer. I'm asking
the question simply because they are questions that I think they have to deal with.
That is so unique. So is it easier to have a Nodding Hill
type situation where one is hugely famous and one is not. I don't know.
It has to be tough for a guy. Kelsey certainly doesn't ever want
to be referred to as mister Swift, you know, because he's got the
ego and he's got the fame and he's got the career that I don't think
anybody would want to deal with that. But for her, is Taylor just
a girl standing in front of a football star asking him to love her?
Or is she always Taylor fucking Swift capital bold exclamation point. I suppose that's
a question for them and for her, and I guess for us because I'm
bringing it up. I don't know if it's easier or harder for two people
like that to get together. I just think it's fascinating, and I want
to know those kinds of details. Does she wake up in the morning and
check her social media? You know? Does he? Supposedly she late night
is in the deep deep recesses of Reddit, like wanting to know, and
that's why she's so successful. She wants to understand her fandom. Does he
think that's odd? Does he help her? Is he fascinated by her?
Does she read them out loud to him? I don't know. Do they
read the comments together. It's not better or worse than any other relationship,
but it is most definitely different. It is hugely different. So I think
everything has to be a conversation when two galaxies like that collide, So we
wish them well, or at the very least, will we will get some
great music out of it in a few weeks or months when they break up
and she writes a fifteen minute tight end serenade Taylor's version. But there's a
second part of this one that applies a lot more directly to me and you
the common folk. Somebody asked me the other day if I considered myself a
celebrity, because is we do have some fans, and I do entertain publicly
around the world. And I said, what is the commonly used lowest letter
and she said d list. So I said, add about eleven more letters.
That's the level of fandom. I swim in Pee List. I am
a Pee List celebrity, but I am here for you, all of you
great love listeners. So we'll get into the second part of breaking this all
down, the one that applies more directly to a lot of us. This
is known as a teas. We will be right back after this, and
we are back. So the part of this that I first thought about when
the two started dating. I guess they're dating whatever it is they're doing,
and all of this might be over before this episode even hits your iPhone,
so I don't know, but I thought of the logistics and most importantly,
the distance and this relationship when it got going. She was on a couple
months break before she heads out on the second leg of her world tour,
the longer leg, the more challenging leg, the international leg. Let's talk
about distance. During the season, during the playoffs, she's gone and she's
gone from South America to Sweden. She's really far from Kansas City, and
these tour stops are really far from the super Bowl, and he already as
they started dating, has a job that requires a whole lot of travel too,
all over the country, and when he doesn't travel, he's mostly in
Kansas City for six to eight months. I was not that close to Nashville.
It's not that close to New York. It's not that close to Newport,
Rhode Island. And I think I know way too much about Taylor swiss
real estate portfolio. But it's basically a long distance relationship right off the bat.
So that's what I want to go a little deeper on the likelihood and
the logistics of a long distance relationship working out, regardless of levels of fame.
So I think there's four parts to consider in a long distance relationship,
and I'm going to lay them ounta and break down each one. There's trust,
there's communication, there's need, and there's practicality. So let's start with
the last one. First, practicality, someone who is stationed in Oslo dating
someone stuck in Oregon. Sorry to use that term, but you're stuck in
Oregon. It's a little bit different than say, two people dating in Chicago
and Charlotte two hour flight. So you have to look at how long will
you really go without seeing each other, and what are the challenges of getting
to each other. You know, in California, somebody who lives in New
Beach and somebody who lives in Burbank. They think they're in a long distance
relationship because they're fifty miles away. That's not a long distance relationship. Two
people who live a plane ride away, that's a long distance relationship. And
what are the challenges because even in a world with two people with two private
jets, that is two bullseyes you are trying to hit. Even if you
see each other every other weekend and know suddenly one thing precludes that, Oh
I've got a work commerence. I can't see you that every other weekend.
Then you're a month without seeing each other, which is hopefully hard. You
want that to be hard. But the bigger part of that is when and
how when you see each other on weekends only, or you meet in tropical
locales. I mean, I think anybody can do that. It's always fun
when your relationship is a bunch of Friday and Saturday nights and hooking up in
hotels and dinners. And who wouldn't like that and who couldn't do that?
That's not a relationship. Though. A relationship is together on Tuesday nights and
Wednesday mornings when you both have to work and get up early and maybe deal
with kids and life and the realities and responsibilities that don't disappear just because you're
at a fancy restaurant. How you interact and cope in the storm of the
day to day that is a relationship. So the distance is one thing.
The how and when you see each other. If you aren't in that midweek
Maelstrom together, I don't think you're really dating. You're just seeing each other,
and you're just seeing each other once in a while. So if you're
just watching each other play football or perform concerts and then going to Nobu for
sushi, that's not dating. You need to get into the muck together,
the mid week muck. That's how you find out who they are. That's
how you find out if they are for you, and that's how you find
out what the two of you have. But moving on to the need part,
how often if you want to get into this, how often do you
need to see them or hear from them, or even think about them.
I want to tell my girl I am thinking about her or miss her or
find out what is going on with her pretty much hourly. I want to
feel like we are together even when we are a part. And if you
do that, and if you do that thoughtfully and honestly and consistently, I
think you can actually feel closer to someone than if you're sitting side by side
silently on a couch together. I think it's a real connection. Damn the
distance I think it is. You've heard me give my definition of love many
many times on this show. My definition for me, and I say that
for me is when there's nothing I'm doing that I wouldn't rather be doing with
her. I don't have to do everything with her. It's just that I
would rather, I'd rather share it with her. I'd rather experience with her.
I'd rather it'd involve her. And if you have that and you express
that and you communicate that, I think that goes a long way towards bridging
a whole lot of distance. Because communication is the key. How when is
it phone? Is it FaceTime? Text, email, slide into each other's
dms? Is it the same every day? I think a lot of the
good parts of a relationship are built on rituals and routine, not the boring,
but the knowing, the knowing of each other. This is how we
say good morning, This is when we say goodnight. I think that's as
important as what you are saying. Not that it should be said to set
out of habit, but this is an understanding of we are entering this day
together and we are calling it a night this way, still together. I
think it matters. You can't do a long distance relationship when you're worried or
wondering when you might hear from them. That's communication breakdown that leads to the
failure, that leads to the end. That's the onset of the anxiety.
That's the worry and the what are we doing? And how do they feel?
You have to always let them know how you feel communication and be confident
enough to communicate what you're thinking, what you want, what you're needing,
because without that, the trust breaks down and you're wondering, why are I
hearing from them? Are they mad? It's my phone not working? Are
they missing me? And then it goes to who are they with, what
are they doing? Where do they go? A lot different if you're in
the same town or at least the same time zone. A lot easier because
if you're not, I mean, you have to let them know. You
can bridge so much distance if you just talk about what you need to get
from them and out of it, you can spend a life together, at
least for a long while, if the distance between you is one of miles
and not one of emotions. And then I think you can make it work.
And you can make it work if you do the work to figure out
how to make it work, not just circling dates in your calendar of when
you can get together again. There are one hundred days days to be together
and a hundred ways to feel together, even if you aren't sure entirely sure
when the next trip will be, even if you have to find a way
to merge to one city full time. I think you could do long distance
for a long time, but probably not a lifetime. But in the meantime
that was very illiterative. You got to share more than your schedules and your
flight plans, share your needs, share your thoughts, share your feelings,
share your life, and then get to a point where you in your Pro
Bowl trophies and your Grammy awards, can share the same shelf. I think
those are the steps to doing it. I wish them well, I wish
you well, and we shared this on the last show. The Big News
Are Big Big tenth Anniversary Show Gala Extravaganza, tenth anniversary of our first live
show ever. It is coming up February sixth. Yes are live tour rolls
on. Because we don't want to have a long distance relationship with you.
We are coming back uh February sixth at the Boca black Box Center for the
Arts in Beautiful Boca Raton, Florida. UH. Those tickets are on sale
now at both the Boa Boca Blackbox dot com, Greatlovedebate dot com. Please
shoot us an email Great Looved Debate at gmail dot com if you have thoughts
on distance or how to do it or how to do it better, or
you want to wish Taylor and Travis well. Like, share, follow,
Please review this podcast because to this day ten years in your reviews mean a
lot in the podcasting ecosystem. Because, as always at The Great Love Debate,
we never stop making love. See you next time the Great Love Debate.
It's the Great Love Debate. Degreat Love Debate. It's a Great Love to base