This is pod Popular podcasts 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 We welcome to The Great Love Debate,
the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I'm gonna do
something a little bit different today. As many of you know, we recently
had our tenth anniversary live show of The Great Love Debate, and we didn't
book routon Florida and South Florida shows are always a bit of a challenge because
a lot of angry people there. I don't know why. I mean,
a lot of us are ex New Yorkers. When we do it down in
South Florida, a lot of people are either still recovering from the relationship that
they had a lot of the divorce, and a lot of people are frustrated
not being able to find what they think they want, and I think they're
looking not necessarily for the right thing and that mood. Although the shows we
do there and the show we have there is super, super fun, I
have to work a lot harder at those shows to create the vibe and the
energy that I want and there is reason for that. So I want to
revisit an episode of this show that I did about a year ago where I
touched on all of the things and all of the things that I think people
are missing and misguided on and simply overlooking when it comes to getting what they
want and finding what they want in a partner, in a relationship, and
out of themselves. So rather than you know, sort of touch on all
of that stuff all over again, and you know, I'm just going to
revisit the whole episode and I'm going to play that for you. I'm not
getting lazy and doing refrunds. I just I just listened to it, and
I'm like, you know what, I stand by that. I think it's
more important than ever. I think there is a unhappiness and angriness and a
mood that needs to change. And so I kind of spell out how do
we change it, Why do we change it, and most importantly, the
ingredient we need to change it? So once again have at it. Here
we go. Hi again, everyone, It's Brian Howie. Welcome to The
Great Love Debate the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen.
You get just me today. Some of you like that, some of you
roll your eyes, but you're all here, so gather around and stay for
a bit. I was thinking about that the other day because I was producing
some podcasts and helping some podcasters, and it took me almost one hundred episodes
of this show before I was able to do one by myself where I was
able to stand on my own two feet and even quote unquote felt able is
probably a bit of a stretch. Somebody back then, I don't know,
five years ago, canceled at the last minute, thrown into the deep end,
and I just had to wing it. And some of you at that
time actually gave me positive reinforcement and the kind of feedback that I was looking
for, that you liked it and you were along for the ride, even
if it was just the two of us. So I always needed at that
time, back in the day when I had the sort of the early feeling
out of the Great Love Debate podcast, I always had my engineer Kalin through
the glass and my producer Kko was around for most of them, and I
had this sort of revolving rotation of mostly female voices. I had Jilly,
and I had Kate and Christina Webber did a bunch and Laurel did a whole
lot of shows, and I just think I needed someone to play off,
and I needed someone to say right or you know too, and I needed
them to hit the ball back. So that was probably more about my insecurity
than about creating great content. But that was me then and that was us
then, and I think I needed a reaction, and the easiest and most
tangible reaction was always laughter. I needed someone to laugh. And back when
I used to direct a lot of theater, there was always some funny elements
to it, and a lot of the actors and actresses would would come off
the stage and they'll be like, they're not laughing. I didn't see them
laugh and I was to always tell them to relax, because you know,
that doesn't mean they weren't absorbing or appreciating the material if they weren't overtly laughing.
Some people just aren't comfortable laughing in a theater. I know that when
we do our tour shows, it sounds differently when we do it in a
live music venue versus when we do it in a comedy club versus we do
it in a theater. Some people just aren't comfortable laughing in a theater,
so I told them not to worry about that. But I needed that in
this podcast. Back then, I needed someone to laugh, even if they
were just behind the glass. But as we got deeper into these shows and
sort of this collective journey, I think I wanted us all to think.
And I used to tell the actors and actresses back then, if you had
four five hundred people in a theater and they were all thinking about something that
collectively, that sound, that sort of were metaphorical sound of people thinking was
louder than any reaction I thought you were going to get if people were just
laughing. So as I get into this and what I want to talk about
today, it's not that the laughter fades into the background. It's that it
needs, I think, to be more of a more of a side course
and not totally the driving impetus, but behind these conversations. So what triggered
all of this? On this sunny morning as I record this, I am
here in the very fine studios of pod Popular Podcasts for the People. I
am at the one in Scottsdale, Arizona. And if you have listened to
this podcast before, when I've been recording in Scottsdale. You know that I
love being in Scottsdale. I love almost everything about Scottsdale. I love that
I can just say Scottsdale and not up to say Arizona. And people are
like, oh, I know Scottsdale because it's not that big place. People
know it are there about fifty days a year when you or me should not
come to Scottsdale because you would not love Scottsdale. Probably Scottsdale in July and
August is no picnic, but the rest of the time Scottsdale And you're like,
I didn't tune into the Great Love Debate podcast to listen to the Greater
Phoenix Area Board of Tourism. I get that, but it leads a little
more into what I want to get into on a deeper level. And sometimes
we go into a deeper level around here. Who knew back in the day
when we were just chuckling through the glass. So what do I love about
it here? And how will that get into what I want to talk about
today? And somebody asked me that what do you love about Scottsdale? Are
you a fan of the desert? Do you love cactus? Do you love,
you know, indigenous creatures that live here, and I'm like, I
love it because it's silly. And I'm not sure the Chamber of Commerce wants
to lead with that. They probably want us to focus on the vibrancy of
the desert and the history of the Old West and the golf and whatever.
But really, the thing that makes this place this place is how silly it
is. There are now the third most bachelorette parties in the country here,
and at some point, as I record this pretty early in the morning,
a group of girls is going to pedal by on a bike, sucking on
drinks and wearing matching T shirts and go woo as they ride by. Bachelorette
parties are about being silly, and dating is about being silly, which is
why I love all of this. The Dating Conversation and the Scottsdale they both
have a heaping quotient of silly, and they should first and second on the
bachelorette party list. Vegas and Nashville two places that I also love and two
places that are about as silly as you can get, and I like those
places. Beverly Hills is a silly place. Boston is a silly place,
Miami, Atlanta, And that all bodes well for the dating landscape. People
that show places that show up year after year on our worst cities in America
to find loveless they lack that, they lack that sense of silly Philadelphia,
It's dreadful, dour, Denver, doll Is, dirt, Seattle, San
Francisco, New York. And you might be like, no, New York
is wonderful. It can be, and it has been. It's got plenty
of wonder There's plenty of wonder in New York City. But I think it
lacks whimsy, And at least in twenty twenty three it does nineteen sixty three
New York, you know, Audrey Hepburn, New York. Maybe twenty twenty
three not so much. And whimsy is rooted and silly. And you're like,
well, we're talking about silly for forty five minutes today. I'm like,
not quite. So we're gonna go down the rabbit hole on all of
this. So what it's about and what it ultimately means after this quick break,
so stick with me. The answers are just sixty seconds away at most,
I promise, and we are back. And why do I bring up
all this besides being amused by some drunk girl in a bad wedding veil sucking
on a penis straw at eleven o'clock in the morning, because one of the
things that comes up the most at all of our live shows for years and
years, hundreds of shows is the women saying over and over that they need
a guy who is funny. Funny, and funny is first on the list
for the majority of women what they're looking for, above smart, above stable,
above wealthy, above handsome or kind or anything else. Funny overwhelmingly is
what they say they want. And my first instinct is to defend that,
because by any objective standard, I'm pretty fucking funny, and I get paid
a lot of money by top comedy clubs in the world to go there and
make people laugh for ninety minutes. But part of me wasn't ever completely comfortable
leading with the funny are at least putting it, you know, sort of
first on my metaphorical resume more deep therapy here, because my parents thought funny
was quote unquote a waste of my smarts and the only serious people can be
successful. And when someone would ever say to me in life or at one
of my shows they go, oh my god, you're so funny. I
would flinch a little because I would hear their voices, Mom and dad,
this is a waste of your time and our money. But a second part
of me, when it comes up at the shows, I react to a
little differently, in the sense of to defend the guys, or to look
out for them at least. But what if he's not funny? Then what
Because these guys are sitting there in the audience and they hear women, it's
sort of like the tall thing, you know, the women say, oh
my god, I need a tall guy, and half the room is under
five to nine, and they're like, what am I supposed to do with
this information? Well, the same thing happens with funny. The women say
I want funny, I want funny, I want funny. So I hear
this and I'm thinking of the guys, well then what So I tend to
scratch a little deeper on it, and it kind of reveals itself that it
really isn't about funny, not entirely. You guys have heard me say over
and over that every woman only wants three things, and every woman wants the
same three things, and everything else is just a subset of, or tangential
to tangential English major. Everything else is just a subset or tangential to these
three things. She wants a man who makes her feel special, she wants
a man to make her feel sexy, and she wants a man to make
her feel safe. And safe is always the tough one. It's about trust
and sharing and honesty and strength and vulnerability and all the things that don't come
readily or easily to a man. And the funny can give those. Being
funny can make her feel special, and it can make her feel sexy,
for sure. The laughing triggers all kinds of things, but I'm not sure
it can make her feel safe, and safe is the most important one.
So you're like, where are you going with this? I'm going back to
the silly. The silly's different from funny, and I'm gonna make the argument
that silly, of all things, can make you feel safe. And you're
what You're like, what silly is not about is about not taking things seriously.
It's about being foolish. It's about using poor judgment. These girls that
are a ride by and go whooh, lots of poor judgment in their immediate
future. But I think silly can calm you. I think it can ground
you. Silly can make you forget a lot of stresses. Silly comes from
the creating of an environment between two people where confidence can flourish and your cares
won't overwhelm you, and they might even disappear. So I bring up Adam
Sandler a lot in this podcast because Adam Sandler gives a lot of guys a
lot of hope for acting a certain way and getting a certain result in his
movies. But he doesn't get the girls at his rom comms when he is
funny, usually funny in the first part. He gets them when he turns
into silly, because silly is one step from being sweet, and the silly
leads to a song, and the sweet is what wins the day always.
And you're like, are you adding silly and sweet to your holy trinity of
special, sexy and safe. I'm not, but I'm saying that those two
things are at least a big part of the ingredients. It isn't necessarily about
funny getting her to laugh. It's getting her to smile, which we've done
whole episodes about. It's getting her to calm. It's getting her to be
distracted in a good way. I think it's getting her to relax. I
think it's getting her to share. And I think it's her to see more
of you and I think more of herself. And it's about remembering what it's
like to behave and act and feel and think in a way that it doesn't
matter what anyone else thought of her, only what you think of her in
the best possible way. Giggling is silly, and giggling is sweet. If
you can't make her laugh, and many many guys cannot make her laugh,
that doesn't make you ineligible to her, despite what she claims or publicly says
that our shows or really thinks, because she hasn't really thought it through.
And if she thinks it through, she'll want you to be confident and calming
and caring and present, and she wants you to create this atmosphere where she
can be herself, which is always on her very best day, in the
very best light, probably a little silly, which is why people love it
here. The Scots dazzle. That's why these girls are going around this town
and having such fun and feeling so free. It's not about the boys,
and it's not about the marriage to calm and the life ahead and the realities
of the future. It's about being in the moment, and in the moment,
being silly almost always wins. The silliest group of girls, I think
are probably eleven and twelve, that little window right before the boys come into
play and the stresses of life, and they just like, what are they
doing? That doesn't really go a ways. Later in life you still have
that part in you, you just turn it off. And so when I'm
talking about being silly, it's it's a weird time where something can be both
liberating and grounding simultaneously. It's liberating that you can be and do anything you
want without fear of judgment or the specter of regret. And it's grounding because
it's rooted in who you always were, your core, your essence, and
those feelings. So are you like, are you saying laughter doesn't matter?
Of course not. I'm saying being funny isn't necessarily about being funny. So
this is partially to get the girls to think what is it really about?
And it's partially to give the guys some hope that if they aren't clever and
witty and full of great jokes and lines that they still have a shot if
they can tap into the silly. That doesn't mean they need to dress like
a clown. It's more likely to frighten her. And that doesn't mean they
need to tickle her and unexpectedly hate that. Don't do that. It might
just be taking her hand and twirling around on the sidewalk in the middle of
nothing. Or it might be taking two oranges in the grocery store and turning
them into giant eyeballs. She'll laugh, She'll she'll think you're an idiot,
but you'll find it silly and you rolled your eyes, Ladies when you're listening
to that, but you know you'd smile and you'd probably even laugh. The
silly is a gateway to that too. It might mean doing a bad attempt
at an accent for no real reason. Bad accents are silly. My producer
Keko back in the day, she'd always say, please stop doing your Bosston
accent. It's terrible. But she'd always be on the brink of cracking up
every time I try it, because it was silly, and I think silly
wins the day. So if you weren't born funny. There probably isn't a
path to be funny unless you go down a really dark path, because lots
of funny comes from those shadows. And also, comedians are absolutely miserable and
you don't want that and you don't want them. So taking a stand up
or a improv class definitely worth it. Everybody should do it because it'll help
your confidence and communication hugely valuable. But it's not going to make you funny.
You're probably not suddenly going to be funny at forty years of age,
forty five years of age, but at twenty five or thirty five or forty
five or seventy five. You can be silly because you are silly, because
you were born silly. We all were. I think the giggle is still
there. I think the impishness. I think the smile and the imagination.
And people are always like, well, who's creative person? How do you
be creative? We all are. If you can dream, and we all
dream. You have imagination. The things that your imagination comes up with while
you're asleep, you have those and that's what you have to work with and
you can put it to work. The silly So every time you say,
ladies, you want funny. I think you really want that feeling you had
with your girlfriends, either recently or long ago. You know, Alanis Mori
set went on a tour I think last summer, and a lot of women
I know were like, oh my god, I can't wait to go that.
It wasn't about Atlantis, it was about reliving a time in the nineties
when they just could do anything. And it's the same way people of all
ages sing their asses off at a Taylor Swift concert, or they spent a
ridiculous amount of time worrying about what was happening with Ross and Rachel back in
the day or whatever the characters are on Big Bang Theory. Then I don't
watch, but a lot of people do. And you absolutely would want love
to share some of that feeling, those feelings with a guy one, not
the Taylor Swift and the friend stuff, but the feeling how ridiculous it all
is to care. If you care that much, it feels silly. That's
a good thing. That's what you really want to care about. Funny is
sometimes a window to a dark place, but silly is a gateway to the
vulnerable. And if you find that in the guy, I think you'll find
that in yourself, and then I think you'll find that in the relationship.
And I think if you find that, you're gonna laugh plenty too, and
you'll probably love plenty too, and you'll be just fine. So maybe you
thought me babbling on about this for a while was a bit silly. Too
bad. That's a good thing. So maybe I'll go get on one of
those bikes and ride around Scott's sale and go whoo. The girls will be
like, don't do that anyway. Shoot me an email funny, sad,
serious or silly great lovedebated gmail dot com. I want to hear your thoughts.
I'll hear your feedback. I get a very different, interesting episode coming
up, I believe next week, two weeks. Listen to all of them.
It's like picking a favorite child. But one's gonna be like, huh,
that's a weird guest. He had on to talk about something very out
of the box. Do that. Two shows I am definitely doing if you
want to go check out our live tour schedule. One is right here in
Phoenix, Arizona. I've not done a show here since two thousand and maybe
sixteen. I've done one in Phoenix. I've done one at the Scottsdale Center
for the Performing Arts. Not a silly venue, very serious venue. I'm
not sure it was such a good show, so i want another crack at
the Valley, and I'm doing one at Goodnight's Comedy Club in Raleigh, North
Carolina. It's a makeup show that got lost in COVID. I duo them
one. They did talk me into doing it. It'll be on sale shortly.
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as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stop NAKD love.
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