This is pod Popular podcast for the people, The Great Love Debate. It's
the Great Love Debate, de Great Love Debate. It's a Great Love Debate.
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. I am
back here in the very fine studios of Pod Populi Podcast for the People.
I am at the one in Las Vegas. First time recording here. It's
very fancy. H Lots of what we talk about on this show and at
our live shows. And speaking of our live shows, those who came out
to our recent tenth anniversary show and book were tone two things. One,
thank you to Jesus. What a mess in South Florida. But anyway,
what we talk about there and here a lot is the concept of change.
We say a lot. You have to make a change, you have to
be open to change. You can only find your answers through change. And
so nothing I'm going to talk about today is going to necessarily counter it.
I'm just going to sprinkle a bit of caution to it and explain how sometimes
too much change isn't necessarily the answer either. So I'm not necessarily big on
business leadership quotes. Most of them sound like Tony Robbins because most of them
probably are Tony Robbins, and props to Tony. He does a lot of
good, but much of what he's saying is rooted in motivation and not necessarily
in day to day practicality. But one of the most practical quotes that makes
the most sense in terms of what we are talking about is one from John
Maxwell, who does a lot of leadership stuff. He says, the pessimist
complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, and the leader
adjusts the sales. The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it
to change, and the leader adjusts the sales. And a lot of what
we talk about at the Great Love Debate is related to that philosophy. The
pessimist men sucks, dating sucks, Tinder sucks, et cetera, complaining about
the wind. The optimist, well, if I keep dating, or I
go on more dates, or I date more girls, one of them is
bound to like me back. Eh. Possibly, But the leader who takes
control of the outcome, I need to start doing this. Maybe if I
tried this my approach, this time. Next time will be different. I
think that mindset is the best course for success, or at least the smartest
one to chart. So not to get all nautical on you, but when
you chart a course, when you're a sailing tactician, you have to look
at both the probability of outcome as well as the ultimate destination. Where do
you want to go? Not like Christopher Columbus, you just headed somewhere and
you ended up at the wrong place, and you're a hero. Where do
you want to go? You got to play the angles. You can't just
think, well, this isn't getting me there. I'm just going to go
that way and see what happens. So why do I bring all this up?
I bring this up because I see a lot of it, and a
lot of it that I see. All right, I'm gonna cave. I'm
going to talk about Taylor Swift for a second. And we've talked about her
before on here many times, and mostly when we do so, it's to
praise her or to appreciate her realism and her talent and her honesty. But
at the time of this recording, she is dating Travis Kelcey, and you
either know that if you're listening to this in early twenty twenty four, or
you knew it and forgot it because you're listening to this in twenty twenty six
and you're like, oh, yeah, that was weird when they dated,
And why am I not too confident that this is a long term thing?
And what does that have to do with change in making connection? All right?
Here we go. So Kelsey, by any reasonable standard, and probably
by his own admission, is what I would call the full meathead, beer
chugging headbudding, hard living whatever you want to call it. Does he possibly
probably have a sweet and soft side. I'm sure he does, and I'm
sure she has seen it. I'm sure she's attracted to it, but I
don't think that's his dominant trait. On the other hand, what she is
mostly dated to date, as far as we know, has been a collection
of essentially harpstrumming poet boys, real sensitive types who ended up hurting her anyway.
So she was like, instead of going for that type again, which,
if you know us around here, we absolutely encourage that kind of thinking,
she probably thought, let me go for the absolute opposite, let me
go for the absolute one to eighty from those guys. Let me go for
the bigger, stronger, louder, funnier man. We try that on for
size and we basically say, hold on just a second. Isn't that what
you encourage? Sort of football team owners? They do this all the time.
Since we're on the subject of football. They will replace a quote unquote
players coach who goes easy on them with a disciplinarian, and then when that
doesn't work out, they will place a disciplinarian with someone who doesn't really believe
in practice. They tend to always overcorrect to the opposite, which is a
lot of times what we do in dating, especially after divorce. Heard a
woman say I've spent ten years with the Wall Street executive and that ended badly,
So now I'm gonna spend ten months with a wanna be drummer. So
what she's doing and what a lot of you are doing, is you're dating
as a reaction to the past, without a look to the potential for the
future. You just want to correct it right now, a shot and a
chaser. So why do we do this? And what about this? If
anything is necessarily a bad thing, well I will up pine. This is
my opinion on just about all of it. But I gotta take a quick
break and we will be back right after this. And we are back and
we're talking about over correction. Why do we do this? And what about
this is necessarily a bad thing. Lots of it has to do with self
esteem. The prior relationship probably broke it. It broke down your confidence.
It made you doubt yourself, and that's where your self esteem falls off a
cliff, and you want to get as far away from any reminders of the
last one or a past one as possible, So you're basically diving into the
opposite. But for someone like Taylor Swift, she has to get a little
bit better perspective on who she is because I think she's lost that her old
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers. She's not on the bleachers anymore.
She is cheer captain. She is the cool kid. She doesn't want
to wear his she doesn't need to wear his varsity jacket to feel good about
herself. But she is doing so. And again I don't blame her,
because she's like, I went for this, this and this, and it
didn't work, So let me break me off some of that. The big
sweaty brute and that's totally fine and totally normal, but it probably is short
term because it's too far of an overcorrect Those are fun relationship to have when
you're in bars and restaurants or or having fun and you're sitting in a luxury
box with Blake Lively. But then the season's over and it's just you and
him sitting around the mansion, and I think you won't like the socks on
the floor and the weight bench in the living room. And this is not
to disparage him. He probably has a very nice, sensitive side, but
his defining characteristic beyond football is too loudly and frequently declare that he wants to
fight for his right to party. And I'm not sure that's the kind of
lyric that she's looking for in a man long term, you know, but
we all do it. You're forty six years old and you divorce him,
and now you're out with your twenty six year old tennis instructor because he makes
you feel sexy in a way your husband didn't for a decade. Or the
dude who got tired of being diminished or dumped by a series of you know,
career attorneys and researchers and now he just wants to try the cute girl
with an Irish accent who has no real ambition beyond happy hour, which is
fine, fine for him, fine for the Irish girl. But all of
it is most likely temporary. And they're all good, and they're all they're
all healthy as a as a palate cleanser. But too often I think people
are miss reading short term fun and mistaking it mistakenly thinking as long term potential,
and it rarely does. The overcorrection eventually needs to revert back to the
mean, not what you had before, but not necessarily this either. The
answer is usually somewhere in the middle, two steps to the left, two
steps to the right. Right there, that's where it's probably going to exist.
That's who your next mate should be. And a really common exact sample
of over correction is to revert to the comfortable. I can't tell you how
many people I meet or know who decide to look for and believe that they
found the answers going way back. Oh, you wouldn't believe this. I'm
dating a guy who lived down the street from me when I was twelve.
We reconnected after all these years. I'm usually like, I don't know about
that. The girl from biology class. She didn't talk to me thirty five
years ago, but now she's my girlfriend. And I'm like, well,
you think because you had that one thing in common, that that's a good
place to look. And maybe it is. And sometimes that works. Just
this little nugget of familiarity, you can breed a bushel of comfort and compatibility
that allows a relationship to flourish that wouldn't otherwise even get a chance. But
that'stistical improbability. You can't be breaking out your ninth grade yearbook and been like,
I'm gonna pick one of these people because back then life was simpler.
It's not gonna work that way, because you definitely have more recent examples,
better ones closer to who you are to try and thread the needle through.
It might be somebody in your building, might be somebody your last job.
You shouldn't have to overcorrect thirty five years to what you believe was a simpler
time. It's that misty water colored memories, you know. I often I'm
accused, not accused. I am cynical about college reunions. I think it's
bizarre. I really don't understand people who build their whole decade calendar, waiting
searching for the next one. Oh my god, our thirtieth is coming up
in twenty twenty eight. I can't wait. To me, you know,
I like college, but if I wanted to get together with someone from college,
I'll figure out a way to call them and make a plan. A
lot of college people that I know friends of mine. They show up at
Great Love Debate shows. I'm incredibly grateful. That doesn't mean we need to
go back to our school to do it again. I don't under I never
understood why that four year period freshman through senior year at that time. I
don't understand why that has any more significance than any other four year period in
your life. I think I would enjoy more and probably get more out of
the social circle I kept from like twenty eight to thirty two or thirty three
to thirty seven, instead of seventeen to twenty one, when I was just
sort of some fumbling young jackass. I at least have something in common with,
you know, thirty four year old me. I don't think I have
anything in common with eighteen year old me. Those versions of me and those
people I knew, they seem to have a lot more in common in later
years with who I have become and what I want to do then some guy
who happened to live on the hall with me sophomore year. But the reason
people do that is we overcorrect to the comfort zone, the comfort of that
where we believe we won't be hurt and where we believe that things did work
out when it was just about having fun. And you can say that,
and you can try and convince yourself, you know what, life was easier,
simpler, whatever, then but then the pendulum swings too far in the
other direction, and that's not a realistic direction. And we tell you almost
every week here to get rid of the words not my type. We stand
by that, but it doesn't mean you go full opposite. It means simply
that you throw away any preconceived notion of what you might like. So if
you're saying I wasn't having any luck having any luck with this, so I'm
going to try that, that puts too much power on this reacting to what
didn't work out for you. It should just stop there didn't work out,
But some people say I had a short girl, so I'm gonna try a
tall girl. I've been going out with smart guys. I'm gonna go out
dumb guys that is still rooting your choices and your decision making in the past,
and you got to get rid of all of that. The past is
what's not your type. Just focus on keeping it simple. Maybe I'll go
in this direction and see where see where that leads. No past, no
future, just the possibilities right in front of you and all around you.
And then I think if you can judge every candidate who's a possibility for your
time and infections as sort of an independent candidate, not behold into any preconceived
notions or ghosts from last year, I think you get a better shot.
So you might be like, well, I've heard opposites attract, and you're
wondering, do opposites attract? Oftentimes yes, but that means they're opposites of
you. They're not opposites of your X. Your X has no place in
your relationship and you're trying to put your X in another relationship. If you're
trying to say that is what that was, and I want something the opposite
of that, that's what I need. That's not what you'd need. They're
the X for a reason. That's why they call them the X. They
gotta say see ya. So hopefully that made sense. There's a lot too
much overcorrection and what we do we swing the pendulum way way too far.
And if we go back to the boating analogy, you swing the sale out
way too far. There's a good chance you're gonna get clocked in the head
with the boom when it comes back around when you make the turn. So
shoot me an email Graveleddebate at gmail dot com if you've got questions, thoughts,
comments about that. We have a listener letter mail bag coming up.
It's our annual Spring Fling mail bag that gets you sort of ready for summer
loven. We do a summer love and mail bag, but that's down the
road. Spring Flings will post the questions that we're going to be dealing with
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