This is pod Populi 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 Howe. Welcome to the Great Love Debate,
the world's number one dating and relationship podcast since two thousand and fifteen. I
am here in I'm outside the actually the very fine studios of pod Populi Podcast
for the People. It's very crowded with podcasters in there, and I was
kicked out, so I'm It's not like I own the place, and I
um so I'm sitting outside recording on the mic. People are walking by listening
to me. So be it. So About a week ago, I'm flipping
through channels on a Jet Blue flight. Jeff Blue's gone bad in a lot
of ways, but they still have the TVs UM and I usually don't watch
TV on the flight because Jeff Blue has WiFi, and I would rather be
online than on TV because I'd like to get some things done. But anyway,
I'm flipping around. I stumble upon TBS and they are showing probably for
the millionth time, Jerry McGuire, and so I got sucked in for a
minute. I hadn't seen Jerry McGuire in a while, and Jerry McGuire is
great. It still holds up, and there's a lot in there to think
about, especially what's his name, keep going, Junior. The relationship with
his family is really good, and his wife is really strong. I just
there's lots through that movie and it still holds up. There's a lot to
break down and otherwise enjoy. But a few things struck me about it.
So first of all, that movie is over twenty five years old, and
so there's probably some of you who are like, that's an old movie.
I've never seen that, But twenty five years old for Jerry McGuire is like
Jesus. Secondly, Tom Cruise is the biggest movie star of the last forty
years, and I don't think there's any arguing that. From Risky Business through
the Latest Mission Impossible. And no matter when you're listening to this show,
whether you're listening to it in twenty twenty three or twenty twenty seven, I'm
sure we could say the latest Mission Impossible movie because I'm sure he's going to
keep making them. But for forty years he has been a huge, huge
star and almost everybody agrees, you always want to see a Tom Cruise movie.
It is what it is. But a couple other things struck me about
Jerry McGuire. First of all, Tom Cruise a little bit of a sidebar,
handsome, still looks great, famous, wealthy, He's never really been
in the dating pool. He's married very young to a quite a bit older
Mimi Rodgers. And then he went immediately into Nicole Kidman, and then he
went into Katie Holmes. And all of those have sort of their own backstory
and strange story, and this is scientology, bashing observation. Believe what you
want to believe, and to each their own. But post Katie Holmes,
he spent the last decade quote unquote focused on his career. I'm not sure
Tom Cruise was ever not focused on his career, but he wasn't really in
the dating pool and isn't in the dating pool. So bravo for him,
and all the better for us because we get I think great movies because he's
not focused on distractions. I'll call him distractions. But I was thinking,
how would he have done in the dating pool. He's short, sorry,
but the shallow ladies who listened to this podcast have issues with that, and
he has a personality that is a combination of intensity and fake laughs. So
how would that do on a dinner date? I don't think so well.
But away from Tom cruising back to Jerry McGuire. Second, let me get
back to Jerry McGuire. Jerry McGuire has three all time great lines in it
through memorable quotable part of the American lexicon, show me the money, you
complete me and you had me at Hello. Say any of the three and
you know exactly where they came from. Props to Cameron Crowe. He has
written some great movies. He won an Oscar for almost famous. But all
of us who have made our living writing hope to write one memorable or quotable
line. And he got three in a ninety minute sequence, and two of
them are in one scene. That's amazing. But the other thing I noticed
watching Jerry McGuire again that's relevant to the Great Love debate, is how they
met. He was her boss and convinced her to leave, and eventually became
close to her, working a bunch of late nights, and then one night
he makes a move. I mean, would that fly today? I say,
Jerry McGuire holds up. But could you make that movie today? Is
that no longer? Okay? Can we even have that in the movies anymore?
I don't know. I don't think you can. That really sucks.
And if someone said, hey, how did you guys meet, and the
answer is or was we worked together? Well for most of our American existence,
that was a very common and completely normal answer. It's the way most
people met. They worked together. It's been fifty hours a week with somebody.
That's your dating pool. So I don't want to get into dating in
the dating dating in the work pool today, but I want to get into
that how we met and how a great line can figure into all of that.
So let's meet again in sixty seconds or so, a little early on
the break time today, but I gotta do it. I gotta take a
quick break. We will be back with some semi great lines and a whole
lot more right after this, and we are back. So a question that
everyone likes to ask is how did you guys meet? I get it,
I've gotten it, you've gotten it. We all get it. And I
think people ask that for three reasons. I think A I think they have
a genuine curiosity. I think people are like, where does a nuclear physicist
meet a circus clown? They see something in the two of you that doesn't
quite fit. So they were wondering how did these two worlds collide? And
I think they're interested in that, legitimately interested. Secondly, they want to
know because they want to know how it might help them. You guys met
at a comic book convention? Is that where I should go to meet a
guy? Because you think their relationship is or can be a roadmap to your
own pot of gold. That's why you ask. You're like, how did
you do it? This is how I'll do it. I'll copy that and
that'll work. Maybe not. But thirdly, I think they want to hear
how you met because they're hoping for a swoonable story. I think they really
want to hear a meat cute that will melt their heart. And I'm as
guilty of that as anyone, not of asking the question, but of seeking
it, and to a big degree, for a big chunk of my life
chasing it. So I am a storyteller by nature, That's what I have
done for a living. I always want to entertain. So I was always
in my twenties and in my thirties, obsessed with having the greatest here is
how we met story ever. And I met some women who share that I
haven't met too many men who have that I really want to be here is
how we met to be the greatest story ever. And I would bail out
of relationships too early because I didn't like how mundane the meeting was. We
met through a neighbor. Eh oh hum that that just didn't quite do it
for me. One time, my neighbor in New York she's like, I
want to introduce you to somebody. I'm like, no, no, that'll
be a terrible meeting. And I would stay in terrible relationships too long because
how we met was too valuable an asset to me to toss away. So
one time, years ago, I was in a bar in Stamford, Connecticut.
It's just side of here and just forty five miles northeast of New York
City. And this girl comes up to me in the bar and she goes
David, and I said yeah, and she says I'm Caroline, Sorry I'm
late. And it dawned on me after a few seconds. This is a
blind date and she has no idea what David looks like or what or who
I am? But I'm a little drunk, so I'm like, fuck it,
Let's let's see how long I can keep this going online dating. That
is one advantage. You at least get somewhat of a picture of the like
I say, an accurate picture, but he gets so out of a picture.
But apparently she was hooked up with somebody named David and told him me
to the bar at a certain time. She was a little late. Oh
well, so I was like, all right, let's roll with this.
So ten minutes in, she's like, how do you know Lisa and Tom?
And I'm like, oh, Tom, and I go way back and
Lisa's just great and blah blah blah, and hey, you want to go
to this cool place around the corner, because first of all, yes,
I'm going to steal the blind date, and second I'm fucked if David actually
shows up and fuck him, because apparently he was even later than she was,
so too bad. So anyway, we go somewhere else and she is
laughing and loving the date and she is awesome, and around eleven PM,
I'm like I decided to tell her. I don't know why, but I
decided to sort of come clean. I thought it was risky, but I
thought it would help me. I thought she would think this is so ballsy,
And you know what she did. She loved it. She laughed about
it, and we laughed about what a poor asshole David must be. Blah
blah blah. We toasted Lisa and Tom, who I did not know,
who apparently got us to this position where we had met. And so we
start dating and I cannot wait to get married and have kids with her,
because all I could think about is I want the kids to know how cool
Dad was for stealing mom in a blind date, the greatest story ever.
But three months into it, the relationship isn't quite as good and things aren't
quite as blissful, and she starts to get super annoyed with me because of
the time I'm sure I was super annoying, and she would start to say
things like I bet you David wouldn't have done that and so on. So
in the back of her mind she never quite got over the fact that I
reached in and fucked with her dating fate and her sliding doors moment, and
somehow it didn't turn out also great for her. She didn't care as much
about the cute story as I did. So we broke up. She wasn't
as enamored or obsessed with it. Wasn't that cool back in the day when
I stold you that she didn't fucking care anymore. Say levee, not to
get too much to my own sort of dating history. There's a point here.
But another time I went out on a date and me and this girl
went to dinner, and then we went to a bar to meet her friend,
and I woke up with the friend and we started dating. I started
dating the friend and people would ask how we met, and she would answer
through friends, and I'm like, that's not exactly how this happened. And
then we would argue about how much to reveal that didn't make her look like
both a bad friend and a total hoe. So why do I bring this
up? Because how people met matters to you, and I think it matters
to me. On a Sunday, A lot of you have read the wedding
section of New York Times. I think they called the vows section, and
you can spend hours pouring over that because it spins a little tale of how
people met, and I think that's entertaining. But the downside of that particular
column is, for some reason, they always throw in a sad sentence into
the mix. Either at the end they'll tell the long story and then I'll
say the bridegroom's first marriage ended in divorce, or they'll lead it with Jenny
thought after her first marriage ended badly that she would never find love again.
And I always read that, I'm like, why do they have to put
that in there? Why put the specter looming over the whole thing of breaking
up or having broken up or having bad relationships into what should be a little
three paragraph fairy tale. And that's what all of these hope to be,
these stories, my stories, your stories, a little fairytale. We meet
cute and then hopefully we get to happily ever after. So I did a
quick browsing of some of them in the New York Times last week after this
all got started with the Jerry McGuire and I want to think about meeting and
I want to share it with you guys, And some are similar to mine.
So just to read a couple. Kelly Carter's fantasies of meeting a man
while shopping for almond milk took a bad seat when Marino Mccaplan and unexpectedly commented
on her tweet, so you get a modern love and modern technology, and
it kind of threw off her dreams. And then she met who she met,
so she was like me, she wanted this cute almond milk story.
I don't even know if that's cute. That's what she wanted, and then
the tweet changed your life. Good for the tweet. Another one. Sarah
Gwen and Eric Coon's connection grew slowly during early morning meetups at Brooklyn cafes.
Now they are partners in life and at Gwynn Coffee supply founded by Miss Gwen.
So I read that, I'm like, does that count as a good
old fashioned workplace romance or do they just say I can help with your business.
I don't know, maybe, and I kind of like it. Another
one. Ross oo Rick and Jessica Carter Altman, the daughter of Linda Carter
Altman, who played Wonder Woman in the nineteen seventies, expected their encounter to
be brief, and it was not. That's the way their wedding things started
up. So I have some issues with that one. On the downside,
I'm sure miss Carter didn't like growing up in the shadow of her famous and
definitely beautiful mom, so I'm not sure why mom has to be in the
first sentence of the wedding story. On the other hand, Linda Carter has
aged stunningly, so props on the road ahead for Ross Urick on his wedding
day. I'll give you one more. After a year long dating hiatus,
cautiously embracing something new, friendship came naturally to Andy Flower and Veronica Savage,
but romance was difficult to see. Yet they persisted all the way to the
yacht rock dating altar. So there's a lot to unpack in this one.
But if you if you the opening sentence, if the opening sentence of your
wedding announcement contains the words dating, hiatus, cautiously, difficult, and persisted,
I think these two got to file the divorce papers now. And I
say that as someone who loves yacht rock and would love a yacht rock wedding.
I don't care how much Christopher Cross is on your soundtrack. This whole
relationship seems like it needs a therapist couch, particularly her. But these stories,
or any stories, don't have quite as much relevance to me now because
going back to Jerry McGuire, I think now, as I record this in
twenty twenty three, I think I came rover about the line. The great
line because more than half of relationships now are beginning online, and we met
online is never going to be a great story. Sorry, I you know,
not to throw another one of my dating stretches. Back in the day,
back in the match dot com days, I went out with a girl
I met on match dot com. I'm just couldn't get over the fact that
I met her on match dot com. I'm like, what a loser she's
on match dot com. Even though I found her on match dot com.
That's how fucked up I was. But I never really got over like we
met online. It just seemed too boring for me. But even if you
meet online, that's where the silver lining is. Meeting online has to begin
with a great conversation, and a great conversation I believe either starts with or
contains a really inspiring line. Somebody said something. So now when I ask
a couple of how they met, I always want to know what did he
say as an opener, what words did he used to stand out from the
crowd, or if it's bumble, what did she say? Because it absolutely
matters. You know, two thirds or so of opening lines online are either
hey, hi, or the worst one, how is your day? And
none of those none of those have ever led to or will ever lead to
marriage. Zero none. I don't have the facts to back that up,
but I'm gonna say that's true. So you got to rethink that, all
you guys. If you're leading with that, you'll never find a couple who
says, well, they said hey, and I responded and now are engaged.
You're just not gonna find that. So you may not need a great
story to find eternal happiness. And maybe you had me at hello. It's
probably used in online dating, which you should not use that either. But
something similar to that, or as evolved is that is probably beyond your conversational
capability, and mine too. So wato I bring this all up? I
think because now we're at a point where the actions when it comes to dating,
don't speak louder than the words. I think the words are the story
now, so you got to make the words matter, and you got to
make a memorable In ten years, your kids will assume you met through some
sort of technology, virtual dating or an app or social media. They won't
ask how you met mom? They will ask what did you say to get
mom's attention? Because kids are very big into that. What did you do
to separate yourself from this sea of other people? How did you ask mom
out? What was the line? What were the words? And not everybody
is eloquent, and not everybody's particularly quippy or witty. Because I've always said
knock knock has as good a chance to work as anything else, because you're
probably gonna get an answer, because they're gonna be like, how could this
jackass come out with knock knock? The curiosity will kill them and they'll want
to know. They'll say who is there? And then you go from there.
But anyway, you can overcome not being that original or any of this
stuff with sincerity and honesty and originality. Hey, that's nothing, Hi,
that's lazy. How is your day completely pointless? To our dreams of me
and a girl or you and a guy fighting over a parking space and then
falling in love romcom style? I think they absolutely can and should remain.
But most meetings are a lot less interesting than that. So let's make the
words matter, make those the one you talk about for generations, the ones
to impress your friends, the ones to tell your kids. A lot of
relationships do start with showing me the money, but those aren't romantic. Those
mostly happened in Vegas and you had me at hello. I think you need
to have a whole lot words before and after hello to make the Hello matter
at all. So you got to focus on what you say, and you
got to think about what you said. That's the new meet cute. Ask
the next I don't know dozen couples you encounter, what was the first thing
she said to you? What was the first thing you remember him saying?
And their answer. It could be silly, it could be fun, It
could even be offensive. But if they're still together, there's definitely some cute.
It's not a mission impossible. You want more words, Give me some
like, share, follow, Please review this podcast. Your reviews have and
will always mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us an email,
Great Love Debate at gmail dot com. Give me your thoughts, give me
your words, Give me the first thing you said to your significant other.
I really want to hear those where I think we're gonna do an episode totally
devoted to Great opening lines. Send those in Great Love Debate at gmail dot
com. Go to Great Love Debate dot com for information on upcoming shows.
Hopefully we'll be cute in a town near you, because, as always at
the Great Love Debate, we never stopped making love. See you next time,
Great Love Debate. It's a Great Love Debate, The Great Love Debate.
It's a Great Love Debate.