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, It's Brian. How are you welcome to the Great
Love Debate, the world's number one dating and relationship podcasts. It's twenty and
fifteen. I am here once again in the very fine studios of pod Populi
Podcast for the People. I am at the one in Hudson, Ohio.
I have not been at the one in Hudson, Ohio in some time.
It is one of the og pod Populis. It's either the first one of
the second one, depending on how you do the math. But anyway,
I'm glad to be here. It's a lovely time of year to be in
the Midwest, which it isn't always, but it is right now. So
somebody asked me the other day why I don't promote my book more and I
rarely reference it, And my answer to that is pretty straightforward. Honestly,
I was wrong about a lot of it. Probably conservatively, I don't know
thirty percent of the book. I don't stand behind anymore, and I would
say I would make some updates in my next book. But honestly, despite
you know, publishers reaching out and hounding me about it pretty regularly since probably
twenty fourteen, I don't think I'll ever write another book, because once you
hit publish and send your baby to print, there's a good chance. Especially
with what we were talking about around here and the speed at which the landscape
evolves, I'm worried that a whole lot of it will be outdated, or
misguided or flat out wrong by the time the book, even you know,
gets to Barnes and Melton, gets to the Barnes and Nobles shelves. And
trust me, for most of my life, I really enjoy I think it's
one of the best things I do. I have made a living from it
for a long long time and has been noticed by wiser people than me.
In pretty much all occasions when writing is required, it's a great advantage to
be good at it, and I think I'm pretty good at it, but
I just don't do it that much, and part of that is fear of
being wrong. So I had to think about that, and part of the
reason I love podcasting is every week I essentially get to add a new chapter
or rewrite an old one, so When I gave that response about my book,
they said to me, so you don't like being wrong, And I
thought for a second, and then I answered, actually no, I actually
love it, which is a big difference in twenty twenty three Brian Howey versus
twenty thirteen Brian Howey, I of being wrong. I think it's honestly exhilarating,
maybe because it's so rare or a but I think the very act of
getting your mind changed. I just think there's something that is so moving and
inspiring, obviously thought provoking that a lot of times the debate in this Great
Love Debate is built on a foundation of prove me wrong. Here's what I
think. I think I'm right, Prove me wrong, and I really like
that. I mean, I'll give you a couple of examples about a few
of the things that we mostly me I've been wrong about during during the history
of this show, our earliest tagline for the Great Love Debate was get your
head out of your apps, and you'll still see that floating around in some
of our our marketing materials. It's clever, it's catchy. Every time I
got interviewed on a morning news show, the anchors would be like because their
brain thought I said something else. But mostly we believe that, then get
your head out of your apps. Because we thought that online dating wasn't as
good. It simply wasn't nearly as good as real life. And you know
what, it's not as good. That's not the part we were wrong about.
We were wrong about thinking it had no value whatsoever. And now in
the twenty twenties, I think we have to realize we were wrong. It
absolutely has value. Can meet somebody online and have every bit of the relationship
you can have if you met at a farmer's market or at a networking social
event. We as a society, I think, have evolved along with the
apps. If you use them correctly and get the information you want to get,
and find the connections you wish connect, and most importantly move things off
line in an excited and expedited fashion, it ultimately gets you to the very
same starting place and actually probably a little further along in most cases than if
you met at a at a wedding or at you know, in a co
ed volleyball league. And we were so adamant that no, you need to
meet in real life or it won't happen, that was wrong. Did a
heck of a lot of people meet and date and eventually marry and fall in
love after coming to our great love debate shows, of course, thank you
very much. And was that partly partially due to the environment? Yeah?
And was it partially due to the alcohol? Probably, and a lot to
do with the subject matter and the laughing and the and the shared experience and
my masterful hosting abilities, Yes and yes and yes and yes. But could
the thought process that we were stimulating, and the dialogue and the communication,
could that have happened elsewhere on Hinge or on bumble or even linked in?
LinkedIn as a dating psyche folks, for sure? And you know pretty much
otherwise to you know, to protect our pride of our brand. It's simply
wrong. That gets your head out of your aps is wrong. And I
felt liberated when I realized it. My brain clicked to a different place,
and that place was both cathartic and liberating. I love it. I love
the way being wrong made me think. I have written a lot of lines
in my career that have made people laugh, and obviously I always will find
that thrilling and validating. But the ones that really matter and give the longest
impression are the ones that make people think you right something and eventually say something
that make I don't know, five hundred people think at the same time,
you can actually hear the collective brains worrying, and the brains worrying means that
you change the way they thought or perceived. And to do that to a
certain degree, somebody has to realize ten of them, twenty of them,
all five hundred of them, I was wrong what I thought or how I
thought it. So for the same thing happened to me. You know,
Fuck, it's a drug. I like it prove me wrong all night long.
So I want to get into all of this our right to be wrong,
so to speak, but I don't want to do wrong by the people
who pay for all this. So quick break and we will be back right
after this. And we are back. So what else were we wrong about?
So back to the book. I think I was way too assumptive that
I understand men because I was one and one. And that might be the
single biggest thing I've ever been wrong about. And I should know better because
it has driven me nuts professionally and personally. Every time I have been told
that I didn't understand women because I'm not one, which is absurd. Bill
Belichick never played quarterback, doesn't have to be a quarterback to understand how Tom
Brady should play quarterback. I don't think a doctor has to have had cancer
to understand cancer. And most women, and most women get mad when I
say this, only know about one woman themselves, or at best their little
inner circle of friends, their mom, sisters, et cetera, because they
don't take the time to really study any other women's thoughts or perspectives, mostly
out of fear or the I already know. But a big part of it
is they don't want to be wrong. They don't want to know they're thinking,
living, feeling being wrong. I'm doing life as a woman just flat
out wrong, So I get that scary. So to the ladies again.
There is a joy to the wrong. So come back with me to the
guys for a second. For almost twenty years, back to the writing I
have written about the thoughts, perspectives, feelings, and experiences of women.
My agent always said I wrote better as a woman in a woman's voice than
a man. Maybe that's my own issues, but I did that because I
was curious about it, and I wanted to learn because I thought the men
were boring because quote, I already knew them. I already knew the guy
part born with That was I found out during the course of doing the Great
Love Debate I had far less a clue about the men than the women because
I just wasn't curious about them. I never thought outside the box. I
never asked the questions, I never did the research, I never viewed the
collective perspective. And so when we started doing the Great Love Debate, the
whole thing admittedly felt a little Jerry springerish. It was boys against the girls.
We're right, you're wrong, proved me wrong. And the ones who
ultimately proved me wrong, this man wrong were the other men, because every
night I would listen to them, and they were experienced things I wasn't familiar
with, and they were feeling things I hadn't felt, and they were considering
things I'd never thought about, on and on and their experiences, for whatever
reason, were not my experiences, and they weren't wrong. So a year
or so into the tour, I went right into therapy. What is you
know to use that word wrong with me? Why don't I get what's going
on? Here, and people don't like that word, especially therapists. They
don't. They freak out if you use that word. But that is the
word and why I'm embracing it so hard on this episode. So why was
I wrong? It's because my perspective on quote unquote The Men was shaped by
my own personal, very narrowed experiences, my upbringing, my surroundings, my
relationships, my issues, lots and lots of issues. So people might blanch
at the word wrong, but I'll own it. If I thought a certain
way and felt a certain way, I might have been wrong to think that
way or feel that way, or at least to let those thoughts and feelings
affect my encounters and those around me in less than the best possible way.
And before we get all the way into this, this is not to say,
you know, you're going to get excited about the guy or girl you
used to date and spend four millionable, miserable years with and you're gonna wake
up, you know and say, oh my god, that was such a
good decision. No, but it isn't liberating to think that was the wrong
time or wrong situation or wrong person, or I was wrong to feel that
way or love them as I did, And that's the freedom. Isn't that
awesome to know that that is behind you? Isn't that the answer? I
was wrong? Period? You want your closure there. It is wrong.
It wasn't right, no matter how much you wanted to believe it. It
was fucking wrong, and that should click your brain to the next degree and
subsequent outcome wrong. More wrongs will make it right. And think about that
all what all this will do sort of two and within a relationship, all
of the boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife stuff that we always talk about
on the show, it's all rooted in confidence in communication. We have said
that ad infinitum on the Great Love Debate. And I'm confident enough to admit
I am wrong. And it takes a heck of a lot more confidence to
admit you are wrong than you are right. And you got to be confident
enough to communicate that. So think about that for a second. Telling the
other person you were right, you know, saying I was right, That
inflames the situation and that breaks down the communication. But when you tell them
you were wrong and you realize it you'd admitted, it starts the healing and
it increases the understanding, and it tightens the bonding. It's such a valuable
and conciliatory attribute, and we don't talk about it enough. We talk about
apologizing. That's a little bit different thing. So how you feel that way
not quite the same as admitting I was wrong. I got this wrong,
you know. And the value isn't totally in being wrong. The value is
in seeing that you're wrong, because in order to do that, you have
to change your perspective and accept and absorb new information that alters your way of
thinking. And at least to me, I think that's incredibly gratifying, liberating,
stimulating once you take things that don't matter out of it, things like
stubbornness and ego and pride. Probably haven't been too many times where you've said,
hey, I admit it, I was wrong. But I guarantee you
on the occasions when you thought it or said it, you felt really good
afterwards. And I think that's the whole point, which is a little tangent
here which has drive me nuts about the coming storm of COVID two point zero.
I mean not literally a storm of it, but a media and hysterious
storm of it. As we record this heading into the final stretch of twenty
twenty three. From a public health perspective, you're gonna be like, what
do is this due loved dating relationships? Everything From a public health perspective,
every single thing they told you back in twenty twenty twenty one was wrong,
masks, the distancing, the efficacy of the shots, the scrubbing of the
groceries, how has transmitted the symptoms, the treatments wrong, wrong, wrong,
wrong to the nth degree. And the people who admit that, I
guarantee you they feel better about things moving forward. And the people who were
used to admit that I don't know that they were wrong, That they're stubbornly
and blindly clinging to the junk science from a few years ago, simply because
they don't want to admit that they wasted so much time and a few years
of their lives and possibly irreckably wrecked their children's lives or at least their education
over being wrong. So they cling to it was right or we did what
was right at the time. Is that healthy? Is that mindset healthy?
Is that smart? So again, not to continue down this political tangent,
and trust me, all of this sadly is a political tangent, but it's
the same mindset. I like what I like and this is what I want
in a man, woman, whatever, And you're not going to change my
mind, well, good luck with that. If you just for a minute
or maybe a month, you throw all your beliefs and your rules and your
barriers out the window and say, everything that I thought or did when it
comes to dating and relationship and ships was probably wrong. Do you know home
burdened and positive you will feel because you have an answer and all of this
that's what we want. Do you know what that will do for your mindset?
How you're doing it feels wrong because it is wrong. Whaila an answer.
We twist ourselves into knots looking for an answer. There's an answer,
flat out you're wrong, and so many people, especially the women, come
at us with I listen to my gut. My gut is always right.
First of all, you rarely listen to your gut. It's mostly hindsight,
and in hindsight is where you discover you were wrong. Your gut is bullshit,
Ladies. Stop, it's mostly just doubt or fear or dejevau and haul
on and nothing. Because if your gut we're always right, you'd make all
you'd make a whole lot of different decisions. I'll just put it that way.
You want to sing praise to your gut, have at it, but
you gotta be honest about it. Your gut is usually wrong, so sings
honest to that. It's more on target. That's what's right. You know
what. My instinct's off, my gut's wrong, My judgment sucks own that.
Think you feel better about it? I mean, is there a bit
of satisfaction in being right and I told you so? Perhaps? But often
I think the frustration outweighs the validation the need for it. I wish you
listen to me the whole time. I mean, that's not a real rewarding
feeling. I think there's more surety and clarity in wrong. There's more of
an aha, you were right is far more redwing rewarding than I was right.
And I think we just refused to see that and say that sometimes.
So is there a complete awakening and seeing that you were wrong about something?
I don't know. I don't know how much I can say this, but
I personally love it. Prove me wrong, teach me something which is essentially
what that is, show me how I'm wrong, and I think, oh
yeah, when that happens and you allow it to happen, I think it's
an amazing feeling. Doesn't mean you got fooled, doesn't mean necessarily you were
dumb, which a lot of this is people are afraid they're going to be
consisted dumb. If they were wrong, it simply means that your interpretation was
a hair off or a heck of a lot off. Either way, it
doesn't matter because once you realize that and recorrect the course, it's really an
awakening. You had to listen to be wrong, You had to learn to
be wrong, and you had to shift and evolve to be wrong. And
I think we all need to accept that and embrace that the joy of being
wrong. Perhaps that's might not book. I said I wouldn't write another one.
Now that I think about it, I could be wrong. So please,
if you have any thoughts on this, they're probably wrong, but shoot
me an email, great love debate at gmail dot com and we will kick
that around on an episode coming out. I was supposed to have some kids
on an episode today. I ended up doing this. They were wrong and
they couldn't get their stuff together. Poor parenting. I'm gonna do that soon.
Our annual or semi annual look at what the teens and tweens are going
through for dating that is coming up. But please listen, share, follow,
subscribe to the Great Love Debate. Most importantly, every single week I'll
tell you this review, your reviews meeting a lot in the podcasting ecosystem,
even after all this time, because as always at the Great Love Debate,
we never stopped making love. See next time. The Great Love Debate,
the Green Love Debate, the greyst Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate.