Speaker 1: This is pod Popular podcast for the people, the Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate.
Speaker 2: It's the Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate. It's
Speaker 2: a great loved base. Hi again everyone, it's Brian Howie.
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Great Love Debate, the world's number one
Speaker 2: dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am in
Speaker 2: the very fine studios of Pod Popular. I am at
Speaker 2: the one in Scottsdale, Arizona. And as I told you,
Speaker 2: Scottsdale is an old term for bottomless mimosis. That's the
Speaker 2: etymology of the word Scottsdale. Somebody asked me a few
Speaker 2: days ago. And it's amazing how many of these shows
Speaker 2: I start with somebody asked me the other day.
Speaker 1: But they do. And that's how things get triggered in
Speaker 1: my head, because every great idea.
Speaker 2: And every sort of great thing in every conversation or
Speaker 2: relationship starts that way with somebody asking something.
Speaker 1: Somebody starts with a question, how are you? Who are you?
Speaker 2: Will you go out with me? Will you marry me?
Speaker 2: Do you want this man to be your lawfully? What
Speaker 2: a husband? All of them, they're all questions, and they're
Speaker 2: all something that you can sort of look at as
Speaker 2: as a starting point. And what that starting point is
Speaker 2: and where it leads I don't know, but you always
Speaker 2: got to start somewhere.
Speaker 1: So back to this starting point again.
Speaker 2: Somebody asked me, they go, you say a lot of
Speaker 2: the same things over and over. Do you believe all
Speaker 2: of those things? They might have said that, or they
Speaker 2: might have sayd do you still.
Speaker 1: Believe all of those things?
Speaker 2: Because they're like, well, at some point you must have
Speaker 2: believed it, or he said it, I don't know, but
Speaker 2: did you still the things you say over and over
Speaker 2: sort of the tenets of this show?
Speaker 1: Do you believe it?
Speaker 2: And I said, of course, I answer that question with
Speaker 2: a question. I was probably defensively. I said, like, what, like,
Speaker 2: what do I say that you think I don't believe?
Speaker 2: And they said, well, we know you always say that
Speaker 2: women look for red flags and men look for green lights.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that to be true? And I said,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely, I believe that's true, probably more than ever.
Speaker 2: And then they said you say something like and they
Speaker 2: paraphrased me wrong and don't if you're gonna quote me,
Speaker 2: get it right. And they said, you say women want
Speaker 2: the men to try harder, men want the women to
Speaker 2: make it easier. Do you still believe that? And I said,
Speaker 2: I do absolutely, more than ever. And then they said,
Speaker 2: do you believe that being asked why you are still
Speaker 2: why are you still single? Is a compliment? Why are
Speaker 2: you still single? Is that a compliment? Yes? I said,
Speaker 2: I said absolutely, for sure, there's no doubt that it is.
Speaker 2: If you're insecure about your own sort of single status
Speaker 2: and you don't like any inquiries about that, that's your problem.
Speaker 2: But the question itself, it comes from a place that
Speaker 2: there's actually a referendum on your desirability and you should
Speaker 2: embrace it as such. They don't ask why are you
Speaker 2: still single to people who don't seem attractive to date?
Speaker 2: They don't so own it, accept it, deal with it,
Speaker 2: and thank the person who asks it. But next on
Speaker 2: their list, and they actually had a list. They got
Speaker 2: some of them wrong, but they had like this list
Speaker 2: of things that they have heard me say more than once.
Speaker 2: And I say, and I always say this at our
Speaker 2: live shows. I say, it's never that you haven't met
Speaker 2: the right person, it's always that you haven't been the
Speaker 2: right person. So they asked me if I still believe
Speaker 2: that or if I do believe that? And then I
Speaker 2: said ugh, and here's why.
Speaker 1: So I.
Speaker 2: Say it all the time, and I still believe ninety
Speaker 2: eight percent of the time that's true. And when I
Speaker 2: say it at our live shows, there's always a reaction
Speaker 2: to it that people don't like to hear that because
Speaker 2: it puts the burden of their relationship status or lack thereof.
Speaker 2: It puts it on them, and people don't ever want
Speaker 2: to take responsibility, even though if you take responsibility, that
Speaker 2: means you're in somewhat in control of the outcome, and
Speaker 2: being in control of the outcome is probably the best
Speaker 2: waited to get into a relationship or to be in
Speaker 2: a relationship. But a few years ago I did make
Speaker 2: a change to that, and it was subtle and people
Speaker 2: might not notice the difference, but I added an almost,
Speaker 2: I added an exception.
Speaker 1: So now it's almost always that you haven't.
Speaker 2: Been the right person, and that doesn't sound as good,
Speaker 2: and I don't like that it's like that and it's
Speaker 2: not as catchy. I love big blanket statements, I love
Speaker 2: wild generalizations, that's.
Speaker 1: What we do here at the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2: But by adding the almost, it's a little more accurate.
Speaker 2: So what made me change that, Well, I did a
Speaker 2: show in Charlotte, North Carolina a couple years ago, and
Speaker 2: a woman at that show came up to me afterwards
Speaker 2: when it was over, and she said she just looked
Speaker 2: at me, and she goes, that wasn't true for me.
Speaker 2: And I said, what, which part of the show wasn't
Speaker 2: true for you? And she said that I hadn't been
Speaker 2: the right person, and so I said, well, what happened?
Speaker 2: And she looked at me very seriously, and she said,
Speaker 2: I bet on the wrong horse. And when she said that,
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 2: I knew exactly what she met by that, because I
Speaker 2: am a horse racing fan and I'm a gambler, and
Speaker 2: I like the way that she said an analogy that
Speaker 2: I completely understood.
Speaker 1: I knew what she meant.
Speaker 2: And I felt terrible for overlooking that exception, because it
Speaker 2: is real.
Speaker 1: It's a real thing.
Speaker 2: You put all your eggs in a broken basket that
Speaker 2: you may or may not be aware that it's broken,
Speaker 2: and sometimes years go by, and I have been the
Speaker 2: broken basket many times. I felt like someone I dated
Speaker 2: bet on the wrong horse, and that horse was me,
Speaker 2: and they kept waiting for me to get it or
Speaker 2: wake up or understand or change in some way. And
Speaker 2: you can say about anything and any relationship you know,
Speaker 2: whether it's working or not, well, that's dating, and that's
Speaker 2: the luck of the draw. And that is true. But
Speaker 2: there's there's one exception to that, and it really hits
Speaker 2: harder for a certain group of people, and a certain
Speaker 2: group of people happens to be a giant percentage of
Speaker 2: the people who listen to this show. Lots of you
Speaker 2: listening to this are going to fall into this category
Speaker 2: of what we're going to talk about in the next
Speaker 2: couple of minutes. If you bet on the wrong horse
Speaker 2: in your twenties, that's part of life experiences. Probably shouldn't
Speaker 2: be getting on a too long a ride in your
Speaker 2: twenties anyway, But if you bet on the wrong horse
Speaker 2: in your thirties, especially if you're a woman, it can
Speaker 2: be life changing and it can be fate altering, and
Speaker 2: it can be crushing. And so let me explain that
Speaker 2: a little bit. So if you're a woman and you
Speaker 2: get into a relationship with a guy at say thirty three,
Speaker 2: you really have to get it right if you are
Speaker 2: going down the road with this, because if he is
Speaker 2: not the right herd horse, you better get off that horse.
Speaker 2: Because if you start out at thirty three and three
Speaker 2: four five years go by and you haven't gotten married,
Speaker 2: or the relationship isn't where you want it to be,
Speaker 2: and you haven't started that family, and you just haven't
Speaker 2: gotten to the place of the happily ever after, and
Speaker 2: you come out of that relationship at thirty seven, thirty eight,
Speaker 2: thirty nine, that is an entirely different and entirely more
Speaker 2: difficult place to be.
Speaker 1: If you want all the things you.
Speaker 2: Wanted at thirty three, you do that at twenty three,
Speaker 2: and you come out of at twenty seven, it's the same.
Speaker 2: It's essentially the same. You come out of it at
Speaker 2: fifty three and you come out of fifty seven, it's
Speaker 2: essentially the same. But thirty three and thirty seven is
Speaker 2: wildly different. And I had one of those relationships. I
Speaker 2: think I actually had two two relationships where I gobbled
Speaker 2: up chunks of somebody's thirties. And that's not really my fault.
Speaker 2: You know, I was who I was. But they bet
Speaker 2: on the raw on the horse, they bet on the
Speaker 2: Howie horse to be the right one that was going
Speaker 2: to go fifty years with them or go to the
Speaker 2: place they wanted to go. And maybe I wasn't emotionally
Speaker 2: capable at that time, or maybe I was just fine
Speaker 2: in a you know, B minus relationship, or I wasn't
Speaker 2: as serious about things, but they kept thinking that this
Speaker 2: was the horse, and you know, I wasn't who I wasn't,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Didn't work out.
Speaker 2: And this is always such a delicate conversation on this podcast,
Speaker 2: and I don't bring it up that often, even though
Speaker 2: it's really important because, like I said, as a really
Speaker 2: big percentage of the audience who tends to put blinders
Speaker 2: on and not pay attention to this. But it's deeply
Speaker 2: personal and a deeply treacherous area to get into. I
Speaker 2: don't want to hear about what you read in your
Speaker 2: egg freezing pamphlet. I don't want to hear about it.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to hear about the outlier of
Speaker 2: the woman in your pilates class.
Speaker 1: Who had twins at forty six, Like I.
Speaker 2: Don't want to hear about it, because you're using outliers
Speaker 2: to choose your dating path, and that's not a wise idea.
Speaker 2: We talked about the generalizations earlier. The generalizations are because
Speaker 2: it is a numbers game and you got to play
Speaker 2: the odds, just like horse racing. So and I don't
Speaker 2: want to hear about pilates at all when it comes
Speaker 2: to this, because we had somebody on this podcast about
Speaker 2: six years ago and she's like, I'm fine, I can
Speaker 2: have kids in my forties because I do I do pilates.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I'm like, your insides don't always match
Speaker 2: your outsides in terms of science and aging and fertility
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. There is a lifetime
Speaker 2: of difference between thirty three and thirty seven with what
Speaker 2: we are talking about. And I know you guys know
Speaker 2: what we are talking about. Even the options in the
Speaker 2: dating pool get way, way smaller. If he's thirty seven
Speaker 2: and you're thirty seven. If he doesn't want kids or
Speaker 2: he already has them, you're probably a bit too young
Speaker 2: because you still probably have a kid. And if he
Speaker 2: doesn't want kids, if he does want kids, I mean,
Speaker 2: you're in a position where you're not gonna have three.
Speaker 2: You just not and possibly not even one or two.
Speaker 2: And that's that's harsh. And people get mad when I
Speaker 2: say that, but that's.
Speaker 1: A real thing. It is.
Speaker 2: But this whole discussion that I'm having here, it's not
Speaker 2: about fertility as much. It's about choices, and anyone can
Speaker 2: make the choice to go all in with someone because
Speaker 2: you're betting on the pot of gold. If it works out,
Speaker 2: that's the upside, and it isn't your fault if it
Speaker 2: doesn't work out. And it wasn't wrong for you to
Speaker 2: believe with this person in the magic and the possibility
Speaker 2: and ultimately the outcome, and it wasn't out of the
Speaker 2: scope of reason to think that you were right and
Speaker 2: it was right and he was right. And if I'm
Speaker 2: saying that, saying he I lost my train of thought
Speaker 2: and all that because I'm saying that if he's it,
Speaker 2: because it doesn't isn't much a big deal for the guys.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm saying that he it just isn't. Sorry,
Speaker 2: age doesn't matter nearly as much, and that probably is unfair,
Speaker 2: but it's I'm fair to pretend that isn't the reality.
Speaker 2: You're being unfair to yourself and to learn how to
Speaker 2: do the to kind of deal with reality and avoid
Speaker 2: the painful pitfoollfalls of a four or five year situation
Speaker 2: that doesn't work out. You got to decide earlier if
Speaker 2: he wasn't ready or he's not ready with you. You got
Speaker 2: to get off the horse, or kick him, or train him,
Speaker 2: or speed him up, whatever it takes. You can't dick
Speaker 2: around waiting for him to learn how to be the
Speaker 2: right horse. It's your responsibility to recognize the signs. Who knows,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe not. I don't know. So we're gonna explore
Speaker 2: this a little bit more. Sorry, it's not as fun
Speaker 2: a topic as we normally get into around here, but
Speaker 2: we got to earn the gambling money, so I got
Speaker 2: to take a quick break, and we will be back
Speaker 2: right after this, and we.
Speaker 1: Are back to talk about literal horses.
Speaker 2: As I said earlier, I'm a huge horse racing fan,
Speaker 2: so forgive the metaphors, but all the bloodlines and the
Speaker 2: breeding and the talent and the development in the world.
Speaker 2: The horse acts the part, he looks the part.
Speaker 1: Maybe he just can't run. That happens.
Speaker 2: There was a Kentucky Derby Winner war emblem. He won
Speaker 2: the Derby like in like two thousand and two. It's
Speaker 2: a shame that I know this. It's sad that I
Speaker 2: know this turned out to be a gay horse. He
Speaker 2: was gay, so they spent a lot of money on
Speaker 2: the can't test for that. They spent a lot of
Speaker 2: money on the breeding rights, and they just could not
Speaker 2: get him excited around the mares.
Speaker 1: They just couldn't.
Speaker 2: And you know, people paid a lot of money to
Speaker 2: try and breed this horse and breed with this horse,
Speaker 2: and he just didn't like the ladies.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 2: So he had all the breeding, and he had the bloodlines,
Speaker 2: and he had the talent, and he had all of
Speaker 2: it and this didn't work out.
Speaker 1: So somebody lost a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Because he was a gay horse, which is fine, but
Speaker 2: they didn't care about him having a good relationship with
Speaker 2: a stallion. They wanted him to breed with the bears
Speaker 2: and it didn't work out. So sometimes they can't run,
Speaker 2: or they can't run far or fast, and that's not
Speaker 2: the fault of the owner or the trainer or the jockey.
Speaker 1: They just couldn't see it, you know.
Speaker 2: Or maybe they could, or maybe they wanted it to
Speaker 2: work out so bad because they had so much invested
Speaker 2: in it that they overlook the things that probably could
Speaker 2: have shown up. Because once you've sunk an investment into it,
Speaker 2: whether you paid money for this or you put time
Speaker 2: into the relationship, then you tend to either overlook or
Speaker 2: blur the things that are important that are going to
Speaker 2: make you make a decision that you really don't want
Speaker 2: to make, which is, I don't want to do this anymore,
Speaker 2: I can't or this is not going the way I
Speaker 2: want to go. And the more time and the more
Speaker 2: effort and the more money and the resources you put
Speaker 2: into it, the less likely you want to have that
Speaker 2: conversation with yourself much less the other person. So you know,
Speaker 2: you're kind of saying that you didn't see what you
Speaker 2: didn't want to see, or are you saying that there
Speaker 2: was absolutely no way to see what you were, what
Speaker 2: they were, or what they could be, or you were
Speaker 2: too deep into it, you know, except just go for it.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what that woman was saying to
Speaker 2: me and Charlotte, like there was no way I could
Speaker 2: see it and at some point like I just had
Speaker 2: to go down this road and hope it works out,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, life is about ROI. It's not
Speaker 2: a sunk cost, it's not you know, diminishing returns. It's
Speaker 2: the need for a payoff. Every time you go out
Speaker 2: with somebody the first time, the tenth time a lifetime,
Speaker 2: you are looking for a payoff and that's hard for
Speaker 2: everyone to see and do in a moment, much less
Speaker 2: a month or a year or an entire relationship. So
Speaker 2: we can't tell you to go for it at the
Speaker 2: Great Love Debate and then constantly tell you to be
Speaker 2: looking for a way out. That's a really really hard
Speaker 2: way to date. You can't sort of play it halfway.
Speaker 2: You kind of have to go for it, and sometimes
Speaker 2: you go for it and you continue going forward. And
Speaker 2: we've done a bunch of podcasts even this year about
Speaker 2: when's the right time to go out, and then we
Speaker 2: do podcasts that are like, well, don't get out and
Speaker 2: stay in and.
Speaker 1: Work through it.
Speaker 2: It's complicated. That's why we raise these questions all the time.
Speaker 2: That's why we never run out things to talk about,
Speaker 2: because there are a lot of layers and nuances entire conversation.
Speaker 2: So to bring it back to her comment to me,
Speaker 2: she did bet on the wrong horse, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: that she hadn't met the right person, And it wasn't
Speaker 2: that she hadn't been the right person. It just wasn't
Speaker 2: the right time and maybe it just wasn't the right fit.
Speaker 2: And that's not wrong. We're not you know, we're using
Speaker 2: words right and wrong here, But just because it wasn't
Speaker 2: right doesn't mean it was wrong. There was a customer
Speaker 2: service phrase that it's not really that the customer's always right,
Speaker 2: it's that the customer is never wrong. And they're kind
Speaker 2: of the same thing. But you can look at them as, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I see that it wasn't wrong by her, it wasn't
Speaker 2: wrong by him. I think I'm giving I don't know him,
Speaker 2: I'm giving Bete for the doubt here, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: wrong by them.
Speaker 1: Se La V didn't work out. So this all started
Speaker 1: with a question.
Speaker 2: And maybe you expect me to give you an answer
Speaker 2: about how to avoid picking the wrong horse. Don't ask me.
Speaker 2: I've probably been on two thousand horse races in my life,
Speaker 2: real ones, not metaphorical ones, and I've lost a lot
Speaker 2: more than i've won.
Speaker 1: We all have.
Speaker 2: And there's times when the horse doesn't win the race
Speaker 2: and you're like, you know what, that was the right horse.
Speaker 2: There's a bad ride by the jockey, or they got
Speaker 2: stuck in traffic or something happened. But you could still
Speaker 2: look at look at yourself and be like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I made the right choice. It just didn't work out
Speaker 2: that is a lot easier to live with than I
Speaker 2: made the right choice and it didn't work out, And God,
Speaker 2: I wish it worked out. God, I wish I could
Speaker 2: do it again. And I don't want to know why
Speaker 2: it doesn't work out, and over and over and over,
Speaker 2: And that's conversation that we have because of the situation
Speaker 2: that we all have gotten into. That's gambling, that's life,
Speaker 2: that's love. And you don't want to phrase it like
Speaker 2: that's too bad.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's too good.
Speaker 2: That's why you keep doing it. You keep at it,
Speaker 2: and you keep hoping for the big payoff, and sometimes
Speaker 2: the odds are really really long, and sometimes the best
Speaker 2: one doesn't always win. You know, she thinks she bet
Speaker 2: on the wrong horse, but I don't think she believes
Speaker 2: that wasn't the best horse. Sometimes you do everything right
Speaker 2: and someone else ends up in the winter circle with
Speaker 2: the garland of roses. So I'm grateful to her and
Speaker 2: apologetic to the woman who pointed that exception out to
Speaker 2: me to sort of my rule that night in Charlotte.
Speaker 2: And I should have been more sensitive to her reality
Speaker 2: and probably lots of people's realities. You know, I can't
Speaker 2: always get them right. And sometimes I err on the
Speaker 2: side funny, we're clever, sue me. Charge your money to
Speaker 2: go to these shows?
Speaker 1: What do you want?
Speaker 2: Try to entertain here? Can't always win at all. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, no matter how many
Speaker 2: times you don't come on top, you gotta remember you
Speaker 2: only gotta get it right once. So it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: how high the denominator gets, because the numerator that you
Speaker 2: are going for remains the same. One out of five
Speaker 2: one out of fifty, one out of five million. The
Speaker 2: one is the one that counts. Ride the one, bet
Speaker 2: on the one. So I hate when people get asked
Speaker 2: about why are they're still single that I brought up earlier,
Speaker 2: and they say I was too busy focusing on my career,
Speaker 2: or this city sucks for dating, or I just haven't
Speaker 2: met the right person yet, because you almost assuredly have
Speaker 2: and either you didn't recognize that person, or you didn't
Speaker 2: act on that person, or you didn't appreciate that person,
Speaker 2: or you weren't the right person. But sometimes the right
Speaker 2: person was simply the wrong time, and sometimes the wrong
Speaker 2: person was at the right time, and that's the wrong horse.
Speaker 2: She bet on the wrong horse, and she guessed wrong
Speaker 2: and hoped wrong and it just worked out wrong.
Speaker 1: And lots of.
Speaker 2: People have done that, and it doesn't make it any easier.
Speaker 2: But you have to be careful about when and how
Speaker 2: and how much you place with these bets. Life's a gamble.
Speaker 2: Loves a gamble. You take your shot, you hope for
Speaker 2: the best, because when it's the best, it's always the
Speaker 2: right bet. Keep chasing the payoff, go to the track,
Speaker 2: and you wonder why people keep at it, because that's
Speaker 2: the scary thing about gambling. When you get it right,
Speaker 2: it makes it worth It makes it all worth it,
Speaker 2: and that's why you date. You're not trying to get
Speaker 2: twelve out of seventeen right, trying to get one out
Speaker 2: of seventeen right. If it's the right one, if it's
Speaker 2: the long term one, it's the lasting one. So yes,
Speaker 2: you can bet on the wrong horse, but mostly you're
Speaker 2: looking for the right horse, and you just got to
Speaker 2: be cautious and careful about when you do that and
Speaker 2: how long you do that, and who you're doing that with.
Speaker 2: And you cannot overlook the aforementioned red flags, and you
Speaker 2: can overlook the clock, and you can't overlook where you
Speaker 2: are in your life, and you can't overlook where the
Speaker 2: other person is in their life, because you know, trying
Speaker 2: to hit two bullseyes is really, really tough in any
Speaker 2: aspect of life. But she didn't and it didn't work out,
Speaker 2: and God bless her, and I hope she's fine and
Speaker 2: everybody else too. So a little bit of a rambling
Speaker 2: rant about this, but I was thinking about it because
Speaker 2: somebody asked me, and I was like, that is the
Speaker 2: one that I wiggled a little on, and maybe there's
Speaker 2: one hundred other caveats to that, and somebody will probably
Speaker 2: pointe out to me. I'll probably get emails from you
Speaker 2: guys to tell me one of those. But that's the
Speaker 2: one that stuck with me because of the way she
Speaker 2: said it and how she said. I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 2: She's right, and I should have been more sensitive to that. Anyway,
Speaker 2: shoot me an email, Great Love Debate at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I know you guys have a lot of thoughts on this.
Speaker 2: You had a lot of thoughts for the last episode
Speaker 2: we did with Duran Yaffa, the divorce attorney, and I'm
Speaker 2: surprised at how many of you were divorced, or maybe
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised. About half our audience usually is divorced,
Speaker 2: But you guys send a ton of feedback that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pass along to her and we probably do a
Speaker 2: follow up on that. Go to Great Lovedebate dot com.
Speaker 2: Check out our live tour schedule. There are live shows
Speaker 2: coming up. We fired up the candle again. We are
Speaker 2: doing the Great Love Deboat on the High Seas in
Speaker 2: the Caribbean and I will have all the details from that.
Speaker 2: If they're not on the website now, they'll be on
Speaker 2: one of our socials somehow pretty pretty soon. And please like, share, review,
Speaker 2: follow this podcast. Your reviews mean a lot in the
Speaker 2: podcasting ecosystem because, as always at the Great Love Debate,
Speaker 2: we never stopped making love.
Speaker 1: To see you next time, the Great Love Debate. It's
Speaker 1: the Great Love Debate, the Great
Speaker 2: Love Debate, It's a Great Love de Base