Speaker 1: This is pod Popular Podcast for the People, the.
Speaker 2: Great Love Debate. It's Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 1: It's a Great Love Debate.
Speaker 3: Hi again, Everyone's Brian Howie.
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Great Love Debate, the world's number one
Speaker 1: dating and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am once
Speaker 1: again in the very fine studios of the Pod Popular
Speaker 1: Podcast for the People. I am at the one in
Speaker 1: Boca Raton, Florida. It is the hot of a Florida summer.
Speaker 1: So do with that information whatever you like. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you some aphrase. It's gonna be me today. It
Speaker 1: probably won't be that long. It wasn't what I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about, but it really something happened to me
Speaker 1: over the weekend. I'm gonna explain it to you that
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I need to talk
Speaker 1: about this. So you guys have heard me say many
Speaker 1: many times, it's not that you haven't met the right person.
Speaker 1: It's almost always that you haven't been the right person.
Speaker 1: I am exhibit a of that. I probably was not
Speaker 1: always the right person. There's a chance I might have
Speaker 1: met a right person.
Speaker 3: Eventually. I didn't meet the right person, but.
Speaker 1: I don't know it's just about who you are in
Speaker 1: a moment and recognizing that we all sort of are
Speaker 1: on a journey and we all have.
Speaker 3: Work to do.
Speaker 1: So this past weekend, my friend Jen, I will just
Speaker 1: call her my friend Jen, who I have known a
Speaker 1: long long time because we are not young anymore, and
Speaker 1: she's a good friend of mine to this day, and
Speaker 1: she's been a good friend of mine for a.
Speaker 3: Little thirty years.
Speaker 1: I used to date her back in the day and
Speaker 1: she was rummaging through a box in her attic. I
Speaker 1: think she was trying to find something, and she found
Speaker 1: something and she sent it to me. She sent me
Speaker 1: a f facts in nineteen ninety three. This is how
Speaker 1: we communicated our intentions and our feelings back then. We
Speaker 1: sent them by via facts nineteen ninety three, So of
Speaker 1: the date of this recording over thirty years ago, and
Speaker 1: I want to read the facts that she sent me,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna get into why it's relevant to me,
Speaker 1: Dear Brian. The last two weeks or so, my feelings
Speaker 1: have been going up and down. Every time I feel
Speaker 1: secure with my decision about us, someone changes my mind. Tonight,
Speaker 1: I finally sat myself down to find a real conclusion.
Speaker 1: The way I look at it is I think somewhere
Speaker 1: deep inside you do love me. Even though we were
Speaker 1: only together for a short time, I felt really close
Speaker 1: to you. I can't just sit around a couch with
Speaker 1: just anybody and be happy. Maybe it was not definitely love,
Speaker 1: but there was something special between us. Everyone tells me
Speaker 1: you were just feeding me lines, which is possible, but
Speaker 1: I think under the Brian Howie that goes out every night,
Speaker 1: there is much more sincere person with real feelings. Someday
Speaker 1: you'll be able to understand what is really important in life.
Speaker 1: You have a lot of growing up to do, hopefully
Speaker 1: before it is too late. The person that I think
Speaker 1: you really are is much more desirable than the one
Speaker 1: you present to the general public. I want you to
Speaker 1: know that I really care about you. I think it
Speaker 1: is best that I less things rest, and like you said,
Speaker 1: when the dust settles, who knows. If things were really
Speaker 1: meant to be, then they might find a way to
Speaker 1: work through anything. And if they don't, they aren't then
Speaker 1: at least I got to have memories of the experience
Speaker 1: of dating Brian Howie. So first of all, she was
Speaker 1: twenty years old when she was wise enough to stand
Speaker 1: up for herself and say this me then.
Speaker 3: Is not what I want.
Speaker 1: And to tell you the truth, it was probably three
Speaker 1: weeks of chicken fingers and mountain.
Speaker 3: Dew and alcohol, and I don't remember much of it.
Speaker 1: And like I said, she's my friend now, but the
Speaker 1: point when she's dated me thirty years ago, it was a.
Speaker 3: Bit of a blur. But I was so pleased that
Speaker 3: she sent that, not that she kept it, but I.
Speaker 1: Was like, oh my god, how many women could have
Speaker 1: sent that exact same email to me.
Speaker 3: Or facts.
Speaker 1: Throughout my dating history up until very recent history, how
Speaker 1: many people could have said, he is not who he
Speaker 1: shows to the public. He is not authentic with me,
Speaker 1: He is not able to let his guard down, he
Speaker 1: is not able to be comfortable with who he is.
Speaker 1: He has not done the work, he has not gone
Speaker 1: to therapy. And so you know, that was nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you there was somebody in nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: and two thousand and three and twenty fifteen, and up
Speaker 1: until then I probably was the same way. I hadn't
Speaker 1: been the right person yet, and I hadn't done the
Speaker 1: work yet.
Speaker 3: And you know, props to her.
Speaker 1: As a woman for recognizing that being able to express it.
Speaker 1: So I share that with somebody and they go, how
Speaker 1: did you feel when.
Speaker 3: When she sent it?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I might not have gotten the facts.
Speaker 1: I might not have remembered it. I certainly didn't retain it.
Speaker 1: And so you know, some of this is this little
Speaker 1: woo woo. But when I was eventually able to find
Speaker 1: a girl who who was able to relay that same
Speaker 1: message to me much much later in life in a
Speaker 1: way that I could accept and I could understand, and
Speaker 1: I could change, and I could let my card down,
Speaker 1: and it was more than just sort of sharing space
Speaker 1: that we were trying to share a life together Like
Speaker 1: that took the right person at the right time and
Speaker 1: the right way to give me my message. And it
Speaker 1: also took me being in a place where.
Speaker 3: I was willing to accept it.
Speaker 1: And a part of the reason that I was sort
Speaker 1: of willing to accept it when I finally did, was
Speaker 1: from doing the Great Love Debate and traveling around. And
Speaker 1: I think you guys have heard me say this before
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. You know, early on
Speaker 1: in this show, probably the first four or five years
Speaker 1: of doing the Great Love Debate, I was like dating
Speaker 1: is easy girls like me. I don't know why everybody
Speaker 1: is so hard. And I considered myself a little bit
Speaker 1: above the fray. I was almost a little Jerry springerish,
Speaker 1: like men against the women. But eventually I started to
Speaker 1: hear stories, especially from men, about people feeling things and
Speaker 1: experiencing things and being hurt and being heartbroken and having
Speaker 1: pain from relationships, and I'm like, what are they doing
Speaker 1: that I'm not, because although it didn't necessarily seem pleasant
Speaker 1: when they talk about those things, it certainly seemed more substantive.
Speaker 1: And so when Jen sent this facts, I'm like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: a twenty year old girl felt that she needed something substantive. Again,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I was forty. I was also twenty
Speaker 1: something substantive out of a relationship. And I probably didn't
Speaker 1: even know what she was talking about. I probably didn't
Speaker 1: know what she wanted. I probably couldn't comprehend it. I
Speaker 1: wasn't listening to it. And that has to be incredibly
Speaker 1: frustrating for anybody who dates anybody that way. But it
Speaker 1: had to be incredibly frustrating for anybody who dated me
Speaker 1: that way. And it was a long long time of
Speaker 1: me being that way, so on a break this down
Speaker 1: a little bit. I want to get into a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff. We have to pay for things like
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three fax machines around here.
Speaker 3: I have to pay for fax paper. I think that
Speaker 3: it is fax paper.
Speaker 1: I take a quick break, and we will get into
Speaker 1: all of it right after this, and we are back.
Speaker 1: I talked to my therapist about this. I talked to
Speaker 1: other people about this, and it is really about not
Speaker 1: just focus, but emotional intelligence, and the boys just don't
Speaker 1: have it. It does take a while for the boys
Speaker 1: to grow up. And not to make an excuse for
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the human race here, but it takes
Speaker 1: a while, and I shouldn't give myself a pass out
Speaker 1: that I understand. Back then, I probably would have argued
Speaker 1: that if she didn't send a fact since she said
Speaker 1: it to my face, which I'm sure she probably did,
Speaker 1: I would have gotten defensive. I would have made excuses.
Speaker 1: I would have downplayed or belittled whatever she was trying
Speaker 1: to say, and I would have made her feel like
Speaker 1: in some way she was probably you're crazy.
Speaker 3: We just went out last night. What are you talking about.
Speaker 3: I was there for you.
Speaker 1: I bought you those m and MS late night and
Speaker 1: probably just wouldn't hear it. And so, you know, we
Speaker 1: talk about doing the work, and we talk about wanting
Speaker 1: to become your best selves, and there's lots of things
Speaker 1: we can all do to improve. Listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: I hope this isn't, you know, coaching to you. This
Speaker 1: is sort of sharing an experience. But hopefully somebody is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm that guy or I was that girl, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people because like I said, I did share
Speaker 1: that that facts via text. I'm combining worlds here. I'm
Speaker 1: combining nineteen nineties technology with twenty twenty five technology.
Speaker 3: I shared that facts via text.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the women were like, she speaks
Speaker 1: for all of us, and she spoke for me at twenty,
Speaker 1: and she speaks for me at forty, and she speaks
Speaker 1: for me, you know, as a wife, and she speaks
Speaker 1: for me as a girlfriend, and she speaks for me
Speaker 1: as somebody who wants my man to live. And it
Speaker 1: made me feel good that she still had it. It
Speaker 1: made me good that I got to peek through this
Speaker 1: sort of window of nostalgia. But all I could think
Speaker 1: about since the time I read that text facts whatever
Speaker 1: I call it, was my god, how many other women
Speaker 1: felt the same level of frustration and disappointment. And if
Speaker 1: I can just get him to understand what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: things could work out. We could have a relationship, we
Speaker 1: could be a couple, you know. So when I was
Speaker 1: finally ready to hear those words and listen and understand
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, a lot of damage you've probably
Speaker 1: been done to a lot of people. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that I was like an asshole boyfriend, but I certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't a gold star in terms of being a human being,
Speaker 1: in terms of being able to communicate my issues or
Speaker 1: hear their needs or their wants or whatever was going wrong.
Speaker 1: I always just wanted to make a joke, like, hey,
Speaker 1: the resume I handed it in was for boyfriend, what
Speaker 1: you're looking for as a husband? Good line, flip and joke.
Speaker 1: But it was also about me not hearing them. But
Speaker 1: mostly it was about me not to be in touch
Speaker 1: with myself. It was about me not understanding there's a
Speaker 1: part of me that is broken. And you guys have
Speaker 1: heard me go way way back to my childhood and
Speaker 1: the trauma that comes from that and how I never
Speaker 1: trusted my parents' love for each other, which means I
Speaker 1: didn't trust their love for me, which means I didn't
Speaker 1: trust anybody's love for me, which means I didn't really
Speaker 1: trust the concept. So fast forward years later, I'm doing
Speaker 1: the great love debate. A lot of this is me.
Speaker 1: I'm not just trying to heal that, but trying to
Speaker 1: seek answers and to try and find these moments in
Speaker 1: time where maybe the light.
Speaker 3: Bulb did go off, but it didn't go off from me.
Speaker 3: And what did I need to hear?
Speaker 1: And if somebody had sent me that a version of
Speaker 1: that facts ten years ago, and somebody did, I don't
Speaker 1: know if the language was what woke me up. It
Speaker 1: was just the time and hearing from enough people to
Speaker 1: realize that I wasn't I hadn't been the right person yet,
Speaker 1: and I had to do more work and I had
Speaker 1: to go to that scary, scary place that honestly, it's hard,
Speaker 1: you know. I went a long long time in my
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties and part of my forties just this
Speaker 1: is fun. There's no downside, there's no risk, there's no scariness,
Speaker 1: you can't get hurt. It's all just fun. But the
Speaker 1: people in my in my Galaxy were probably not experiencing
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 3: Joy out of the Brian Howie ride.
Speaker 1: And I feel bad for that always, and I try
Speaker 1: and think back on that, like what kind of partner
Speaker 1: was I? What kind of boyfriend is I was? I?
Speaker 1: How could I have done better? What messages did I miss?
Speaker 1: What request did I dismiss?
Speaker 3: All of that?
Speaker 1: And so, you know, not sharing this out of guilt,
Speaker 1: I'm sharing this out of I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: women feel the same way. I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: women have these kinds of conversations all the time that
Speaker 1: if we could just shake their head and get them
Speaker 1: to understand what the fuck we're talking about, how many
Speaker 1: relationships could be better and how many people could be better.
Speaker 1: And like I said, there's two parts of this. Somebody
Speaker 1: has to be willing to say it and somebody has
Speaker 1: to be willing to hear it. And I probably heard
Speaker 1: it a lot, but I wasn't willing to absorb it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't willing to take responsibility for it. I wasn't
Speaker 1: capable of understanding it. And so that's the prism I
Speaker 1: look back for now. A lot of people are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you must have had a fun time
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. I look at it differently. I look at
Speaker 1: it like, who did I hurt, Who did I frustrate?
Speaker 1: Who did I not accept the love from? Who did
Speaker 1: I not give the love back? Who deserved? And so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. Everything is sort of chicken egg
Speaker 1: in anything, especially in love dating relationships. So if I
Speaker 1: got this, I could have given this, and you're kind
Speaker 1: of hitting the tennis ball back to each other. But
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff I could have done differently,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: I could have done better.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to dive into this subject of a
Speaker 1: little more as somebody who's kind of an expert on this,
Speaker 1: she's gonna come on a couple of weeks and where
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this. What are the signals
Speaker 1: and how do we communicate this and how do we
Speaker 1: find the best version of ourselves. Because to my friend Jen,
Speaker 1: I give her the shout out I love you, I
Speaker 1: always will. I'm sorry I did not love you in
Speaker 1: the way back then It worked.
Speaker 3: Out for you.
Speaker 1: Your husband's great, your daughter's great, and you didn't need me.
Speaker 1: But I'm sorry that in some way like it caused
Speaker 1: her her pain. And but she was probably the first
Speaker 1: one in my life that tried to be like Brian,
Speaker 1: you can do better, you can be better, you can
Speaker 1: understand more, you can feel if you would just let
Speaker 1: that guard down for the world. And then you know,
Speaker 1: people always ask me, what have I learned from the
Speaker 1: from the Great Love Debate and doing it all these
Speaker 1: years and talking to thousands of thousand people. Is the
Speaker 1: one thing that we have in common that gets in
Speaker 1: our way is fear. Fear of getting hurt, fear of
Speaker 1: getting rejected, fear of picking the wrong partner, fear of
Speaker 1: making mistake, fear of saying the wrong thing. And I
Speaker 1: guess for me it was fear of not hearing the
Speaker 1: right thing, and because I was afraid because when she
Speaker 1: said it and how she said it, I probably looked
Speaker 1: at it as a flaw in me or a criticism
Speaker 1: of me. And really it was just trying to say,
Speaker 1: I see you, and I know what you're doing and
Speaker 1: I'm okay with it, but can you just kind of
Speaker 1: meet me halfway?
Speaker 3: And so many of.
Speaker 1: People I've been in relationships with, they've probably tried a
Speaker 1: version of the same thing.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: It took until you know, the right girl said in
Speaker 1: the right way at the right time, and I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, is that who I am?
Speaker 3: Is that what we're doing?
Speaker 1: But mostly it could have been like, Oh, this is
Speaker 1: who we can be, this is what we can find together,
Speaker 1: this is the journey we can have, this is the
Speaker 1: life we can have. And it just took a long
Speaker 1: long time. Like I said, it takes a long time
Speaker 1: for the boys to grow up. Took a really long
Speaker 1: time for this boy to grow up. So I want
Speaker 1: to share that this isn't the longest podcast I've ever done.
Speaker 1: This probably is the most substantive podcast I've ever done.
Speaker 3: But it really sort of hit me. It really was just.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my god, a the technology of the facts,
Speaker 1: communicating feelings by facts just seems insane. Maybe I never
Speaker 1: got it. Did he go to FedEx's office, back the Kinkos?
Speaker 3: Back then?
Speaker 1: Did he go to Staples? Where did she even fact it?
Speaker 1: I need to track that down. But to you know,
Speaker 1: you always hear the people say, if you could write
Speaker 1: a letter to your teenage young person's self, what would
Speaker 1: that letter say? Jen wrote, What that letter would say?
Speaker 1: Everything she said is probably everything I would say to
Speaker 1: myself back then or now that there's a version of
Speaker 1: me that is either hiding or crawling out slow or
Speaker 1: niss to see more light.
Speaker 3: That really would make.
Speaker 1: My partner happier and would really make the people in
Speaker 1: my world a little bit happier to be around.
Speaker 3: Brian Howie, shoot me an email.
Speaker 1: Great Love Debate at gmail dot com if you've got question, thoughts,
Speaker 1: comments about any of this. If you want to say,
Speaker 1: way to go, Jen, I will pass that along. She's
Speaker 1: been on this podcast before, so search that out. This
Speaker 1: is like our five hundredth and something episode. Shoot, go
Speaker 1: to jeez, I lost my train of thought there.
Speaker 3: Let your reviews.
Speaker 1: Still am in a lot in the podcasting ecosystem, so
Speaker 1: please like, share, follow, and review this podcast.
Speaker 3: I want to hear your reviews.
Speaker 1: Please just click five stars. We're giving you free content here.
Speaker 1: You're not doing much here. Got to listen to a
Speaker 1: couple ads, and you got to download the show, and you.
Speaker 3: Got to hit play. That's about it.
Speaker 1: So please give us five star review because as always,
Speaker 1: I have not been a five star boyfriend, but I'm trying.
Speaker 1: At the Great Love Debate, we never stopped making love.
Speaker 2: See you next time, the Great Love Debate. It's the
Speaker 2: Great Love Debate, The Great Love debate.
Speaker 1: It's the great love debate.
Speaker 2: H