This is Pod Popular 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 Howie. Welcome to the Great Love Debate, the world's number one Dating in a Relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am back here in the very fine studios of Pod Popular Podcast for the People.
I'm at the one in Scottsdale, Arizona. Not to play favorites, it might be my favorite and it is the full Scott's Dazzle this time of year here, So I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be here for another reason. So recently, you guys know that I did my tenth anniversary show. I have done this podcast a long long time. I've done the live show a long long time. And I'm bringing somebody in here who has not been on this podcast in years, many years. She's been on
my stage many times. So she was back there in the infancy, and she came in here and she said she had witnessed a iota of growth out of me. Personal development and growth. She says, I seem fractionally better. She is the host of the very popular Cupid's Coach podcast. She is what is that? She turns we to he, he to we, we, transforming me to we. She transferred me to she will match make you to death, maybe even literally. The lovely Julie Furman. How are you.
I'm so happy to be here, Brian Howie and one of your biggest fans. Good. Yeah, there should be some fans left after all this time. We were talking a little bit that I brought up on a podcast that dropped before this one about whether dating was harder or easier. Where you
believe that it is harder now? Why dating is harder now because we're more insulated and isolated in our little bubbles, and we're really good at avoiding each other and hiding from each other and running when it gets the tiniest little bit uncomfortable. Yeah, there's enough stimuli without dealing with other people that we can get that makes us not want to fight through the ick. Yeah, nervousness. We're so used to solving problems instantly, you know. Oh gosh,
i'm a little tired. Let's just have a jolt of caffeine. Oh gosh, I'm a little bored. Let's, you know, watch our new thing on TV or Brian Howie's latest podcast. We want the instant fixes and that when it comes to love and human beings, the issues that are there, we don't have instant fixes unless we get really good it just okay, shut up, be still, open up my heart and listen. Yeah, you have been in the dating business for not to age you or date you too
much thirty plus years. Thirty are going on thirty four years. And I will tell you you know me well enough to know this is true. I have a love hate relationship with the business of dating. Well, I know when you put the business and what do you hate about the business quote unquote, and now everything is sort of a bit. You could say that a restaurant is in the business of dating. If florist is in the business of
dating, that's right, A chocolate maker. Yeah, it's when the interaction happens, the transaction, when the client and I was the client fourteen hundred and fifty bucks I spent to meet, hopefully somebody to keep. When there's that transaction and your expectation is that you're going to find love and you're paying money for the hope to find love, it is nasty because I can't fulfill
that expectation. If you paid me ten thousand dollars, which is what I charge minimum fee for personal matchmaking, you expect that I'm going to deliver something. And on those legal documents, you know, you got to deal with the legal you know what what can I promise and what I can't and what I can promise if I choose to take you on. And first we got to have a consultation. I find out if you're batshit crazy? Yeah,
you want to know why you need me? Well, you know I I The first thing I do is have a quick conversation with you over the phone and find out, Okay, is he batshit crazy? Because I'm pretty good fifty thousand interviews in thirty four years, I can pick it out. Then we're going to do a three hundred dollars consultation. We're going to look at real life people together and I'm going to watch your face and I'm going to see if you're batshit crazy or not. Do you only go for the hotties?
Do you only go for the women who I know are a train wreck? And if so, am I taking you on as a matchmaking client. I'm not that stupid. What can you promise them for ten thousand dollars. You can't promise them they're going to fall in love, right, What do you promise them? Opportunity? Like I just took on a brand new client right now. It's not an easy client. She's and I'm one of the few matchmakers who will take on a female client. But for every twenty who
think they want to hire me, I maybe will bring on one. They got to beg me and I got to look them in the eye and say, you know, I can't promise relationship right. I can't even promise second dates. But I won't take anybody on that I don't feel like I can do a good job for. And if I don't think I can do six, eight, ten, twelve, good solid introductions where she's happy to have met this person, he's happy to have met this person. They're real life
people. If I don't feel like I can do it, I'll say, you know what, Brian, save your money, Let's work on your flirting skills. Let's do everything else first, give you the skills that you can possibly be your own matchmaker. That's my boot camp for like three thousand dollars, which which you know you do the boot camp and you're earning your way toward the ten thousand dollars. But most people, I will say, don't spend the extra because you're not. How do you do that? Because there
has to be some no pun tough love for these people. You have to break down how they got to this point where they need some help, and you said you can't tell them their batshit crazy? What words do you use? Challenging, difficult? If you were in my hot seat right now and you are paying me two hundred and ninety five dollars for an hour, which is an hour of year time, two hours of my time, because first
I ran the search that took me half an hour. Afterwards, I'm going to write you that email that tells you what you should do given what I discovered. So I would say, because I know you and you're my friend, I would say, here's the deal, Brian. The women you're going for are spot on. The kind of woman you're interested in is interested in you too. That means you're looking for a natural match. You would be
a candidate for personal matchmaking. Let me tell you if I think it should be with me or if I think it should be with one of my colleagues who's actually really hard working and has a really good, solid network. That might be the way I would advise you, or it might be Brian, get your head out of your ass. The women you're going for are not going for you. They're looking for your much younger brother who has the ferraris. And your cars are not for rid And do you really want to pay
this woman five dollars a month just to hang out with you? If you want a woman who looks like that, right, you're going to be paying. One of the girls said to me, Julie, you should know that I really like horses, and you know horses are expensive, and I'm really you know, I need my boatox I need some And I said, what's it going to take? And this is my right. What's it going to take for a guy to have you be in his life? It's really looking
like fifteen thousand a month. I mean, I just I have a lot of expenses and if he wants me to be free to jump on a plane and go to the south of France with him, my horses need to be fed and I'm not going to be training the way I normally do, so he's going to have to compensate me, and you can't say no. I mean because a lot of the women, so you're trying to match them up
with women and who you think a lot of those are professional women. A lot of those women have can't just and a lot of men they want a wife and they want a travel companion. The older you get, the more somebody's life and somebody's freedom don't necessarily match up. And so they're basically saying to you, I want to find love, yes, I want a companionship, yes, but I also want somebody who matches my lifestyle, but I don't necessarily want to pay for her her lifestyle without me. Well that's it.
There are three things that I've determined that breed narcissistic tendencies. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not going to call somebody a narcissist, but I do see some narcissistic tendencies. And they tend to be hovering around extreme beauty, extreme wealth power, like we see it among politicians. So for some reason, they think their shit doesn't stink because they have this money or they have
the looks, and it's they're not they're they're so rarely good catches. You know, so rarely good at relationship, and if they ever are, they are the unicorn, and I see unicorns. The woman we almost had, I almost I tried to get you to have dinner with us last night because she is a unicorn, lives right here in Scottsdale. Scottsdale's tough, Scottsdale. I don't know how old this woman is that you had dinner with, But she's younger than you, darling. Okay, but I mean, but
is she younger than the guys want? That's a problem if she's in her forties here or fifties. A lot of guys here in their forties, fifties, sixties. They believe they should and can go younger because it is that certain parts of the country are different. You know, you can be sixty five and go out with a thirty five year old twenty five year old in
Scottsdale. It's not going to raise well eyebrows go out with. But if you're really looking for a keeper, if you're looking for companionship, if you look at somebody to enjoy life together, a woman who is that much younger is going to be consistently unsatisfying. Oh yeah, and you're going to be unsatisfying to her. If you're suddenly too old for her, She's going to wake up one day and you're just an old man. Like the gap can't be that big. And I tell these people all the time, you brought
a the women, why don't you take on? Why is it different if a woman comes to you and say, I want you to match me with the great guys, why is it done? Yeah? I love my new female client. She is amazing. She and I will be friends forever. And I had to really trust her in order to take her on. Because there's a reason why I'm not comfortable taking more than ten thousand dollars from a matchmaking client. I am the only one as reasonable as that. But I
like short term programs. Either we hit the nail on the head, we have a great relationship, or you know, it was three four months we tried. We met a bunch of great people. But I don't kick him out unless they misbehave. If I've got a great referral six months down the road, six years down the road, I am tracking her down and I'm going to go ahead and give her an extra introduction. I actually care.
But here's the reason why we're so much harder. I've got an introduction I really want to make for her, and I called the guy made cheries available. Timing is right. I get his photos up, I get his profile updated, a lot of you know, We're get on the phone another thirty minute call together, and he's like, did you reach out to me because you've got a particular person you want me to meet? And I'm like, yeah, I did. Do I get to see your profile? Yeah,
you do. I'm going to send it over now. And I send it over and I'm on the edge of my chair because what am I hoping for? You're hoping that what that He's going to give me a yes? Well, isn't the guy if she's attractive, isn't he probably going to give you a yes? No? I mean if she's good looking. But one guy is good looking like my husband. He likes little blonde spinners. Okay, little little blonde, cute, little peppy Golden Retriever is and a golden Retriever
is my spirit animals, so right, he loves my type. Now, a beautiful, long, skinny Asian woman walks in glamorous that's not his type. If Kardashian curves walks in the door. Not his type. He's not going for her. Well, as I always say, and you've heard me say this before, if you're over thirty and you're still single, you have no type. That's right. Your type's not wearing out for you. So it's what they think they like. Have you tried the Asian dish? You
know? Have you tried this? They don't know what it. So back to the question of the women. Why is it harder for you to take on a woman than a man. If the woman has the means to pay you, Oh my god, if she has the means to pay me, she's really scary because if she has the means to pay me, then she's used to getting what she wants, when she wants, how she wants it.
And here's some honest to god statistics I'm working on. I now have thirty seven thousand registrations in my personal matchmaking community over his last twenty years. For everyone, yes I get from a Brian Howie, I will get six to seven of these responses, Oh Jeel, thanks for thinking of me. She looks great, just not my cup of tea. Who else you got? Okay? But that's the job, that's they're pantext. It costs. It takes me at least three times as much time to serve a woman as
it does because they're almost there, they're more likely to reject. Well, here's the deal, as my sister says, as a woman, we only have a shot with a guy who thinks for hot. And it's true, right, it's true. So taking the not hot is hard. Well, what's not hot to you could be perfectly acceptable to another guy. You guys
are on a spectrum. If I determine that you're like a guy. There's a guy named Corey, worst client I ever took on in my entire life, and I'm I am so I can sniff it out anytime I'm working with a guy who has gotten to the point where his visual requirements have basically made her a thing. Like if a guy uses the what word, Oh, I'm not attracted to that. You need to show me what I'm looking for?
What Oh? I mean the hair on the back of my neck right now, because that that kind of guy is A woman is not a thing. She's not a human, She's a thing. And I can hear it, I can smell it. Well, this both gives men credit and this but is also a bad thing about men. A very wealthy, powerful, successful woman will take oh, let's just say, Oprah, A man isn't necessarily going to go for her just because of that. She still has to be attractive. So that's both Oh, he still has to be attracted her
and like her. The women the other way around. The money and the job and the power can make him attractive. That is a challenge because that, for a lot of women is so frustrating that they're like, if she's beautiful and she's got money, forget it, just forget it. Who she should be dating is a really talented chef. She wants to creative, she
wants a musician. Well, the musicians. You know, my very first wedding when I started my own matchmaking company is in musician and this beautiful, wonderful woman and they had a baby and the baby's driving now in college and it's just so beautiful. But I haven't had other than this one guy, Chuck is his name. I haven't had a lot of success with musicians, and I haven't had with gentlemen musicians, and I haven't had a lot of
success with gentlemen. Actors. Actors a little different. Actors you're trying to be somebody else for a living. So here's the real problem, the reason why we've got all this, like the wealthier the community, someplace like Scottsdale, someplace like Boca, someplace like Beverly Hills. A big part of the reason why these wealthy men think they need a beautiful woman, the same reason
a woman wants a wealthy guy. So they can say, oh, well, my boyfriend has his place and Aspen my girlfriend, yeah has you know she's twenty years younger and she loves me for who I am. Yeah right, yeah, no, great, all right, I want to do the relationship side of this. I gotta take a quick break because we got to pay for ten thousand dollars matchmakers around here. I'm here with Julie Furman, she's the host of Cupid's Coach, and we will be back right after this.
And we are back. So somebody comes to you and you know, they're in their forties, fifties, whatever. They've had failed relationships obviously, just like everybody has. How do you determine You might be able to determine how they are on a date. You might be able to determine, you know, what they look like what they do. How do you go backwards and say, how are you as a husband, boyfriend? How are you
in a relationship? How do you determine that? I love this. It's the reason why I do my boot camp because we dig into it in the second week of boot camp. It's the excavation. It's the deep dive into the history. So there are a bunch of workshops. And if you're in my boot camp, by the way, I will give you a free participant. You sit into my boot camp anytime you want. It's virtual. I would love to have you in class. What we do is it's nine modules
that are video modules. My son Kevin recorded it or edit. It's great. And then there's office hours on Thursday evenings for an hour and Friday mornings men and women together, all ages. And so the second week is what we're in the middle of right now. It's the fourth boot camp and it's the deep dive. So I get this chance to say to you, Okay, Brian, what's on your sheet about finances? What have you been happy to pay for in a relationship? What have you been unhappy to pay for?
But does that yeah? And I think that matters and money matters whatever, But do you say because a lot of people don't know the answer because they've thought about it. They're like, why'd you get divorced? Well, my wife was a bitch. They're always going to pass the blame. Why didn't this work? I just not having the right person yet, Like you have to go in and say what are you like three months in nine months
in what were you like when you become a dad? Where you're like and a lot of people don't know this, and you're not trying to play therapist here, but you're trying to get them to admit stuff that they don't want to admit to you, because then you won't match them up. Here's why I'm still right. Yes, here's why I'm so excited to be doing this work after so many years. I will only work with somebody who's growth oriented.
If they don't pass my test in that first hour long zoom consultation and show me that they're interested in learning, I don't want to work with them. I got a line of people looking to get into my boot camp, looking to book me for an hour. I'm not They have to beg me to take them on for matchmaking. So if they say like, I don't know, I've just been an asshole. You're okay with that, sure,
as long as they know. Oh absolutely. And the other thing is, you know, I want to know all the bad stuff that happened in your relationships and you're gonna write it down, and I want to know what was that person's part in it? And Brian, come on, let's be honest, what was your part in it? Yeah? No, I've done I can go backwards and do it all now. I'm very evolved. Man, I don't know, but right, but I don't know if a lot of people because I do this and I have these conversations a guy who's like,
I've been buried in my career. I have two ex wives. I haven't had it. Here's my money, find somebody there to get them to do that, which I get that you have to do that because you can't screw over some girl that you match them up with and he turns up to be a psycho. You know, I'm ran or whatever. I am a really good police cup in my community, and if anybody messes up, that's it. I just put somebody on inactive status because I wanted to give her a
free introduction. Half of the introductions I do in my world are called Mitzvah matches, and they're absolutely for free. And the people I look to provide free introductions to are the people who do those consultations and the people who are in my boot camp, people who've been my match making clients, and their programs are completely and totally over and they did not misbehave. Anybody who miss behaved. If I miss behave, that's it. Well, this girl accepted
a Mitzvah match. I go to the guy. He's done that consultation with me. He's not the guy who's going to pay ten thousand dollars, and I wouldn't want him to. He's not in that place financially and he's not that hungry want to spend that kind of money, but he would love a relationship. So I go to him, Hey, what do you think about I'm going to call her Carol. What do you think about Carol? Carol looks great. I would love to meet her. Actually, I gave him
like five or six people to really study up on detailed profiles. He's like, Okay, Carol's the one I'm really excited to meet. Now. I know Carol's a little bit out of his league, okay, because he didn't go for Janet, who I think would be spot on. But Carol's a little bit hotter, right, so he goes for her. I go to Carol. I say, Carol has timing for an introduction. She says, timing's great, Julie, who you thinking about? And I said, well,
first, let's make sure your profile's up to date. Do you have any updated photos. It's been maybe a year since we've seen each other. She could have chopped her hair off, whatever. And she gets it to me and I say, okay, so Peter wants to meet you. Peter looks great, love to meet him. Okay, good, it's a mitzvah match. I send them both the cell phone numbers, and in that Mitzvah email, it says, don't screw it up, don't screw it up. I don't care who calls who. I don't care who because I don't set
up all the details for the mitzva matches. If you paid me ten grand, I am nailing down the restaurant. And I don't share last names, and I don't share I don't want you googling each other. I don't share age. All that stuff. I set it all up. But miss don't share age. I do not share age, and they don't. Do you use your judgment on how old is too old or how young is do young?
I already know because you filled out your profile and you've told me, Okay, Julie, I'm fifty five, I'm open to meeting women from nineteen to twenty six. Okay, will you shut that down? Oh? Will you say that's too hard? What will you say? No? If you fill out your profile and you're fifty five and you say you don't want to meet anybody over the age of forty, I want to have two more kids. What if they say that, Oh, that's totally cool, Brian,
I'm not the matchmaker for you. You need to call the guy over at Model Quality Introductions, right because those girls, I hope you're going to have lots of extra dollars to spend, you know, to keep this woman around and all this so stupid. I'm really I get that. But there's a lot of women in their twenties who want to have the kids and they can't get the guys in their thirties and forties to focus or settle down because those
guys have too many possibilities. They might have to go for the guy who's fifty five, and I will that's great. So does he know that he's marrying his next divorce A probably because a lot of the guys who are fifty five they don't. I brought this up on a podcast recently. A lot of people who are divorced and at that age they've given up on the idea of happily ever after. They look at life in ten year compartments. Can I have ten years two kids? It's fine? Errator check at the end,
yes, right, maybe they're okay. I have no problem with any of that, as long as we're open and up upfront about it. So if the guy wants a woman much younger, so by the time you're in that consultation with me, you've already told me what your age preferences are. So in this case, I said, all right, I'll see if Carol wants to meet you. And he said yes, and she said yes. I shared the phone numbers, and the very next day he writes me and
he says, well, that was fast. That was the quickest relationship I ever had. She's too busy to even meet me. Well, I get that. I get why the older guys want the younger girls because it's easy for them to feel confident again. But you're also going to feel old. You're also like remember this song, Yeah, my dad used to like that song. Like, nothing's going to make you feel worse than that. You
know, we have to be honest about the status thing. You know, when a guy walks into the gala and he's got Susie with him, Barbie, he's got Carol whatever, and she's beautiful, and all the heads are turning and he gets to be the guy with that. Okay, I think you can find that and she's forty two, I do. But wait, if you're fifty five and she's forty two, I think she can look awesome.
If you're fifty five and she's twenty three and somebody makes a mistake of it, it's not worth the risk of that's your daughter, and it's not worth the risk of her friends saying referring to you by your age, like you're still going to that, You're still going out with that fifty five year old. I would never want to be that guy. That's right. I love that we're talking about this, all right, So you're fifty five and
you said something about a forty two year old. Does that seem like kind of like a nice age spread for you, for me or for me or for people I think I'm a guy. I think that's the same. I believe in the old adage the half the age plus seven is the match, all right, very good. So if this woman who's forty two has it all going on, yes, why would she make the compromise and be with a fifty five year old man. I don't think she thinks. I think
emotionally we're in the same place that those two. I don't think those two are far off at all. I don't the forty two year old with the forty five year old man, Yeah, he still wants kids, and she's going to feel old. That's the challenge of the women in their early forties who are dating guys in their forties, is there's a good chance that they're like, I either want a second family or I want a first family, and you can't have that. I tell women who are forty two that they
have to go for the guys in their fifties. They do, yeah, if they well, like I always want to know the kid thing the very beginning, The first thing who wants babies, who doesn't, who's a maybe on that? And one of the things that really bugs me is when a guy will say maybe, but he really doesn't. He just wants to access the woman who's still of course, because she doesn't want to rule her out.
I don't blame that. But the hardest age to date for these women is the who wants to date Around the same age are the women in their late thirties and early forties. They have almost no shot of getting a guy who is in that sweet spot of thirty five to forty eight, because he has unbelievable amount of choices, and if she has kids, they're probably very young and he might not want to sign up for that doesn't if he either has his own or whatever, or if he doesn't have kids, she's too
old. So she's gonna If I were a matchmaker and I am not, and somebody came to me there and she was forty two forty three, I'm gonna tell her she has to go fifty seven. That's right. She has to do it. And if she's really got everything going on, she doesn't need to make that compromise. If she has her own resources, she doesn't need to make that compromise. So I see these women having their own children. Yeah, it's it's and I get God bless them. Such a mess.
Or she has the I'm saying, I'm talking about the forty three year old with the young with a four year old at home and a six year old at home. Oh, forget it, it's hard. I can't take that woman on. No, how difficult. You brought up the guys who want something out of her league? You think men have been ruined by Adam Sandler movies that somehow we see this goofy guy dressing badly and he could still get the beautiful girl. Like you can't tell the guy not to shoot his
shot. If there are these out they they're you know, so they're saying there's a chance they want to chase the outlier. How do you tell a guy she's out of your league? Well, it's real simple. We're on the zoom call together and you're looking at Barbie and you're like, Julie, this is the perfect woman. This is exactly the kind of woman I've been looking for. And I'll say, I get it. I don't blame you
at all. Can I show you who she said yes to? Last week and I'm going to show you the brad Pitt that she said yes to. But he doesn't. He's like, she just needs a shot to meet me because men now, men think he's like when she meets me, right, they just want the audition, they want the interview, they want the shot. Ye, and that's what they're looking for. And that's the complaint that the men have now, regardless of if they're on bumble orf they're going,
their matchacer is the women will not give them a shot. Well, and it's it's sometimes the matchmaker is in a position because she has enough inventory. I shouldn't call human beings inventory, but we are when we're commodities like that, the matchmaker has enough possibilities that she can get you that first date. But that woman isn't just going to have a first date with you. All
the guys want to date that girl. And so she's going to be on the gravy train of nice dinners and she's meeting all these great people and she's having such a good time. Or you know, it's the young guy who's forty five, who's got all these choices, every such a good time. Why why, like my mother said, why buy the cow and the milk is free. Why commit and be in a relationship, which is really hard when you could just keep dating? Do you and don't befriended out there,
any of my little fellow listeners. I am very sympathetic to the plight of the short guy. I was one of you in high school. Do you charge more for shorter men because some matchmakers do? You know? I look at it this way. I like to measure something called romantic market value. Okay, I mean stand on your wallet. Well, like you know, if a guy, if a guy's not that good looking, or he might be short, or he might be do we'd be looking or whatever? But
he has a really fun personality. That's what we call the Adam Sandler effect. Okay. So, and a woman has the ability to develop attraction over time far better than a guy does. It is the biggest distinction between men and women and how we date. So correct, So how can you tell the guy she's out of your league? Here's what I'll say. Okay, So here's the thing, Brian. The three women you were really excited to meet, they're very popular, they have a lot of opportunities. I can
probably get you the first date. I can't promise the second date. My recommendation to you is going to be sure meet Barbie, Carol and Susie absolutely. Meanwhile, do I have your confidence and trust? I want to see what happens if, in addition to these three, if you met your second tier, which is this person, this person, this person. I want to know how you feel after each date, and I want to know what that feedback is on you. Do you want to know the feedback if it's
not so great? Do you have the guts? Do you try and judge how funny they are? Well, that's part of romantic market value. Yeah, if a guy's got a great fun personality and these upbeat as opposed to being honest to god, I really really struggle with people who are awkward socially. People on this spectrum I try really, really, really hard. I love helping people outs. People in my boot camp. They're working on their social skills. That guy is a better bet than hey, baby, how
you do it right? Who's too over confident? Now? A lot of guys who who are very successful and very driven, they didn't work on their social skills because either they got married really young. Check it off. I have a wife I'm going to go back to work, or they seven und of dates or they hadn't is your job to give them to try and identify are they capable of having another layer to their personality or you're like, this
is what I have to deal with and I work around. Oh man, all somebody has to do to get into the sweet spot of my heart is show me that they're interested in learning, that they're willing to stretch, that they're willing to Like my boot camp is all about, let's do everything else first. Let's not hire the matchmakers. Let's put the matchmakers out of business. Let's put the high end division of my company out of business, because
I would so much rather do introductions for Freeze way less pressure. Yeah, and I'm going to be able to say to you, this is the post date feedback, and you're going to say, well, how come I didn't get the second date? Well? I think I know, Brian, But do they say I was nervous, it was weird? Can I get another
shot? And can you talk her into that? Sometimes, but what's more powerful is if you really wanted a second date with Susie and she kind of gave you, Maybe she got on the phone she said, you know, I thought about it, Brian. I don't think there's enough you know stuff here. So I'm going to release you to your dating mission with you know, but we're going to stay friendly. I want people to stay friendly. But if you say, Julie, how come I to get the second date?
I think I know what it is? Well, what is it? Do you really want to know? Because it's it might be hard to hear, and then you're gonna if you ask me the second do they want to know? You have to ask me the second time? And if you say I really want to know, it might be hard for you to here. I don't want you to be mad at me and go on Yelp and write me a bad review or something. But here's what it is. I'm going to make you wait for it. I'm going to say, well, she
said you kind of reminded of her father. I know that's now they have her contact information at this point, right. Yeah, So they're like, do you come out the bad guy? Like Julie said, you said this? Like how much is the confidence where you were? Like? Do you ask her? Can I tell him? Why? Well? I have to
have to judge in on a case by case basis. If my client ever went back to Susie and said, I can't believe you told the matchmaker that I reminded you of her father, right, that would be the end of my relationship with that man. Do you have to tell him that. I would say that's unacceptable. I might give him a second chance, or I might say we're done. Now, do you say that up front? You
can't say anything to her or we're done. I'm going to tell you in confidence, I say from the very my welcome guide is ten pages long. After you and I do our two hundred and ninety five dollars consultation, and you think you want to be my matchmaking client, I'll say, well that could be. Here's all I'm going to do. I'm going to send you my welcome Guide, which evolves. I change it every I updated every quarter. And this is an evolving kind of a system. And you got to
be happy with everything about the way my protocols work. And you are gonna here's my agreement, and I'll give it to you. You got three days to change your mind to get all your money back. After that, Brian, look me in the eye. Don't ask for your money back. I'm the honest to goodness, no bullshit matchmaker, and I don't do refunds. I'm gonna I'm giving you my time, my most valuable commodity. I can't promise relationship. I can't even promise second dates. Are you sure you want
to spend that ten thousand dollars? How do you avoid them calling American Express and say she didn't give me what I paid for. I will not take a credit card for a matchmaking program because people get emotional right of a guy from Hello Kuwait who paid for his twenty five thousand dollars program on his Black American Express card, I worked my ass off. I only wanted Asian women.
We did fifteen introductions in at the end of it, at the end of the six month time, after fifty teen introductions, he did a charge back on his card. And you know what, and a black card. They don't even question it. They want his business, not yours here, and I am the I am the business owner. So I had to pay that five percent on the way in to the Black American Express card, and even after we did the charge back, I had to pay it again.
So for the privilege of working my ass off for this guy for six months, I had to pay for two five percent of twenty five thousand dollars. That's why I don't charge more than ten thousand dollars, thank you very much. If it's less than ten thousand dollars in the state of California, we would handle it in small claims court. And I am detailed and meticulous. They don't want to go to a small claims court over that. So that's why I don't have problems with clients. I tell most of them don't even
think about hiring a matchmaker? How do you avoid? And your husband's in the other room. So I don't mind even asking this, and I would ask anybody is how do you avoid your personal taste not been like I like that guy? Like, how do you put yourself a position like that guy's in to me? How do you get your personal taste out of it?
And decide what the most majority of women would do? See, I think that would be a challenge for him, Like I think she's pretty and people like you a weird taste or whatever, and I can hook you up with whatever. How do you let that? I think this is a good guy
because he makes me laugh. Oh yeah, Well, because that's that's where the art of matchmaking really is. Because the first thing I got to do is get under your skin and find getting your head and quickly in a matter of an hour, maybe a hour and a half, because there's a half hour for free, there's emails text in between. I'm getting to know you, and I got to trust that my assessment of who you are is accurate enough that I won't fuck it up and take on the wrong client for the
Yeah, so it's accurate enough that most women would give it. Maybe not marrying, but they'll give him an opportunity to find out. Well, all I'm looking for is to be a good matchmaker to you. I just want to know that the kind of women that you think you should be dating are going to be interested in you. That's what I call a natural match, which I won't take on a client who's looking for an unnatural match. An unnatural so simple. You're looking for the girl who's not looking for you back.
Well, they're never looking for us back. That's why it's hard. Well, they're never looking for us back. That's the that's the sporting maybe because you're looking in the wrong maybe, but I think that's what makes it special. I think that's fine that they're not looking for us back. You need to overcome that they're not looking for us back. It's a part of
my mission in the coaching that I do. The reason why I called my company from the very beginning Cupid's Coach is because that little guy with the bow and arrow, he screws up all the time and usually points the arrow in the wrong faction. So my I'm so excited to do this work for so many years is that I want to help people make the right choices. So
the reason I won't reveal age is because there's always an age bias. And the more money a guy has, the more market value he has, the more character, the more humor or whatever, all the stuff that matters. The more he thinks that he should have what he wants, who he wants,
who is attracted, and that's impacted by culture and status. Oh well, so maybe you're going after the forty two year old, and we do some If you're my client the first two months of a four month period that we're working together, yeah, I'm going to give you what you tell me you want. And I get that. But there's a lot of guys because I know a lot of matchmakers and they'll put stuff on social media or whatever, and either the guy or the girl is looking for somebody who went to
a specific college or they went to Ivy League college. And I'm like, who cares? What if they went to Stanford that's not an Ivy League college. And they're like, our job is to give him what he wants. I think your job is to talk him out of what he wants, because he doesn't No, it's laziness out of him. He wants to be he
wants to be partnered with somebody who's going to make him look good. Because when he says, well, this is my girlfriend and she went to Harvard, and she well, then that's an insecure man and you're screwing her. But you're screwing her over to set him up with a guy like that, I'm not making that match right. Guy who needs the woman to make him feel good, I think that's a dangerous to match him up in the way away. You got a a woman who needs a wealthy man. She looks
good. She needs a tall man so she looks good in her stupid shoes standing there at the stupid shoes. Yes, for the Ferrari. That's the thing too. That's the these women who are five ten and they wear the heels and they want a guy six to two. I go the six to two guy wants to feel tall, so he's not going out with you. That's point of being six to two, so you feel tall. He's not going out your five ten on your heels. He's going to choose five to
two. So here's what I love. This is what I love about a four month program. During the second half of the program, I get a chance to really make an impact because we've already done a bunch of introductions with women that were the it girls in your esteem and you had a good time, she had a nice guy, but whatever. And then the guys almost always will come back to me and they're a little bit frustrated and they're like, well, how come I'm not getting a second How Well, because I
think the bright, shiny objects have kind of captured your attention. So do you trust me enough to allow me to do some introductions with women that I think are really good for you that shared What I'm looking for is shared values, shared passions, lifestyle compatibility, the kind of thing where you're sitting watching a program together and you're just holding hands and you just love being together. You cook for each other, you laugh together, you fart in front of
each other, and it's all good. You know. Do you ask how old the kids are? It's very important in my new stees that matters, right, Oh my gosh. In my new system, I just made decisions about how I'm going to handle that. I'm going to have the birth year of the children so that it advances over time, like it's hard to talk
about with regard to techno years. So it goes so you're not just like, well, when she started the program share a twelve year old, you have to go fix so five years from now the twelve year old to seventeen. And there's all of that. And also I'm going to have a really powerful mechanism where I'm going to be able to match men who want children with women who have frozen their eggs or with guy. I'm going to be asking men, are you open to fertility? You know, creative fertility solutions,
which means maybe the woman has eggs on eyes. Me, most men are not well because here's why, and get people get out I saying that most men understand those odds better than most women, right, which is bad, right. It makes it hard for the way the women are like, it's
all cool, I froze my eggs risky to the guy. I know, I know, but at least I'm going to be able to have the information right because very often what will happen is the guy's fifty two, he wants to have a family, he didn't get to do it, or maybe he had a child with the woman who was a whack job, and now we got to have like the family. Why because he picked the girl who looked like stupid Barbie. But you know that's beside the point where Barbie's taking a
beating of them. Barbie's taking a beating. But what happens is me check his sperm too, By the way, Yeah, a lot of times they blame the woman. Yeah, exactly. So then I go to him and
I say, look, I could take you on. If you're fifty two and you want children, if you're open to dating the woman who's already had a child would love to have another, or and or if you're open to meeting the woman who would love to have a kid and has her eggs on ice, there's no guarantee, because I can't tell you how many men Brian I have who have always been holding out for the woman who's young enough to have the kids. I mean, while now it's ten years later, right,
and now he's fifty two instead of forty two. I've got a guy You's seventy five years old. He's a judge. Okay, he's this Jewish guy. He's never been married, and every five years I check into him. I got a great woman who's ten years younger than you does. She'd love to meet you, but oh no, no, I'm waiting for that woman who wants to have kids. And finally I said to him, I've known you for twenty years and still you're waiting for the woman. She can't
have children. She's just crazy. I should match him with the woman who came to me. And she's just gorgeous. One of the most incredibly beautiful women I've ever met in my life. I'm sitting at her incredibly beautiful home in Beverly Hills. I don't know where the money came from. She's got two of these little white Pomeranians on her lap, you know, and she just looks so amazing. She's forty five, wants kids, won't date anybody over the age of forty five. He can't have children already. And she's
forty five, that's right. And you say, I don't care where the money came from, you better ask, Well, I think it matters. So I'm just But she's just living in a dream. Well, a lot of women do that. They're thirty and they hold out. You know our friend, you know Lori Gottlieb. Oh, yeah, she wrote them. It is in her book. Okay, she wrote the marr Him book. And she's like, these women wait for exactly perfect at thirty and they wait
and they wait and wait, and then there's forty one. And that's right. It's not great. So here's the cool thing about our weird world that we're living in. Nobody says people have to be partnered up anymore. Nobody says who says you have to be married? Who says you have to be How do you feel when women say, well, gush, you know, how come you've ever been married? So what neither is half of the other
thing? No, I would see that would be a red flag answer, I would say, and I've said this on this podcast for why I've never been married is because I never trusted my parents' love for each other, which means that I did not trust their love for me, which means I didn't trust the concept, and so I walled myself off and led this emotionally unavailable world. Owning that is a better answer than trying to be lad. It's not that big a deal. I don't I don't need a piece of paper
in me. That's bullshit. You better own why you do. Okay, in the interest of Tom Gonna, let you plug everything you want to plug and sell your services to the world. You've been on the show before. I'm not going to play worst date or first date with you because you've been you've been married a long long time. But I want you to tell this audience how you met your husband. I was let's set the stage. It was an Ethiopian restaurant. I was sitting by myself, crying over my beer,
looking at the personal ads. I was twenty nine point nine years old, with half of one ovary left. Okay, dad had died. I'm working for the Ritz Carlton Hotel company. I've got the worst boss in the whole world, working ninety hours a week. I have no life. I had done personal ads three times in Kansas City, but I moved back to Saint Louis, where I'm from, and I'm opening up that Ritz Carlton hotel with no life, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, I can't put
a personal ad in the paper. What if my history teacher hits on me. What if the word gets out and my high school boyfriend says, oh my god, Julie Hardesty is doing the personal ads. That's what I'll losing. See, kids, you used to have to do personal ads. Yeah. So I'm crying in my beer and I'm thinking, I can't do personal ads here. What the hell? I'm working ninety hours a week. How am I going to get this handled? I want to have children. I
want to be married more than anybody I know. I see ads for dating services. I thought, okay, rip the page out, ran home. Called all three agencies. Two of them were blind date matchmaking companies. I'm like, I've had enough surprises with personal ads. I don't think I need any more surprises. Let's at least go to the one that let's just see photos and videos. You can put the little VHS tape in the machine and look at the guy. I'm like, I was so excited, I couldn't
wait to go in for my consultation. I go in for my consultation and who interviews me is a guy named Gil Furman who owned the local franchise and also the Kansas City franchise. Forty four year old bachelor, nice Jewish boy, never joined great expectations first and thought, wow, this is a good idea. How come I didn't think of it? But then he realized it's a franchise, so he put together the franchise, goes across the country, expected to open up the place and then leave, you know, and he
loved it. He was having so much fun interviewing people. The reason I got to have the interview with Gil Furman is because I was a gill Lead. Now, a gill Lead was a sophisticated person that was going to be maybe a tough clothes So he was just only interested in my money. So he talks me into joining, maxed out both of my credit cards, and I later flirted with him and asked him out, dragged him down the aisle. That's how it happened. So he dated. He ate where he don't
eat where you were sleep whatever phrase is he did. He scraped the good one off the top. No, I grabbed him, Now you grabbed him. I grabbed him because I knocked on the door. After I got my photos and videos done and I finally started getting able to access to the library, started kicking people and it was slim pickens Brian. And here we are thirty plus years later. Yeah, so I flirted with him and then you basically got in the business. Yeah, so I worked for him. I
got pregnant. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to have kids, got pregnant. So Gil and I got engaged in five weeks, married in five months, pregnant two months later. That boy is thirty two, and then the other one came along two years later. So I worked for Gil through two big pregnancies. They just threw me in with all the girls. He wanted marriage and babies. They said, well, I worked for me, and then he sold his companies and I started mine twenty something years
ago in LA. Now thirty thousands of happy couples later here, Yeah, thirteen hundred we know about. And no, we've had divorces, but no murders that we're aware of. Well, the day's not over all right, tell everybody where they can find you, Juliefurman dot com. It's free,
it's private. Men and women of all ages are welcome. And if you if you live in southern California or if you live in New Mexico, those are my two hubs, then I will as long as I still have the bandwidth to keep doing this, I will give you your first thirty minute call for free. You just got to fill your profile out and I'll do it, and then you can do a consultation with me for two hundred and ninety five bucks. You can do my boot camp, and then maybe I will
allow you to think about doing matchmaking with me. But first you got to earn your place in my heart. There you go. Tell me about your podcast, the Cupids Coach podcast, produced by Brian Howie. I am so happy I do my podcast. It's that was my favorite thing, and now the boot camp. I don't know which is my favorite. Yeah, no, I do. I produce, you know, hundreds of other podcasts. Besides that, you were one of the first. You're one of my favorites,
and you're one of the most popular. I give you credit for that. It's one of the top podcasts, especially in this ecosystem in the world. You were awesome as far as us like, share, follow. Please review, not this pot not just this podcast, but Cupids Coach podcast. After all this time, your reviews still mean a lot, not just to me, but in the podcasting universe. Uh. Shoot us an email, Great Love Debate at gmail dot com if you have questions, thoughts, comments
for me, for Julie, for anybody else. Do that. I don't know if this show drops in time. Maybe check out our live tour schedule for our tenth anniversary show. I think it drops out. I think you missed it by the time this drops. I don't know death the anniversary show. If you listen to one of the day it drops. Boca black Box Center for the Arts book Worre Tone, Florida. Tickets on sale Boca Blackbox
dot com, Great Lovedebate dot com. Tenth year. Julia's on our stage back in the way way way beginning memory time, when we were just floundering around. It was like to Jerry it was an I to say seven times. It was like the Jerry Springer show back in the day. But it's much more evolved now. We've gotten better because as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stopped making love. To see you next time. The
Great Love Debate. It's the Great love debate. Degreat love debate, It's a Great love Debate.