This is pod Popular podcast for the people, The Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate, de 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 and relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I am back here in the very fine studios of Pod Populi Podcast for the People. I am at the one in Las Vegas. First time recording here. It's very fancy. H Lots of what we talk about on this show and at
our live shows. And speaking of our live shows, those who came out to our recent tenth anniversary show and book were tone two things. One, thank you to Jesus. What a mess in South Florida. But anyway, what we talk about there and here a lot is the concept of change. We say a lot. You have to make a change, you have to be open to change. You can only find your answers through change. And so nothing I'm going to talk about today is going to necessarily counter it.
I'm just going to sprinkle a bit of caution to it and explain how sometimes too much change isn't necessarily the answer either. So I'm not necessarily big on business leadership quotes. Most of them sound like Tony Robbins because most of them probably are Tony Robbins, and props to Tony. He does a lot of good, but much of what he's saying is rooted in motivation and not necessarily
in day to day practicality. But one of the most practical quotes that makes the most sense in terms of what we are talking about is one from John Maxwell, who does a lot of leadership stuff. He says, the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, and the leader adjusts the sales. The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, and the leader adjusts the sales. And a lot of what
we talk about at the Great Love Debate is related to that philosophy. The pessimist men sucks, dating sucks, Tinder sucks, et cetera, complaining about the wind. The optimist, well, if I keep dating, or I go on more dates, or I date more girls, one of them is bound to like me back. Eh. Possibly, But the leader who takes control of the outcome, I need to start doing this. Maybe if I
tried this my approach, this time. Next time will be different. I think that mindset is the best course for success, or at least the smartest one to chart. So not to get all nautical on you, but when you chart a course, when you're a sailing tactician, you have to look at both the probability of outcome as well as the ultimate destination. Where do you want to go? Not like Christopher Columbus, you just headed somewhere and you ended up at the wrong place, and you're a hero. Where do
you want to go? You got to play the angles. You can't just think, well, this isn't getting me there. I'm just going to go that way and see what happens. So why do I bring all this up? I bring this up because I see a lot of it, and a lot of it that I see. All right, I'm gonna cave. I'm going to talk about Taylor Swift for a second. And we've talked about her before on here many times, and mostly when we do so, it's to
praise her or to appreciate her realism and her talent and her honesty. But at the time of this recording, she is dating Travis Kelcey, and you either know that if you're listening to this in early twenty twenty four, or you knew it and forgot it because you're listening to this in twenty twenty six and you're like, oh, yeah, that was weird when they dated, And why am I not too confident that this is a long term thing? And what does that have to do with change in making connection? All right?
Here we go. So Kelsey, by any reasonable standard, and probably by his own admission, is what I would call the full meathead, beer chugging headbudding, hard living whatever you want to call it. Does he possibly probably have a sweet and soft side. I'm sure he does, and I'm sure she has seen it. I'm sure she's attracted to it, but I
don't think that's his dominant trait. On the other hand, what she is mostly dated to date, as far as we know, has been a collection of essentially harpstrumming poet boys, real sensitive types who ended up hurting her anyway. So she was like, instead of going for that type again, which, if you know us around here, we absolutely encourage that kind of thinking, she probably thought, let me go for the absolute opposite, let me go for the absolute one to eighty from those guys. Let me go for
the bigger, stronger, louder, funnier man. We try that on for size and we basically say, hold on just a second. Isn't that what you encourage? Sort of football team owners? They do this all the time. Since we're on the subject of football. They will replace a quote unquote players coach who goes easy on them with a disciplinarian, and then when that doesn't work out, they will place a disciplinarian with someone who doesn't really believe
in practice. They tend to always overcorrect to the opposite, which is a lot of times what we do in dating, especially after divorce. Heard a woman say I've spent ten years with the Wall Street executive and that ended badly, So now I'm gonna spend ten months with a wanna be drummer. So what she's doing and what a lot of you are doing, is you're dating as a reaction to the past, without a look to the potential for the future. You just want to correct it right now, a shot and a
chaser. So why do we do this? And what about this? If anything is necessarily a bad thing, well I will up pine. This is my opinion on just about all of it. But I gotta take a quick break and we will be back right after this. And we are back and we're talking about over correction. Why do we do this? And what about this is necessarily a bad thing. Lots of it has to do with self esteem. The prior relationship probably broke it. It broke down your confidence.
It made you doubt yourself, and that's where your self esteem falls off a cliff, and you want to get as far away from any reminders of the last one or a past one as possible, So you're basically diving into the opposite. But for someone like Taylor Swift, she has to get a little bit better perspective on who she is because I think she's lost that her old She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers. She's not on the bleachers anymore.
She is cheer captain. She is the cool kid. She doesn't want to wear his she doesn't need to wear his varsity jacket to feel good about herself. But she is doing so. And again I don't blame her, because she's like, I went for this, this and this, and it
didn't work, So let me break me off some of that. The big sweaty brute and that's totally fine and totally normal, but it probably is short term because it's too far of an overcorrect Those are fun relationship to have when you're in bars and restaurants or or having fun and you're sitting in a luxury box with Blake Lively. But then the season's over and it's just you and him sitting around the mansion, and I think you won't like the socks on
the floor and the weight bench in the living room. And this is not to disparage him. He probably has a very nice, sensitive side, but his defining characteristic beyond football is too loudly and frequently declare that he wants to fight for his right to party. And I'm not sure that's the kind of lyric that she's looking for in a man long term, you know, but
we all do it. You're forty six years old and you divorce him, and now you're out with your twenty six year old tennis instructor because he makes you feel sexy in a way your husband didn't for a decade. Or the dude who got tired of being diminished or dumped by a series of you know, career attorneys and researchers and now he just wants to try the cute girl with an Irish accent who has no real ambition beyond happy hour, which is fine, fine for him, fine for the Irish girl. But all of
it is most likely temporary. And they're all good, and they're all they're all healthy as a as a palate cleanser. But too often I think people are miss reading short term fun and mistaking it mistakenly thinking as long term potential, and it rarely does. The overcorrection eventually needs to revert back to the mean, not what you had before, but not necessarily this either. The answer is usually somewhere in the middle, two steps to the left, two
steps to the right. Right there, that's where it's probably going to exist. That's who your next mate should be. And a really common exact sample of over correction is to revert to the comfortable. I can't tell you how many people I meet or know who decide to look for and believe that they found the answers going way back. Oh, you wouldn't believe this. I'm dating a guy who lived down the street from me when I was twelve. We reconnected after all these years. I'm usually like, I don't know about
that. The girl from biology class. She didn't talk to me thirty five years ago, but now she's my girlfriend. And I'm like, well, you think because you had that one thing in common, that that's a good place to look. And maybe it is. And sometimes that works. Just this little nugget of familiarity, you can breed a bushel of comfort and compatibility that allows a relationship to flourish that wouldn't otherwise even get a chance. But
that'stistical improbability. You can't be breaking out your ninth grade yearbook and been like, I'm gonna pick one of these people because back then life was simpler. It's not gonna work that way, because you definitely have more recent examples, better ones closer to who you are to try and thread the needle through. It might be somebody in your building, might be somebody your last job. You shouldn't have to overcorrect thirty five years to what you believe was a simpler
time. It's that misty water colored memories, you know. I often I'm accused, not accused. I am cynical about college reunions. I think it's bizarre. I really don't understand people who build their whole decade calendar, waiting searching for the next one. Oh my god, our thirtieth is coming up in twenty twenty eight. I can't wait. To me, you know, I like college, but if I wanted to get together with someone from college, I'll figure out a way to call them and make a plan. A
lot of college people that I know friends of mine. They show up at Great Love Debate shows. I'm incredibly grateful. That doesn't mean we need to go back to our school to do it again. I don't under I never understood why that four year period freshman through senior year at that time. I don't understand why that has any more significance than any other four year period in
your life. I think I would enjoy more and probably get more out of the social circle I kept from like twenty eight to thirty two or thirty three to thirty seven, instead of seventeen to twenty one, when I was just sort of some fumbling young jackass. I at least have something in common with, you know, thirty four year old me. I don't think I have
anything in common with eighteen year old me. Those versions of me and those people I knew, they seem to have a lot more in common in later years with who I have become and what I want to do then some guy who happened to live on the hall with me sophomore year. But the reason people do that is we overcorrect to the comfort zone, the comfort of that where we believe we won't be hurt and where we believe that things did work
out when it was just about having fun. And you can say that, and you can try and convince yourself, you know what, life was easier, simpler, whatever, then but then the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, and that's not a realistic direction. And we tell you almost every week here to get rid of the words not my type. We stand by that, but it doesn't mean you go full opposite. It means simply
that you throw away any preconceived notion of what you might like. So if you're saying I wasn't having any luck having any luck with this, so I'm going to try that, that puts too much power on this reacting to what didn't work out for you. It should just stop there didn't work out, But some people say I had a short girl, so I'm gonna try a tall girl. I've been going out with smart guys. I'm gonna go out dumb guys that is still rooting your choices and your decision making in the past,
and you got to get rid of all of that. The past is what's not your type. Just focus on keeping it simple. Maybe I'll go in this direction and see where see where that leads. No past, no future, just the possibilities right in front of you and all around you. And then I think if you can judge every candidate who's a possibility for your time and infections as sort of an independent candidate, not behold into any preconceived notions or ghosts from last year, I think you get a better shot.
So you might be like, well, I've heard opposites attract, and you're wondering, do opposites attract? Oftentimes yes, but that means they're opposites of you. They're not opposites of your X. Your X has no place in your relationship and you're trying to put your X in another relationship. If you're trying to say that is what that was, and I want something the opposite of that, that's what I need. That's not what you'd need. They're the X for a reason. That's why they call them the X. They
gotta say see ya. So hopefully that made sense. There's a lot too much overcorrection and what we do we swing the pendulum way way too far. And if we go back to the boating analogy, you swing the sale out way too far. There's a good chance you're gonna get clocked in the head with the boom when it comes back around when you make the turn. So shoot me an email Graveleddebate at gmail dot com if you've got questions, thoughts, comments about that. We have a listener letter mail bag coming up.
It's our annual Spring Fling mail bag that gets you sort of ready for summer loven. We do a summer love and mail bag, but that's down the road. Spring Flings will post the questions that we're going to be dealing with on the social media. Follow us Great Love Debate on all the socials. Please like, share, follow, and review this podcast. After ten years of doing this, your reviews still mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem because, as always at The Great Love Debate, we never stop making love.
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