Dennis Prager Show - Timeless Wisdom - A Talk to Singles

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Nov. 7, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show

01:45:01

Timeless Wisdom - A Talk to Singles

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	November is National Family Caregivers Month.
	One in four Americans is stepping up to help older loved ones with everything from meals to bills.
	Family caregivers spend thousands out of their own pockets each year, and too many have to quit their jobs to keep providing care.
	Working families can't afford to wait.
	It's time to care for America's caregivers.
	Learn more at AARP.org slash careforcaregivers.
	Paid for by AARP.
	Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
	Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
	And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
	Okay, next tape here.
	It is my talk to singles.
	It is approximately 600 singles, in fact, from of every race and religion and background, people who came together because I said I would have a singles event on my radio show.
	And they're all from the Southern California area.
	And we got 600 within two weeks.
	I thought we might get 200 over the course of two months.
	We would have had probably maybe even thousands.
	There's a deep thirst among singles to meet one another in any part of the country because there aren't many venues for serious-minded singles to meet each other.
	It was a fair mixture of men and women and of all ages, and it was a delight to meet them.
	Anyway, I gave a talk on singlehood, if you will, mistakes singles make.
	And then there's a very extended question and answer period with my wife Fran and me, which I think you'll enjoy.
	And by the way, I didn't repeat all the questions as I said I would because there was a microphone.
	I hope you can pick up all the questions, but if you can't, even raising the volume, you'll still be able to hopefully benefit from the answers.
	That's, of course, after the talk itself.
	So here goes.
	I hope you'll enjoy this because even if you're married, it says a lot about marriage.
	And I hope you'll give this tape to somebody who's single.
	Alrighty then, until next tape.
	Well, actually, until the tape begins in a few seconds.
	This is Dennis Prager.
	Thanks and enjoy.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Well, you think it's better that?
	No, but then they don't hear me.
	This is fine.
	I'm not worried.
	Thanks a lot.
	Hey, Renault Richard also makes my life possible, and he has set me up many times to broadcast.
	It's this thing that is very cute.
	Too bad.
	It was working at one point.
	Now I may have to hold it the whole time.
	That's the irony.
	I hate you, actually.
	Okay.
	It's a Democratic microphone.
	There's no question.
	Okay.
	All right, no politics.
	I got to tell you one story about the meeting and then I get into this talk.
	The truth is, I simply knocked on a door and met my wife that way, which is, I do not generally believe that that is the way to do it.
	But I will tell you, I'll never forget when I was on on Saturday nights and Sunday nights, one Saturday night, a single woman called up to talk about, you know, advice that I might give her on meeting men.
	She wanted to get married and so on.
	And it was Saturday night, and I said, you know, well, it's, it's, you know, you're home tonight, so you're not, you're not David.
	She says, well, I don't go out much.
	And she really described a life where she just didn't leave the house much.
	So I yelled at her and I said, What do you think?
	Somebody's going to come knocking at your door?
	And as I said it, I'll never forget there was a voice in me that said, Oh, shut up.
	Maybe somebody will come knocking at our door.
	I want to know.
	So life is very funny in the way it works that way.
	Okay, allow me the water.
	I, as you know, I believe in marriage.
	And if not all singles want to get married, I fully appreciate that fact, but most do.
	And so I want to offer some thoughts on mistakes singles make in some of the things that they do very understandably.
	And if this can help some people, then I'm happy I will have given you this talk.
	And then there'll be time for QA, and we have more after that, too.
	Okay, in no order of importance, as I always say.
	And really, Fran really did help me on this one.
	This was a joint effort.
	Okay, and it is no order of importance.
	It's only as it came to me as I wrote it.
	So don't think number one is the key.
	It's just one of them.
	Here's one: asking too many people what they think about the person they're dating.
	A word of advice on this one.
	It is very understandable and it is very human to want to know what people think about somebody you're seeing.
	But it is really almost like asking, what do you think of my car colour?
	Some people, and I do that, by the way, I ask people what do they think of a certain color before I get my car.
	It's particularly stupid.
	Since by definition, different people like different colors.
	It doesn't mean anything.
	At a given point, you have to trust yourself.
	And the best advice about whom to ask is ask only a few people and only those who you deem wise and whose character you absolutely trust.
	Restricted, it is a good idea.
	I mean, sometimes you could be blinded by passion, by lust, even by love, and not know, and just be doing a very suicidal, emotionally suicidal thing.
	Somebody whom you trust may point out, but do you realize he does have a very long criminal record?
	And that may be helpful to point out to you.
	Because a long list of prior felonies is not a guarantor of not a great marriage, but you don't want to bet on it.
	And that can happen, that somebody could say, well, wait a minute.
	Do you see how he or she treats everybody else other than you?
	You're so blinded because he is kind to you or she is kind to you, but did you ever see the way this person treats waiters?
	Which is one of my old litmus tests.
	Watch if the janitor at the place where the person you're dating works thinks well of the person, that's much more important than if the boss does.
	And it's a very good indicator because what character is not enough in finding somebody to marry.
	There are people of good character with whom you'll have no chemistry.
	Obviously, it's not enough.
	But it certainly is necessary.
	And so there it is a good idea to get to bounce off one or two people.
	But if you keep asking everybody, people who not intimately know you or that person or what have you, or who you don't believe are particularly wise or particularly have character you absolutely trust, it's probably not a good idea.
	Number two, people are not orderable a la carte.
	They are only orderable as an entire menu.
	You can't say, I will take trait one from the appetizer list, trait three from the entree list, and for dessert, I will have trait six.
	It's not doable.
	People are full packages.
	Everybody, everybody comes with flaws, even you.
	This is very hard to imagine, since we tend to think that only they have flaws.
	But we all do, and people are packages.
	When I was single and very stupid, I was.
	That's not to mean that all singles are stupid, but I was single and stupid in this realm.
	I had some wisdom in the macro realm, and even in the micro realm, but not with regard to women.
	I knew nothing about women.
	I knew nothing about men and women, truly nothing.
	And I remember thinking in my 20s, oh, if I could only have a woman who has this one's personality, this one's body, this one's brain, this one's face, this one's this, and I was like making a composite human.
	This was, but that's, humans don't work like that.
	Now, it is very normal to do that, but normal isn't bright.
	Normal is often dumb.
	People are packages.
	Now, in this regard, both men and women have their own problems in facing that fact.
	Women have the problem because there's no question, most women believe that they could change the miserable traits of the guy they love.
	But pretty much, what you get on your wedding day is what you got.
	Okay?
	That's the way it works.
	We can get a little better, there's no question.
	But by and large, there's an old saw that has a lot of truth to it.
	That men want their women never to change, and women want their men to always change.
	There's a lot of truth to that idea.
	So there is always something, or very often something, in women, oh, he's terrific, and this is one thing, I'll just, I'll marry him, I'll fix him.
	Okay?
	You can fix a car, you can fix a TV, but it's hard to fix a person.
	What you get is what you get.
	And if you can't live with that, move on.
	But it is very important to know that for both sexes.
	Again, the great line, and we got this, you know who gave us this line?
	If you hear my show, Dr. Stephen Morrow.
	I bounced this idea off.
	I said, give me one line you want me to tell hundreds of singles that I will be speaking to.
	He said, tell them people are not a la carte.
	So it was his line, and I have to give him credit for it.
	But that is a very important point.
	I want to go further on this for a moment.
	And that is, not only are we all mixture.
	By the way, this is not only true for marriage.
	This is true for employees.
	It is true for your fellow worker.
	It is true for everyone on earth.
	Everybody comes with a price.
	I do.
	You do.
	Everyone does.
	So the question, by the way, it's very calming to know that because then you can say, you know what?
	Yes, he or she has this trait that drives me nuts.
	But it comes with so many other good ones.
	So that's the way it is.
	And that is the way it is.
	There's just no way around it.
	You can't have a car that is an SUV, a sports car, a family van in one.
	It doesn't exist.
	And unless you believe in polygamy, you are going to have to decide, do you want an SUV?
	Do you want a family van?
	Do you want a sports car?
	And so on.
	That is the way it works.
	We all want everything.
	That's fine.
	That is human nature.
	But not only does everybody come with a price, but I'll give you another important insight on this.
	Every blessing, every good trait has its flip side.
	Blessings come with curses.
	So even the person's best traits usually have a downside with them.
	You find a guy who is extremely meticulous, let's say.
	That meticulousness may therefore mean that he's not that easygoing because he is that meticulous.
	You love the fact that he's meticulous, but it comes with that trait.
	You want a woman who is very feminine.
	Very feminine women usually come with periodic moods.
	I don't want to go, I don't want to say anymore.
	Okay, one divorced man yelled bravo.
	No, but I mean that.
	If you want a guy's, if you want a clone of you, get a guy.
	That's just the way.
	Women, if you want a clone of you, get a woman.
	But if you want the opposite sex, the best term ever devised for the other one, it is the opposite sex, please know that that's the way it is.
	And that even the best traits come with they themselves, the trait itself comes with some negatives, if you will.
	Number three, marriage is not a constant love affair.
	It's first of all, it is important for singles to know that.
	Many of you have been married, I assume, and so certainly know that.
	That's why you're divorced.
	But it is just important to remember that, A, in terms of marriage, that there are valleys and there are peaks.
	And by the way, it can't be any other way.
	The only two people who are always on peaks are manic.
	You understand?
	That these are manic people, people who are always on peaks.
	Anyway, how do you ever know if you're on a peak if there are no valleys?
	And I don't mean to be poetic.
	Me, poetic, they thought, banish the book.
	But no, but I'm being very serious.
	You can't know if the whole world is at a 30,000 foot altitude, then you don't know you're high up.
	You only know that 30,000 feet high up, that's Mount Everest, is high because everything else is 30,000 feet below it.
	It is almost necessary to have valleys in order to appreciate mountains.
	There's no climbing to be done if we all start and stay at 30,000 feet high.
	But just as you have to know that about marriage and therefore be much more sober with regard to looking into getting married, so too dating.
	Dating too is not a constant love affair.
	And a lot of people break up.
	I suspect, I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect that there are people who break up because they hit their first valley.
	And they go, well, if we're hitting a valley when we're dating, you can only imagine what it'll be like when we're married.
	But of course that's true.
	How are you not going to have valleys when you're dating?
	What does that mean?
	It probably means you only see each other at the very best moments of your week so that you could be on that mountaintop at that time.
	But that's not real life.
	So it is critical.
	It is critical to recognize that about marriage, and it is critical to recognize that about dating.
	I'm going to return to the issue of marriage in a moment.
	Number four, you have to deeply desire and love the institution of marriage, not only desire and love a person.
	This has been a problem in our society where marriage is not in and of itself a longed-for institution.
	A lot of single people, especially younger ones, will say, look, I'm not that interested in marriage, but if the right person comes along and I'm just swept off my feet, then I'll marry.
	Well, that's not marriage.
	That is waiting to be swept off your feet and have a movie-like life.
	But movies last for two hours and ten minutes on the average.
	You notice that.
	People should remember that.
	Also, movies have a, I love movies, but movies have had a, I think, a deleterious effect on a lot of people because of the unreal nature of love in movies.
	First of all, I always realize movies have an unreal aspect because no one ever goes to the bathroom.
	Did you ever notice that?
	I've always thought about that in movies.
	I mean, everybody goes to the bathroom a few times a day, but nobody does.
	Just imagine, just, hold it, honey, I got to go to the bathroom.
	It never happens.
	It's part of the non-reality.
	Everything is just, in a sense, the difficult parts of life are airbrushed away.
	And so it is so, you know, the most gorgeous women, the most hunky men meet for a couple of hours.
	The greatest music is playing in the background.
	The whole thing is unreal.
	Now, those things should be experienced.
	I think that if you never have that, that's not good either.
	If you've never heard violins, proverbially speaking, if you literally hear violins, I'll give you Dr. Marmer's number at the end.
	But you understand why.
	If you have those moments, of course those moments, and they're important moments to feel just madly in love and so on, but they're moments.
	They can't be more than moments.
	That's not the way we are.
	We're not configured that way.
	So you have to want marriage.
	You can't only want a person.
	Then it won't work.
	Both want to believe in marriage, not just in love.
	You can't believe in love alone and have a good marriage.
	You have to believe in love and you have to believe in marriage.
	Number, I didn't number them.
	I guess six.
	Five.
	Good, that was a test.
	It's just that.
	See, can't do that when I'm on the radio.
	Well, you can, but I don't have the response.
	Yes.
	This is one of my favorites on this list of mistakes that singles make.
	This is one of my favorite lines.
	Well, you know, She or he, parents divorced.
	So he or she is very afraid about getting married.
	Where else in life do we apply the notion that if people have an accident, they should never resume what they were doing prior to it.
	Can you imagine somebody saying, he won't drive, his parents were in a car crash.
	I don't understand how that is any different at all.
	I believe anyone who says, you know, I'm really, really afraid of marriage and commitment, my parents were divorced, is fooling him or herself as well as you.
	It's an excuse.
	It has no validity in my opinion.
	Your parents got divorced, so therefore what?
	Or you got divorced and therefore what?
	I don't get it.
	Therefore what?
	Therefore, that's true.
	Some marriages end up in divorce.
	Many do.
	Therefore what?
	Therefore don't get married?
	It's a non-sequitur.
	It's not related to the first idea.
	Marriage is good.
	Some marriages are terrible and should end in divorce.
	I deeply believe in that.
	Is it not better to have loved and lost than never to have loved?
	Isn't that obvious?
	Does one want to lead a life that is just safe?
	That's what it is.
	Hey, I might get hurt.
	That's right.
	You might get hurt.
	That's true about anything.
	But then you're not living life.
	If the purpose of life is not to get hurt, don't get married.
	If the purpose of life is not to get hurt, never have children.
	In fact, I don't know what you should do if the purpose of life is never to get hurt.
	Because basically any time you take a risk for anything worthwhile, you could get hurt.
	Why have a job?
	You could lose it.
	What if somebody said, you know, I'm not going to work?
	Why not?
	I was fired from my last job.
	Right?
	If you're fired from your last marriage, you don't get married.
	Then if you're fired from your last job, why work?
	It's the same thing.
	I don't want to risk it.
	But we all know the worthiness of work, of having a job.
	It just, it is, I've never, I understand a lot of these mistakes and certainly made my own.
	How do you think we know them?
	But this one I really don't have much respect for.
	Because this is a pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-emotionally deep thing, and I hate pseudo-anything.
	I don't believe in it.
	A guy should say, or a woman should say, and this is more often a guy, hey, frankly, I'm scared silly of commitment.
	And I will get to that part.
	I respect the guy who says that.
	But this thing, well, I was divorced and I'm afraid of it happening again, or my parents were divorced, or my uncle, oh, don't ask my uncle what he went through with my aunt.
	I don't respect that line of argument.
	This is the way life is.
	And marriage is a gamble.
	Every marriage is a gamble.
	In fact, there was a great song.
	When I was a kid, my father used to go to Brazil to do business work, and I'll never forget he came back with a Portuguese best-selling song in Portuguese, obviously.
	And the title was, Marriage is a Lottery.
	And as a kid, I didn't understand that at all, what marriage is a lottery meant.
	But for some oddball reason, it stayed in my mind, and it is true.
	You don't know what this person will be like, or what you will be like 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now.
	But on the basis of not knowing that, you are going not to get married?
	I just don't understand it.
	Do you want to, it's said at your funeral, so-and-so was never hurt.
	Here lies a human who never experienced emotional pain.
	Bravo, what an achievement.
	But that's really what somebody is saying if they say, well, my parents got divorced or I did or what have you.
	Number six, thank you.
	Men are afraid of commitment.
	Okay, not all, yes, all men.
	Yes, if that's what you asked.
	Yes.
	On behalf of men, let me announce all men.
	It is not in our nature to be committed in that way forever and ever.
	For many men, the thought they can never have another woman is so frightening that before they get married, they go and have a bachelor's party where they have a semi-orgy.
	I don't think it's a wise idea, frankly.
	I will prepare for monogamy by having an orgy, but nevertheless, you know, if that works, that works.
	I don't tend to see how it works.
	So men, let me address this to men.
	That is correct.
	It is not fully in your nature.
	So here is the question that I pose to men.
	What is your choice in life?
	Your choice is not to commit and have what exactly?
	And a very long series of monogamous affairs?
	Whoopee-doo.
	What exactly does that get you at the end of the day?
	You want to look back at your life and say, wow, I lived with seven different women.
	What a rich life.
	No, I often think of that.
	What do you want to say at the end of the day, meaning as you look back at your life?
	Do you want to have built something or do you want to have been led by your you-know-what?
	Because that's really what it is.
	It's not your brain leading you into singlehood.
	It's a very tiny fraction of your body that is leading men into a life that really doesn't bring them happiness.
	It brings them periodic excitement, no question about it.
	But, you know, I watched the life of Hugh Hefner.
	Hugh Hefner is truly, he's a caricature of the male nature.
	Here is a man who truly could lead the ultimate fantasy life, any number of beautiful women at any time.
	But notice it's very interesting.
	Someone really ought to do a book, not to curse him or anything like that, but because he's so fascinating as a living caricature of what a male, freed and able to live the male fantasy life.
	He now has seven girlfriends.
	You know that, who all go around with him at all times.
	They're all, he is 70-something.
	They are all in their younger 20s.
	They all, it's fascinating, if you've noticed, they all, by the way, look like clones of each other.
	It's a little eerie when you look at it.
	It's really seven times one, but it's seven different bodies.
	But I watched, and the last picture, it was up to nine.
	And there's a reason.
	There is a reason.
	And this is very important for all of us to know about the pursuit of fun, but especially men with regard to the pursuit of women.
	If you are animated by the pursuit of excitement, which is very easily done and very powerful urge, if you are, it never fully works.
	Because one wasn't enough, so then two, then three, then seven.
	Seven isn't exciting enough, and he is now up to nine.
	And that's the way it works.
	Carnal knowledge, that wonderful film, made that point clear, where it was impossible for the character, was it Jack Nicholson, to achieve sexual fulfillment except in the most variegated, rare, rare ways because he had become jaded to normal pleasure in life, which is very possible to happen.
	It's not only in the sexual arena, I've mentioned this on a number of occasions, kids who never see black and white movies will never enjoy a black and white movie because they get jaded.
	They've only had color.
	And we know that because we show our, we let our youngest son watch movies, and many of them are black and white movies, which he just adores.
	But he has friends who come over who won't enjoy it.
	They can't believe he's watching a black and white movie when they've only seen color.
	It's very easy to get jaded by constant excitement.
	It doesn't make you happier.
	To men on the commitment issue, here is my question.
	And I believe this question should be asked by everybody about everything.
	Ask before you make a decision, yes or no, on anything, will this increase my happiness?
	Not, will this be fun?
	Not, will this be exciting?
	Will it increase my happiness?
	Will committing to one woman and building in life together increase your happiness?
	Or will be screwing around, will that increase your happiness?
	If you truly believe screwing around will increase your happiness, not your fun, your happiness, don't get married.
	Don't inflict yourself on some poor woman.
	But if you can honestly answer, and most men would answer that, well, if you're talking ultimate happiness in life, yeah, I think building something with one woman is far more likely to bring me happiness.
	Then that's a different story.
	Now, women have a variation today on this one, because women, I have this belief that is not popular on college campuses, that men and women are in fact intrinsically different.
	Not just physically, but psychologically.
	And so women, for them, the idea of, well, wow, a life of having seven men at any given time is not a fantasy.
	Okay, that is not the way the woman libido or the woman psyche works.
	But there is now a substitute that many younger women will have, and that is this.
	Listen, I'll get married one day, but first, I want to, you know, I want to get my career in shape and, you know, and get my work life in order and so on.
	Now, it makes sense in theory, but in practice, and this is really addressed obviously to younger women, they are in reality giving up some of the best years that they have for getting a man over to getting a job.
	Now, if that's the intellectual choice they wish to make, that is fine.
	But I've done a lot of shows on this, and I've asked women about this, and many women say if they had to do it over, meeting a man would have been at least as important a priority as getting a job.
	But women have been taught, if you say on a college campus today, if you're a woman and you say that your greatest goal in life is to have a happy marriage, you may want to be a neurosurgeon.
	That's not the issue.
	But your greatest goal is to, in fact, find a good man and make a home, you are regarded as a fascist, as almost so right-winged that you are almost a caricature.
	What?
	There's somebody who believes that even today?
	There's been a lot of messing with women's minds, I think, in this regard, because their instinct, which is more a nesting one than it is a conquer the world with vocational one, has been, I believe, told, no, that's not true.
	You've been played with.
	This is the true you.
	The true you is vocationally satisfied, which, by the way, is fine.
	That's not the issue.
	The issue is: can you say a priority in your life is to get married?
	I think both sexes should say that.
	Number seven, I believe.
	Many singles look in the wrong places to find somebody.
	Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with a singles cruise or other singles events.
	But the odds are that if something is just a singles cruise, that's all it is, in other words, it's a cruise for singles, the odds are that most people on it are not looking to find someone to marry.
	That they are, or at least the men on the cruise.
	They are probably looking to have a fun time.
	They're looking for fun and excitement.
	Indeed, that is the way the cruise will advertise itself.
	The bar is open 24 hours a day.
	You know, we have the Jakarta tubs are available to you at all times.
	I am sure, I have no doubt, that durable, beautiful marriages have resulted from people meeting on singles cruises at Club Méditerranée and at other more hedonistic-oriented singles events, including bars.
	We have dear friends who met at a singles bar or at a bar.
	I don't know if it was a singles bar.
	But it is, but it's less typical.
	So, where should you look?
	And I don't have expertise in this arena, but it would seem to me that one place or one guideline is to go to places where people are drawn for interests and values that you hold.
	So, that might be rather than just individually created for singles, it just may be something I threw out, and I don't even know if this is valid, but I threw out the idea of perhaps big sisters and big brothers.
	Now, obviously, when you are only with the girl you mentor if you're a big sister, or the boy you mentor if you're a big brother, but I gotta believe that if you're a big sister, the type of guy who's gonna be a big brother might be more likely to be material for you than someone you'll meet on a singles cruise.
	That's all I'm saying.
	Not knocking the idea, I may even do a singles cruise one day.
	Some of you mentioned earlier.
	But obviously, well, maybe we'll have a 24-hour hot tub.
	I don't know to give that some thought.
	But if it is a 24-hour hot tub, there will be Bible talks given.
	Charlie Richards will give a Bible talk while you're in the hot tub.
	All right, number eight, and this one is of recent vintage.
	I had a show on this with a woman who's writing 40 Reasons Not To, and that is living together.
	And I never had a problem with it, and I'm not even talking now moral or religious.
	None of this talk is not predicated on sharing religious moral values.
	It's predicated on just common sense arguments for singles who are interested in ultimately marrying.
	And living together, the more I think about it, living together before marriage is probably not a great idea.
	Because I'm not sure what exactly is gained by it.
	I know what's lost, but I couldn't for the life of me, when I was writing the notes, I couldn't figure out what's gained.
	I know what's lost is, well, I'll tell you romantically what's lost.
	There's a romantic thing that's lost.
	What's lost is that the first night together is the night that you're a husband and wife.
	I don't mean sexually, just even together.
	Just that you leave the wedding and you are making the home for the first time.
	There's something very powerful about that.
	But if you've been together for four years and then get married, which I'm happy you do, obviously, just romantically speaking, it's a very different thing.
	You go home to the same place.
	Just tonight, where were you today?
	At our wedding.
	You understand what I'm saying?
	What are you guys going to be doing tomorrow?
	Oh, we're getting married tomorrow.
	Oh, okay, fine.
	You know, give us a call at 10.
	You know, that sort of thing.
	It's very different.
	It's very different.
	And there should be something super duper special about getting married.
	But again, what is gained?
	We know what is lost, at least statistically.
	Now, the statistics are that people who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than people who don't.
	Now, those who say that there is no correlation offer this argument.
	They say, ah, the only reason for that statistic is that those who live together before marriage are the type of person more likely to get divorced because they're less traditional.
	Okay, so that's the argument that is given.
	There may be some truth to it, but I still believe there is no good argument that I know of for living together before marriage.
	There are things to be learned about the other, and they should be learned.
	But they are learned in the course of time, and they don't have to be learned by living together.
	Also, living together isn't married.
	So it is not fair to say that this approximates marriage.
	A marriage is, if it approximated marriage, you would have gotten married.
	If living together and married are essentially the same thing, this is my argument when women say, you know, I love this guy.
	We're living together four years, and his argument against getting married is it's only a piece of paper.
	To which I've always said, then honey, tell honey this.
	Honey, if it's only a piece of paper, then what's the big deal?
	Let's get married.
	Since I treasure that paper and you treasure me, please treasure that paper.
	Obviously, he's lying.
	Anyone who says, oh, it's only a piece of paper, that's why I'm not doing it, it makes no sense.
	If it's only a piece of paper and it means a lot to you, why isn't he doing it?
	Again, I would want honesty.
	I'm scared of marriage.
	Say it.
	But don't tell me it's only a piece of paper.
	If it's only that, then damn it, sign it.
	That's all.
	He's not telling the truth.
	I can't think of what is gained in living together before marriage.
	I think for most people, it just delays it indefinitely.
	It's an easy way out, especially for men.
	Let's be honest.
	It is a risk-free, commitment-free a woman.
	I mean, that is the ultimate ideal.
	I have no binding commitment to you.
	I'm out of here anytime I want.
	And of course, honey, you could leave too.
	Hey, I'm an egalitarian.
	But of course, it's done for him in most instances.
	Not all.
	There are women who feel this way.
	I fully understand.
	I don't know why, but they do.
	On the other hand, for most women, living together usually is simply lost years that they could have actually been finding somebody who would commit.
	That's what it realized, in most instances, listen, there are instances, the couple that I had on, they lived together, what, was it eight years, 11 years, and then got married.
	So I understand that that could happen.
	But she is writing a book on why it's a bad idea.
	And I give to my wife credit for so much, including the two-year rule, which, by the way, she applied to me.
	And we got married two years, I think, to the day after we met.
	Her theory, which is perfectly accurate, is, what are you going to learn after two years about the person you don't know now?
	I mean, give me a break.
	After two years, if you still think you don't know the person, there's something awry, shall we put it very gingerly, especially when you're adults.
	I'm not saying that 18, 22-year-olds should have a two-year rule, but most of you were not 18 and 22, and most singles are not 18 to 22.
	I mean, at that point, there was something else going on, and that's why I so care about honesty.
	You know, on my show, I often said to callers, I said, look, I believe you're not telling me the truth, but that doesn't bother me.
	It bothers me that you're lying to yourself.
	That's the worst.
	Let somebody say, I'm scared of getting married.
	I love this setup.
	It's got everything I want.
	Not exactly what you want, but so what?
	I'm getting away with it.
	That kind of guy I like because he's leveling with you.
	But this other stuff, well, you know, I don't know if we know each other well enough.
	We've only been dating 11 years.
	I don't find that persuasive.
	Okay, why don't we up to eight?
	Nine.
	Nine, thank you.
	Oh, nine was actually this.
	People go together too long.
	And that's a variation on the two-year rule.
	People do go together too long.
	If you want to get married, get married.
	You know each other by now.
	There's nothing else left.
	There are other issues.
	Let's address those issues.
	But really, adults who are dating often do go together too long.
	Number 10.
	Oh, this one is one of my favorites.
	Well, I will get married, but I'm not ready yet.
	This line, when given, now, there are people for whom I believe that there is some truth.
	A man was married 20 years, his wife died of cancer, and he just met you then, and this is a year after.
	I appreciate that there is time needed to recover from that or some other trauma that a person has had.
	For the other 95% of the people, men or women, who say, I'm not ready yet, my answer to you is this.
	This is one of the secrets from a married person.
	You'll never be ready.
	That's the truth.
	You will never be ready to be a husband or wife, and you will never be ready to be a parent.
	Can you imagine if people said that?
	You know, I don't know if I'm ready yet to be a parent.
	Think your parents were ready when you were born?
	What does it mean to be ready?
	You've got a PhD in marriage?
	What does it mean?
	Really?
	What does it even mean to be ready?
	You get ready by getting married.
	Marriage makes you a husband or wife, not pre-marriage.
	Singlehood doesn't make you ready to be married.
	Marriage makes you ready to be married.
	That's the fact of life.
	And there's no the same thing with parenthood, as I just said, right?
	That is what makes it possible.
	You will never be ready.
	Indeed, the longer you wait, the less ready you will, in fact, be to be married.
	Because the more used you are to being single and having to only preoccupy yourself with your own concerns.
	Because that is the truth of being single.
	I mean, you could be big sister, you could march for every disease on earth.
	But the fact of the matter is that if you are single, I know it.
	I mean, I was single for a long time.
	You wake up, and the only schedule you have to adhere to, the only mood you have to worry about, is your own.
	My dear friend Joseph Talushkin had a great line on moods.
	He said, Dennis, he was dead serious too.
	He said, Dennis, it's not so much that I know about my wife's moods.
	Marriage has taught me that I'm moody.
	Because when you're single, you don't know when you're in a mood.
	How do you know?
	You just, it's another day and that's it.
	And, you know, there's nobody to say, hey, what's the matter?
	Or why are you acting like that?
	Then all of a sudden you get married and you go, oh, my God, that's me?
	We marry mirrors.
	That's what a wife or a husband is to a large extent, is a mirror.
	And it ain't so much fun often looking inside of that mirror.
	It's the truth.
	Because that's the way it is.
	Somebody is reflecting me to me a lot all the time almost.
	But then you grow up.
	And that's a big problem in our society because there's nothing, nothing pushing people to grow up.
	Everything is pushing people to stay children.
	It's ironic, isn't it?
	It's terribly ironic.
	We dress first-grade girls like Britney Spears, but we tell adults to be little girls and little boys.
	So in effect, first graders and 40-year-olds look the same, talk the same, dress the same.
	It's very sad.
	We don't let children be children, and we don't let adults be adults.
	We don't ask adults to be adults.
	Okay.
	And I guess 10 and finally.
	Is it 11?
	This is really pathetic.
	Okay, 11 and finally.
	Can you imagine that?
	It's not catchy, the 11 mistakes singles make.
	I'm going to have to put it into 10.
	It sounds better.
	I believe that as a general rule, of course, there are exceptions, exceptions to everything I've said.
	These are all generalized rules.
	I think most couples have sex too quickly.
	And here's a very simple way to make this point.
	Very simple way.
	Ask any married couple that you know that has a basically happy marriage.
	And ask them, ask anybody, have you ever wished that you had had sex sooner?
	In other words, does anybody walk around who's married and say, huh, you know what really has hurt me in life?
	That when we were dating, we didn't have sex earlier in our dating relationship.
	And then ask people if they've ever thought that they had it too soon.
	So you'll probably have millions on one side and nobody on the other.
	Now, I believe there is something wrong.
	If somebody has no sexual intimacy whatsoever after a serious period of dating, unless there are strict religious reasons that both share, I honor that.
	I honor that.
	Where they just know nothing is allowed until marriage.
	Not just intercourse, but nothing.
	And if there are two people who have that religious value, that's fine.
	I honor that.
	But beyond that, if there isn't some very strict religious code that prevents it, there probably is something wrong.
	And that is a sign.
	But as a general rule, again, I think everybody here would probably agree, as my wife put it, the longer you allow friendship to develop, the better it will be.
	Right?
	How many people I have met who said, amazing, it's amazing how many I've met who have said, you know, the truth is we knew each other at work for a year.
	We were just co-workers.
	And over time, I got to see what a wonderful person he was, what a wonderful person she was.
	Those are almost ideal circumstances because they got to see each other first as humans relate first as humans.
	Sex is too powerful to, I mean, it is.
	It's just too powerful.
	It's the way it is.
	It's the life force of life.
	Let it take its time.
	What is the awesome rush?
	What will one gain from having had sex early on in the dating period?
	And as regards sex itself, I still have this quaint idea that it is worth keeping one thing for marriage.
	Not everything.
	I don't believe in that.
	But what, again, what was hurt?
	My parents dated for four years and never had intercourse.
	They're now married 60.
	You think it hurt their marriage that they did, quote, everything but?
	No, the odds are it helped their marriage.
	There was still that one incredible form of bonding that was still awaiting them.
	Now, I'm not saying a couple that has that, it's going to doom the marriage.
	I'm not an idiot.
	I wasn't born yesterday, and so on.
	I understand all of that.
	But if there is pressure, and it usually is from the male to the female to have sex, I really ought to do women a service.
	I ought to write a quick little pamphlet, How to Answer Men's Lines.
	Really, I do.
	It would be my service to the because I have asked women, women have told me some lines men give, and I want to tell you, I actually, those are the only times I felt I wanted to go in for a sexual change operation.
	I was embarrassed of my gender to hear some of the lines men give, like, you must be frigid.
	The best answer is no, but you must be an asshole.
	That, because I know, guys, I mean, that's a line.
	That's just a line so that he will psychologically manipulate you into bed.
	And that's the end of the issue.
	I mean, it's almost like a giveaway.
	So, now, again, if you're not kissing, if you're not doing some other things at a given point in the relationship, it's not a good sign, in my opinion, unless, again, on the more fundamentalist wings of each of our religions, you have that, and that's a separate issue.
	So, this is just, it's important because the more you could love each other before that, imagine how much you love each other when that's added.
	That would seem to me to be a very logical thing for a couple to work out.
	So, these are, well, we came to 11, 11 of the mistakes that I think a lot of singles make.
	I have to though return to one point and then conclude, and that is that you've got to want to get married.
	You have to believe in the institution.
	I particularly address this to men.
	Do you know I play a game?
	You don't know this.
	You can't know this.
	You'd have to live in my brain to know this.
	Some of you feel you do, I bet.
	But do you know that when I play a certain game with myself with callers, and that is, not on every call, but on a lot of calls, in my mind, I am trying, there are two things that I think I could figure out no matter what the subject.
	I can usually figure out, is the person single or married?
	Oh, three things.
	Does the person have a child?
	And their religion.
	And I don't know if I'm always, I may be 100% wrong, but you may have noted, actually, there are times when I've done this, and I will say, I'm just curious, do you have children?
	I do that sometimes.
	And how often they say, you could tell, not all the time, but you can tell sometimes.
	If you've never been married, if you've never had to work through those issues with the opposite sex, that incredibly different creature from you, who is so different that you will never, ever, ever fully understand him.
	You should see my wife's face.
	Never, ever.
	And I will never, ever fully understand her.
	That's a fact of life.
	Well, it certainly keeps things interesting, to say the least.
	But if you look at it as an adventure, if you look at it as a way to be the best you can be, which is a cliché that's worth citing, don't you want to be the best you can be?
	Marriage is the best tool for that.
	There are many tools.
	That's the best one.
	And so I wish you good luck in that search.
	And I hope that these were some helpful little hints that you could now take home to the person who isn't committing and say, you see, let me tell you something that I heard.
	Thank you very, very much.
	What we'll do is we'll take a few minutes of Q&A.
	By the way, absolutely feel free to ask me anything because it's so rare that we get a chance, obviously, to be in person together.
	If there's anything that you've or if you want it, yes.
	Oh, that's interesting.
	Here's a question.
	Should I ask them?
	Yeah.
	Here's the, you know what, why don't you explain?
	You want to explain the questions that you wanted to do or not?
	Okay, fine.
	Here is the, here is it.
	Would you like to break for some time and then come back for Q ⁇ A?
	Now you know I do a radio show.
	It doesn't matter what you say out there, but now it matters.
	Let's take a quick, quick vote.
	If you want to take a break and then come back for Q ⁇ A, raise your hands.
	You want to stay here for Q ⁇ A, raise your hands.
	Okay, all right.
	All right, we will then, and then we'll do the break.
	Fair enough.
	Raise your hand.
	By the way, want to ask me about the radio?
	You want to ask Fran a question?
	Are you prepared?
	Okay, if you want to ask Fran a question, anything you'd like.
	Worst comes to worst, I will erase it from the tape, but it's not being broadcast.
	Why don't you go over to anybody whose hand is up?
	Okay.
	How do you feel about marriage at the end of a first date?
	Oh, that's a great question.
	By the way, if you come on up here, come on up.
	About marriage after a first date.
	Did anybody, well, this is not the best group to ask.
	This is a singles group.
	If any of you got married after a first date, it didn't work out well.
	Okay.
	What do you think?
	Could people get married after a first date?
	Well, you said you knew with the first date.
	What if I'd have said to you, I know also?
	Oh, come on.
	Neil, that's a rotten question.
	You know that.
	Does anybody know any couple that was married after, well, you mean like proposed after the first time?
	I think the only I've known are really religious, truly religious people.
	Oh, you mean who are like, it's almost arranged.
	And even they say that.
	They meet, and that's it.
	Yeah.
	Your parents met?
	Got married four days later.
	And got married four days later?
	And married over 50 years.
	There you go.
	I think it's more possible in those days, to be honest.
	I'm a little suspicious.
	What do you say?
	All right, you want to pick another one?
	Yep.
	Could you just expand on why you think marriage makes you better?
	And are you sure just not married people who take that man?
	Marriage makes you better.
	You want to answer that?
	That's quick enough as you are.
	All right, fair enough.
	He's very quick on his feet.
	He looks at me and wants me to answer the question.
	That's our.
	No, no, no.
	Yes.
	Why does marriage make you better?
	I am convinced it does.
	And I even knew that when I was single.
	I just knew when I was single, I knew that, hey, this is really a lark.
	I wake up in the morning and I have to worry about Dennis.
	I'm going to take a trip this summer.
	And when I took my travels, I would go everywhere only I wanted.
	There was nothing that I never had to go beyond me in daily life.
	And that's a very big deal.
	And when you have to do that all the time, how does she feel?
	How does he feel?
	Does he want to?
	Do I want to?
	Having a family, which is even more obligation-oriented, when I leave the show, you know, when I was single, I would go to Westwood and go to bookstores when they used to have bookstores in Westwood, and go to Tower Records, the classical music department, and spend hours there and then eat at Hamburg or Hamlet, at the same place there, which I think is still there.
	And then get home, you know, 11.30 at night.
	And that was just, that was terrific.
	I can't do that now.
	I have a family.
	I have a wife.
	I have children.
	I can't, you know, I can't think, if you can't think of you as much, it develops your character.
	You are more mature.
	I mean, it's almost definitional.
	And I'm not saying it because I'm married.
	I said it when I was divorced and I was divorced.
	I said it when I assumed it before I ever got married.
	And I think most people here would acknowledge that that's a lot of you probably were married.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, also, if you have a person with you that you respect, they are challenging you constantly to take a look at yourself.
	And it's impossible to not learn about how to relate to people if you're not married.
	It's just the best teacher in the world.
	Okay, great.
	Okay, yes.
	I know we should go back too, but all right, yes, fine, okay.
	I have to wonder if people don't have sex before they get married and don't spend some nights together, if that doesn't increase the chance that they will rush into marriage because of the incredible desire to be sexual and be close and be together.
	That's a very good question.
	That's why I don't think that it should be an all-or-nothing issue.
	I think that there should be some with anybody that you're thinking.
	Listen, those who want recreational sex, this is not, I am not here to say don't have it.
	Okay, that this is not a religious seminar.
	If those two people want recreational sex, that is a decision they made.
	But if you wish to move toward marriage, then having sex in that relationship too early is a very bad idea.
	On the other hand, having no physical intimacy at all is also a bad idea.
	But I can't imagine that people who have doubts about each other will rush into marriage solely in order to have intercourse.
	That's not part of the scenario that I would envision.
	You've seen it happen.
	All right, fair enough.
	Listen, everything's happened, as I've learned over the course of years.
	Yes?
	What do you think of finding somebody over the internet?
	Listen, I think if you could find somebody over the internet, God bless you, I have heard horror stories and I have also known people who got married through the internet.
	If you're careful and meet at a public place and see the person's driver's license, why not?
	I can't, why not?
	I think I am for computerized dating.
	I have always been for that.
	I believe that it's a good idea if you know what you're doing.
	Hi, Dennis.
	I have met you before.
	My buddy and I have followed your career for a long time.
	And we'd like to thank you for making us better human beings towards each other and other people that we know.
	My question is regarding number nine.
	Uh-oh.
	Just nine.
	I don't know.
	That's why I said uh-oh.
	I believe, this is not a question, but I'd like to get your viewpoint on it.
	That when you have children, you should always put them first and not, if possible, not marry until your children are old enough to either go to college or just have an opinion.
	You've got a child, Louis, yeah.
	I don't believe they matter there before any man or a child.
	Well, before either of us responds, why would getting married inhibit your parenting of your child?
	Because I believe that once you're divorced and have children and they bring another man into your children's lives, that's the, you know, the exes are the father of the children to your child.
	If you put your children in a very difficult position, you're going to even choose them.
	I mean, that's just not going to be back down.
	I think you do have to put your children first.
	I had a situation similar to yours.
	But I think perhaps your children also benefit by your remarriage and by a home and by a father in the house.
	Things get messy with two families and step parents, and it's hard to work out everything smoothly.
	But I think that actually marriage, remarriage with children is a better solution than to wait until they've grown up.
	I think they would benefit a lot from your happiness in your marriage.
	Yeah, among other things, they might get to see a good marriage this time.
	What could be so bad about that?
	That's so long as long as the step parent understands that if there is the original parent there in the child's life, that you can't, you're not supplanting that person.
	I mean, that's just the way it is.
	I am very much a father figure to Fran's daughter, to my stepdaughter, whose birthday it is today, ironically.
	But I never, I met her, she was 10.
	She was 12 when we married.
	Two-year-old.
	And, you know, and there was some very difficult time, in fact, in the adjustment process, and there were mistakes that we made about.
	She felt displaced.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	So you work hard, you know, to put him, you know, in his good place again.
	It's not easy.
	But I think the benefits outweigh you staying a single mom.
	Yeah, and who's this man you're seeing then?
	You're dating.
	No, no, no, I'm saying in the eyes of the child, this is my, you know, my seven-year boyfriend.
	Is that a good message?
	Is my four-year boyfriend?
	My five-year boyfriend.
	She's very difficult.
	It was just a point that I wanted to make.
	The number wasn't critical.
	But in any event, all right, so is that better to say to your child, look, oh, he's my five-year boyfriend, and what do you do?
	Sneak out the window at 4 a.m.
	Yeah.
	No, you should get married.
	Yes.
	I'll get two questions.
	One, just what is your opinion on your dating zone and your dad can't stand that person?
	And then secondly, what do you think of marriages or dating someone who is a total different religious perspective?
	I'm not sure.
	All right, I'll handle that.
	You may have thoughts on the family after that.
	Okay, you want to start it?
	No, no, no, no, go ahead.
	All right, there were two questions and you all heard them.
	So now let's begin with number one.
	On the fan, your family doesn't like, come back here.
	Come back, come back.
	Yeah, you need to know some things.
	I have questions for you.
	And I do.
	This is very important because there may not be a generalizable answer.
	Why don't your parents like your boyfriend?
	It's not my boyfriend right now.
	Are they your parents right now?
	I don't know.
	I don't know what is stable here.
	I don't know exactly.
	Yeah, yes.
	Can you keep it general?
	Yes.
	Can we keep it general?
	All right, those generalized parents that you made up, what was their objection to the generalizable boy who's no longer your friend?
	Is that allowable?
	Is that okay?
	Yeah.
	No.
	Okay.
	I guess it's, you know, parents have expectations that they don't think whoever you're dating is good enough on our intellectual, social levels, kinds of things like that.
	And then also, you know, as a personal example, when you go through a write-up and then you're, you know, how parents are the MSI with their kid, and then you try to work with that out and the aunt and your family doesn't mean in my case.
	You shouldn't have told them.
	You talk to too many people.
	All right, here's a general answer to a general question.
	Okay, fair enough.
	General, there is no answer because sometimes the family is right and sometimes you're right.
	At a given age, you obviously have to make the decision.
	If it's because parents just want to own you or control you or because if you don't bring home a doctor or a millionaire or something, then those objections should not carry weight.
	If the issue is, honey, do you not realize this guy is mean or something like that, or look at his track record, those are things you'll have to weigh.
	It depends what the reasons are.
	I mean, I have known of parental objections that people have told me that were truly terrible.
	I mean, terrible in the sense that the parents should never have objected on those grounds.
	I heard pairs that, you know, this person's too short.
	I mean, no, no, no.
	I mean, there could be anything.
	Or I expected, as you pointed out, perhaps a guy who did X, Y, or Z for a living.
	That's different.
	If you fall in love with a tradesman and they want a white-collar professional, marry the tradesman.
	Because then you know the nature of the objection.
	But if you are just in love with this hunk and they say, you know, honey, you know, there's reputation in the areas as of a very, of a low life, then that's a different sort of objection.
	That's why there's no generalizable answer.
	I'll come to the religion in a minute.
	Did you want to add on the family?
	Okay, on the religion.
	All right, you don't have to stay now.
	Thank you very much, Jeff.
	I believe that people who take their religion seriously already know the answer to the second question.
	If you take, and it's a very important question that she raised.
	If you take your religion seriously, you want to marry somebody who will also take that religion seriously.
	I mean, how could it not be that way?
	It just makes sense.
	You have to be open to that person converting to your religion, obviously.
	That they were born it or raised it is not the issue for me.
	And it wasn't in our marriage, that issue.
	But if you take your religion seriously, why would you want to practice it alone?
	It gets pretty lonely to have a home, to go to service, and not share that very powerful thing with somebody else.
	Now, what about those who don't take their religion terribly seriously?
	Here, it's not so easy.
	Because you may say, well, okay, so this doesn't apply to me because I'm not particularly affiliated with any religion.
	Ah, but here comes the rub.
	There's a good chance you might be one day.
	And then what happens?
	I know of so many cases where that has happened, where people thought that they couldn't care less about their religion.
	They'll marry somebody of another religion.
	And then they had children.
	And then what happens?
	All of a sudden, things that you don't think are important when you're single or when you don't have children do come important.
	Well, are we going to have a baptism?
	Are we going to have a bar mitzvah?
	Are we going to have a bris, circumcision?
	What are we going to have?
	Are we going to have Christmas in the house?
	Not Christmas in the house.
	Are we going to have this or that or that?
	And it is very tearing, and I don't believe in raising children in multiple religions.
	I don't believe it works.
	I think it's inauthentic.
	And anyone who's religious, whatever your religion, has the same view.
	It's inauthentic to all religions to raise a child with all religions because all is then nothing.
	I mean, religion is not a smorgasbord.
	It is a way of life.
	It is a passion.
	It is a commitment.
	It is a series of beliefs.
	So all things considered, unless you know for a fact that it is inconceivable ever, or you're beyond having children, you're beyond years, and where it isn't, it's not going to raise, that question won't be raised.
	And you have found a terrific human being, then it's more understandable.
	But anybody certainly contemplating building a home with children or in a community, I am a big advocate of trying to keep it within the same religion, including those who convert to that religion.
	Yes, please.
	Taking it seriously, also, I think you can both take it seriously without practicing it in exactly the same way.
	Dennis and I give each other a lot of freedom in our Judaism to take Judaism seriously.
	I don't do all of the things that he does.
	And vice versa.
	But we each have our roles, and we each mean a lot to us, but we don't exact from each other the same behavior in practicing our religion.
	Yeah, to work out a way to be committed but not have the other one necessarily your clone.
	In other words, freedom and commitment is a nice, and it's not the easiest thing, but it's a good thing to work out if you can.
	Yes, please.
	Dennis, if you look around the room, the propaganda people today are women.
	And when I go out, when I go to singles events or even whatever I'm doing, I always end up meeting the most marvelous women.
	And then they always tell me the same thing.
	And I believe in my heart of hearts that there are wonderful, interesting men out there.
	But I'd like to know where to find them.
	I think a lot of them here today were when they came, because we all listened to your program when you say we're going to find bigger, self-examining individuals here today.
	And so we were happy to need each other to know that they're all listening to the same program and enjoyment.
	But I think many of us are disappointed to see so few men.
	I don't know if it's few men, though.
	I don't know if you're accurate on that.
	Oh, no, I don't.
	Men, all raise your hands, men.
	Men, all raise your hands.
	Now, that doesn't look like one-third to me.
	I don't know.
	I thought it was a balance.
	Yeah, I would say, what do you say it is?
	Autumn would know.
	60-40, 55, 45.
	60-40, at the very least.
	You don't think so?
	You know what it is?
	very interesting well we'll have a she has an exact count on him This is not done on, she knows, I mean, unless there are a lot of people here named Irving who are women, there's a good chance that she knows the number.
	It just may be that you're seeing it that way.
	There are more women than men, but I think 60-40 is accurate, to be honest.
	Look, first of all, there's a certain inevitability to that.
	That's just the way it works.
	Until such time as, and by the way, I could do it.
	I don't want this to be the last one.
	And if you have more suggestions on how to run these things, let us know.
	I have a very deep commitment to marriage and I want you people to meet each other.
	So this is, well, by the way, I want you to know something.
	This is a great testament to KRLA.
	KRLA is not getting a penny out of this.
	Neither am I, by the way.
	Just want you to know it's all going to charity.
	So just very important that you know, we're really, we're walking the walk, as we say.
	And if, you know, I think if word gets out, I know that I have a lot of male listeners, but there are more, first of all, I think over the course of life, there's simply more single women, period.
	Not at any given age, like 20 to 30, that is not true.
	But as you get older, that will be true because of widowhood, if nothing else.
	And men have to be told, some men, not all, about the importance of finding somebody.
	And only a guy could do that.
	That's, in effect, my task on behalf of womankind.
	You know, it's really ironic because feminists, I'm not their poster boy.
	But I really, the irony is I really have women's interest at heart.
	That's the irony here.
	And, you know, anyway, but I won't go on with that.
	So I want, but I think it's a better ratio than she thought.
	Next.
	Hi, Nancy.
	Hi.
	I had your 11 points, but there's one that you should have added.
	Yes, I want it.
	Respect.
	There's respect for each other.
	Yes.
	Because once you lose that, you dehumanize that other person.
	And whatever you do, it justifies your, if you want to be indicted to each other, you can justify that by saying, by dehumanizing them, just doing whatever you want to do.
	I fully agree.
	We both believe respect is.
	You can never lose that.
	Love is, by definition, is an emotion which waxes and wanes.
	But respect, that should always be there.
	That is absolutely right.
	And following on the other thing that just spoke, that came about, if a woman meets a man or has something she's interested in, should she take the initiative?
	And if so, we have the recommendations about, well, I'll say, how would they do this?
	Wow.
	You have a thought on that?
	Well, I think taking an initiative is great.
	Why not?
	How?
	Well, that's the problem.
	I don't know.
	How do men want to be approached by an attractive woman?
	What would you like a woman to say to you?
	Huh?
	Yeah.
	What was that, Mike?
	Hello.
	It's a good start.
	You know, I don't know.
	It's impossible to know.
	I don't have an answer to that.
	You know, I don't see anything wrong with it.
	As a general rule, from what I remember, it seems like prehistoric.
	Men were the pursuers as a general rule.
	And generally, men like to be the pursuer and women like to be pursued.
	Although there's an old saying that he chased her till she caught him or something like that.
	But in any event, I think, I mean, why would any normal man disqualify a woman just on the ground that she started a conversation?
	However, and this was, we didn't include in the list, though we flirted with this idea, was that there are people of both sexes who wear signs, I am aching to get married.
	And while it is good to ache to get married, it is not good to project that fact.
	And so if you can just say hi, and if the guy crumbles because he thinks that you have the vision of a wedding ring as you look at his pupil, then to hell with him.
	But otherwise, if it's just, hey, what, you know, very coolly, and, you know, people pick up vibes, why not?
	I can't think of any.
	Also, this may come as a shock to some, but it shouldn't.
	There are a lot of shy men.
	That is just a fact of life.
	You know, men aren't born capable of just, hey, honey, hey, babe.
	What you doing Saturday night?
	I could never do it.
	I was never able to do that.
	Believe it or not, it is easier for me to talk to 600 people than it is to approach a strange woman.
	I mean, not that I do that, I was just...
	Well, you understand my point.
	When it was that I did.
	Yes.
	Oh, they want to interview me on this?
	Oh.
	Do you want me to learn a handle for him?
	Okay, do the question thing with it.
	I'm just going to, you know.
	I'll take personal questions, but nothing.
	Five minutes.
	I'm only doing this.
	I'm not a big TV fan, but it is important for the sake of this.
	The Channel 13 wants to interview me for five minutes.
	I'll be right back.
	Okay, so you have Fran.
	Treat her nicely, please.
	I think it's pretty funny that after telling all of you that, you know, he could never come on to a woman like that, that I remind you he stayed at my screen door for 20 minutes.
	Huh?
	Oh, you want me to finish the story?
	Okay, that's a good time.
	A very good time.
	Let's see, where did we let off?
	I think the dog was licking his hand or something like that.
	Anyway, Dennis sat in my kitchen for about two hours.
	We did not introduce our names to each other.
	It's very strange.
	But we did get, we did get a lot of intense conversation in and found out a lot about each other in two hours.
	He found out that I had been married and divorced with a daughter.
	And I found out that he was separated and contemplating divorce.
	Strangely enough, I felt very sympathetic for him that day and did everything I could to discourage him from getting divorced because I had been through a very painful divorce myself and felt that that was one of the hardest things to go through.
	And also, he had a young son, and I didn't want to see the boy go through it also.
	So that was part of our conversation that day.
	Secretly hoping, of course.
	Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that.
	Anyway, before he left, he gave me a little tiny slip of paper with his phone number on it, and I gave him my phone number, and he left.
	But this is what's so fascinating.
	He's walking out the door.
	I say, oh, by the way, my name is Fran, and he said, oh, yeah, I'm Dennis.
	And after he left, I realized that I had indeed heard him once on the radio.
	It dawned on me.
	This was when he was on Thursday night, so, so long ago.
	And I had heard him do one show as I was driving to the theater, and it was on the importance of religion, and I was blown away by how anybody could get away with talking on the radio about how important religion was.
	So it did register with me.
	Two weeks passed after that first meeting and I am very spiritual in that I said, God, if this is meant to be, it'll be.
	I know it's the one, but I'm going to leave it in your hands.
	So two weeks passed, nothing, no phone call.
	Come home from work one day, there's a little note in the door that says, please call me, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the phone number.
	We had lost each other's phone numbers.
	So he had to come back to my apartment to stick the note in the door.
	Anyway, we often speak how we really feel that our meeting was divine because of all the circumstances that came into it.
	And I don't want to sound corny, but I really do feel that there are some divine actions that happen in this world.
	So he called me.
	Maybe a week later we had coffee together.
	And then I did not see him again for almost two and a half, maybe three months, in which time we spoke on the telephone.
	And it was just circumstances of my work and of his work and everything he was going through.
	It was an incredible way to get to know someone.
	And it was an incredible way to get to know someone because, you know, you can really talk about things on the phone.
	Sometimes you can't talk face to face.
	It might be a little too intimate or maybe a little embarrassing.
	And if you don't have someone looking right at you, you can talk.
	So we spoke hours and hours on the telephone.
	And it was great.
	And then we did start to see each other with coffee and this and that.
	And two years later, we got married.
	So that's that story.
	A question back there, yeah.
	This is a great story.
	How were you able to reconcile that who actually was a married man and you really were probably a factor in him maybe his marriage?
	Personally, I wouldn't have been comfortable in your shoes.
	I probably would have said, I probably would have given my number and said, you know, in case you're divorced, can you ever provide his apartment unit again and not?
	And if I let her any half inch, I would have that on my contact.
	I really didn't know.
	Well, I really didn't know what was going to happen.
	As I said, when we first met and spoke, it was really my desire for him, being newly separated, that he try to get back together and, you know, and make us start.
	But as I said, three months later, he was separated.
	They had filed for divorce.
	It was a different situation.
	Does that satisfy you?
	It's a very hard question.
	I understand where your question's coming from.
	At what point?
	No.
	No, he was out of his home and leading his own life at that point.
	Anybody else want to put me on the hot steak?
	I'd rather talk about chickens.
	I know a lot about chickens.
	I have two questions, so I think the first one was going to be easier for you.
	Where are you?
	Oh, I see.
	Okay.
	This is the non-marriage question.
	Okay.
	Our dogs?
	Okay, not anymore.
	Two died.
	We have three dogs.
	We have Choco, who is a very overweight chocolate Labrador retriever.
	We have Pal, who's an Australian cattle dog, who is truly sorry he's a dog and wishes he was a human.
	And then we have Dotty Dottie, Dotty, who came up to our door one day and we just took her in.
	Deceased, our babe and lady who are buried in our back orchard.
	But don't tell anyone because it's against the law, I found out.
	Okay, second?
	Second, and I'm wondering maybe if you're giving like three top things that you think would contribute to a happy marriage.
	One thing I think would be the ability to keep your heart open when you want to close it.
	Well, what comes to mind immediately is giving your partner freedom.
	And that's freedom to come and go.
	That's freedom to grow, freedom to express his ideas, freedom to be who they are.
	Dennis has given me that.
	It has been the greatest gift I could ever have ever have, ever have.
	So I think giving your partner freedom to be who they are is a good one.
	I don't know if it's number one, but it's a good one.
	Encouraging your partner to pursue the things that give them joy and make them happy to whatever it might be.
	For Dennis, you know, he gets a new clavinova every three months.
	He loves to play piano.
	I mean, he has a lot of little hobbies.
	Allowing your partner to spend on himself and get the things that he wants to do.
	A lot of wives are not supportive of that.
	I am.
	Personal growth kind of goes into that.
	Do I have to come up with another one?
	Thank you.
	I could come up with so many, but I'm not as concise as he is.
	Oh, okay.
	I had a question.
	Was it your intention not to come when he left his phone number for you?
	I've often been given a man who's giving me their phone number, his phone number, and I'm I don't really feel comfortable calling making an initial phone call.
	So I was just curious, was it your intention not to come?
	I don't think I would have called him.
	In light of that other question, I wouldn't answer that, honestly.
	Somebody put me on the hot seat.
	You want to take over?
	Are you done?
	No, I want you to answer one.
	If it's her friend, go ahead.
	Would you mind putting a man who practiced Judaism differently?
	And for instance, what if one of you wanted to meet phone in kosher and the other one didn't care about that?
	Okay, sure, I can do that.
	No, we have a we agree on the very big issues, the ones that are important to us.
	We do have a kosher home.
	We do keep Shabbat.
	We keep Shabbat in a different way.
	Dennis likes going to services.
	I like staying home and being away from the family.
	I find a lot of peace being by myself, being able to read, meditate, pray, do what I need to do on my Shabbat.
	He loves going to services and being with people.
	That's one way.
	I put Most of my effort as a Jew into making a Jewish home, making sure that the kids have the holidays to celebrate and celebrate in the way that we do it, in our own special traditions and ways.
	The home to me is very important, and so that's kind of my realm.
	Dennis goes out, he teaches, he lectures, he teaches Torah.
	I am not involved in any Jewish women's organizations, etc., etc.
	But I do give lots of my time to my son's school, which is a Jewish day school, and I'm there and working, and I feel that in that way I am practicing my religion and making it a better world in that way.
	Can you think of anything else?
	No?
	Okay.
	You want to do a few more?
	It's really up to the audience.
	I don't want them all to walk away.
	they're getting it's been a long time I actually have a question for Dennis.
	I wanted to ask you, in your opinion, what do you feel has taken place in our society over the last 20 or 30 years to contribute to the horizon divorce?
	Well, it's a very, very complex question.
	Fran's comment to me was the ease with which it is obtained.
	That is one factor, and no question.
	I frankly think that a goodly number of divorces are good things.
	I think that a bad marriage, I don't mean a marriage that has problems, a bad marriage is unfair to people.
	I believe that it is a life sentence, and I think only murderers should have life sentences, not innocent people.
	Why two innocent, decent people?
	And very often it is decent people, at least till the lawyers get involved, who often make them indecent or allow them to be indecent.
	But I, well, let me tell you a story.
	This is very open day today.
	I'll tell you a story.
	When I got my Jewish divorce, because I have, in Judaism, you have to have a religious marriage and a religious divorce.
	I got my religious divorce, and I went to what's called a Bet Din, a Jewish tribunal or court of rabbis.
	The rabbi who was the head of it at the time was an elderly East European rabbi with a long beard, the classic East European Orthodox rabbi.
	And it was very funny because I walked in and I thought this is the last person who ever listens to radio.
	And he goes, ah, Dennis Prego, I listen to you all the time.
	That really cracked, you know, he put me at ease.
	It was very, very cute.
	So while I'm waiting, you know, somewhat of a tense period, you know, getting your final decree of divorce.
	But in any event, so I started to make small talk and I said, Rabbi, it must be very difficult for you here in Southern California, of all places, from Eastern Europe.
	The number of people divorcing, it must just upset you.
	And obviously, I will never forget, he looked me in the eye and he said, Mr. Prego, and then I won't do the accent anymore.
	He said, Mr. Prager, there are a lot of very unhappy people in the old country who should have gotten divorced.
	This coming from this bearded old rabbi from Eastern Europe.
	And I know that.
	My parents have told me of couples that they knew in their parents' generation who didn't sleep with each other for 30 years.
	What, separate bedrooms?
	But they wouldn't divorce because it was a shame for the community if you knew you divorced.
	I do not join the conservative voices who have an undifferentiated critique of divorce.
	I don't think that that is a sign of a crumbling society.
	It could be a sign of it.
	It isn't necessarily.
	Do some people divorce when they shouldn't have?
	A lot of people, but a lot of people should.
	And there are some married people who should be divorced, just as there were some divorced people who should have stayed married.
	So that's my complex answer to a complex question.
	How do I have anything?
	Oh, okay.
	All right, listen, I think, because I want you to get a chance to, you know, at least meet two or three people here.
	You have about three more questions with ours?
	If it's okay, would you like that?
	I'm fine.
	Okay, two or three questions.
	That's it.
	Then you want to do your thing?
	Yeah, we can.
	Yeah, okay, go ahead.
	Yeah, Dennis, I'd like to know how important you think intellectual compatibility this is.
	And also, I'm not sharing the same worldview with your wife.
	I'm thinking like James Carville and Mary Matthew.
	Yeah.
	Oh, those are, I'm so happy you asked that.
	There are guys who have never been married, who say to me, you know, I know a guy, he says, Dennis, I am so in love with this woman, but she just doesn't want to talk to me about politics and about these great philosophy works that I just read.
	And I say, you are one big putz.
	Putz is Yiddish for penis.
	And I said, wait a minute.
	Maybe that's a nice bonus to a marriage, but it is hardly necessary for a marriage.
	If you want to discuss Nietzsche, go to the Nietzsche Society.
	It is so bizarre to me that that's not, when I go home after the show is done and so on, do you think I want to talk about all these issues again?
	Just to give me as an example?
	She certainly could.
	She listens to my great joy.
	She actually listens to almost every show.
	We have radios all over the place.
	And we will.
	We'll bounce off.
	I can't believe that call or did you, you know, that issue, it's just driving me crazy.
	But I don't want to.
	I didn't marry in order to have intellectual discourse on the great events of the day.
	I married to have a partner in life to talk about us, to talk about the kids, talk about friends, to share a life with.
	And men and women in general have somewhat different interests.
	Does Fran expect me to talk about interior decorating?
	It's just a joke.
	It was a joke.
	It was totally a joke.
	It was a joke.
	It was a joke.
	She knows it's a joke.
	The new sofa's coming on next time.
	Exactly.
	No, no, no.
	I mean, there are provinces where she knows what it's just not going to be always of interest to me.
	I mean, it's just assumed that way.
	This is a male mistake that a lot of guys make.
	Now, on the second question, I don't understand the Carville-Madeline marriage.
	I've said it on radio.
	I hope they're happy.
	I want every married couple to be happy.
	That, to me, I only could speak for me.
	That is important that we share the basic worldview.
	If I came home to a home, I talked my heart out about my beliefs, and it just so happens my partner in life doesn't agree with them, that would bother me.
	So everybody will choose his own or her own way.
	But those are very two different arenas.
	You're in art, and now for you, art is a business.
	You run the Morseberg Gallery, and I'm delighted you're here, and I really am.
	And it's a great gallery, and you should have a singles evening maybe at the gallery.
	Anyway, but for you, if I may be personal and embarrass you terribly now, now that for you, art is a love, is a passion, and is your work.
	I could understand if that is important to you that if your wife, if you had a wife, have a wife, acquire a wife, marry a wife, whatever the verb is today, have that passion with you.
	On the other hand, it may actually be a relief to you if not.
	It may be, wow, I come home and it's just my personal world with my wife.
	And, you know, we just don't have to discuss the latest painters from Russia and their paintings.
	Maybe you won't even want to.
	And, you know, so it's a intellectual men easily get trapped into that arena.
	And for most, I don't think it's critical.
	For some, it is.
	That's a personal choice.
	Two more.
	There were two more.
	Autumn.
	Yes.
	Dennis and Fran, thanks for the day.
	I enjoyed this.
	Great.
	Thank you.
	Traditionally, in marriage, my marriage, women have assumed the last name over their husband.
	And over the last 20 years, we've seen different variations of that.
	I happen to think in the last 20 years that hyphenation and women maintain their own last name, their father's last name, is one of the subtle ways in which feminism has ruined men.
	I'd like to hear you, both of you, actually respond to that.
	What do you think, Fran Prager?
	You did?
	Oh, wow.
	You know, it's really a shame how many times women do have to change their names, especially if you've been married, you know, more than once.
	I think you're right.
	I have a little trouble with hyphenated names.
	I also know that when my daughter gets married, she's keeping her name.
	She said, I like my name.
	I've lived with it all my life.
	I don't want to give it up.
	I think that a new generation of women have different ideas than my generation of women did.
	I think it's something to talk about.
	I think it means a lot to the guy that, you know, it should be discussed.
	I have a lot of trouble with hyphenated names, though.
	I think it's a little silly.
	I really do.
	And I think I would rather see each person keep their name than hyphenate their last name.
	My wife has strong views, in case you were not aware of it.
	The problem with hyphenated names, although you were asking, you know, keeping the name, not so much hyphenated, right?
	But the hyphenated problem is, what do the kids do if they marry a hyphenated person?
	I know, I've never known what the answer to that question was.
	You will then have four last names if they hyphenate.
	And, you know, it becomes one of those long Spanish names that go for two lines.
	So it's odd.
	If there's no professional, a professional reason is under, An eye would understand for professional reasons.
	But beyond that, there is something very beautiful to mesh into one in that way.
	I think the kids like it.
	I mean, you know, it never arose as an issue with us, but it's a fair question.
	Thank you.
	All right, there's one final one because I do want to, we have a little game for you guys.
	Yeah.
	Hi, Dennis.
	Hi.
	My name's Kathy.
	Hi, Kathy.
	I really respect your thoughts, beliefs, and morals.
	And I listen to you on my learning from Los Angeles to Orange County every night.
	And I also got your book on happiness, and I love it.
	Thank you.
	I was just wondering if you would ever consider, and I also would like to believe that most of the men here also have the same basic beliefs that you do on this version of your thoughts and morals.
	And I was just wondering if you would ever consider having a singles dance to get a little bit together.
	A singles dance?
	Did she say dance?
	Because I don't think we're all going to have that much time to talk.
	But anyway, I really respect you, and I would like to believe that most of the men here have the same basic morals and beliefs as you.
	And it would really be nice to get together and have more time to spend together.
	Thank you.
	You wanted to come?
	Well, I'm not going to comment on the singles dance, but Dennis and I were planning to give you some time to mix around a little bit.
	Is this a good time?
	Yep.
	We thought we'd take a break.
	That's it for this tape.
	I hope you enjoyed it, and I certainly hope that you could send it to some single people that you'd like to see married.
	And you let me know how their reactions are.
	Maybe they'll hate you for it.
	On the other hand, maybe it'll be a little helpful, which is, of course, why I did this tape to begin with.
	Again, I'd love your feedback to email me and write in tape subscriber on the subject because I'll look for your mail first through my website, DennisPrager.com.
	So until next tape, thank you so much for subscribing.
	This is Dennis Prager.
	Bye-bye.
	Thursday, etc., etc.
	That way they get a tape month for a year and remember you, hopefully, fondly.
	Anyway, until the next tape, this is Dennis Prager thanking you as always for subscribing to these tapes.
	Bye-bye.
	This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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