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Howie Mandel
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Burt
games the first show. Well, they are back. Hello, boy.
Trey
Morning.
Burt
Good morning. How are you, Joel?
Joel
I'm fantastic. How are you?
Burt
Are you Trey?
Trey
I'm doing well, thanks for asking. How are you? Happy New Year to you.
Simply Business Announcer
To you as well.
Burt
You seem very cheery today. Very cheery today.
Trey
We have to be cheery. It's a new year.
Wendy
Are you engaged?
Burt
Is it because you're in love?
Trey
I am not engaged yet.
Unidentified Male Commentator
You got a week and a half, so you're all right.
Trey
I've got 13 days, so we've got plenty of time. We're gonna crack down here pretty soon.
Burt
Let's just reset this here real quick. Let's reset this real quick. It was Joel. This was Joel's idea. The best friend's idea. And each and every year, Trey's complaining that he doesn't have a woman and he's not married. So the best friend, Joel, got proactive and tell him what the plan was.
Joel
I've done everything I can, Burt. My friend's a loser.
Burt
You don't have a lot to work with.
Joel
You know, I have had this conversation. You know, I. We do stupid stuff all the time. So I came to Trey and was like, all right, you know what? We're gonna try something else this year. Every year, he's come to me and said, I'm getting married. I'm getting married. So I got a little bit proactive, sent out some save the date information, reserved some hotel rooms, and then when
Unidentified Male Commentator
put a deposit down on those rooms,
Joel
I put A deposit down on Trey and one of our other buddies rooms.
Unidentified Male Commentator
So the two of you will get married if nobody else.
Wendy
Which room's the honeymoon gonna be in?
Joel
We decided the one with a heart shaped tub. Love it. But no. We basically kind of put a little bit of meat behind a challenge to Trey and said, hey, you know, you're gonna have to get married January 17, 2009. And so I threw the challenge out to him. He said, all right, let's do that. That sounds fun. And so then, as the story goes, we brought it to you and you decided that maybe this could get a little bit more steam behind it if we did on the radio. And then it helped. He got a lot of dates out of it, and then he's a complete loser and won't follow through with it.
Burt
Now we got it. We did. We got a ton of emails.
Joel
Yes.
Burt
And we set you up.
Unidentified Female Commentator
Had your mom in here.
Burt
Had your mom in here and everything. Had them all lined up.
Trey
And, you know, I want to tell Joel exactly what I told him last year. I'm getting married next year. So, I mean, that's. Let's not question the fact here, you know, like I told him last year, I'll get married next year, so everything's fine.
Burt
So it doesn't look like it's gonna happen now in Vegas.
Trey
Well, it doesn't look like it's gonna happen, but we've learned something. I'm not ruling it out. I still have a flight reserved on my SkyMiles, which, you know, if anybody with SkyMiles, you can cancel that, but I'm telling people that I'm not completely ruling it out because I've got some things going on in my head, but I'm not in love right now.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Are you?
Burt
What?
Joel
Wendy, tell them what you told me this morning. Trey, what are your thoughts on marriage?
Trey
When I started this, Since I've started this, every human being I've met in a public setting has given me their opinion on marriage.
Burt
Oh, yeah.
Trey
Oh, yeah.
Unidentified Male Commentator
That's gotta be fun.
Trey
Literally, every conversation I've been in, from relatives to the people that I meet through work and in the bars, people find out I'm doing this, and they heard about me on the birth show, so they tell me what they think about marriage. So to be completely honest, I'm a little jaded about the whole concept of marriage.
Burt
So they're not endorsing marriage. What they're saying is, be sure you know what you're doing here because it's not a great institution.
Trey
Save yourself fool, save yourself. Yeah, it's just. It's amazing the amount of people that are unhappy right now in their marriage.
Unidentified Male Commentator
It's great.
Wendy
Trey's just a commitment phobe. He's gonna be like George Clooney. You're not gonna ever be him. I know.
Burt
Here's the thing. How old are you now, Trey?
Trey
I am 26.
Burt
How old are you now, Trey?
Trey
I am 35.
Burt
Okay, here's the thing. And it's sort of. I think that there is this misconception, like, if you're 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 42, or whatever, and you're not married, all of a sudden you're thinking, okay, maybe I'm not a great. Maybe I'm doing something wrong here. Well, the truth is, maybe you just haven't found the right person yet. Maybe there's nothing wrong with you at all in other people's cases. Maybe there's nothing wrong with them and they just haven't found the right person yet. So why does it have to be that there's something wrong with you?
Trey
I agree. And the interesting thing is, if, you know, we're doing. We did this whole piece in the south, which is more. Everybody's gotta be married when they're 21. If we did this in New York City or in la, I guarantee it. Well, LA would be a little weird, but New York or up north, we probably would have had a different result. Because, like, you're saying, people do expect. You know, one of my thoughts going into this thing was I'll get married. Because if I get married and divorced, and then I'm 40, 41, 45 with a divorce, I look less like a psycho than I do if I'm 40, 45, and have never been married.
Burt
That is true. I think that is true. Don't you guys agree?
Unidentified Female Commentator
Absolutely.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Barely. But yeah.
Unidentified Female Commentator
Yeah, I agree with that. If you're a man who's in your mid-40s or near 50, and you've never been married, a woman's gonna look at you. I mean, everybody's trying to be nice, but, yeah, women will judge you for that.
Burt
And it goes with women. Also, if you've never been married and you're in your late 30s or early 40s, guys are thinking, well, there's got to be a reason for that. But if you've been. If you've tried it once and you failed, all of a sudden you have more credibility.
Trey
Yep.
Burt
That didn't make any sense. So you said you have some things floating around. So the possibility is sort of there. It sounds pretty slim, right? But are there, is there at least one woman that you would seriously like if a gun was to your head right now? Is there one of the women that you're dating right now you'd say, you know what? I think I can make it work.
Joel
I.
Trey
There's a couple people I could marry. I'm pretty sure that would.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Would they marry you?
Trey
Yes, they would do it.
Unidentified Male Commentator
There's a bold statement right there.
Trey
I think, you know, this is my gut feeling. It could be completely wrong, but if, if it came down to it and there was a gun to my head, I think I could, could get a couple of people to say, if I
Unidentified Male Commentator
got him drunk, I could make it work.
Burt
Wendy, you haven't bought into this since day one. You, you said since day one he was never going to get married.
Wendy
I just don't think Trey can commit to anybody. Even if you like somebody, I don't think you could comm. Like even two months.
Trey
Why do you think that?
Wendy
Have you committed to anybody in two months? In a year?
Trey
No. See, but, but still, I've been dating lots of people. In this period of time that you've kind of seen me operate.
Burt
Have you ever been in a long term relationship?
Trey
I have. I have been in a three year relationship. Thank you very much.
Wendy
Congratulations.
Trey
That ended awfully. And then I've been in a. No, it didn't happen.
Unidentified Male Commentator
How long have you and Joel been dating?
Trey
Joel and I have been together for about two years now, off and on.
Wendy
Do you guys need to break up in order to find a girl?
Joel
I haven't any trouble.
Trey
Speaking of marriage, I was gonna say,
Unidentified Male Commentator
has this gotten you any closer to,
Joel
I mean, to tag on what Trey's saying? You know, this has gotten lots of reasons not to. After all this.
Burt
What are you hearing? Like, I'm curious. First of all, half the guys coming up to you, I'm assuming, is when you're either doing gigs in bars or you're at bars. So they're hammered, right? So the guys that are approaching you that are married in bars, what are they telling you about marriage? What's the thing that scares you the most?
Joel
Couple of things.
Trey
The guys are just like, you're crazy. And that's it. That's in the conversation. The girls, however, want to have the 30 minute to an hour conversation about exactly how they feel about marriage and this and that. And what I've found is everybody or a lot of people are together in their marriage just for the kids, which is, I guess this is people that have been married for a while, and it's just kind of depressing, actually. You know, it's not. It's like people aren't in for each other. They're in for the kids or they're getting out or they're cheating or. It's just unbelievable what's going on out there.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Well, this is taking a happy turn.
Burt
I mean, it's taking an honest turn. I mean, I think I saw. I saw a survey a couple of weeks ago that was done with people that were married over seven years and asked them if they would marry the same person over again. And 75% of the respondents said, no way. I believe that after seven years of marriage, so.
Unidentified Male Commentator
And 20% of the remaining ones were scared that their significant other was going to find out about the survey, so they lied.
Trey
But, you know, it's true. It's like. Like I said, I've been bombarded by people that want to talk about marriage and what they think, and it's not a positive thing. Maybe I'm in the wrong place. I don't know. It's weird out there.
Burt
Good morning, arlene. You're on Q100.
Caller Mary
Hey, I just wanted to make a comment about you saying if you're in your 40s and you're a woman, you've never been married. People look at you. I'm sure that's true, but I'm 43 and I've never been married, and I'm happy by myself.
Burt
Cool.
Caller Mary
I'd rather be. I'd rather be alone than with a horrible relationship.
Burt
I could not agree more.
Unidentified Male Commentator
I don't think anybody.
Burt
There are so many people that are with somebody for the wrong reasons, then. Then to be by yourself for the ride.
Caller Mary
There are plenty of them that got married for the wrong reasons, and I would never want to do something like that. So I think I'm better off.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Well, no, I don't think anybody's questioning the happiness of the person who chose to stay single. I think the reality of it is there's a stigma attached to that. So while you're completely happy, everyone thinks you're a spinster.
Unidentified Female Commentator
Spinster.
Burt
I wonder if there's anybody that's single, like in their late 30s, early 40s, that lies to other people, that has been single their whole life and lies and said, yeah, I've been divorced.
Unidentified Female Commentator
I'm sure. Depends. It depends. And I think that people who are single, like, we talk about it, but I think if anybody in your circles were in their 40s and never been married and were single, you're the friends are the first ones to try to hook you up with somebody or, oh, I got somebody you need to meet. And, you know, and people just don't want to be, I don't know, coupled if they. If they've chosen not to be.
Burt
So how many actual dates have you gone on in this whole process? Because we're talking about four or five months now. So how many dates we talking about?
Trey
Probably two. Two dates. Two dates, yeah.
Burt
So you've really committed.
Trey
We've got six emails and we went on two dates. It was awesome. No, I went on. Probably met personally, met probably 25 people. And to be honest, it was a little overwhelming when we started on the radio, I was getting bombarded by emails, so it was hard to meet these people. Plus, every single one of these dates was a blind date. And, you know, those can be brutal, like I've said on the radio before. So it just got kind of taxing and. And depressive, actually. So I didn't go on as many as I could have. I kind of became a recluse a little bit, I think, towards the end. And, you know, it's just, you go on one of these and you meet and then you talk for an hour, and it's interesting to talk to the person for 20, 30 minutes, but then it just drags and drags and do that over and over and over. It's kind of brutal.
Unidentified Male Commentator
So what the Bird show's involvement has done to you has made you one of those contracts who don't leave their house and also has soured you to toward the future of life with one person.
Burt
Well, here's what. Well, here's really what we've done here is there isn't over the last couple of months, there is no alternative. Because what you're saying is all your married friends are telling you marriage sucks, and you've been dating all these women for the last couple of months. And the single life sucks, too.
Trey
I like the single life. You know, I don't have. I enjoy my place right now, but
Unidentified Male Commentator
Joel would just get off my back.
Trey
Sorry. But I. The girl. It's interesting. A lot of the people that contacted me and you guys know this from the early days were very dependent individuals. You know, I had a lot of people that. I showed you some emails where, hey, I'll marry you. Oh, okay. Kind of weird. So some of the girls that I met and that I was attracted to and, you know, we kind of meshed a little bit after the second or third date. I could see these dependency Issues. You know, we find out about their past and where they're coming from, and it was like, they just want to be married. That is their whole goal. So then I was thinking, you know, are they really into me, or are they just into this whole concept, which is kind of bad news? So that ruined me a little bit, too.
Burt
This is a little bit like Kimberly, who we've been talking to the last couple of weeks also. She just wants to be married so badly, it's stuck in her head.
Unidentified Female Commentator
But they probably felt they were safe here because you set a date for the church and didn't even know anybody to marry. So it's funny to hear you say that. Well, they just wanted the concept of getting married and wanted to get married. So I think for them, they probably felt safe with you because you were doing the same thing.
Trey
Right?
Joel
Yeah.
Burt
Mary's gonna put this one squarely on you. Hey, Mary, you're on Q100.
Caller Mary
Hi. How are you?
Burt
Good. How are you?
Caller Mary
I'm doing pretty good, thanks. You know, I've been listening. I've been to the Burt show for years, and I thought it was really cute when Trey came on and was talking about getting married. I thought it was very sweet. And, you know, I actually love to be in a relationship, and I have been married before, and I'm looking for that right person. And. And, you know, I didn't want to email because I thought, gosh, if he wants to get married that badly, you know, it was kind of like, I bet the people that are going to contact him are the ones that are so desperate to get married. I mean, they're not anybody you would really want to be in a relationship with anyway. So that kind of turned me off, and, you know, I thought, why waste my time?
Burt
So what are you saying? It was just a. It's a desperate concept, and only desperate people would participate in it.
Caller Mary
I wouldn't say it's necessarily a desperate concept or desperate people would only participate in it. I just. I just felt like, well, if he's really set on getting married, then he's so much more likely to make the wrong decision in the first place. And why would I want to be involved in somebody who was. Who was, you know, possibly going to be somebody who would make a bad decision and include me in it, and then maybe I would get clouded, and, you know, I think everybody's made bad decisions, and I'm at the point in my life where I just don't want to make a bad decision or wrong choice again. Therefore, I try not to get too involved in relationships that, you know, have preconceived notions of the way things should be.
Unidentified Male Commentator
What are you doing on January 17?
Burt
What are you getting out of that, Trey?
Trey
It's. It's interesting. She said that I agree with her that half the people that contacted me were desperate, you know, or not desperate, but really wanted to be married. But the other half were competitive. I found, you know, they literally. The girls were like, I have to win this thing regardless of what. What it is. It's like the Bachelor. And people were telling me they're like, girls are competitive, and they'll. You know, they'll do this just to compete with other girls. And I didn't believe it, but it did show a little bit.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Is there anyone. Any girl who cried around you within seven days of meeting you?
Trey
I don't think we had any criers. We had a couple of clingers.
Burt
Okay.
Joel
Had some clingers and some stalkers.
Unidentified Male Commentator
I had a stage five clinger.
Trey
We had some clingers, which were awesome,
Burt
but not gonna happen. So bottom line here is, if you were a betting man and you were going to Vegas, you wouldn't bet that you're getting married. It's not gonna happen.
Trey
I wouldn't bet. Well, I don't know about getting married. I wouldn't bet that I'm getting married to somebody I love. I might still get married just to get married because I said I was going to get married.
Unidentified Female Commentator
So don't do that.
Joel
I wouldn't care. He'll do it.
Unidentified Female Commentator
We just talked about statistics on marriages that don't work. Anything. You know what? Don't get married.
Burt
Some women are going. That's a man of his word right there.
Trey
Thank you.
Burt
He's going to get married because he said he was going to.
Wendy
No, you're just going to get it annulled.
Trey
No, I mean, I might get married because I said I was going to get married on the 17th. One, follow through. And two, I'll have a divorce, which will make me better than not having a divorce and a great story, and it might work.
Burt
So of the potential women listening right now, they already know that. Yeah. You're gonna marry them just because you said you would.
Trey
Oh, no, no. It's love.
Joel
Mm.
Trey
About love, Joel.
Burt
Those two women, or whatever it is that you're. That are still in the running, are thinking, you know, what if I could just get them to marry me, I know I can change them. I know I can make this work.
Trey
Just give it a chance.
Joel
Just give it a chance.
Trey
Give it a chance. Just give it a chance.
Burt
All right, so there's your update. You guys have been emailing now for a couple of weeks. It is what it is right now. It doesn't look like there's anybody that he's very excited about marrying, but the marriage still may be on just because he told everybody he would do it. That's it. That's it.
Unidentified Male Commentator
Seems like there's something else. There's something else.
Trey
No, that's it. It's just kind of laying there. It's just it. The first show.
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Date: March 17, 2026
Main Theme:
The episode revisits the ongoing saga of Trey, a long-time friend of the show, who, after years of joking about not finding "the one," accepted a challenge to get married by a certain deadline. The discussion humorously and honestly explores dating pressures, cultural expectations around marriage, and the experiences of singles in their 30s and 40s—especially the stigma attached to being unmarried at a certain age. The team gets real about love, urgency, social expectations, and the madness of orchestrated relationships.
With characteristic self-deprecation and honesty, The Bert Show explores the absurdities and realities of modern dating and marriage. The hosts and callers bring humor, skepticism, and candid reflections to the universal questions: Does not being married mean you’ve failed? Why is there so much pressure—and what happens when you make marriage a contest? If you ever wondered what might happen if your love life became a radio bit, this episode is an entertaining, empathic answer.