Going Public With a Relationship: Brian on Kate, Deep Companionship, and Not Settling

The video is interspersed with candid moments between the two: a playful exchange about jars and their "little indentation," a bit of teasing, Brian asking Kate to "give me a wink," and a joking back-and-forth about whether they need to stop at a rental counter, in which one of them coaxes the other to keep saying "no." These clips set a lighthearted tone around the more reflective commentary.

Brian explains that he and Kate met roughly five years ago and entered a relationship three years ago. He describes the time since as ongoing work: "we've been working on it since."

Brian says he can model in his mind how people will respond to the announcement: there will be joy, mocking, and hate, "a little bit of everything." He shares the news anyway because he thinks it could be a good influence on people who are either looking for a relationship or working on one they already have.

That motivation connects to his own upbringing. Growing up, he tried to find marriages he wanted to emulate and found them hard to come by. He concludes that good relationships are really rare, which is part of why he thinks showing one publicly might be useful to others.

Brian describes Kate as feeling like his "other half," to the point that she feels like part of himself: when she hurts, he hurts, and when he feels joy, she feels joy.

He also describes the principles he sees in the relationship. He says they don't have expectations of each other, and that they both highly value their "conscious experience." Neither wants to waste that experience in a misaligned relationship or in something that isn't producing joy. Much of their lives are shared with each other.

He places this in the context of a long search. He describes having been adrift, looking for deep companionship, and says it took him "basically my entire adult life" to find it.

Brian closes with advice for two groups. To people who also want deep companionship, he says to keep at it: it may take longer than expected, but in his view it isn't worth settling.

To people already in a relationship who don't feel that deep commitment, he suggests committing to invest in the relationship and help it mature, so that both partners can get the deep joy relationships can offer. He observes that many people are very quick to "pull the eject button," and argues that the hard work and persistence required to build these relationships are worth it. He ends by encouraging viewers to keep going and do the hard work.