Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Well,
my next guest and her partner may have solved the
problem with dating apps. Are you listening Bumble Match, Tinder,
everybody else? We have heard that there's this dating appathy
that's taking place on dating apps. People are getting literally
(00:25):
burnt out from going on single dates with strangers. In fact,
they're lowering the bar and oh, I get dressed up again,
my hair in a not me and him after yoga,
which is not a bad idea, actually it's more authentic.
But these two gals during COVID actually came up with
a better idea. Please let me introduced Danielle Ditzik. Did
(00:45):
I say it right?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You did?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I did.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Your partner's named Julie Griggs. We don't forget her, but
we don't have a three way to do. I just
want to talk to you, Danielle, about what you girls decided.
First of all, tell me what your day jobs were
when you came up with this this new dating slash
social app.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
So I am an Earth practitioner and Julie is a
physician assistant and at the time. We were actually both
working in healthcare in COVID my god and I was
working in the field of maternity, although my training is
primary care, and Julie was working in both primary care
and emergency medicine.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So you guys were essential workers, wearing your masks and
your face shields and your gloves and sweating all day
and you found time to develop a tech company.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We didn't really find time. We didn't have much time
to ourselves. But yes, that is we did. We did
it during COVID.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yet, so let's talk about the problem that you guys
encountered as young single women and how you decided to
fix this problem.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So the problem that we've encountered as single women is
that dating apps have completely changed the landscape, shape of
dating culture and what it means to be single, and
it has taken single life from being a once social,
fun experience to being a very isolating experience because the
(02:15):
only way that people meet now is through dating apps,
and dating apps are of course used in isolation on
your phone by yourself, and it's not something that you're
sharing with a friend, it's something you go through alone.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And also, let's talk about historically how people met it
was often through fixapps, through friends or family.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Right exactly it was. It was through fix ups. It
was from going to singles weekends or singles events and
having that shared context. And now it's just so arbitrary.
It's just two people who have matched digitally and then
find themselves on a date, and the expectation, because of
all of the branding and in all of these different brands,
(02:55):
is that there will be chemistry on that date. But
the reality is there's no shared content and so the
majority of the time it feels like a waste of
your time.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know. I always say that relationships are a bridge
between tribes, and if you don't have the tribe involved,
then what have you got? Just a bridge that stands alone.
So let's talk about your solution. Your app is called
four Play Social. First, when I got the pitch from
your publicist, I was like, four play is this another
(03:25):
porn side? I did not want to talk about this,
but I get it's cute and clever. What is four
play Social?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So four play Social spelled fo you Are Play is
an app design by my co founder and myself to
make dating healthier and more social, emotionally and physically. And
it lets single friends pair up and create a shared
profile and then connect with other pairs of single friends
so that they can go out together in a group
outing rather than going on a one on one first date.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And it's team dating.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
It's team dating essentially, it's social dating.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So everything's a double date. You make a profile with
your bestie, somebody else makes a profile with their bestie.
And what does the algorithm look for? Like, is it
harder to find another team that matches?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or does only one?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Like do two people just behave as wingman because they're
only two that match?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
How's this work?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Great question? So basically, both of the both of the
single people who are on a team have preferences, and
then our app uses a combination of your preferences to
find other teams that satisfy both of your preferences. So
we find we find you, like a pair of friends that.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Match, Danielle.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That sounds like finding a needle in a haystack. It's
hard enough to find one person to match with. Now
you've got to find two people who.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Match with two people.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, so what's what's great about it is that you
actually only have to have one like from from one
of the teams in order to count as the entire
your team liking it. So it's called a team. On
four play, you and your friend are a team, and
if either you or your friends sends a like to
another team, then that registers as alike. And if either
(05:11):
that person on another team or their teammates likes you back,
that's a match. And so what we're really trying to
do is get people away from thinking that they're going
to be able to figure out their perfect person from
an app and just get them on a date. Meeting
people in real life in a setting where we have
not given them any expectations.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
It's a way to get people together. Now.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I just want to play Devil's Advocate here for one second.
So I was I'm going to say late teens had
some fake ID and I didn't know my value on
the mating marketplace.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I just hung out with my friends and they were
my friends.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
And so I went to my first disco with a girlfriend.
I am five foot ten, she's five foot one. It
didn't matter. We were good friends since you know, grade school.
I had long blonde hair I had I was skinny,
I had big breasts, like literally God made a flip
and mistake with me he was supposed to put my
(06:12):
brain in a nerd, and he put my brain in
a playboy bunny just to have a laugh and see
what was going to happen. So we go out to
this disco and it was the most painful night of
my life because every guy came to me and none
to my friend, and in fact, worse, they would go
to her and say, do you think your friend would
dance with me? So what happened on your app? If
(06:37):
a team shows up and only one person on the
team gets all the attention.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, that's a great question. And I certainly have been
on a four play date before. Julian and I go
on four play dates, and I have been on a
date before where it seemed as though both the men
were interested in Julie. But I think but I was okay,
was okay and actually funny enough. In the long run,
I wound up having a relationship with the other one,
(07:04):
but that came later. But I think that the app
is really designed for friends who are not competitive with
one another, and they're not going to join if they
have a fear of that happening. So I think that
most friends are you know, they're opting into this experience,
and they're clearly not competitive with one another in that sense.
(07:27):
If they are already open to going on.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
A double date, exactly, they have to know it and
they could be just meeting friends.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Right exactly. All right, that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
My guest Danielle Dietzik, and she is the co founder
of a new app you can go look for it
online called four play Social where people team date and
they get together with their bestie.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh here's something I forgot to ask you, Danielle.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What if you have a GBF, a gay best friend,
do you guys have to be the same genders, the
same sexual orientation.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I love GBS. I hope you coin that. I hope
you trademark that you can absolutely team up with any
friend of any sexual orientation, in any gender.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Because the algorithm is going to figure out who you
are and what you're looking for exactly, so you're gonna
go out with another team. Let's say you're a girl,
you have a gay best friend who's a dude, and
you're gonna go out with another team where there's a
straight guy for you.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And a gay man for him.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Okay, we need to get Okay, let me just talk
about one other problem you're gonna have to little hurdle
you're gonna have to overcome. Guys are more lonely and
isolated than women. Are women seem to hold all the
social support? Are you getting enough guys on the app
signing up with their bestie?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
That is an amazing observation because that has always been
the biggest challenge for us since day one, is men
not having a friend to do it with. And so
at the beginning, it was really a challenge because we
were eighty percent women and there weren't enough people on
the app for the women to see men. However, we've
grown large enough that now the fact that it's eighty
(09:09):
percent women is not as problematic. There are enough men now. However,
that is something that we've learned from user research is
men they're not as likely to have someone to do
this with.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, let me tell you there are a lot of
men who listened to kfikfi Am six forty Los Angeles. So, dudes,
did you just hear what she said? The odds of
you meeting a great woman are very high on four
play social I mean, really, that's how you got a
market go where the women are right exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Last year, the Surgeon General came out with a very
disturbing report on our mental health and said that one
of the biggest health risks for Americans, and it's particularly
affecting young Americans, is loneliness and social isolation, which started,
of course during the pandemic. I teach college students, so
let me tell you, they're social anxiety is through the
(10:00):
roof now because they didn't get to talk to humans
for a long time except through screens. How is four
play social hoping to change that.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
We really want people to not only have a shared
experience with their friend, but also with new people. And
the loneliness epidemic is not just impacting young people meeting
new people, but also young people spending time with their
existing friends, and people have just become more isolated. And
(10:35):
so with Foreplay, we encourage people to enjoy single life
together because social connection is a fundamental human need and
it is as basic as food, water, and shelter, and
we need it for our health. We actually need it.
It's actually loneliness is associated with cardiovascular disease, dementia. It's
(10:57):
a really important thing to.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That's what you do when you're alone and you eat right.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah. So I hope that people can understand that this
is a low risk kind of app It's not like
you're going to spend your life pining away for this
one person's profile and go out on this big date
date and spend hours getting ready or spending a lot
of money on a date that didn't go well. This
is let's go out and have some fun. Let's take
(11:24):
a buddy and go meet some other people. If it
turns into love, cool, and if it doesn't, hey, maybe
a meta friend. Is that how your marketing goes.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
That's exactly how it goes. The idea is that you
are expanding your single social network and you might find
love in doing so. And that's the old fashioned way
of meeting. And you might not find love on that
first date, that first for play date, or you might,
but you're expanding your single social network and you are
creating more opportunities to meet new people.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I think it is a wonderful idea, and I'm going
to say it again, gentlemen, if you're listening, there is
a mating marketplace where they're eighty percent women twenty percent dudes.
You guys all need to sign on and if you
don't have a close guy friend, find one, join a club,
any kind of club. I don't care. You guys need
(12:17):
social support. It is so important that you reach out.
I should tell you, Danielle. I met my husband on
bumble and the only difference between me suffering from dating
fatigue and everybody else is I'm a professional.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I knew how to use the apps.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I knew how to eliminate judiciously. I knew what to
ask on that first coffee date to develop intimacy instead of,
you know, just fronting in some way. And so I
took like my thirty years of reporting on the science
of love, and at every step of the way using
the apps.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
I said, huh, I wonder what Dr Walsh would do here.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I literally became my own wing woman. I love that.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I love that, but most people don't. Most people don't
have the skill set.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
No, they don't.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I should set up up some kind of coaching business
where all I do is help people navigate the apps.
Nothing more, just here's what you got to do. I've
done it for friends and they've been very successful. Maybe
that's maybe that's next in my future.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I'll find up I'll pine up, I'll be your first client.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
That would be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
For now, where can people go to get four playsocial.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
App in the app store?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Going to the app store and you type in four
but not like the kind of four play you're thinking, folks.
Okay for meeting four people? Fo you are play social
four play social. I also logged on online and I
was able to see it and it was all explained
to me.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
I went to the facts. I read all those questions.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So if you want to go get more information, you
can go to is it four playsocial dot com? Yes, yes,
get the information, but go to the app store downloaded,
call a friend right now and get on this thing
because you don't need to be alone or isolated.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Daniel's dietzik. So nice to meet you. Thank you so.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Much for joining us, Thank you so much for having me, And.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That brings the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show to a close.
I'm always here for you every Sunday from seven to
nine pm. You can also on Sundays. You can also
follow me on my social media. The handle everywhere is
at doctor Wendy Walsh at dr Wendy Walsh. That's always
my pleasure to be with you on KFI. You've been
listening to The Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI Am
(14:25):
six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app