April 9, 2014 • 52 mins
Has online dating made it easier to meet people and find long-term romance? Cristen and Caroline trace the fascinating history of people using technology to find love, romance in the mobile dating app era and whether Tinder and Grindr are threatening monogamy.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, And today we are revisiting in fact,
online dating, which we talked about a few years ago now,
(00:23):
but already we need to talk about it again because
online dating has changed, is continually changing, Caroline, by how
the times have changed. Yeah, the last time we talked
about it, it was in the what is considered the
second phase of online dating, which was kind of the
the heyday of the algorithm based websites like e Harmony
(00:49):
and okay cubid, which, yeah, they're still around today, but folks,
we've gone mobile. We are apt crazy. Yeah, no more
reading through say is about someone's cats. No, now you
just get to pick somebody for the night based on
their picture or four days after the night. You know.
(01:10):
That's however you want to use it. Um, I will
say that although I am gonna commit in loving relationship.
About a month or so ago, UM, my boyfriend I
were hanging out with some friends and somehow we got
on the topic of online dating. All of us at
the table, by the way, we're you know, all in relationships,
(01:30):
and we started talking about Tinder, because everybody's on Tinder.
It's like the hot new thing, and we're like, you
know what, let's just let's just see what Tinders about.
So we all got out our smartphones and downloaded Tinder.
And it's so simple to use because all you need
is a Facebook account, so you don't have to set
up anything. So five ten minutes later, we're all on Tinder,
(01:52):
just swiping through people's images, and it was it was
just interesting to see how it worked. And for is
unfamiliar with Tinder, which is the fastest growing free online
dating app right now, all you do is swipe photos.
I think you swipe to the left if you don't
want them, and you swipe to the right if you
(02:13):
do think someone's attractive, and if you both. If you
swipe someone and you think he's attractive or she and
he or she thinks you're attractive back, then you can
start chatting and then maybe meet up. I had never
even heard of this until a friend of mine, dude roommate,
(02:34):
was actually doling out advice to this female friend of his,
and he was telling me about it, and he's like, yeah,
she's on Tender, Da da da da, and I'm like, what,
I don't even know what is that? What is that?
And um, the impression I got from the description is
that Tender is like Grinder, and it is kind of
like Grinder, but it has had nowhere near the same numbers,
(02:57):
I would think, But it gave me like this ick
factor to hear about it, because as like a as
a veteran of online dating, Kristen, Uh, you know, I
mean I think there's I feel like Tinder almost has
different purposes. Yeah, I mean there's definitely more of I
think probably because Grinder is which is for specifically for
(03:18):
gay guys, um, because it's so associated with hooking up
that Tinder is similarly thought of as more of a
hook up app and hey, more power to hook up apps.
If that's what you're looking for, that's totally fine. But
it also is reflective to me of how we're using
the internet more and more of just visual based scrolling
(03:40):
through photos and that's kind of all. We just want
a quick hit. We don't want to read very much.
We want to be able. It's instant gratification. We want
to be able to swipe and yeah, and then Tinder,
I mean you swipe and like they're there before we
get into our online dating convo. I mean, Karen, you
are a success story mind dating. Yeah. Yeah. My boyfriend
(04:03):
likes to joke that he tells people that we met
at the dog park because we don't have dogs, but um, yeah,
we met over a year ago on okay Cupid. And
it's funny he and I both when we're out together
sometimes like at a bar, or at a restaurant or wherever,
music festival, whatever, we will both see people a that
(04:25):
we went on dates with that we're unsuccessful, but be
that we just recognize their faces from seeing them over
and over again as suggestions on okay Cupid. Yeah, it's
it's funny how online dating opens up this vast new
world but also can make your world so much smaller
because the yeah, exactly. There have been times when I'll
be out and I'll be like I'll start to literally
(04:48):
like go up to somebody and be like, hey, I
know you, are you a friend of And then I'm like, no, nope,
senior profile nope. And then it's funny when you have
seen the person's profile and then you see the mountain
public and you're like, you're lying on your profile, brushing
or yeah, or you're yeah, we're not you're not that tall,
(05:09):
air brushing or fact brushing yeah yeah uh. And honestly, Caroline,
part of me wishes this could just be an episode
of you and I swopping combine dating stories because I
went through an online dating phase as well. I didn't
have as much success with it long term. Um, but
it was it was fascinating though it almost felt like
(05:30):
an anthropological experiment. Well, I mean, you know, to talk
about the weirdness of online dating, Kristen and I, personal note,
actually went out with the same person. Yes, we did
not at the same time, at the same time. This
was it was. There was a lot of time in between,
but once we realized it, it was odd, funny. It
(05:54):
was funny. I think, Um, I think he, out of
the three of us involved in the situation, I think
he felt the most awkward about it. Yeah, And honestly,
because he felt so awkward, and because I had had
been on some dates with him prior, I felt the
worst because it was like, well, well I did something terrible,
(06:15):
but it's cool. It's cool. I just it's funny. You know,
you talk about online dating sites and app some things
making the world so much smaller. That's that's a pretty
good example. It was. It was, it was a pretty
good example. Um. But since actually since the last time
we talked about online dating, which I believe was in
two thousand nine, more people are trying online dating. Um. So,
(06:38):
the Pew Research Center did a whole report on this
that came out in October of two thousand thirteen, and
it was just flush with statistics, the main one of
which is that eleven percent, which doesn't sound like a lot,
but that's eleven of all Internet users, which represents nine
percent of all American adults say that they have personally
(06:59):
used an online dating site. Yeah, and seven percent coming
in behind that, seven percent of cell phone app users
say that they have used a dating app on their
cell phone. Now, I I used the Okay, Cupid dating
apps more and more, really just to entertain myself, like
when I was on the train or driving him from
(07:19):
work or whatever, not so much as like an obsessive
tool to use. But I didn't use any of these
like locating services or anything, because part of me just
finds that absurdly creepy. Well, that's one of the reasons why. Well,
we'll get we'll get into that I can't. I don't
want to jump ahead of myself because there's so much
to talk about. Um, but I will say that that
(07:40):
mobile statistic is only going to increase. Yeah, the future
is mobile people. UM. So another statistic, percent of US
adults who are classified as single and ready to mingle,
that's the official demographic term. UH of us have used
online or mobile dating services. And this is important. Sixty
(08:02):
percent of us have actually gone on face to face
dates because a lot of people who are on online
dating sites are never gonna meet up with you. They
just kind of use it to look, see what's out there,
maybe flirt, maybe creep a little bit. Um. And that
is up from forty three percent of people who actually
(08:22):
went on face to face dates from two thousand five.
So at least we're at least we're hanging out together more.
And by hanging out, I mean dot dot dot Yeah,
and I think i'm you know, we'll talk about attitudes,
but I think part of that is that as online
dating becomes more normal, more expected, you know, more of
us are more likely to go out on actual dates. Yeah,
(08:43):
instead of just sit on the website and look. And
there is long term romantic success associated with online dating
pent up from in two thousand five of online daters
say that they have met a spouse or long term
relationship through the site. But that is among straight online daters.
(09:05):
For people in LGBT relationships, y'all are online dating like crazy.
According to two thousand ten data from Stanford University, sixty
of LGBT couples are meeting online. And that's a trend.
That's that was existent too. I remember when we were
first talking about this, but uh, yeah, it's pretty interesting. Yeah, absolutely,
(09:28):
And the numbers are biggest, really this is this is
a young person's game. That the numbers are biggest among
young people, but the fastest growing demographic is fifty five
and older. Yeah, I mean, and you gotta keep in mind,
like wow, the fact of the matter is if you're younger,
you're likelier to have used online dating. But people fifty
five and up are the fastest growing online daters, probably
(09:51):
because of things like divorce, widowhood. Um, and it's becoming
I mean, just to show how normative this is becoming.
You know the fact that older folks are doing it,
that's when you know that it's like an accepted thing
to do, just like Facebook kind of yeah. Um. Well,
as far as people who are now married or in
long term committed relationships, younger people are more likely to
(10:14):
say that those relationships began online. So that's eight percent
of eight married and committed eighteen to twenty nine year
olds first, as for instance, three percent of fifty to
sixty four year olds. But as progressive as it seems
like online dating is because it's opened up all these
avenues for different people to meet, and you know, kind
of open up dating worlds that were previously closed off,
(10:36):
especially if you live in a smaller town, smaller community. Um,
but one, there's one area where online dating reflects how
we are maybe negatively stuck in our ways. This was
a study that was published in November two thirteen in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which found that,
(10:56):
based on okay Cupid data that they had collected, but
in general, we tend to date people of our same race.
We are not very adventurous when it comes to reaching
out to people who don't necessarily look exactly like us. Yeah,
but it was interesting what they found. It's that it
seems like there's this like little barrier, uh that doesn't
(11:17):
even seem like a brick wall. It seems more like
a rickety fence that's kind of blocking us from going
out with people or dating people of different races. Um.
The researchers found that we might be limiting our choices
out of a fear that we're not attractive to people
of other races, and they found that once people had
been approached by somebody from a different race or had
(11:39):
gotten a response from someone from a different race, they
were then more likely to initiate contact or respond to
someone from that same race in the future. These people
logged one and fifteen percent more interracial exchanges during this
two and a half month Okay Cupid study than people
of a similar background who had not been contacted by
(12:02):
a person from another race. So basically, it sounds like
if we use online dating as a tool to branch
out a bit, it can have some interesting and diversifying effects. Yeah. Um.
Although one finding was that overwhelmingly the people of all
the demographics male female the likeliest to receive a response
(12:23):
from a message or white men. Yet again, great to
be a white man, but speaking of white guys, um,
Asian women did not fit the trend of kind of
staying within their own ethnic group. As far as responding
two messages, um Asian women were more likely to contact
white men than other Asian guys. And Kevin Lewis, who
is a University of California, San Diego sociologist who led
(12:46):
the study, noted that quote, scholars have found it hard
to qualify how much of self segregation in the dating
pool has to do with internal prejudice versus structural issues
in an already segregated society. So so, in other words,
they're not entirely sure whether you know what's going on.
(13:07):
Essentially that keeps us sort of self segregating over and
over again. But they say, it's heartening to see how
the statistics show that once you know that that we're
open to interracial dating, and especially I mean, if we
just look at millennials and attitudes towards interracial relationships, we
are by far the most like open and accepting of them. Yeah,
(13:28):
so all it takes just just start messaging different types
of people and see what happened. And hey, you know what,
for all the people out there who think millennials are
rotten and selfish and lazy, we're open minded. So and
that's been my commercial for millennials. Um, but let's talk
about the attitudes towards online dating, because when it first started,
(13:51):
I think a lot of people were maybe a little
hesitant to say that they met via online dating. There
was this idea that, oh, well, you have to resort
to online dating because you just you can't meet people
in real life. What's wrong with you? Answer nothing or
answer you're busy. Um. And this Pew research has also
shown that online dating is more positively viewed than it
(14:14):
was just a few years ago. In two thousand five, yeah,
of all Internet users, not just online daters, agree that
online dating is a good way to meet people. That's
up from in two thousand five, and talking about specifically
online dats, seventy nine percent of actual online dators agree
that it's a good way to meet people, so not
(14:37):
agree that it's a good way to meet people. Seventy
percent of online daters agree that online dating allows you
to find a better match for yourself, but a lot
of people are still skeptical. Of all Internet users agree
that people who use online dating fits are desperate, although
that is down from pent who thought you were desperate?
In two thousand, five percent of online daters agree that
(15:02):
online dating is desperate, so they're basically saying, yes, I'm desperate.
I'm desperate, and I'm going to find a freaking date
of us. Um. And even though online dating is definitely
perceived as you know, more normative, like fine thing for
you to do, it's not all that grand, especially if
you are a woman and online dating, because negative experiences
(15:25):
absolutely exists, whether it's things like cat fishing or misrepresentation
or getting creepy messages from people. That was one thing
that I definitely don't miss about Okay Cupid getting messages
from guys that were just rude or highly inappropriate. I
would get these obscene messages and I got great joy
at first. I was like, oh god, it's so offensive,
(15:46):
and like it makes my brain hurt. I just started
editing there. I mean, I have an editing background, so
I just edit their messages and send it back to
them and I said, here's the edited version of your message.
And that did not so well. I have a feeling
it would not so well at all. Um. So fift
of online data is report negative experiences. Though of women
(16:07):
report having been contacted by someone through an online dating
site or app in a way that made them feel
harass or uncomfortable. You and I are compared to only
sevent of men. So maybe just a note. I mean,
this is a very heteronormative thing to say, but maybe
just a note to guys out there, just, you know,
(16:28):
don't be creepy on online dating. Yeah, but you know what,
the guys who are going to be creepy and online
dating are going to be creepy. I r L two
in real life, and this is true. Um, But I
think the fact of the matter is, as much as
we still love to talk about online dating and it's
still treated, especially in this newer era of app driven dating,
(16:50):
it's still reported on so often as a trend. But
the fact of the matter is, and this was one
thing that, for instance, Maureen O'Connor New York Magazine pointed out,
how can you really call it a trend, especially for
people of our age, Caroline, I don't, I really don't know.
I can think of one person off the top of
my head who has been in a relationship long enough
(17:10):
that she hasn't used online dating. But I just feel
like online dating is dating. Yeah. I my boyfriend has
a younger friend who is in law school, who uses
online dating. And my my initial response to that was like,
what is his problem? Why can't he get a date?
He's surrounded by all these other students. And then I,
(17:32):
you know, I thought about an a law school. You're
incredibly busy, you're studying all the time, you're working really
hard to you know, become an attorney and whatnot. But
it is, it's like such a it's so in the
culture now that even college students are doing it. In
college is supposed to be at the time when it's
like the easiest to date and make friends because you're
surrounded by people like you, Well, would you rather go
(17:53):
to a party? And well, it's also it's going to
depend on your introversion or extra version. But it's like, Okay,
you can go out of your way to strike up
a conversation with someone, to go to a party, go
to a mixer, go to a show, or you could
download an app and start swiping away on the bus
in downtime and class in your pajamas while you're on
(18:16):
the toilet. Let's be honest, I'm sure that happens all
the time. Um So, I think that convenience is a
big part of it. But before we get into the
few what what this implies to our face to face
dating lives. First, let's take a trip back in time
to the history of online dating how we got to
(18:36):
where we are now, because there's some pretty fascinating milestones
way back from college students in the late nineteen fifties
tinkering around with old school computers, all the way up
to today in the era of Grinder and Tender. And
we'll come right back with that info after a quick break.
(18:59):
So where we get into the future of online dating,
we've got to talk about the past, see where we
have come from, And essentially we came from way back
in the seventeen hundreds the emergence of printing, and pretty
pretty much as soon as people started printing things, they
started printing personal ads looking for mates. Right, So, you guys,
it's never been easy, it's really Yeah, dating has always
(19:22):
been the worst. It's been kind of the worst and
a bit of a conundrum, especially in times where maybe
there are imbalanced sex ratios or you're in a remote place. Um,
So we've always basically been on the hunt for mates
and have been trying to use services to help us
do that. So for a long time, personal ads were it.
(19:42):
And it's interesting that the nineties seventies were apparently the
heyday of personal ads, even though only about one percent
of married couples of the time actually met through personal ads.
That was kind of kind of hottest away to outside
of meeting people just face to face. Um, that was
folks did. And in the nineteen eighties, Caroline, welcome to
(20:03):
video dating. Oh god, I want to see some of
those videos. How many do you think had mullets? How
many do you think we're wearing neon or windbreaker suits?
I just I'm so I want to watch these so
badly Google that. I mean, it's it's Internet gold for today.
But even by the seventies and the eighties, computer dating,
(20:25):
like the very earliest kind of computer program set up
to match people had already started a while before. Yeah,
nineteen fifty nine, there was a Stanford University class project
in a math course called Happy Families Planning Services, which
sounds almost sinister to me. It does, um, but they
programmed an IBM six fifty computer with forty nine men
(20:48):
and women's personal data to match them up. One marriage
came out of that, okay, and I got an A
in the class side note, Um, so that's one of
the earliest kind of grassroots algorithms set up to try
to match people. And although once they h it didn't
work too well because they had these forty nine men
(21:09):
forty nine women, and it would start out with like
the top tiers, so the people who matched really well
were perfect. So by the time you got down to
like the man and woman, it was basically like, well,
you you're both breathing, go hang out. You have all
the necessary bits. Yeah, so so not the most perfect
(21:30):
also very small sample size, but not the most perfect algorithm.
But then you see in NIVE this thing called operation
match pops up among a group of Harvard students who
set up a similar personality based um computer dating system.
But the problem with all these super old school computer
(21:50):
services was that the computers were so slow. They had
a really hard time processing all of this data about
different people. So really they couldn't keep up with demand,
so they didn't I mean until the technology uh improved
online dating just obviously online dating couldn't happen because the
(22:10):
Internet didn't exist, but this computer based dating couldn't really
exist until computers were working a little bit faster. Yeah,
and once they were. We have three phases, starting with
online personal ad sites that started which started with match
dot com Match, which I also tried, but it wasn't
my cup of tea. Yeah, I know, I've never tried
(22:32):
match now. Um. The second phase of computer based dating
would be algorithm based sites, starting with e Harmony in
two thousand. Interesting tidbit of useless information. A friend of mine,
like an old coworker, signed up for e harmony and
you don't have to answer like four questions about yourself.
(22:55):
At the end of like the hour long answering question period,
e harmony was like, sorry, bro, we can't match you.
But yeah, they did that for a while. If you
were gay, Oh well he that was charming. Yeah, I
know exactly. He was a straight man looking for a lady.
He is happily married with a son. Now, good for him, congratulations.
(23:17):
But it was almost like I had to laugh to
myself a little bit. That would be that would be
a depressing moment. Super he was super super down about it. Anyway.
Third phase we have that we're in kind of the
thick of is mobile app dating and thanks to the
launch of the Apple App Store. Yeah, that happened in
two thousand and eight, and we should attribute these three
(23:38):
phases of computer based dating to Eli Finkel, who is
an online dating scholar UM out of Northwestern University. He
also published a really comprehensive study in February two thousand
twelve on more of the science of online dating, looking
at whether or not it actually works. Has it really
improved our face to face dating outcomes? Um? And And
(24:03):
we'll get to his findings because again they are not
to overuse word fascinating as I do, but they're quite fascinating, Caroline. UM.
But we have in this time, especially thanks to sites
like okay Cupid that are very data rich and they
get a lot of information from their users because users
also generate and answer so many questions that it works
(24:25):
into their algorithm. So we have all of this data
now about the habits of online datas, what works in
online dating. Profiles are just kind of how we use
these things. So what have we learned? I mean, aside
from the fact that you can pretty much find an
online dating service or app for any type of person,
(24:48):
I mean, the niche potential is just never ending. And
I love the data pile that okay Cupid has accumulated. Um.
They talked about men with the highest attractiveness ratings over
on their website, and those men with the highest ratings
had the words surfing, surf, yoga, skiing, and the ocean
(25:11):
most often. Yeah, and for women it's London, n y
C Yoga, surfing an athlete. So, as you might be
guessing right now, surfing and yoga are the hottest pastimes
on okay Cupid. Yeah, so I've got a lot of
people are like running to their computers and just typing
like surfing and yoga over and over again, photo shopping
(25:33):
a surfboard into their profile. Pick that's taken like in
an indoor location. Probably um radio head side note is
the hottest band. There's also some interesting stuff with language play.
Cats for instance, is more attractive than my cats. Also,
men who use the word whome more attractive to women.
(25:57):
And for a little gender e note, it's twenty eight
percent better they found for men to refer to women
as women compared to referring to them as girls. However,
it is sixteen percent better for women to refer to
themselves as girls rather than women. And that interesting, so interesting,
So we perceive men more favorably apparently when they refer
(26:17):
to us as women, yet we come across at least
more favorably when we refer to ourselves as girls. Harkens
back to our Ladies podcast. That's right. Well, so talking
about all this data and all these percentages, a lot
of this is hyper focused on straight couples, men and
women getting together on these sites and these apps. But
(26:39):
when you look at that staff that we sided earlier,
that LGBT couples are meeting online, I mean that is significant.
So let's now look at at the apps and sites
that are dedicated to them. First up, let's talk about Grinder.
I mean, Grinder is the superstar of dating apps, because
not all only is. I mean, it's been like successful
(27:02):
numbers wise. A lot of guys use it to find
other guys, but guys also spend so much time on Grinder.
I was watching the HBO show looking about its focus
mostly on like gay guys in San Francisco, and much
of the plot line I feels feel like revolves around
them being on Grinder and meeting guys on Grinder and
(27:23):
even played a role in a Girls episode. Yeah yeah,
I mean it's it's kind of a cultural phenomenon. Well
it should be I mean, as of March and amassed
more than five million users who were spending an average
of ninety minutes a day on it. Guys, ninety minutes
a day. It's amazing. I know, I feel like you
could be writing a novel in that time. Um but so,
(27:46):
Jamie Wou wrote a book called Meet Grinder, How One
App Changed the Way We Connect. Jamie said that it
has completely and possibly permanently altered the way that app
developers and users think about location based service is because,
like Tinder, kind of Grinder is sort of the big
brother version that it's like on hyperlocation service steroids. It
(28:10):
helps you find someone who's nearby so that you can
masically can have coffee. That's yep, that's exactly what I
was about to say. Um but uh Wu talks about
how the fact that it's so fast and it can
facilitate intimacy, I'll just put it that way. So fast
it's immensely appealing in their apps out there, who were
(28:32):
like tripping over themselves to try to replicate that success. Yeah,
and in the one way that the makers of Grinder
did not replicate that success so much was with Blender,
which they basically made it as a straight version of Grinder.
But they quickly realized that, oh, this geolocation thing isn't
(28:53):
as appealing to straight women because men tend to use
online aiding and online dating sites and apps more often,
They spend more time look at more profiles, I think
three times more profiles than women do. Also, not surprisingly
because of you know, heateronormative dating sort of archetypes, men
(29:14):
are a lot also a lot likelier to initiate contact
with women, and so you combine that with knowing where
women are, and a lot of women felt very unsafe. Yeah. Yeah.
There was a story in the Boston Globe that talked
about how a lot of industry executives themselves are saying, yeah,
this is one hurdle we don't know how to get around.
Women just aren't as comfortable being like I am at
(29:36):
this specific address in this specific town, because there are
fears that you will get stocked, or someone will come
find you or watch you, or know where you are.
I mean, I get creeped out with the location settings
on Instagram. Yeah, I don't. I'm not a huge fan
of of geolocation, so four square, for instance, not my bag.
Some people love it, but I don't. I don't want
(29:57):
the internet to know where I am at all times.
I don't me there, even though it probably already does
it for sure? Does somebody's always feel lax? Mark Zuckerberg
is watching us right Now's right? Um So, like we said,
Blender not a successful I mean, they have a ton
of subscribers, but the reason why Tinder has been more
(30:19):
successful is because it's not as focused on Hey, I'm
right here, who's around me right now? Um? So, Grinder
has been really successful. But there's also been this question
too of well, is there a way to replicate Grinder
for lesbians because there hasn't been like massive success in
the same way as Grinder has been so successful for
(30:42):
gay guys for lesbians, and it's partially because there is
this particular problem that comes up with lesbian targeted dating
apps and sites, and that is cat fishing by street guys.
So awful, man, Come on. Um So, there are a
number of lesbian apps out there. There's Dodged, which originally
(31:06):
was just a European based app, but it has recently
launched in San Francisco, so you're probably gonna be seeing
it in more areas of the US if it is successful,
and it has sort of a Pinterest esque uh interface
where it's focused obviously on a lot of photos, but
it's not just what your face looks like, but also
(31:26):
like things that you like, what your house looks like,
kind of what you're what you're into. And it does
not emphasize the location services, right, that's a that's another
hallmark which is interesting to see. Um for these lesbian
dating app models, not any of them. I don't think
that I've found are as geolocation based as grinder is.
(31:49):
And in addition to dis she's also find her that's
her with two rs, their Scissor and then my favorite
of all, and I have not obviously I've not a lesbian.
I haven't used this site before, but the name just
makes me laugh. It's there's one called Brenda, which and
I'm I'm laughing about this too because I read a
(32:11):
review of lesbian dating apps over on the after Ellen
site and she finally got down to Brenda and her
comment was essentially like Brenda. Really no offense to Brenda's
out there, but it's not the It's not the sexiest
sounding app. Sure, it sounds like an eighties businesswoman maybe
(32:33):
with shoulder pads, maybe doing it some video dating, and
like the founder of Dodge for instance, said like, look,
you can't just take Grinder and reframe it for women,
Like you can't just make Grinder pink and then gear
it towards women, whether they're straight or lesbians, because women
are just looking for different things from their online and
app services. Yeah, and it is unfortunate though that that
(32:56):
I think that was the same developer who said that
they have to be on quote unquote penis duty because
there are men who will um create fake accounts posing
as other lesbians and either you know, maybe in a
shape contact, maybe just kind of troll around on the
site to see who's out there, maybe actually try to
(33:18):
set up dates to see if these women would be
interested in having sex with them. Um, So it's a
it's a big problem for these sites. And Scissor actually
requires a validation plug in that includes personal information to
ensure that guys aren't infiltrating their ranks. And they emphasize
(33:39):
that this is not an anti man thing at all,
it's just, hey, we want to make sure that this
is a safe space for women who are looking for
women and that should be okay. And so for scissor
for instance, like you have to have a driver's license
in order to use it, as opposed to a lot
of these where it's hooked up via Facebook. And guess
what's easy to set up a fake Facebook account? Yeah, exactly. Well,
(34:02):
so you know, the one thing that developers are trying
to figure out, and I mean this is taking it
back out a little more generally, is is what do
women want? I mean that seems to be a question
in life, but specifically in dating apps and sites. Um
And Friedman, writing in The New Yorker, looked at this
and she said, if you look at the precious few
(34:24):
dating sites and apps with female founders, a pattern emerges.
Women want authenticity, privacy, and more controlled environment and a
quick path to a safe, easy, offline meeting. She cites
the app Coffee Meets Bagel, which is like almost like
a friendlier version of Tender or grinder. Like you, you're
still flipping through, but it kind of puts the keys
(34:44):
in the hand of the woman who's looking through. Um Cara, sorry,
who's looking through? Jessica Carbino, who's a PhD candidate in
sociology at u c l A studies online dating, and
Freeman quotes are saying, you know, a lot of people
UH want to meet organically. They know that online dating
is important, but they still don't like it. They want to,
(35:06):
you know, have it be more organic offline. Um. So
she says that if you had a mobile app to
let people know where men who meet their their criteria
are and let women initiate it, it it could work as
long as the women feel comfortable. Because what comes up
again and again and some of these things we were
reading is like a lot of the straight women being
(35:27):
intervieweders saying, you know, I I want to still feel
like the woman in the situation. I don't necessarily want
to approach the man. And so there's a degree of like, okay,
well you want to have control, but you don't want
to approach a man. So how do we create an
app that like makes everybody comfortable? But there are some
people who are saying that Tinder is doing that because
(35:49):
there's this whole emphasis. There are so many articles too
on Tinder is you know, just a woman's playland. It's
a feminist dream come true because you can know the
swipe men away or keep them around and sorry, folks,
that's not feminism. But but there it is a little
more equal opportunity dating, whereas with something like Okay Cupid,
(36:12):
it's a little more formal. I feel like, I feel
like it falls back more on, you know, stereotypes of
men needing to make the initial approach, whereas with Tinder,
maybe because it's a little more hook up oriented, it
doesn't really matter as much. Yeah, but Amanda hess Over
at Slate did take issue with Tender being called feminist
(36:33):
or any of these types of mobile apps being called feminist,
because having women treat men as disposable is not an
equal opportunity thing. It's it's not that's having women treatment
as disposable just like men due to women on these
dating sides that does. That's not equality, that's just more
(36:54):
like meat market mentality. Right. The focus on the disposability
is is it's anti feminist. What would be more feminists is, yeah,
we should everybody should be you know, as empowered, and
it should be as socially acceptable to ask a person noel.
You shouldn't be socially penalized for being a forward woman
if you want to be. And on kind of a
(37:16):
side note with this whole feminism tie in, they're clearly
trying to market based on that, and in Australia they
did a marketing campaign alongside Amnesty International, which is a
lotable organization, but the whole marketing campaign was focused on, Hey, women,
aren't you glad you have Tinder because child brides exist
(37:39):
and they don't get to choose, they can't swipe away
their older husbands, which was just like, no, no, nope,
let's that's not nope, that's let's not do that. Yeah. Um.
There was an article about this in the Telegraph and
the writer was like, uh, this is kind of a sticky,
icky situation advertising in this anner saying these various things.
(38:02):
And while the Tinder founder does say that it's part
of our mission to empower women, the Telegraph writer was
basically saying, you're not really empowering anyone women. It's just
it's using an kind of abusing a cause to sell
something to you know, perfectly privileged white people. A lot
(38:24):
of times. I don't know. I I was a bit
aghast at that. Um. But some some female listeners might
have heard of another dating service. It's not necessarily it's
not exactly a dating app, but it is a service
that is also has been lauded as you know, twenty
one century of feminism. It's called Lulu, and what it
(38:47):
is is a guy rating app. It's kind of like
Yelp for dudes, where it's also hooked up via Facebook.
So women go on and they rate guys that they
know with a series of just so that they can't
go on Yelp style and just rant about men. There
are a series of pre selected hashtags so that if
(39:07):
you find a guy online and you don't know him
I r L, you can go on Lulu, see if
he's in there, and see what other women have to
say about him. But as Amanda has also points out, hey,
this actually isn't so great because this is not consensual
on the guy's part. And what would we be saying
if there was an app for rating women? We would
(39:30):
be up in arms about that, right, and I would
not want to see the hashtags associated with my profile.
But the existence of Lulu does point to one potential
pitfall of online dating, which is that there it would
be helpful to have a kind of rating system because
as much as you might mesh online, as much as
(39:53):
your interests might aligne, once you're sitting down face to
face with a person, which is important to do almost
as quickly as possible. Grinder does get that right, because
psychologists have found that the longer you draw out your
online communication before meeting in person kinda, the more you're
setting yourself up for major disappointment. There's something called the
(40:15):
hyper personal effect. We're in. You see this perfect online profile,
so he must be perfect, and then you realize, well,
he's not perfect or she's not perfect. Um So where
the need for something like Lulu comes in is the
fact that online dating doesn't It doesn't account for those
(40:35):
variables of just like any blind date of you don't
actually know exactly how it's going to go, and we
want to, you know, mitigate the chance of disaster. Sure,
so we we rely on dating site algorithms, things like
answering all of this foreign questions, any harmony to tell
us this person is definitely going to be my mate.
(40:58):
They they're obviously per we have like a nine match
score or whatever. But those algorithms don't really work because
they're only matching things like interests, values, attributes, rather than
how you two are going to get along in long
term situations. And I mean that's a criticism and it's legitimate,
(41:19):
but it's also like, how could you expect it to
match you to a long term partner? Really? Yeah, I
mean and and that's also the conclusion of this Northwestern
study UM led by Eli Finkel that we've referenced a
few times. And there, I mean, there's as much as okay,
Cupid or match or whomever hails their algorithm, there is,
(41:42):
there's just no scientific data to back it up. And
a lot of them, like the Harmony, are very proprietary
over this secret algorithm. It's like the coke formula. You know,
they don't they don't want to let anybody know what
those supposedly secret ingredients are. It turns out that as
you type in your answers to these harmony algorithms, they
just go into a room with like a bunch of
(42:03):
ducks stomping around on computer anymore. It's true, um. And
he also points out to that there's this issue with
the deluge problem. There are so many people now who
are online dating that it almost presents this paradox of
choice of like, uh, you know, you walk into a
(42:23):
grocery store with like a million different kinds of cereal.
The more kinds of cereal there are the harder it
is to actually pick out a cereal, whereas if you
just walk in and there's only corn flakes, you're gonna
go home with corn flakes. But some people are worried,
They're like, what if there's something better out there than
corn flakes? Because having all of these choices, you know
that that starts to lead to all of these you know,
(42:45):
critics of online dating who are saying that it's ruining
our society because no one's gonna stay married anymore, or
no one's gonna get married in the first place anymore,
And and like, okay, logically, in a black and white world, like,
I see where your argument is coming from. I see that,
Like having all these endless choices makes you think, oh,
I can do one better and one better. But what
(43:05):
online dating doesn't change is your inherent values. If you
want to get married, if you want to have a committed,
long term relationship with one person, go on to have children,
blah blah blah, grow old all that good stuff. You're
still probably going to do that. Also, when did people
start staying married for forever? When did that? When? When
did that divorce rate go down so far? Right? Yeah,
(43:28):
people are really convinced that in the next couple of years,
we're gonna start seeing ridiculous divorce rates and and marriage
is going to become outdated, and we're just going to
continue to date until we're decrepit. Like one. So in
this januariece in The Atlantic, the writer quotes um one,
founder of one of these online dating apps, and the
(43:48):
guy was like, Yeah, I'm forty and I'm still dating.
If I lived in Iowa, i'd have four kids by now.
And it's like, would you. Yeah. Well, here's here's this
sticky issue with online dating because the fact the matter is,
these are businesses, and these are businesses capitalizing on this
very particular and persistent issue of people wanting to either
(44:10):
have sex or to have sex with the same person
over and over again, and every time they're successful, they
lose two clients. So, as Eli Finkel points out, it's
ultimately going to be in the best interests of online
dating services to keep a steady pool of single people. So,
I mean, I don't think that you know, the people
(44:32):
who started Grinder or Okay, cube it or whomever are
evil and want us to, you know, to keep us
shackled to our single hood. But the convenient thing is
that they can't eliminate all of the variables and figure
out how exactly to perfectly match people up, because nobody can.
That's absolutely impossible to do. Otherwise someone would have already
(44:53):
done it and they would be a b jillionaire and
life would be a lot more boring, because if you
take chance out of romance, then what would we write
love songs about? Right? Right? And to be honest, that
very aspect was a big reason why I only online
dated for a brief period of time, because when I
would go on dates, there was no mystery about it.
(45:15):
It was I mean, this was also reflective of just
the time in my life. I don't think I was
necessarily looking for a long term relationship, and I think
that colored my perception as well. But once I was
there with these guys, it was like there was it
was already set up. You know, we were there for
this purpose and it wasn't as exciting. And one thing
(45:35):
I think, uh, you know, depending on your approach or
whatever to online dating, I mean, one thing that makes
me sad about the process, or made me sad about
the process, was that, like let's say you meet someone
organically out whether through friends or work or whatever, like
chances are you'll kind of get a feel for the
person and maybe if it doesn't work out romantically, you're
(45:56):
still going to end up being friends with them. But
online dating, that's like, that's not gonna happen. It's like
you go out on a date with somebody that you
met on Okay Cupid, match blah blah blah. You're there
for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is
to freaking fall in love. And so the first date
I ever went on from okay Cupid was this guy
who was incredibly cool and nice, and we had so
(46:18):
much in common, but there just weren't sparks. And the
thing is, I would love even now, would love to
be friends with that dude, because he's a very interesting,
accomplished gentleman. But that just wasn't gonna happen because we
were only there for one purpose, and that was to
figure out if we were going to fall in love
and have babies or whatever. Yeah, I mean, and for
(46:41):
all of these potential downsides, which are really it's not
a judgment against online dating. Online dating hasn't changed the
product that we're looking for. Really, it's just changed the
way we shop for it, um. But Eli Finkel did
not completely completely throw online dating under the bus because
we're not um. But the fact of the matter is
(47:02):
it has at least opened up this new marketplace. It
is easier to meet people. Whether those people are going
to be long term or not, who knows. But especially
if you look at the LGBT community for instance, and
how incredible of a tool online dating has been, especially
in you know, past times, not so long ago, where
(47:26):
or for people who are living in not so progressive
areas to be able to be out and to meet
other people and to have that access right there, that
is an incredible, you know progression. But online dating is
never going to solve all of our romantic woes. Oh no.
If anything, it's just like the hydra. You you get
rid of one problem, which is like access to meeting people,
(47:49):
it just creates fifty more. Yeah. Um, So what do
you think do we toss it to listeners now? Absolutely?
I would love to hear your online dating stories, because
I know you have some weird one. I want to
hear online dating stories. Oh we we didn't even get
into all the different kinds of niche dating um sites
and apps out there. If anyone has used one of
(48:09):
the specific like farmers looking for farmers. I'm not just
saying only these, but for instance, there there's one for farmers.
There's one. There's obviously like bigger ones like J Day.
There's even one that matches you up based on your
candy preferences, which I don't think I have a big
enough sweets I would never I would never end up
dating anyone if I did that, because I have a
total sweet tooth and a lot of the guys have
(48:31):
dated could take chocolate or leave it. So what does
that I mean? What does that mean? It means you
and I would just hang out together and eat chocolate. Perfect. Um.
So please share your online dating stories have you? Are
you an online dating success story because it absolutely works?
Or do you have horror stories to share? We love
to hear them because guess what, we all have them now. Yeah,
(48:52):
So send us your stories mom stuff at Discovery dot
com or just tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, or
send us a message over once book. And we have
a couple of messages this year with you right now
about beer because after a bad date, you need a beer, right,
that's right? Well, I have a letter here from Haley,
(49:16):
who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, which is a craft
beer crazy city. She says, I am a female beer
tender and my partner is a brewer, so drinking beer,
serving beer, and talking about beer is a huge part
of my day to day life. The craft beer industry
is much more lady friendly than commercial big beer, but
we still have a long way to go. I'd take
great pride in explaining to people who use the term
(49:38):
girly beer that no such thing exists because less time
I checked, we do not imbibe what is in our
point via our vagina. My male co workers also do
their bit by passing on to me customers who look
passed me originally and intentionally wait for recommendations from a
bearded man behind the bar instead. Also, I love that
in an American accent you can hear difference between beer
(50:01):
and bear, because in our humble Kiwi accents they sound
exactly the same. Let's go to New Zealand and have
a bear. That's right, bear, as beer just sounds really Southern. Bear.
Let's have a bear Caroline bear. Yeah, so fun with accents. Well,
I have a letter here from Joshua and he has
(50:22):
recommendations for us, some crafty recommendations. He says, to start,
it really comes down to preferred styles. I'm generally very
seasonal with what I drink, and I also like to
try and pair a beer or style with what I'm eating,
as it can really make a difference. He also noted
that since you and I both talked about how we
like I p A s, he started out with some
(50:42):
I p A recommendations, and unfortunately I can't read all
the recommendations that he had, but among the I p
as Hetty Hopper from the Alchemist Brewery he says is
the absolute, hands down best I p A he's ever had.
Unfortunately you can't buy it outside of Vermont. He also
recommends Plenty the Elder from Russian River, Lunch from Main
(51:03):
Brewing Company, and Resin and Hires from six Point. He
says both of those are very hoppy, and since we
also talked about how sours um are a unfamiliar to
both of our palates but are apparently popular among lady drinkers,
he recommends Supplication and Consecration from Russian River Breweries and
(51:25):
Monks Cafe Flemish sour Ale, which is a great sour
and easy to get. So, Joshua, thank you for all
of those recommendations. I'm rushing out after this recording. I'm
going to try sours this weekend. I'm gonna do what Caroline.
I have a bear and have a sour bear. So
thanks again to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff
(51:46):
at Discovery dot com is our email address, and if
you want to find us on social or find all
of our blogs, podcasts, and videos, head on over to
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on
the and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
dot com
Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, And today we are revisiting in fact,
online dating, which we talked about a few years ago now,
(00:23):
but already we need to talk about it again because
online dating has changed, is continually changing, Caroline, by how
the times have changed. Yeah, the last time we talked
about it, it was in the what is considered the
second phase of online dating, which was kind of the
the heyday of the algorithm based websites like e Harmony
(00:49):
and okay cubid, which, yeah, they're still around today, but folks,
we've gone mobile. We are apt crazy. Yeah, no more
reading through say is about someone's cats. No, now you
just get to pick somebody for the night based on
their picture or four days after the night. You know.
(01:10):
That's however you want to use it. Um, I will
say that although I am gonna commit in loving relationship.
About a month or so ago, UM, my boyfriend I
were hanging out with some friends and somehow we got
on the topic of online dating. All of us at
the table, by the way, we're you know, all in relationships,
(01:30):
and we started talking about Tinder, because everybody's on Tinder.
It's like the hot new thing, and we're like, you
know what, let's just let's just see what Tinders about.
So we all got out our smartphones and downloaded Tinder.
And it's so simple to use because all you need
is a Facebook account, so you don't have to set
up anything. So five ten minutes later, we're all on Tinder,
(01:52):
just swiping through people's images, and it was it was
just interesting to see how it worked. And for is
unfamiliar with Tinder, which is the fastest growing free online
dating app right now, all you do is swipe photos.
I think you swipe to the left if you don't
want them, and you swipe to the right if you
(02:13):
do think someone's attractive, and if you both. If you
swipe someone and you think he's attractive or she and
he or she thinks you're attractive back, then you can
start chatting and then maybe meet up. I had never
even heard of this until a friend of mine, dude roommate,
(02:34):
was actually doling out advice to this female friend of his,
and he was telling me about it, and he's like, yeah,
she's on Tender, Da da da da, and I'm like, what,
I don't even know what is that? What is that?
And um, the impression I got from the description is
that Tender is like Grinder, and it is kind of
like Grinder, but it has had nowhere near the same numbers,
(02:57):
I would think, But it gave me like this ick
factor to hear about it, because as like a as
a veteran of online dating, Kristen, Uh, you know, I
mean I think there's I feel like Tinder almost has
different purposes. Yeah, I mean there's definitely more of I
think probably because Grinder is which is for specifically for
(03:18):
gay guys, um, because it's so associated with hooking up
that Tinder is similarly thought of as more of a
hook up app and hey, more power to hook up apps.
If that's what you're looking for, that's totally fine. But
it also is reflective to me of how we're using
the internet more and more of just visual based scrolling
(03:40):
through photos and that's kind of all. We just want
a quick hit. We don't want to read very much.
We want to be able. It's instant gratification. We want
to be able to swipe and yeah, and then Tinder,
I mean you swipe and like they're there before we
get into our online dating convo. I mean, Karen, you
are a success story mind dating. Yeah. Yeah. My boyfriend
(04:03):
likes to joke that he tells people that we met
at the dog park because we don't have dogs, but um, yeah,
we met over a year ago on okay Cupid. And
it's funny he and I both when we're out together
sometimes like at a bar, or at a restaurant or wherever,
music festival, whatever, we will both see people a that
(04:25):
we went on dates with that we're unsuccessful, but be
that we just recognize their faces from seeing them over
and over again as suggestions on okay Cupid. Yeah, it's
it's funny how online dating opens up this vast new
world but also can make your world so much smaller
because the yeah, exactly. There have been times when I'll
be out and I'll be like I'll start to literally
(04:48):
like go up to somebody and be like, hey, I
know you, are you a friend of And then I'm like, no, nope,
senior profile nope. And then it's funny when you have
seen the person's profile and then you see the mountain
public and you're like, you're lying on your profile, brushing
or yeah, or you're yeah, we're not you're not that tall,
(05:09):
air brushing or fact brushing yeah yeah uh. And honestly, Caroline,
part of me wishes this could just be an episode
of you and I swopping combine dating stories because I
went through an online dating phase as well. I didn't
have as much success with it long term. Um, but
it was it was fascinating though it almost felt like
(05:30):
an anthropological experiment. Well, I mean, you know, to talk
about the weirdness of online dating, Kristen and I, personal note,
actually went out with the same person. Yes, we did
not at the same time, at the same time. This
was it was. There was a lot of time in between,
but once we realized it, it was odd, funny. It
(05:54):
was funny. I think, Um, I think he, out of
the three of us involved in the situation, I think
he felt the most awkward about it. Yeah, And honestly,
because he felt so awkward, and because I had had
been on some dates with him prior, I felt the
worst because it was like, well, well I did something terrible,
(06:15):
but it's cool. It's cool. I just it's funny. You know,
you talk about online dating sites and app some things
making the world so much smaller. That's that's a pretty
good example. It was. It was, it was a pretty
good example. Um. But since actually since the last time
we talked about online dating, which I believe was in
two thousand nine, more people are trying online dating. Um. So,
(06:38):
the Pew Research Center did a whole report on this
that came out in October of two thousand thirteen, and
it was just flush with statistics, the main one of
which is that eleven percent, which doesn't sound like a lot,
but that's eleven of all Internet users, which represents nine
percent of all American adults say that they have personally
(06:59):
used an online dating site. Yeah, and seven percent coming
in behind that, seven percent of cell phone app users
say that they have used a dating app on their
cell phone. Now, I I used the Okay, Cupid dating
apps more and more, really just to entertain myself, like
when I was on the train or driving him from
(07:19):
work or whatever, not so much as like an obsessive
tool to use. But I didn't use any of these
like locating services or anything, because part of me just
finds that absurdly creepy. Well, that's one of the reasons why. Well,
we'll get we'll get into that I can't. I don't
want to jump ahead of myself because there's so much
to talk about. Um, but I will say that that
(07:40):
mobile statistic is only going to increase. Yeah, the future
is mobile people. UM. So another statistic, percent of US
adults who are classified as single and ready to mingle,
that's the official demographic term. UH of us have used
online or mobile dating services. And this is important. Sixty
(08:02):
percent of us have actually gone on face to face
dates because a lot of people who are on online
dating sites are never gonna meet up with you. They
just kind of use it to look, see what's out there,
maybe flirt, maybe creep a little bit. Um. And that
is up from forty three percent of people who actually
(08:22):
went on face to face dates from two thousand five.
So at least we're at least we're hanging out together more.
And by hanging out, I mean dot dot dot Yeah,
and I think i'm you know, we'll talk about attitudes,
but I think part of that is that as online
dating becomes more normal, more expected, you know, more of
us are more likely to go out on actual dates. Yeah,
(08:43):
instead of just sit on the website and look. And
there is long term romantic success associated with online dating
pent up from in two thousand five of online daters
say that they have met a spouse or long term
relationship through the site. But that is among straight online daters.
(09:05):
For people in LGBT relationships, y'all are online dating like crazy.
According to two thousand ten data from Stanford University, sixty
of LGBT couples are meeting online. And that's a trend.
That's that was existent too. I remember when we were
first talking about this, but uh, yeah, it's pretty interesting. Yeah, absolutely,
(09:28):
And the numbers are biggest, really this is this is
a young person's game. That the numbers are biggest among
young people, but the fastest growing demographic is fifty five
and older. Yeah, I mean, and you gotta keep in mind,
like wow, the fact of the matter is if you're younger,
you're likelier to have used online dating. But people fifty
five and up are the fastest growing online daters, probably
(09:51):
because of things like divorce, widowhood. Um, and it's becoming
I mean, just to show how normative this is becoming.
You know the fact that older folks are doing it,
that's when you know that it's like an accepted thing
to do, just like Facebook kind of yeah. Um. Well,
as far as people who are now married or in
long term committed relationships, younger people are more likely to
(10:14):
say that those relationships began online. So that's eight percent
of eight married and committed eighteen to twenty nine year
olds first, as for instance, three percent of fifty to
sixty four year olds. But as progressive as it seems
like online dating is because it's opened up all these
avenues for different people to meet, and you know, kind
of open up dating worlds that were previously closed off,
(10:36):
especially if you live in a smaller town, smaller community. Um,
but one, there's one area where online dating reflects how
we are maybe negatively stuck in our ways. This was
a study that was published in November two thirteen in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which found that,
(10:56):
based on okay Cupid data that they had collected, but
in general, we tend to date people of our same race.
We are not very adventurous when it comes to reaching
out to people who don't necessarily look exactly like us. Yeah,
but it was interesting what they found. It's that it
seems like there's this like little barrier, uh that doesn't
(11:17):
even seem like a brick wall. It seems more like
a rickety fence that's kind of blocking us from going
out with people or dating people of different races. Um.
The researchers found that we might be limiting our choices
out of a fear that we're not attractive to people
of other races, and they found that once people had
been approached by somebody from a different race or had
(11:39):
gotten a response from someone from a different race, they
were then more likely to initiate contact or respond to
someone from that same race in the future. These people
logged one and fifteen percent more interracial exchanges during this
two and a half month Okay Cupid study than people
of a similar background who had not been contacted by
(12:02):
a person from another race. So basically, it sounds like
if we use online dating as a tool to branch
out a bit, it can have some interesting and diversifying effects. Yeah. Um.
Although one finding was that overwhelmingly the people of all
the demographics male female the likeliest to receive a response
(12:23):
from a message or white men. Yet again, great to
be a white man, but speaking of white guys, um,
Asian women did not fit the trend of kind of
staying within their own ethnic group. As far as responding
two messages, um Asian women were more likely to contact
white men than other Asian guys. And Kevin Lewis, who
is a University of California, San Diego sociologist who led
(12:46):
the study, noted that quote, scholars have found it hard
to qualify how much of self segregation in the dating
pool has to do with internal prejudice versus structural issues
in an already segregated society. So so, in other words,
they're not entirely sure whether you know what's going on.
(13:07):
Essentially that keeps us sort of self segregating over and
over again. But they say, it's heartening to see how
the statistics show that once you know that that we're
open to interracial dating, and especially I mean, if we
just look at millennials and attitudes towards interracial relationships, we
are by far the most like open and accepting of them. Yeah,
(13:28):
so all it takes just just start messaging different types
of people and see what happened. And hey, you know what,
for all the people out there who think millennials are
rotten and selfish and lazy, we're open minded. So and
that's been my commercial for millennials. Um, but let's talk
about the attitudes towards online dating, because when it first started,
(13:51):
I think a lot of people were maybe a little
hesitant to say that they met via online dating. There
was this idea that, oh, well, you have to resort
to online dating because you just you can't meet people
in real life. What's wrong with you? Answer nothing or
answer you're busy. Um. And this Pew research has also
shown that online dating is more positively viewed than it
(14:14):
was just a few years ago. In two thousand five, yeah,
of all Internet users, not just online daters, agree that
online dating is a good way to meet people. That's
up from in two thousand five, and talking about specifically
online dats, seventy nine percent of actual online dators agree
that it's a good way to meet people, so not
(14:37):
agree that it's a good way to meet people. Seventy
percent of online daters agree that online dating allows you
to find a better match for yourself, but a lot
of people are still skeptical. Of all Internet users agree
that people who use online dating fits are desperate, although
that is down from pent who thought you were desperate?
In two thousand, five percent of online daters agree that
(15:02):
online dating is desperate, so they're basically saying, yes, I'm desperate.
I'm desperate, and I'm going to find a freaking date
of us. Um. And even though online dating is definitely
perceived as you know, more normative, like fine thing for
you to do, it's not all that grand, especially if
you are a woman and online dating, because negative experiences
(15:25):
absolutely exists, whether it's things like cat fishing or misrepresentation
or getting creepy messages from people. That was one thing
that I definitely don't miss about Okay Cupid getting messages
from guys that were just rude or highly inappropriate. I
would get these obscene messages and I got great joy
at first. I was like, oh god, it's so offensive,
(15:46):
and like it makes my brain hurt. I just started
editing there. I mean, I have an editing background, so
I just edit their messages and send it back to
them and I said, here's the edited version of your message.
And that did not so well. I have a feeling
it would not so well at all. Um. So fift
of online data is report negative experiences. Though of women
(16:07):
report having been contacted by someone through an online dating
site or app in a way that made them feel
harass or uncomfortable. You and I are compared to only
sevent of men. So maybe just a note. I mean,
this is a very heteronormative thing to say, but maybe
just a note to guys out there, just, you know,
(16:28):
don't be creepy on online dating. Yeah, but you know what,
the guys who are going to be creepy and online
dating are going to be creepy. I r L two
in real life, and this is true. Um, But I
think the fact of the matter is, as much as
we still love to talk about online dating and it's
still treated, especially in this newer era of app driven dating,
(16:50):
it's still reported on so often as a trend. But
the fact of the matter is, and this was one
thing that, for instance, Maureen O'Connor New York Magazine pointed out,
how can you really call it a trend, especially for
people of our age, Caroline, I don't, I really don't know.
I can think of one person off the top of
my head who has been in a relationship long enough
(17:10):
that she hasn't used online dating. But I just feel
like online dating is dating. Yeah. I my boyfriend has
a younger friend who is in law school, who uses
online dating. And my my initial response to that was like,
what is his problem? Why can't he get a date?
He's surrounded by all these other students. And then I,
(17:32):
you know, I thought about an a law school. You're
incredibly busy, you're studying all the time, you're working really
hard to you know, become an attorney and whatnot. But
it is, it's like such a it's so in the
culture now that even college students are doing it. In
college is supposed to be at the time when it's
like the easiest to date and make friends because you're
surrounded by people like you, Well, would you rather go
(17:53):
to a party? And well, it's also it's going to
depend on your introversion or extra version. But it's like, Okay,
you can go out of your way to strike up
a conversation with someone, to go to a party, go
to a mixer, go to a show, or you could
download an app and start swiping away on the bus
in downtime and class in your pajamas while you're on
(18:16):
the toilet. Let's be honest, I'm sure that happens all
the time. Um So, I think that convenience is a
big part of it. But before we get into the
few what what this implies to our face to face
dating lives. First, let's take a trip back in time
to the history of online dating how we got to
(18:36):
where we are now, because there's some pretty fascinating milestones
way back from college students in the late nineteen fifties
tinkering around with old school computers, all the way up
to today in the era of Grinder and Tender. And
we'll come right back with that info after a quick break.
(18:59):
So where we get into the future of online dating,
we've got to talk about the past, see where we
have come from, And essentially we came from way back
in the seventeen hundreds the emergence of printing, and pretty
pretty much as soon as people started printing things, they
started printing personal ads looking for mates. Right, So, you guys,
it's never been easy, it's really Yeah, dating has always
(19:22):
been the worst. It's been kind of the worst and
a bit of a conundrum, especially in times where maybe
there are imbalanced sex ratios or you're in a remote place. Um,
So we've always basically been on the hunt for mates
and have been trying to use services to help us
do that. So for a long time, personal ads were it.
(19:42):
And it's interesting that the nineties seventies were apparently the
heyday of personal ads, even though only about one percent
of married couples of the time actually met through personal ads.
That was kind of kind of hottest away to outside
of meeting people just face to face. Um, that was
folks did. And in the nineteen eighties, Caroline, welcome to
(20:03):
video dating. Oh god, I want to see some of
those videos. How many do you think had mullets? How
many do you think we're wearing neon or windbreaker suits?
I just I'm so I want to watch these so
badly Google that. I mean, it's it's Internet gold for today.
But even by the seventies and the eighties, computer dating,
(20:25):
like the very earliest kind of computer program set up
to match people had already started a while before. Yeah,
nineteen fifty nine, there was a Stanford University class project
in a math course called Happy Families Planning Services, which
sounds almost sinister to me. It does, um, but they
programmed an IBM six fifty computer with forty nine men
(20:48):
and women's personal data to match them up. One marriage
came out of that, okay, and I got an A
in the class side note, Um, so that's one of
the earliest kind of grassroots algorithms set up to try
to match people. And although once they h it didn't
work too well because they had these forty nine men
(21:09):
forty nine women, and it would start out with like
the top tiers, so the people who matched really well
were perfect. So by the time you got down to
like the man and woman, it was basically like, well,
you you're both breathing, go hang out. You have all
the necessary bits. Yeah, so so not the most perfect
(21:30):
also very small sample size, but not the most perfect algorithm.
But then you see in NIVE this thing called operation
match pops up among a group of Harvard students who
set up a similar personality based um computer dating system.
But the problem with all these super old school computer
(21:50):
services was that the computers were so slow. They had
a really hard time processing all of this data about
different people. So really they couldn't keep up with demand,
so they didn't I mean until the technology uh improved
online dating just obviously online dating couldn't happen because the
(22:10):
Internet didn't exist, but this computer based dating couldn't really
exist until computers were working a little bit faster. Yeah,
and once they were. We have three phases, starting with
online personal ad sites that started which started with match
dot com Match, which I also tried, but it wasn't
my cup of tea. Yeah, I know, I've never tried
(22:32):
match now. Um. The second phase of computer based dating
would be algorithm based sites, starting with e Harmony in
two thousand. Interesting tidbit of useless information. A friend of mine,
like an old coworker, signed up for e harmony and
you don't have to answer like four questions about yourself.
(22:55):
At the end of like the hour long answering question period,
e harmony was like, sorry, bro, we can't match you.
But yeah, they did that for a while. If you
were gay, Oh well he that was charming. Yeah, I
know exactly. He was a straight man looking for a lady.
He is happily married with a son. Now, good for him, congratulations.
(23:17):
But it was almost like I had to laugh to
myself a little bit. That would be that would be
a depressing moment. Super he was super super down about it. Anyway.
Third phase we have that we're in kind of the
thick of is mobile app dating and thanks to the
launch of the Apple App Store. Yeah, that happened in
two thousand and eight, and we should attribute these three
(23:38):
phases of computer based dating to Eli Finkel, who is
an online dating scholar UM out of Northwestern University. He
also published a really comprehensive study in February two thousand
twelve on more of the science of online dating, looking
at whether or not it actually works. Has it really
improved our face to face dating outcomes? Um? And And
(24:03):
we'll get to his findings because again they are not
to overuse word fascinating as I do, but they're quite fascinating, Caroline. UM.
But we have in this time, especially thanks to sites
like okay Cupid that are very data rich and they
get a lot of information from their users because users
also generate and answer so many questions that it works
(24:25):
into their algorithm. So we have all of this data
now about the habits of online datas, what works in
online dating. Profiles are just kind of how we use
these things. So what have we learned? I mean, aside
from the fact that you can pretty much find an
online dating service or app for any type of person,
(24:48):
I mean, the niche potential is just never ending. And
I love the data pile that okay Cupid has accumulated. Um.
They talked about men with the highest attractiveness ratings over
on their website, and those men with the highest ratings
had the words surfing, surf, yoga, skiing, and the ocean
(25:11):
most often. Yeah, and for women it's London, n y
C Yoga, surfing an athlete. So, as you might be
guessing right now, surfing and yoga are the hottest pastimes
on okay Cupid. Yeah, so I've got a lot of
people are like running to their computers and just typing
like surfing and yoga over and over again, photo shopping
(25:33):
a surfboard into their profile. Pick that's taken like in
an indoor location. Probably um radio head side note is
the hottest band. There's also some interesting stuff with language play.
Cats for instance, is more attractive than my cats. Also,
men who use the word whome more attractive to women.
(25:57):
And for a little gender e note, it's twenty eight
percent better they found for men to refer to women
as women compared to referring to them as girls. However,
it is sixteen percent better for women to refer to
themselves as girls rather than women. And that interesting, so interesting,
So we perceive men more favorably apparently when they refer
(26:17):
to us as women, yet we come across at least
more favorably when we refer to ourselves as girls. Harkens
back to our Ladies podcast. That's right. Well, so talking
about all this data and all these percentages, a lot
of this is hyper focused on straight couples, men and
women getting together on these sites and these apps. But
(26:39):
when you look at that staff that we sided earlier,
that LGBT couples are meeting online, I mean that is significant.
So let's now look at at the apps and sites
that are dedicated to them. First up, let's talk about Grinder.
I mean, Grinder is the superstar of dating apps, because
not all only is. I mean, it's been like successful
(27:02):
numbers wise. A lot of guys use it to find
other guys, but guys also spend so much time on Grinder.
I was watching the HBO show looking about its focus
mostly on like gay guys in San Francisco, and much
of the plot line I feels feel like revolves around
them being on Grinder and meeting guys on Grinder and
(27:23):
even played a role in a Girls episode. Yeah yeah,
I mean it's it's kind of a cultural phenomenon. Well
it should be I mean, as of March and amassed
more than five million users who were spending an average
of ninety minutes a day on it. Guys, ninety minutes
a day. It's amazing. I know, I feel like you
could be writing a novel in that time. Um but so,
(27:46):
Jamie Wou wrote a book called Meet Grinder, How One
App Changed the Way We Connect. Jamie said that it
has completely and possibly permanently altered the way that app
developers and users think about location based service is because,
like Tinder, kind of Grinder is sort of the big
brother version that it's like on hyperlocation service steroids. It
(28:10):
helps you find someone who's nearby so that you can
masically can have coffee. That's yep, that's exactly what I
was about to say. Um but uh Wu talks about
how the fact that it's so fast and it can
facilitate intimacy, I'll just put it that way. So fast
it's immensely appealing in their apps out there, who were
(28:32):
like tripping over themselves to try to replicate that success. Yeah,
and in the one way that the makers of Grinder
did not replicate that success so much was with Blender,
which they basically made it as a straight version of Grinder.
But they quickly realized that, oh, this geolocation thing isn't
(28:53):
as appealing to straight women because men tend to use
online aiding and online dating sites and apps more often,
They spend more time look at more profiles, I think
three times more profiles than women do. Also, not surprisingly
because of you know, heateronormative dating sort of archetypes, men
(29:14):
are a lot also a lot likelier to initiate contact
with women, and so you combine that with knowing where
women are, and a lot of women felt very unsafe. Yeah. Yeah.
There was a story in the Boston Globe that talked
about how a lot of industry executives themselves are saying, yeah,
this is one hurdle we don't know how to get around.
Women just aren't as comfortable being like I am at
(29:36):
this specific address in this specific town, because there are
fears that you will get stocked, or someone will come
find you or watch you, or know where you are.
I mean, I get creeped out with the location settings
on Instagram. Yeah, I don't. I'm not a huge fan
of of geolocation, so four square, for instance, not my bag.
Some people love it, but I don't. I don't want
(29:57):
the internet to know where I am at all times.
I don't me there, even though it probably already does
it for sure? Does somebody's always feel lax? Mark Zuckerberg
is watching us right Now's right? Um So, like we said,
Blender not a successful I mean, they have a ton
of subscribers, but the reason why Tinder has been more
(30:19):
successful is because it's not as focused on Hey, I'm
right here, who's around me right now? Um? So, Grinder
has been really successful. But there's also been this question
too of well, is there a way to replicate Grinder
for lesbians because there hasn't been like massive success in
the same way as Grinder has been so successful for
(30:42):
gay guys for lesbians, and it's partially because there is
this particular problem that comes up with lesbian targeted dating
apps and sites, and that is cat fishing by street guys.
So awful, man, Come on. Um So, there are a
number of lesbian apps out there. There's Dodged, which originally
(31:06):
was just a European based app, but it has recently
launched in San Francisco, so you're probably gonna be seeing
it in more areas of the US if it is successful,
and it has sort of a Pinterest esque uh interface
where it's focused obviously on a lot of photos, but
it's not just what your face looks like, but also
(31:26):
like things that you like, what your house looks like,
kind of what you're what you're into. And it does
not emphasize the location services, right, that's a that's another
hallmark which is interesting to see. Um for these lesbian
dating app models, not any of them. I don't think
that I've found are as geolocation based as grinder is.
(31:49):
And in addition to dis she's also find her that's
her with two rs, their Scissor and then my favorite
of all, and I have not obviously I've not a lesbian.
I haven't used this site before, but the name just
makes me laugh. It's there's one called Brenda, which and
I'm I'm laughing about this too because I read a
(32:11):
review of lesbian dating apps over on the after Ellen
site and she finally got down to Brenda and her
comment was essentially like Brenda. Really no offense to Brenda's
out there, but it's not the It's not the sexiest
sounding app. Sure, it sounds like an eighties businesswoman maybe
(32:33):
with shoulder pads, maybe doing it some video dating, and
like the founder of Dodge for instance, said like, look,
you can't just take Grinder and reframe it for women,
Like you can't just make Grinder pink and then gear
it towards women, whether they're straight or lesbians, because women
are just looking for different things from their online and
app services. Yeah, and it is unfortunate though that that
(32:56):
I think that was the same developer who said that
they have to be on quote unquote penis duty because
there are men who will um create fake accounts posing
as other lesbians and either you know, maybe in a
shape contact, maybe just kind of troll around on the
site to see who's out there, maybe actually try to
(33:18):
set up dates to see if these women would be
interested in having sex with them. Um, So it's a
it's a big problem for these sites. And Scissor actually
requires a validation plug in that includes personal information to
ensure that guys aren't infiltrating their ranks. And they emphasize
(33:39):
that this is not an anti man thing at all,
it's just, hey, we want to make sure that this
is a safe space for women who are looking for
women and that should be okay. And so for scissor
for instance, like you have to have a driver's license
in order to use it, as opposed to a lot
of these where it's hooked up via Facebook. And guess
what's easy to set up a fake Facebook account? Yeah, exactly. Well,
(34:02):
so you know, the one thing that developers are trying
to figure out, and I mean this is taking it
back out a little more generally, is is what do
women want? I mean that seems to be a question
in life, but specifically in dating apps and sites. Um
And Friedman, writing in The New Yorker, looked at this
and she said, if you look at the precious few
(34:24):
dating sites and apps with female founders, a pattern emerges.
Women want authenticity, privacy, and more controlled environment and a
quick path to a safe, easy, offline meeting. She cites
the app Coffee Meets Bagel, which is like almost like
a friendlier version of Tender or grinder. Like you, you're
still flipping through, but it kind of puts the keys
(34:44):
in the hand of the woman who's looking through. Um Cara, sorry,
who's looking through? Jessica Carbino, who's a PhD candidate in
sociology at u c l A studies online dating, and
Freeman quotes are saying, you know, a lot of people
UH want to meet organically. They know that online dating
is important, but they still don't like it. They want to,
(35:06):
you know, have it be more organic offline. Um. So
she says that if you had a mobile app to
let people know where men who meet their their criteria
are and let women initiate it, it it could work as
long as the women feel comfortable. Because what comes up
again and again and some of these things we were
reading is like a lot of the straight women being
(35:27):
intervieweders saying, you know, I I want to still feel
like the woman in the situation. I don't necessarily want
to approach the man. And so there's a degree of like, okay,
well you want to have control, but you don't want
to approach a man. So how do we create an
app that like makes everybody comfortable? But there are some
people who are saying that Tinder is doing that because
(35:49):
there's this whole emphasis. There are so many articles too
on Tinder is you know, just a woman's playland. It's
a feminist dream come true because you can know the
swipe men away or keep them around and sorry, folks,
that's not feminism. But but there it is a little
more equal opportunity dating, whereas with something like Okay Cupid,
(36:12):
it's a little more formal. I feel like, I feel
like it falls back more on, you know, stereotypes of
men needing to make the initial approach, whereas with Tinder,
maybe because it's a little more hook up oriented, it
doesn't really matter as much. Yeah, but Amanda hess Over
at Slate did take issue with Tender being called feminist
(36:33):
or any of these types of mobile apps being called feminist,
because having women treat men as disposable is not an
equal opportunity thing. It's it's not that's having women treatment
as disposable just like men due to women on these
dating sides that does. That's not equality, that's just more
(36:54):
like meat market mentality. Right. The focus on the disposability
is is it's anti feminist. What would be more feminists is, yeah,
we should everybody should be you know, as empowered, and
it should be as socially acceptable to ask a person noel.
You shouldn't be socially penalized for being a forward woman
if you want to be. And on kind of a
(37:16):
side note with this whole feminism tie in, they're clearly
trying to market based on that, and in Australia they
did a marketing campaign alongside Amnesty International, which is a
lotable organization, but the whole marketing campaign was focused on, Hey, women,
aren't you glad you have Tinder because child brides exist
(37:39):
and they don't get to choose, they can't swipe away
their older husbands, which was just like, no, no, nope,
let's that's not nope, that's let's not do that. Yeah. Um.
There was an article about this in the Telegraph and
the writer was like, uh, this is kind of a sticky,
icky situation advertising in this anner saying these various things.
(38:02):
And while the Tinder founder does say that it's part
of our mission to empower women, the Telegraph writer was
basically saying, you're not really empowering anyone women. It's just
it's using an kind of abusing a cause to sell
something to you know, perfectly privileged white people. A lot
(38:24):
of times. I don't know. I I was a bit
aghast at that. Um. But some some female listeners might
have heard of another dating service. It's not necessarily it's
not exactly a dating app, but it is a service
that is also has been lauded as you know, twenty
one century of feminism. It's called Lulu, and what it
(38:47):
is is a guy rating app. It's kind of like
Yelp for dudes, where it's also hooked up via Facebook.
So women go on and they rate guys that they
know with a series of just so that they can't
go on Yelp style and just rant about men. There
are a series of pre selected hashtags so that if
(39:07):
you find a guy online and you don't know him
I r L, you can go on Lulu, see if
he's in there, and see what other women have to
say about him. But as Amanda has also points out, hey,
this actually isn't so great because this is not consensual
on the guy's part. And what would we be saying
if there was an app for rating women? We would
(39:30):
be up in arms about that, right, and I would
not want to see the hashtags associated with my profile.
But the existence of Lulu does point to one potential
pitfall of online dating, which is that there it would
be helpful to have a kind of rating system because
as much as you might mesh online, as much as
(39:53):
your interests might aligne, once you're sitting down face to
face with a person, which is important to do almost
as quickly as possible. Grinder does get that right, because
psychologists have found that the longer you draw out your
online communication before meeting in person kinda, the more you're
setting yourself up for major disappointment. There's something called the
(40:15):
hyper personal effect. We're in. You see this perfect online profile,
so he must be perfect, and then you realize, well,
he's not perfect or she's not perfect. Um So where
the need for something like Lulu comes in is the
fact that online dating doesn't It doesn't account for those
(40:35):
variables of just like any blind date of you don't
actually know exactly how it's going to go, and we
want to, you know, mitigate the chance of disaster. Sure,
so we we rely on dating site algorithms, things like
answering all of this foreign questions, any harmony to tell
us this person is definitely going to be my mate.
(40:58):
They they're obviously per we have like a nine match
score or whatever. But those algorithms don't really work because
they're only matching things like interests, values, attributes, rather than
how you two are going to get along in long
term situations. And I mean that's a criticism and it's legitimate,
(41:19):
but it's also like, how could you expect it to
match you to a long term partner? Really? Yeah, I
mean and and that's also the conclusion of this Northwestern
study UM led by Eli Finkel that we've referenced a
few times. And there, I mean, there's as much as okay,
Cupid or match or whomever hails their algorithm, there is,
(41:42):
there's just no scientific data to back it up. And
a lot of them, like the Harmony, are very proprietary
over this secret algorithm. It's like the coke formula. You know,
they don't they don't want to let anybody know what
those supposedly secret ingredients are. It turns out that as
you type in your answers to these harmony algorithms, they
just go into a room with like a bunch of
(42:03):
ducks stomping around on computer anymore. It's true, um. And
he also points out to that there's this issue with
the deluge problem. There are so many people now who
are online dating that it almost presents this paradox of
choice of like, uh, you know, you walk into a
(42:23):
grocery store with like a million different kinds of cereal.
The more kinds of cereal there are the harder it
is to actually pick out a cereal, whereas if you
just walk in and there's only corn flakes, you're gonna
go home with corn flakes. But some people are worried,
They're like, what if there's something better out there than
corn flakes? Because having all of these choices, you know
that that starts to lead to all of these you know,
(42:45):
critics of online dating who are saying that it's ruining
our society because no one's gonna stay married anymore, or
no one's gonna get married in the first place anymore,
And and like, okay, logically, in a black and white world, like,
I see where your argument is coming from. I see that,
Like having all these endless choices makes you think, oh,
I can do one better and one better. But what
(43:05):
online dating doesn't change is your inherent values. If you
want to get married, if you want to have a committed,
long term relationship with one person, go on to have children,
blah blah blah, grow old all that good stuff. You're
still probably going to do that. Also, when did people
start staying married for forever? When did that? When? When
did that divorce rate go down so far? Right? Yeah,
(43:28):
people are really convinced that in the next couple of years,
we're gonna start seeing ridiculous divorce rates and and marriage
is going to become outdated, and we're just going to
continue to date until we're decrepit. Like one. So in
this januariece in The Atlantic, the writer quotes um one,
founder of one of these online dating apps, and the
(43:48):
guy was like, Yeah, I'm forty and I'm still dating.
If I lived in Iowa, i'd have four kids by now.
And it's like, would you. Yeah. Well, here's here's this
sticky issue with online dating because the fact the matter is,
these are businesses, and these are businesses capitalizing on this
very particular and persistent issue of people wanting to either
(44:10):
have sex or to have sex with the same person
over and over again, and every time they're successful, they
lose two clients. So, as Eli Finkel points out, it's
ultimately going to be in the best interests of online
dating services to keep a steady pool of single people. So,
I mean, I don't think that you know, the people
(44:32):
who started Grinder or Okay, cube it or whomever are
evil and want us to, you know, to keep us
shackled to our single hood. But the convenient thing is
that they can't eliminate all of the variables and figure
out how exactly to perfectly match people up, because nobody can.
That's absolutely impossible to do. Otherwise someone would have already
(44:53):
done it and they would be a b jillionaire and
life would be a lot more boring, because if you
take chance out of romance, then what would we write
love songs about? Right? Right? And to be honest, that
very aspect was a big reason why I only online
dated for a brief period of time, because when I
would go on dates, there was no mystery about it.
(45:15):
It was I mean, this was also reflective of just
the time in my life. I don't think I was
necessarily looking for a long term relationship, and I think
that colored my perception as well. But once I was
there with these guys, it was like there was it
was already set up. You know, we were there for
this purpose and it wasn't as exciting. And one thing
(45:35):
I think, uh, you know, depending on your approach or
whatever to online dating, I mean, one thing that makes
me sad about the process, or made me sad about
the process, was that, like let's say you meet someone
organically out whether through friends or work or whatever, like
chances are you'll kind of get a feel for the
person and maybe if it doesn't work out romantically, you're
(45:56):
still going to end up being friends with them. But
online dating, that's like, that's not gonna happen. It's like
you go out on a date with somebody that you
met on Okay Cupid, match blah blah blah. You're there
for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is
to freaking fall in love. And so the first date
I ever went on from okay Cupid was this guy
who was incredibly cool and nice, and we had so
(46:18):
much in common, but there just weren't sparks. And the
thing is, I would love even now, would love to
be friends with that dude, because he's a very interesting,
accomplished gentleman. But that just wasn't gonna happen because we
were only there for one purpose, and that was to
figure out if we were going to fall in love
and have babies or whatever. Yeah, I mean, and for
(46:41):
all of these potential downsides, which are really it's not
a judgment against online dating. Online dating hasn't changed the
product that we're looking for. Really, it's just changed the
way we shop for it, um. But Eli Finkel did
not completely completely throw online dating under the bus because
we're not um. But the fact of the matter is
(47:02):
it has at least opened up this new marketplace. It
is easier to meet people. Whether those people are going
to be long term or not, who knows. But especially
if you look at the LGBT community for instance, and
how incredible of a tool online dating has been, especially
in you know, past times, not so long ago, where
(47:26):
or for people who are living in not so progressive
areas to be able to be out and to meet
other people and to have that access right there, that
is an incredible, you know progression. But online dating is
never going to solve all of our romantic woes. Oh no.
If anything, it's just like the hydra. You you get
rid of one problem, which is like access to meeting people,
(47:49):
it just creates fifty more. Yeah. Um, So what do
you think do we toss it to listeners now? Absolutely?
I would love to hear your online dating stories, because
I know you have some weird one. I want to
hear online dating stories. Oh we we didn't even get
into all the different kinds of niche dating um sites
and apps out there. If anyone has used one of
(48:09):
the specific like farmers looking for farmers. I'm not just
saying only these, but for instance, there there's one for farmers.
There's one. There's obviously like bigger ones like J Day.
There's even one that matches you up based on your
candy preferences, which I don't think I have a big
enough sweets I would never I would never end up
dating anyone if I did that, because I have a
total sweet tooth and a lot of the guys have
(48:31):
dated could take chocolate or leave it. So what does
that I mean? What does that mean? It means you
and I would just hang out together and eat chocolate. Perfect. Um.
So please share your online dating stories have you? Are
you an online dating success story because it absolutely works?
Or do you have horror stories to share? We love
to hear them because guess what, we all have them now. Yeah,
(48:52):
So send us your stories mom stuff at Discovery dot
com or just tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, or
send us a message over once book. And we have
a couple of messages this year with you right now
about beer because after a bad date, you need a beer, right,
that's right? Well, I have a letter here from Haley,
(49:16):
who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, which is a craft
beer crazy city. She says, I am a female beer
tender and my partner is a brewer, so drinking beer,
serving beer, and talking about beer is a huge part
of my day to day life. The craft beer industry
is much more lady friendly than commercial big beer, but
we still have a long way to go. I'd take
great pride in explaining to people who use the term
(49:38):
girly beer that no such thing exists because less time
I checked, we do not imbibe what is in our
point via our vagina. My male co workers also do
their bit by passing on to me customers who look
passed me originally and intentionally wait for recommendations from a
bearded man behind the bar instead. Also, I love that
in an American accent you can hear difference between beer
(50:01):
and bear, because in our humble Kiwi accents they sound
exactly the same. Let's go to New Zealand and have
a bear. That's right, bear, as beer just sounds really Southern. Bear.
Let's have a bear Caroline bear. Yeah, so fun with accents. Well,
I have a letter here from Joshua and he has
(50:22):
recommendations for us, some crafty recommendations. He says, to start,
it really comes down to preferred styles. I'm generally very
seasonal with what I drink, and I also like to
try and pair a beer or style with what I'm eating,
as it can really make a difference. He also noted
that since you and I both talked about how we
like I p A s, he started out with some
(50:42):
I p A recommendations, and unfortunately I can't read all
the recommendations that he had, but among the I p
as Hetty Hopper from the Alchemist Brewery he says is
the absolute, hands down best I p A he's ever had.
Unfortunately you can't buy it outside of Vermont. He also
recommends Plenty the Elder from Russian River, Lunch from Main
(51:03):
Brewing Company, and Resin and Hires from six Point. He
says both of those are very hoppy, and since we
also talked about how sours um are a unfamiliar to
both of our palates but are apparently popular among lady drinkers,
he recommends Supplication and Consecration from Russian River Breweries and
(51:25):
Monks Cafe Flemish sour Ale, which is a great sour
and easy to get. So, Joshua, thank you for all
of those recommendations. I'm rushing out after this recording. I'm
going to try sours this weekend. I'm gonna do what Caroline.
I have a bear and have a sour bear. So
thanks again to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff
(51:46):
at Discovery dot com is our email address, and if
you want to find us on social or find all
of our blogs, podcasts, and videos, head on over to
stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on
the and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.