The Assignment with Audie Cornish

I'm Audie Cornish and this is The Assignment and today's episode is about dating, which full disclosure, I have not done since the Bush administration, the second, not the first. But it does make me qualified to answer questions about how people dated in the before times.

I guess I'm curious how much people actually struck up conversation with strangers or near strangers.

So like when I met my husband, I think he was just like sitting outside the office having a cigarette and I was like, Hi, is this the place? You know, like I'm looking for a building. That was an interaction we would not have if I was on my phone using a map app and he was on his phone. Right. Like we just were not as shut off from each other the way I feel like now everyone is of all age groups.

'Faith Hill is a writer at The Atlantic, and she's made a beat of chronicling the business of modern dating. She's also single. And the way she describes dating tells me this is not the era of Carrie Bradshaw-style sex in the city adventures.

It's exhausting.

And the anecdotal evidence is that y'all hate it too.

Dating apps make me evil. It turns me into an evil person.

Most people I talk to on Hinge are weird or mean and just don't reply to me. So I'm gonna delete it and live the quiet life in the woods, not speak to anyone ever again for the rest of my life.

The Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid, and others, just had to pay $14 million to the Federal Trade Commission over false advertising and deceptive billing practices. In June, Bumble disclosed it was laying off 30% of its workforce. So even though more people than ever are using the apps, as they're called, they're burnt out and frustrated with online dating. So who or what is to blame? Stick around.

If you want some proof that the modern dating ecosystem is in trouble, just open up the App Store. Towards the top of the charts, you'll see two relatively new apps. One is called Tea Dating Advice, designed to help women quote, "date safely" by offering background checks and criminal record searches. At this point though, it's best known for the hack that spilled their data. And a little further down, there's Tea on Her, which is a copycat app for men to review the women they date. Which one early App Store reviewer named JustAMessenger1 said was necessary because, quote, "it's men's turn to discuss the red flag, creepy, weird, or even abusive behaviors that they experience while dating." So as is said in many corners of the internet, are the straights okay? How have the old debates about the battle of the sexes and Mars versus Venus morphed into something that looks and sounds like political hostilities? We started with the basics. How to make a connection.

Okay, so what we're about to do is we're strangers to each other. And we are going to have a conversation where we somehow establish intimacy, share information, and by the end of it, like each other more. Which seems not unlike dating. Kind of seems like the point. How do you think about dating?

What do I think about dating? It's honestly, for me, it feels like a chore a lot of the time.

Oh wait, you're single?

'Yes, okay. Yeah, it feels like something that I have to do, you know, in large part, just because I like want to have a family someday. I'm like, I gotta get back on the apps. I'm, like, nudging myself. Truly in the way that you would like, you know. Oh, I got to pay that bill. It's on my to-do list. And, you, know, some dates end up being fun, but in general, the whole process feels like, you know a practical to do and not something I like feel excited about or look forward to most of the time.

'Okay, so I've been married almost 20 years. In fact, 20 years this month somehow. And I will say that even though I was very young when I got married, I do remember the dating period. And it had a ton of rejection and it also still was fun. It wasn't a to-do. Maybe I just wasn't on the market long enough for it to feel like utilities payments as you've just described. But it was because it was like about going out and interacting and being out with people and meeting people. It was just like way social. So I'm coming to this almost from a different planet or am I overselling that?

No, I mean, I think that you're putting your finger on something that is a kind of key difference. And I mean to be clear, I don't think everyone necessarily feels the way I do about dating. But you know what you just said about how dating used to be integrated into your social life in general has really changed, you know, not just because of like the technology of apps, but just the fact of like dating strangers and kind of having to set dates up in this way that is like. It's so different from meeting people, you know, at parties or at bars when you go out with your friends because you have to take time away from the rest of your life and just like do this weird dating thing that exists on the side and its own channel. So, you now, it's like a sacrifice of time that you could be spending on other social endeavors.

I'm literally not relating to any of the words you're saying, like sacrifice, side project. Not only was it part of your social networking existence, it was also part of even your work experience, we know, which I know the youngs frown on that now, but like I met my husband in the newsroom and it's like over time of going out on cocktail hours or group dates or hanging out with all of these people, and one day, you're still there talking, having a drink, right, or whatever it is. Obviously, we've learned through the Me Too movement that can go sideways. But I feel like there's an undeniable truth there that at every stage of your life, grocery store, having cigarette outside, work, the elevator, it sounds silly to talk about, but like, there was a kind of serendipity to it. And is serendipity better or worse than having the control of swiping or the serendippity of swipings?

I mean, I think that's a real question these days. And I mean I like that definition of serendipity because I think often when people think of serenity they're kind of imagining the rom com sort of like you just bump into a stranger and it's like magical and sort of romantic from the beginning. But what is amazing about what you're describing of sort of getting to know someone over time is like you'd never had to make a decision right away. Like you can sort of gather information. Naturally without sort of like constantly having these sort of decision points where you have to say like okay, is this worth another date?

Oh, yeah. Can you say more about that? What does that look like? Because we should say this is not a young people phenomenon. Like tons of boomers, especially, are on the apps and are dating. This has become the default portal for Americans. It's becoming like the predominant way to meet someone for the purpose of romance.

'Yeah. And I mean, I just, I think in terms of the decision points, I'm just thinking of like, how little information you have about someone from one day and-

But you have the algorithm, like, I don't know.

Right, right. And then even after you meet up in person, you know, had one like getting to know you conversation. You don't know anything about how they interact with their friends. You don't know if like they actually aren't someone that you vibe with, or maybe they were just nervous. Like you have so little information, but then you have to sort of immediately make a judgment call because after that date, you know, you are faced with the question of whether to go on another date. And I think a lot of people these days sort of give the advice of like, always go on a second date. The Jewish matchmaker on Netflix has this saying, it's like, date them till you hate them, which I think comes out of this very real sense of like we want this sort of instant romantic chemistry, but it's not necessarily realistic to expect it away. And yet, I think it's actually a tricky conundrum because that sort of doesn't acknowledge what you're giving up to keep going on dates with someone that you're not necessarily excited to see again so it's just sort of a fact of modern dating that you you have to sort of make this call which to me is a little bit depressing

The other thing is the deal breaking culture now, the red flags, the green flags, the politics is so intense. And I'm just like, you don't even know this person yet. And I just feel like there is definitely a high likelihood of getting into a relationship with someone without fully understanding their politics. Like that was very possible and you might still like that. Whereas now, it feels like you're not even allowed to do that. It would be a moral failing to not figure out where somebody's politics are before getting in deep with them.

'Yeah, I have mixed feelings about the sort of deal-breaker, high-standard kind of question, because I do think, you know...

Oh, Faith Hill, if you have a problem with that, you need to tell it to me for real. That was the most polite way to say it. Are you like, that's BS, you're giving me the high standards argument.

I'm not, I genuinely have mixed feelings about this because on the one hand, I do think that, I want women to have high standards, I don't know.

And it's not saying lower your standards. It's more like, I think there's like a, and this is for men too, a kind of prejudgment that's like on paper, it needs to be this. And that feels like that's really intense.

But I mean, I think it goes back to what I was saying about dating apps requiring so much labor. It's like, you actually don't have time to be less picky on the front end because then you'd be going on a zillion dates all the time, which some people do. And I respect that, but I don't want that to be my life. Yeah, I think there are probably missed opportunities happening all the times, where people, you know, don't swipe on someone who actually would have been great for them, and like I know a lot of people who have talked about this like having a romantic experience with someone who they didn't meet on an app and then like seeing what their profile was and and thinking like I never would have swiped right on them.

More with Atlantic writer Faith Hill and my pet peeve about the phrase, catching feelings. Stay with me.

'One of the things that is interesting to me that is built into non-app dating is fear of rejection. Now, way before you and I, that fell kind of disproportionately on men, straight men, right? That's just the context that we're talking about. And I thought that when people had the apps, that wouldn't be the same kind of problem, right, because now a guy is not like deciding whether to talk to you on the street. And you're the person sort of deciding to respond. Now everybody's swiping and the AI is supposed to help that or the algorithm is supposed help that. And yet I'm doing the reading and like Hinge releases a survey in 2023 that's like in Gen Z, 90% of people, they wanna find love, 56% of them say just fear of rejection prevents them from pursuing more. 57% say, like, oh, I didn't want to confess my feelings because they worried it would be a turn-off, which gets to my pet peeve, the term catching feelings, which is how you describe catching a disease. I will never forgive this generation for talking about catching feelings. Help, like why didn't this make it easier?

Well, I think maybe the problem is that it made it easier in a sense. Like it made it easier to not have to go out on a limb. And now people kind of like haven't built up familiarity with rejection because they had to experience it. The muscle memory. Yeah. I also think, you know, generational researchers have described Gen Z as like this particularly kind of cautious generation. And that kind of comes up in a lot of ways, like more financially conservative, like very worried about security.

But is it generational or is it endemic to the apps? And you would know this better than me. If you're a boomer on the apps, do you just never deal with ghosting? And are the problems with dating with heterosexual couples, or is this endemic to the format itself?

This is something I think about a lot and I think that on the one hand, a lot of queer people are having a hard time dating too. I hear, you know, a lot of people looking for gay relationships who are talking about a little of the same frustrations. There's a lot of boomers getting ghosted on apps that, you know, if you're swiping through people, it just feels like people are not real people on the apps and, you know, I've not responded to people on apps before. I know how it happens, it's like you have to keep reminding yourself that this is not a game.

Even though it's gamified.

Exactly, it's so easy to feel that way. Yeah, so you don't know this person, you just see a couple of pictures of them, like it doesn't feel that real.

'So is it me, or I'm reading more little news stories about like the rise of matchmaking, right? Like agencies with formal matchmakers. You were writing about love at first sight and people talking about love it first sight. Are there ways that people are trying to back out of this app-based way of finding love?

Yeah, I think you see that happening in a lot of different ways right now. There's these matchmaking companies that have become more popular, seeing more business. And I think that really gets to the sort of dating fatigue that comes from swiping through so many people, having to kind of do this like dating as a chore and just like the loneliness of it. And I mean, with matchmakers, you're like outsourcing the labor. Sometimes they truly are like going through options for you, working on your profile, like, just. Taking over the parts that feel like work to people. So I think, you know, it's like people like this idea of outsourcing the labor and also giving up a little bit of the control.

'2024, Tinder set a new benchmark, 50 million users. Hinge global downloads, all time high, second most downloaded dating app at that time. Sniffies, the platform for queer cruisers, which uses map-based technologies. 26% increase in straight singles. The straights are infiltrating the queer apps. And then Bumble paid users increased by 10 percent. What are the apps doing differently? How are they responding to this moment where everyone's like the app suck? They must be doing something right, because people are still trying it.

Yes, they're very much trying to respond to the things that people are complaining about. For instance, you know, there's this double date feature that I believe it's Tinder has kind of like an idea that friends can make a profile together and match with other friends. So they're trying to.

Like that was just called a wing woman or wing man, but I guess that that's now formalized to a situation.

'Right, exactly. I mean, they're trying to make it more integrated into your social life, more normal, more lighthearted. But I don't know if that can totally be changed within the confines of an app. But, you know, there's been a big rise in interest in in-person dating events.

Yeah, yeah, there's like meet Qutes on Instagram, Qute Connect. There's like a whole run club thing for people who run. That's not for me. I would have been left behind in that scenario. But yeah, that interest, it feels like very specific attempts to create IRL, which used to just be called life, but it's now called in real life excuses to me because like they're naturally there.

Exactly. I think you see now people trying to move back towards like a Tinder brain version of meeting in person. We're trying to get back some of these features that people are so nostalgic for, but in this very 2025 way.

I would think that none of these, actually you can tell me, they can't solve for some of these very specific problems to this age. So for example, there is just a real battle of the sexes that we are hearing about politically in the culture, which means there's just a lot of rhetoric out there on podcasts, on social media, with a lot men think this way and women think that way. And yeah, it just feels... There's distrust there.

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that you bring up some of these, you know, larger societal factors because I often think, like, actually we maybe talk too much about apps when we talk about modern dating and not enough about some of these broader, you know cultural and political shifts. Like you mentioned, like young men, especially are really moving to the right in a way that young women are not. You know, I've read a statistic recently, about 43% of Gen Z men identifying as feminists compared to 61% of Gen Z women, like these are real differences that affect like people's lives and how they're treating each other. And I think for a lot of women, there's like this ambient feeling of, you know, dread and tension in the background that maybe they're not even always totally aware of, but like, you now, this is a administration that is in a lot of ways stripping reproductive rights and protections against gender discrimination. And I think that these kinds of things like seep into the way that dating feels for people. Like I think there is a real feeling among a lot women that like, you know, if more and more men are feeling resentful of women and if there is this kind of backlash to me too, to some of the financial gains that women have made, a backlash to the fact that you know, far more women are going to college than men today. You know, I can understand why a lot of women are sort of like, that doesn't feel good and I feel kind of on guard. And that's happening in, you know in a time when a lot of people and especially young people already are struggling with interpersonal trust.

Well, good luck with the apps. I've already told my husband divorce is not an option. Literally, because I just don't want to go on the apps, like, that's the reason. I'm just like, I'm going back out there, that's not out, we're in it to win it. So I'm going to have to live vicariously through your writing.

Root for me, you know, keep your fingers crossed.

Faith Hill, a writer who chronicles the business of modern dating, you can catch her work in the Atlantic. Thanks for listening. Please share and rate the podcast because it makes a difference and we'll be back for you on Thursday.