Are you burnt out from dating?

This episode is all about something a lot of us are feeling lately: burnout. We’re discussing burnout as it relates to dating specifically, talking about some of the data available about dating, online dating versus meeting organically, and if there’s anything we can do to help us get through burnout and enjoy dating again.

Some reflection questions to think about:

10-15 years ago, how did you meet your partner(s)? Online, through friends, classes, events? Did the way you meet them seem to affect relationship quality?
Nowadays, how did you meet your most recent partners? How has dating shifted since you first started practicing non-monogamy? Dating feels different now than it did then—but is that just us aging, or is something fundamentally different about the dating landscape? What are people in your orbit saying about dating now?

Dating app fatigue

Dating app fatigue seems to be a real issue. According to the 2024 Forbes Health Survey:

Dating apps are ubiquitous and time-consuming. Survey respondents spent 51 minutes a day on average on dating apps, which is nearly an hour of emotional labor daily. How much time is also being spent nurturing other relationships (friends, family, other partners) outside of the dating apps?
Intentions versus reality don’t always align.
- Nearly half of respondents reported wanting long-term relationships.
- 20% reportedly preferred casual dates with just one partner and 12% desired the same, but with multiple partners. This is followed by 10% interested in a “friends with benefits” scenario and 9% after only friendship.
- However, a lot of these people are not being truthful on these dating apps. There were high rates of people confessing to lying about their age, income, interests, employment, and relationship status on dating apps.
Where’s the burnout coming from? Top contributors to fatigue were:
- Not finding meaningful connections (40%)
- Disappointment in people (35%)
- Rejection (27%)
- Repetitive conversations (24%)
- Swiping and time spent on apps (~20%)

Dating apps don’t only struggle to produce connection, they contribute to emotional depletion. One of our lovely listeners had this to say about dating apps:

“I view dating apps as being akin to most other forms of social media. Your access to people is mediated through the app's algorithm, and that algorithm is opaque, undocumented, fungible, and designed foremost to fulfil the desires of the app owner not you. If your needs happen to run parallel to theirs then you can benefit as a byproduct, but the behaviour of the app can change at any time (see the fungible bit above) and it may suddenly stop working for you too. More likely, you won't actually benefit in the way you want at all, rather you'll be given just enough to keep you engaged and swiping, or editing your profile, playing a numbers game, deleting and recreating, or other attempts to try to figure out the trick to make it work for you.”

Dating while non-monogamous

Non-monogamous folks often face some unique challenges when it comes to dating as well:

Often a smaller, more fragmented dating pool. Even though non-monogamy is on the rise, few people are genuinely open to it, educated about it, and/or practicing it ethically.
With the exception of a few specific apps, consensually non-monogamous profiles are often buried or penalized. They encourage a vague “open to anything” language that leads to mismatches, results in more filtering, more early disqualification, and more education or emotional labor up front.

These factors all contribute to common experiences of being someone’s first non-monogamous experience, being fetishized or assumed to be sexually available, or more.

However, in some ways non-monogamous people may fare better when it comes to dating. Non-monogamous people may experience:

Less dependence on the relationship escalator, since non-monogamy often decouples commitment from exclusivity and self-worth coming from relationship escalation. This means less pressure to force chemistry onto a predefined track and more tolerance for relationships that are meaningful without being all-consuming.
Better skills for today’s dating landscape, since many CNM folks are well-practiced at explicit communication and boundary-setting, talking about expectations early, and navigating ambiguity without panic.
Diversified emotional support, since CNM people may not rely on one person to meet all needs, have stronger friendship networks, and normalize multiple sources of intimacy. This can all reduce a feeling of desperation to find the perfect partner and an over-investment in early dates.

De-centering dating

A new phenomenon has cropped up where some folks have de-centered dating entirely due to burnout and dating fatigue.

Increasingly, some women, particularly younger women, are expressing that having a boyfriend feels embarrassing, posting about male partners on social media “feels cringe,” and romantic attachment to men is framed as a loss of independence, taste, or cultural credibility.

There’s also an uptick in heterofatalism, or “why even bother with men?” The overwhelming sentiment of this is:

Dating men is exhausting.
Emotional labor is unequal.
Standards feel extremely low.
Women feel like they’re asked to settle, tolerate, or educate men on how to get in touch with their emotions.
Some women have decided to de-center men or opt out of dating them.
There’s a rising interest in celibacy, “soft quitting” dating, or prioritizing friendships over romance.

Asking “is this worth my peace?” “Does this person add value, or just stress?” and other similar questions have led to some women preferring being single, queer relationships, non-romantic partnership models, and/or non-monogamy with more intentionality.

What about meeting in person?

Is meeting in person actually better when dating? Let’s look at some pros and cons.

Organic meetings boast the appeal of:

Lower pressure.
More context.
More room for nuance and charm.

On the flip side:

Organic doesn’t always mean easier or safer.
Apps can work when used intentionally.

The real issue may not be where we are meeting, but instead:

The pace of the dating scene.
Overwhelming volume of choices on apps.
Unmet expectations.
Lack of emotional availability and overall burnout.

So how do we continue to date with less burnout?

Remember these things about dating:

It’s ok to opt out of dating.
Reduce volume, increase intention. Try being on fewer apps to increase intentionality about where you’re pursuing matches. Don’t swipe with abandon. Make a concerted effort to choose who it is you want to connect with.Try not to date stack and instead be fully present for the dates you’re going on and give your full attention to the person in front of you in the moment.
Change the venue. Try different clubs, speed dating, hobby-based meetups, going out to bars with the intention of meeting someone or making a friend.
Better app boundaries. Put time limits on yourself for swiping. Make sure you’re clear in your bios and don’t lie! Move to real-world connection faster or disengage sooner if you feel like it’s not going to work out. Take time to rest if you need to.
Let attraction breathe. Challenge the instant dealbreaker culture.
Question the default script. Ask yourself, do I actually want the relationship escalator? Or do I want connection, fun, care, sex, etc?

Burnout can come from chasing someone else’s definition of success, so try to get clear on what YOUR goals for dating and connection are.

Transcript

If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Emily: I've had this feeling with people that I've dated recently. I really do want to get to know them a little bit before I commit to an actual date, or I have gone back to maybe courting people that I've known in the past that are already a known quantity, just because that safety factor is a big one for me. Yes, especially in a big city like New York where you just don't know what you're going to get. And I think that apps can be used for good when they're used intentionally, but it is that challenge that there's a safety factor with all of this that I just want to acknowledge and put out there because that is a big thing for a lot of people and I know that it is for me.

Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.

Emily: I'm Emily.

Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.

Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.

Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you, and we're here for you.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about dating burnout and fatigue. It seems like everywhere you look, whether it's on social media, in articles, or on our airwaves or digital signal waves, people are talking about how tired they are of dating. So what does the data say about the rise of dating apps and how that might be creating this fatigue across the dating community? Is meeting organically in person actually better than meeting online? And is there anything that we can do about all of this, or are we simply doomed? Join us today as we get into all of this. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships. You can get that wherever fine books are sold, and it includes all of our most used communication tools for all types. Of relationships, not just online dating that ghosts you. Actually, probably don't use it with that. Maybe it'd be helpful, I don't know.

Emily: Our book?

Jase: Using our communication tools with the person who ghosts you in an online date.

Emily: Or just let them go because they're not worth it.

Jase: Yeah, you're right.

Emily: I don't know.

Jase: Okay, I like that.

Emily: Use it to self-soothe, if nothing else. So, okay, the two of you, I don't know if you've been seeing this like I have, but I feel like I've just seen this huge uptick on social media and in all these New York Times think pieces about dating fatigue and burnout and how shitty it is out there. And, of course, it's coming up in our therapy sessions. It's coming up in complaints to our friends and family. And right now, as we're recording this, it's February. We're right before Valentine's Day, which means that cuffing season is over. Breakup season is happening right now. And there might be a lot of you out there who are just like, okay, I'm single again. I got to get back on the apps. Whether you know, you lost a partner or you're completely single, it might just be the time to get back out there and go back on the apps. But I think that that's really difficult for a lot of people out there, at least it seems like it. So as we get into all of this today, I just want all three of us to think about, A, why does dating feel just so exhausting right now? And is this different for monogamous people versus non-monogamous people? And then B, is this kind of just personal burnout? Is it something different within the overall dating ecosystem? What's happening because of this cultural moment right now? C, are dating apps the villain? Are we just fed up because we have too many options and that's causing us to overlook potential great matches? Do we just hate the apps in general? What's going on there? D, is meeting organically actually better? And then E, all of this leads into the question, what can we do differently? Are there any actionable takeaways? What can we do about all of this?

Dedeker: That's a lot of questions.

Emily: It is. It is.

Jase: But, and so is the idea you want to keep this all in mind and then at the end we'll have found answers to all of this.

Emily: I don't know about answers, but if not answers, we'll have found, I think, the opportunity to think critically about this and to question some stuff, to maybe look at some data. I think all of those things together, maybe it's not going to be like a hard and fast, these are the things that you should do. But hopefully we'll offer a little bit of insight, a little bit of anecdotal evidence from some people that we've spoken to. And I don't know, maybe some hope. I'm just looking for some hope out there. Is that too much to ask? You know, no, I love that.

Dedeker: Normally my knee jerk response would be like, no, of course it's not too much to ask. But then I look at the state of the world and be like, yeah, there might be a tall order. I don't know.

Emily: I get that.

Dedeker: I don't know if we can put that on the Christmas list this year.

Jase: Let's do what we can to put that on our grown up Christmas list this year.

Dedeker: What better dating, more energized dating?

Emily: Yeah, there you go. So I have some more questions for you all. I want you to think back 10 to 15 years, around the time maybe when all of us were meeting each other and when your non-monogamous journeys were starting. And maybe even think back to when your dating journeys in general after high school and maybe into college, like what that looked like, what the landscape of dating looked like then. So did you meet most of your partners back then, like online, in person, maybe through friends or events or classes? And do you feel like the way in which you met them affected the relationship quality that you had with them?

Jase: Hmm.

Dedeker: Well, okay, if I'm going to go way back, I didn't participate in online dating until I was ready to try non-monogamy.

Emily: Oh, okay.

Jase: So those coincided for you.

Dedeker: They coincided.

Jase: Wow.

Dedeker: Yeah. Because, I mean, I think mostly it's just about the timing of my life that, yeah, in high school, of course, I was just dating people in high school. Who are also at high school with me. Right. And then same thing in college, you know, met people that I dated through the classes. That you took together through a friend of a friend. And, you know, I think that online dating had already, what was the heyday? Like 2005, 2006 is kind of the first online dating. No, probably earlier than that. I'm sure way earlier than that. I'm sure. I don't know.

Jase: Yeah, it was still not in the mainstream, really. Like everyone was doing it.

Dedeker: Well, not to the era of apps quite yet. But yeah, the matches, your e-harmonies is.

Jase: Yeah, they've been around e-harmony.

Dedeker: Yeah, yeah, they were probably willing to bet late 90s, early 2000s. So of course, that was too young for me. I wasn't all into that then. But yeah, once I opened up my at the time monogamous relationship, then it was about, well, I don't think, because this is a very niche thing that I'm looking for, I don't think I can just rely on running into a random stranger at the bar and assuming they're going to be down with what I have on offer. And so that's what first got me to sign up to OKCupid. And that's sort of been my dating life since then. Not exclusively, it's not exclusively been all people online, but I'd say the majority of it has been since then.

Emily: How about you, Jase?

Jase: Yeah, I mean, thinking back, you know, to, again, that, like, high school, college, where it's just sort of the people who are around you, right? They're kind of in your social world. What's interesting is I'm thinking about it on the one hand, the people that you meet are, I guess, in a somewhat similar place in life to you, where they've ended up at this same school, right? So in high school, that's just because of where you live, most likely, unless you're going to private school or something. And then in college, Yeah, there's a certain amount of choice that maybe draws certain people to certain schools, right? Or certain programs within certain schools. So there's a certain something that you have in common there. Yet when I think about it, I definitely had at least one relationship I can think of in college where it kind of turned out over time to reveal we had very different religious and political views. But it's like we didn't discover that till kind of later. Versus thinking about how dating apps now, it's like often signals of wherever you fall on that are like front and center.

Emily: Totally.

Jase: That's kind of what you lead with. And so that surprise would be a lot more shocking now, I think, than it was then. It was sort of like, oh, we actually might not be as compatible as we thought we were.

Dedeker: That's funny you mention that because going down this rabbit hole has me thinking about my two college boyfriends, back to back, not synchronously. But thinking about if I took those two men and tried to reduce them down to a dating profile on an app, as in a collection of photos and a little blurb whatever they would have said about themselves, would I have swiped left just based on that little bit of information? It's impossible for me to be completely objective because of course, I dated these people, I know about them, I know why the relationship didn't work out, I know where the compatibilities and incompatibilities were. But from my standpoint now, I think back, I don't know if I can, if I reduced these people into this tiny little package where I was making this total snap decision, I don't know if I would have said yes to them. And it's a little bit sad because these two relationships in particular, yeah, they didn't work out, but I don't remember them as horrible relationships that ruined my life. They were very much a big part of my formulation of my identity and becoming an adult and learning a lot. So I feel grateful to have had those relationships. But it's just kind of funny to think about how if they had been presented in an online context, maybe I would not have dated these people.

Emily: We're definitely going to get into that more.

Jase: Yeah, I can think of a lot of relationships in the past where it was like, yeah, I was very into this person and liked this relationship, even if it ultimately didn't work out. But I definitely would not have tried to match with them on an app, either because I would have thought they wouldn't be into me or because I just would have been like, I don't know, they seem like they're not quite the type I'd be into or something. But then in reality, it was like super into that person and really enjoyed that relationship. So yeah, I do think that aspect for me is very different in terms of how that shows up. Like who you just sort of get a good vibe from in person, that on an app you just can't see that. You don't really get a chance to see that.

Emily: And my second question there was, do you feel like the way in which you met them affected the relationship quality at all? I mean, I think about the two of you, and you technically did kind of-ish meet on a dating app, sort of.

Jase: Yeah.

Dedeker: Hybrid.

Emily: Hybrid. Yeah.

Jase: How it affected relationship quality, that's the thing I don't know. I don't know. I don't feel like I see a super clear trend one way or the other on... Obviously the way you meet someone affects the start of the relationship, but I don't think I've seen longer term effects of a drastic difference between different contexts that I've met someone. It just depends how it goes.

Dedeker: Yeah, I'd be willing to bet if I was making my dating life into a sample of data, that my money would be on, regardless of the way that I met someone, probably equal chances that it was a good relationship or a bad relationship. That's me trying to be objective. However, the memories that I have coming up of times when I met people in person, especially post college, when dating sites and dating apps were a thing, but then still had these moments of meeting someone in person and hitting it off and then dating them, those memories are much more of those relationships are much more fueled by just pure sexual attraction that then, like Jase described, then slowly over time realizing, oh God, like you think this? This is what you want? Oh no. Now, if I'd met the same person on a dating app, would I have known all that upfront? Maybe not, but maybe I would have, there would have been enough obstacles or enough thinking about like, what are the cues this person gives off? What are they trying to con? I don't know. Oh, that's an interesting exercise.

Emily: So just quickly, 'cause I do want to move us along, now in the last, I don't know, eight years or whatever, how many of the people that you have dated have been on the apps or organic? And how has dating changed for you over time, if it has? And do you feel like it's shifted since you started practicing non-monogamy? What are people kind of in your orbit also saying about dating in general? How do you feel? In terms of the dates that you've gone on and the ways in which that's kind of changed over time?

Dedeker: Well, I still go in with an assumption that I don't think I can just throw myself into a random group of people and assume that that's going to be a good dating pool for me based on the whole non-monogamy thing, right? Like I still kind of throw myself in with the assumption that there needs to be some sort of prescreening of some kind.

Emily: Vetting.

Dedeker: Some vetting on both sides, right? I want people to vet me and screen me and I want to be able to screen and vet other people, right? So like I'm on the apps currently and have just kind of gone on a couple of dates. But then my last two kind of other relationships have all been people that I've met or already knew in person.

Jase: Yeah, so like the ones you've actually had relationships with have been ones you met in person somehow, even though you've gone on some dates online. Yeah, that's interesting. It's funny when you ask that question, I did have that thought of like, everything's online now, but then when I think back through it, I'm like, no, like almost every person I've gone on some dates with or had a flirtation with or whatever have all been in person.

Emily: Organic, yeah.

Jase: In the last several years at least. Right? And I, like, I've talked about this on the show before. I haven't been dating a ton in the last few years, but when I have, it's almost always been like friend of a friend or someone that I've met through some other context or there's some kind of social connection.

Dedeker: But also you haven't really been on the apps that much, right? So that's going to skew it.

Emily: Yeah, true.

Dedeker: For sure.

Emily: Yeah, for sure.

Dedeker: If you were like actively on the apps, you'd be using them and then meeting more people.

Jase: Yeah, yeah, very possibly. But, and I think this is something maybe we'll get into about the whole dating fatigue thing, but it's like, I find that, I don't experience that same sense of fatigue of like, I'm tired of meeting friends of friends. Ugh, you know, like that doesn't feel the same way as like, I'm tired of all this work that goes into trying to make a profile and also evaluate other profiles on apps.

Emily: For sure, yeah.

Jase: Experientially is very different at least.

Emily: So let's talk a little bit about the data regarding dating apps in general. There was a Forbes Health Survey that was done in 2024 of a thousand individuals who have used a dating app within the past year. I had a hard time seeing what the gender breakdown was or anything, but it said a thousand individuals. So average time spent was around 51 minutes per day. So like 52 minutes for women and 49 minutes for men. So almost an hour a day.

Jase: 51 minutes a day. It seems.

Emily: Yeah, low.

Jase: Long.

Dedeker: Long?

Jase: Yeah, it seems like a lot. Although I guess when I was more active on the apps, that is actually

Dedeker: something that's especially with app design, I think for the last 10 years, it's designed to be very addictive. Very, yeah, scroll through, very easy to pick up, you know, and cram into your spare time when you're spacing out on your phone. Like, that's not a surprise. I'd be willing to bet those people probably intended for it to be like 15 minutes and then before they're done.

Emily: Sure, then they get sucked into it. An hour of my time went away. Yeah, totally. And nearly half of the respondents said that they wanted long-term relationships, but 20% reportedly prefer casual dates with just one partner. 12% desire the same, but with multiple partners. And then there were 10% that were interested in a friends with benefits situation. And then 9% of people wanted friendship. Also, many of these people are not truthful on these dating apps. So they reported a lot of rates of like people confessing to lying about their age and their income and their interests, their employment, their relationship status even. So if it were like a monogamous leaning dating app, they would say, yeah, I don't have anyone that I'm dating or I'm not married or whatever. So they lie about that on there as well, which I found really interesting and kind of upsetting because again, all of those things that you're maybe screening for might not even be true anyways. Yeah.

Jase: That's interesting. I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all, really, but it does make me wonder about, and I don't think they have this data, but like the degree of the lies, like how much is it like, maybe I'm on this app and I'm casually dating some people, but I'm just saying that I'm totally single. Is it like that, or is it like I'm saying that I'm single and I'm actually married with kids or something, right? Like those to me are very different

Emily: degrees of lie, right? Yes.

Jase: So I wonder.

Emily: For sure.

Dedeker: That's why I feel really conflicted about those sort of like, what are you looking for conversations that are very common for people to ask each other, either super early on, like when you're still texting each other, if you've met via an app or on a first date or a second date. Because on the one hand, I'm like, yes, being intentional and being honest and sharing that is like a good thing. And then on the other hand, I'm like, but really at the end of the day, all of us have done this kind of calculus of what's actually going to be socially acceptable within this conversation for me to say about what I'm looking for.

Emily: Sure.

Dedeker: You know, and even if you're not intending to outright lie, I think all of us can fall victim to editing, obscuring, trying to be cool, trying to be cool, right? Obscuring just a little bit in service of not having the person across from you instantly reject you.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. And according to the survey, the top contributors to fatigue on apps or about apps include 40% of people saying that they're not finding meaningful connections. 35% of people say that they just have disappointment in the people that they're meeting. 27% are experiencing rejection, 24% repetitive conversations, and then around 20% just say like swiping and the time spent on apps is a reason why they feel really fatigued. And there's also a lot of ghosting and catfishing and love bombing and gaslighting and all that stuff happening at the same time. All the hot takes as well.

Jase: Yeah.

Emily: Indeed. Yes. Throwing all of that in there. So this kind of, to me, means that the apps are not necessarily producing connection, but they're instead actively contributing to emotional depletion. And that that's kind of one of the big issues here.

Dedeker: I would love to talk to a dating historian. If anyone out there, if this is your PhD is history of dating specifically, let's say within the last 100 years or so, I want to hear it. We want to talk to you.

Jase: Yeah, send us an email.

Dedeker: Yeah, because my thoughts that come up listening to that, A, I think, well, we're subject to a volume of possible choices, or at least some people are subject to a volume of possible choices that we never would have been exposed to until quite recently. And if you're taking advantage of that and going on a ton of dates, that yeah, of course that's going to expose you just to more fatigue in general of like trying different people on and not everyone's going to be a fit. But, you know, I wonder, even in like the 80s or the 90s, even though we're pre-app and dating is based on meeting people in person, I'm curious of like someone in the 80s or 90s who's dating and maybe they're really motivated, right? They're like, I'm going to find my person. And so I'm going to go on a bunch of dates or like try to say yes to a bunch of dates. Like, would they feel equally as fatigued if-

Jase: I do wonder that.

Dedeker: they were going on a bunch of dates and still being disappointing and not quite finding the person they thought that they would find as soon as they thought that they would find it. Would that be the same level of soul-sucking fatigue? Because you're not finding what you're wanting, and maybe it's less about the app.

Jase: A lot of the complaints are not that new, right? If you look at TV shows from the '90s or something, it's like there's still a lot of these similar complaints coming up. Obviously, they look a little different in terms of how they play out, but yeah, I think it's interesting to look at how not all of this is brand new. It's just like it's hard to find the right person. That's nothing new, right? Cosmo Magazine's been around giving advice about these things. For much longer than apps have been around. Yeah, it's like looking at what's universal, what's just part of dating being challenging, and what are things you can do about that versus what are kind of app-specific and issues that specifically come up with that, and how can we address those too? So I think it's a little bit of each that we need to be looking at here.

Emily: Absolutely. I just want to quickly reference one more research survey, which was from 2019, so right before the pandemic in October 2019. It was among 4,860 U.S. adults. And at the time, they said most daters say that their dating lives aren't going well, and it's difficult to find people to date. So 67% basically said that their dating life is not going well. And then 75% said that it was very or somewhat difficult to find dates. Something that this also found is that partnered LGB adults are far more likely than their straight counterparts to have met their partner online.

Jase: That's what Dedeker was saying about when you are going into like this more niche group of what you're looking for, that an app makes more sense perhaps, because it helps you to filter to people looking for the same kind of thing in a way that like typical society doesn't make as obvious or commonplace.

Emily: Yeah, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And another interesting thing that I found was that it said that most single people don't feel a lot of pressure to find a partner. So they looked at how much pressure they were basically getting from other sources, like friends, family members, or society. And it seems like from friends, 49% are finding none at all. 46% say that their family members are not pushing them. And society in general, 38% say that society is not pushing them on. Either. So that I found to be interesting. It feels like almost the pressure is coming from within as opposed to other people. Yeah.

Dedeker: Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Emily: Definitely.

Jase: I'm excited to keep going and talking a little more about like how this actually impacts our lives, but we're going to take a quick break to talk about some sponsors for this show. They really do help us keep this show going and making it available for free to everybody out there every week, which does take a lot of work and money to do. So we really appreciate our sponsors for supporting us. If you're able to take a moment, listen to them. Check out the links, go check out those sponsorships. That does help encourage them to support our show. And then of course, if you'd rather support directly and get access to our community and ad free episodes, you can go to multiamory.com/join and join our community there.

Emily: Alrighty. It is time to talk about this lived experience that people are having of finding partners on dating apps. So I was really interested because for full disclosure, I really haven't used the apps in a very long time. I was in a very long-term relationship. I was monogamous with that person for most of that relationship. And then when I got into new relationships, they were both with people that I had met organically through work, actually, both times. So I haven't been on the apps in a very, very long time. And I wanted to talk to someone who was younger than me, who's in the dating scene currently, who uses the apps a lot. And so I ended up talking to my partner's Gen Z brother. And he was born in 2000. So a lot younger than I am.

Jase: Okay.

Emily: And he had a lot to say on the subject, actually. He's gone on a ton of dates through a bunch of different dating apps. He's on multiple. His current partner he did not find on a dating app, but the partner before he did that he was with for a year and a half. So basically what he's saying is it's just this paradox of infinite choice. There's way too many options out there. You basically have this cheesecake factory menu worth of people. These are his words.

Dedeker: Okay, but if cheesecake factory laws, I launched a dating app. I'd be on it.

Emily: Oh, boy. I mean, sure. If you get, like, a nice cheesecake with it, perhaps. Yeah.

Jase: If you get cheesecake with each date, I'll give you a free cheesecake every day.

Dedeker: Yeah. No, you have to. You have to bring your first date to Cheesecake Factory. Got it. Maybe you get a little bonus. Maybe you get 10 off your bill or you get a free cheesecake with your order.

Emily: I'd do it. I love that. So, yeah, I mean, it's really difficult to figure out what you actually like because there's just so many people on there. And there's this analysis paralysis, constant comparison to people and just difficulty committing and deciding like, okay, that person, I'm going to move forward and want to speak to them and then maybe even want to go out on a date with them. Something else that I found is that we've talked about this a little bit already, but people are just filtering out individuals based on their stats. So we talked about this a little bit in our episode with Field if you say that you like or don't like something or are looking for something or not, we have the opportunity to maybe filter out some of the things that people are saying. And that potentially means that we're filtering out a lot of great people, a lot of great opportunities to meet someone and then kind of get to know them over time and get to allow them to charm us and, you know, to make a connection with those people. So what do you two think about that?

Jase: I mean, absolutely. And I think this whole idea of it, attraction, if there's someone that you know in your daily life somehow, like maybe they're a friend of a friend, you just occasionally see them socially, or maybe it's someone at school or maybe work, although I feel like in America, at least, that's highly discouraged nowadays. Whoops. But there's this phenomenon where it's kind of like you get to know a person and sort of your attraction and interest in them grows over time. Versus with a dating app where if it's not there right away, it's just like, nope, I was just going to swipe left, right? And I think that's an interesting dynamic. And there's a lot of people that I look back, I'm like, yeah, I might not have put the effort in to not only swipe right on that person, but then go through the effort of composing a message and doing the back and forth and trying to get something scheduled if I hadn't had interactions with them already to be like, yeah, I like this person's, their vibes enough. I like how it feels to talk to them. I like how their face moves when they talk. Like things that you don't get from an app. I know it sounds weird to say, but I think that's a personal thing.

Dedeker: I want an audition. Like, I want, oh, wow.

Emily: Set me up.

Dedeker: Okay, so if it, okay, here's the

Jase: pitch for Dedeker's new dating app. Okay, go.

Dedeker: Let me back way up first.

Emily: Okay, please.

Dedeker: Let me back way up. Because this is making me think about our episode with Demona Hoffman, which was quite a while, a few years back, where where Demona Hoffman pointed out that the dating apps are like fast food, where yes, with fast food, you get the convenience, you get a relatively consistent experience, no matter which McDonald's you go to, and you know you're not going to wait more than five minutes for your food. And then you complain about how bad the food is or how much it upset your stomach or how unhealthy it is for you. Right. And that she framed that, that that's kind of how people deal with dating apps, that we want the convenience and we don't want the costs that come along with the convenience. So. If this is predicated on, I want the convenience of being presented with a plethora of options whenever I want.

Emily: A Cheesecake Factory menu.

Dedeker: Yes. I don't want it in app form. I want it in audition. Like, I want you to walk, like, 10 of you walk across the stage, and I get to pick.

Emily: It is an audition, literally.

Dedeker: I get to smell you. I get to smell you. That's the first thing, okay, is I get to give you a little sniff, right? That's the first cut.

Jase: Okay.

Dedeker: Then the sniff cut.

Emily: Dang.

Dedeker: Sniff cut, I think, first. Then maybe some cuts based on just general, like, I want to see your vibe. I want to hear you talk.

Emily: Do you need to give a little

Jase: one or two minute monologue so you can see how they talk?

Dedeker: Is that... Yeah, a monologue would be nice. Now, do I want them to do it from a play, or do I want them to just riff? I don't know. But I'm into what Jase is saying about, I want to see how your face moves when you talk. I want to see your smile. I want to hear the prosody of your voice. I definitely want to see that. That'd probably be the next round of cuts. And then after that, then I think all of us, whoever's left, let's say three people are left, then no, no, no. We all go to Cheesecake Factory.

Emily: Oh, I see.

Dedeker: Together.

Emily: And then you see how they eat and interact with servers, which I think is very important.

Dedeker: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And then if you still made it to the final round, then we can talk. And then we can talk. Then we can go on like a more traditional date. Okay, this is predicated on if I want to do this sort of like cattle call style choosing somebody or give me all these options to move through, then I think that's how I would do it.

Jase: Okay.

Emily: Look at you go.

Jase: Interesting.

Emily: My goodness.

Dedeker: Did I answer your question? Did you ask a question?

Emily: I think if I didn't ask for

Jase: that, we certainly didn't ask for that.

Emily: But that's okay. We appreciate it. Do you remember when we did that episode with Julie and Yueh from the Dateable podcast? Yes. And I think that I recall Julie talking about the fact that she would date stack, like, multiple dates in a day, which I have never-- have I done that? I don't know. I don't think that I've done it. Maybe I've done it with partners, where I see multiple partners in a day, but I don't know if I've gone on, like, first dates. Not new dates.

Jase: Yeah, like, first dates.

Dedeker: Yeah, I've never stacked first dates, I don't think. Maybe I've stacked, done a mixed stack of, like, second date in the daytime and then a first date at night, maybe. I don't think I ever made that a common practice.

Emily: Well, my boyfriend's brother said that the reason why a lot of women are doing this is because it just takes so much time to get ready for a date. Totally.

Dedeker: That makes sense.

Emily: Yeah, you're already in costume. You have done makeup and dress up as a sex worker.

Dedeker: You've done your vocal warmups.

Emily: Yeah, you've done vocal warmups. Exactly. And so then you might as well go on multiple dates. But I do think that this can really lead to burnout before the date even starts because it creates this ecosystem where we're just treating people like interchangeable interviews and not maybe even being very focused on the person in front of us. So, oof.

Dedeker: But have you gotten that advice to bat your calls onto one day?

Emily: Sure, but I'm not going to do that with a person. I don't think I should.

Jase: You don't think your Zoom calls are people, Emily?

Dedeker: Right. Dude, Emily, if Cheesecake Factory the Dating App told me, Here you go, show up at your local Cheesecake Factory at noon, and we've got a date for you at one o'clock and at 2:30 and at 4:00.

Emily: That's a quick date. Good lord, that's a quick date.

Dedeker: An hour and a half?

Emily: Yeah.

Dedeker: For our first date. For our first, first ever date.

Jase: I actually really like that. No, I actually, I'm like, I want the restaurant that does that, where, you know, it's like speed dating, but much slower. Now. Much slower, where you have maybe three dates.

Dedeker: Cheese date.

Emily: You gotta like, gosh, okay, so you have like your appetizer with one, your main course with the next, and then your dessert with the last one.

Dedeker: Yes. Brilliant.

Jase: And that they're all also going on other dates too, right? Okay. They're all kind of there in the same thing.

Emily: Yeah, yeah, I can see this being a thing that might be cool.

Dedeker: Okay, actually, and to back it up, to go back to my audition idea.

Emily: Yes, exactly.

Dedeker: I'm really on a roll with that.

Emily: All right.

Dedeker: Yeah, whoever makes it to sort of like the final cut, it's like even if it's more than one person, I really want to go to the Cheesecake Factory with all of them because as a non-monogamous person, I think it's important to see how do you hang with people who are like, quote unquote, your competition, right? How do you date with maybe your future metamores? I want to know.

Emily: That's great, actually. I do love that. Speaking of non-monogamous people, I asked some similar questions to our community. I wanted to know, like, okay, is dating different right now for non-monogamous people and using dating apps in general, because like we said, it feels like it's going to be a lot easier for a more niche category of daters to find each other through apps that are, especially apps like Field, for instance, that are specifically geared towards people who are in non-traditional relationships.

Dedeker: Right.

Emily: But I found, and listen, we got a lot of really, really incredible responses from people and so many also, I think people were like, oh, I got something to say about this. So thank you.

Jase: Yeah.

Emily: But yes, a lot of the complaints were very similar from complaints that I've seen online from monogamous people and also from friends that I have who are monogamous and who are dating. And some people also, just choose to use them really sparingly. And some of them have found success on them when they do that, or when they're specifically looking for things like just friends with benefits or casual relationships. They find a lot of great dates that way, but that often it's difficult for them to find like long-term or nesting partner or more entwined relationships. They also said that they got saturated very quickly. And I believe, I assume what this means is that they, you know, got overly saturated with partners. But I also think that it might mean that they're getting saturated with the amount of people that might be interested in them on the apps. That there's like a plethora of people with non-monogamy and just everyone's kind of like, yeah, let's go. Let's meet up. Let's, you know, see how this works out because the stakes are different than if you're looking for the one, quote unquote. So, yeah, sure.

Jase: There's less of a, like, I don't want to invest in this unless I'm sure it's the one versus it's a little more like, yeah, we can see where this goes. Like, maybe it'll be something, maybe it's nothing. I could see that.

Emily: Totally.

Jase: I don't know. That's just so interesting because I do find that in my experience over the years on dating apps that sometimes it does feel like, boy, there's just a lot of people out there and I just don't know how I decide or know where to put my energy in this. I don't know how to pare it down. And other times where it's like, there's nobody. There's nobody in this area or there's nobody. And I've done this in different cities and even different countries, and that really varies a lot from place to place and app to app in different place too. But where sometimes it's just like, There is nothing. Or it's like, okay, let me maybe revisit all these people that I swiped left on before. And maybe I was too harsh because there's not a lot of options in this area. Like I found it really, really varies from both extremes quite easily.

Emily: Yeah.

Dedeker: That's interesting what people are saying that it's easier for them to find casual partners or friends with benefits. Like if they keep their expectations low. That does track with a really common complaint that I've gotten from my clients, specifically clients who are actively dating non-monogamously. Is whether they're on apps or whether they're trying to meet people in person or going to their local like poly cocktails or whatever it is that often the complaint from somebody is like, I do want to find someone who's maybe a more entangled partner, a nesting partner, a more emotionally entwined relationship. And it feels like no one has the bandwidth, like everybody already has that. Like either the community is populated with couples who like were monogamous and now they opened up, but they still serve that role for each other or. This person already has like two nesting partners and they feel like they're at capacity emotionally. I've definitely heard that complaint over and over again.

Emily: For sure. Yeah, I've heard that too. I did want to read little bits of a few people's responses because I thought that they were really interesting. So somebody said, It feels like most ENM people on the apps don't actually have a lot of bandwidth to offer, and it takes a ton of time and energy to go through the getting to know you process, traveling all over a big city, only to not have it work out. Which in turn grinds down the energy I have to engage with the next person I meet. I've had some past relationships come out of it, but I've definitely have to do some proactive managing of my mental state to keep from just giving up. That's interesting.

Dedeker: Totally. Yeah.

Emily: Someone else said, regardless of monogamy or non-monogamy, I find that folks just have other things in their life that they prioritize over dating or the process of getting to know someone. If it's not three partners, it's zero partners and a 60 plus hour work week or something. I'm really interested in a person's bandwidth and how they choose to organize their life ecosystem. Yeah, definitely.

Jase: Totally.

Emily: And then finally, for me, I guess dating burnout is a subset of a much larger mass of being burned out on everything. It might be relevant to consider burnout in the electronic dating pools against the backdrop of the megaverses of forces that are potential sources of burnout, but the apps definitely aren't helping. They just don't seem to be engineered for connecting. Too many of them rely on exploiting reward systems.

Jase: Sure, yeah.

Dedeker: Makes sense. It all kind of blends into just like a lot of the issues that are plaguing our collective energies in general.

Emily: Yeah, definitely.

Jase: I think also there's this certain aspect to dating when the purpose of your dating is dating. And what I mean by that is

Dedeker: that's the name of your dating book.

Emily: Dating when the purpose is dating.

Jase: Dating is just dating, yeah.

Emily: Book by Jase Lindgren.

Dedeker: I think you should write it.

Emily: Yeah, I would love that.

Jase: Thank you.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: Well, and what I mean by that

Dedeker: is let's see if you can, if it can hold up an entire book.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: What I mean by that is that if you're dating for the purpose of dating, and so I'm thinking like online dating is, is very much that, right? You're here to find people to date. That's it, right? That's the whole purpose. And so all of the effort that goes into writing your messages to them, to trying to schedule a date, to then driving across town, having that date, all of it is centered around the goal of. Having someone to date. And so if it doesn't go well, that energy is kind of lost, right? You've kind of wasted that energy. Same thing if you think, you know, back in the day of like, oh, I'm watching the, like, VHS recordings of people's personals to find someone to date, or I'm going to a speed dating event even maybe, where like the purpose of it is just dating. And so, yeah, I'm spending a lot of energy, time, maybe money on being able to have these dates, And then if they don't work out, again, it's like, I've wasted that energy. Versus the situations we've talked about where you've met someone through a hobby or a club sport or a friend group or something like that, where the process of getting to evaluate if that person is someone you'd want to date wasn't lost time because it served another purpose, just being social and fun and engaging on its own, whether that's because you both do an activity together, you're in the same like meetup group that does nature photography or that does crocheting or like whatever it is, right? Or like social dance or something. You had another thing going on at the same time. And I think that changes the dynamic a lot. And I think that's one of the challenges that I've noticed online dating just makes easier to fall into this challenge of, yes, it feels easier than in person. And yet every piece of energy you put into it can kind of get seen as lost if it doesn't get you whatever result it is you're looking for. And I don't like that feeling of trying to nickel and dime it or like have to have an accounting of your time and energy put into it. And I don't think you would experience that same thing meeting people in other organic ways, but that is harder to have those situations and maybe takes more energy and time to like present those situations in your life. And of course it's always challenging to date someone who's in your LARPing group, and then if it doesn't work out, now you're on a big, epic campaign together, and you're kind of stuck.

Emily: And I will say, I know what that's like, very intimately, as you know.

Dedeker: Whoops, Emily.

Emily: Yes, that was one of my big whoopses. But if you start to date someone that you work with, and then it doesn't work out, and you still have to work with them, that is so hard. It's rough. It's really, really rough. I do not recommend it. Please be careful out there.

Dedeker: Quickly, I just want to say though, Jase, I think you could write a 40,000 word book.

Jase: A 40,000 dollar book? Yeah.

Dedeker: Not a $40,000 book. Did not say that, but a 40,000 word book. Okay. Right. Like a short- Dating when dating is the purpose of dating or whatever the title is. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily: I think you would short little nonfiction,

Jase: little dating when you're dating for the purpose of dating.

Emily: There you go.

Jase: Great.

Dedeker: Brilliant.

Jase: Good. Look for that at your local Barnes and Noble.

Emily: Okay, before we go to our final break, I just very quickly wanted to bring up something that has been really surprising to me online, which is that it's cringe to have a boyfriend now. It's really cringe. I didn't know that this was a thing.

Jase: It's cringe for you to have a boyfriend.

Emily: Exactly. And like, I am such a millennial and not cool, but I love posting stories with me and my boyfriend in it. I love it. It's so fun. But a lot of women, a lot of people out there, like younger people than I am, are expressing that having a boyfriend feels embarrassing and that it also is kind of linked to this loss of independence or bad taste or, you know, bad cultural credibility. And so people are irony posting about their relationships or they're really downplaying their male partners. Or they're hiding their boyfriends like a dirty little secret. And that all of this detachment is kind of this form of social capital in a way.

Dedeker: Okay, I got a lot of questions for you, but I'll wait.

Jase: I've got a lot of answers for you, but I'll also wait.

Emily: No, I mean, I'm really interested. When did earnest romanticism become uncool? And is this all just a defense mechanism?

Dedeker: Oh, we've heard about the wife guy also.

Emily: Yes.

Dedeker: Did you come up against the wife guy in your research?

Emily: I did not even think about that, but I know that there are men that are really going to feed her this bone broth casserole that I made when she's in her luteal phase in order to- Wait, hold on, hold on.

Dedeker: Wait, okay.

Emily: I love that first place everyone.

Dedeker: Like, I love that. So, hold on, is it he has a girlfriend and he's saying that because she's about to be in her luteal phase and he's about to feed it to her, like, momentarily, or is he doesn't even have a girlfriend and he's just planning out.

Emily: No, he's like, babe, if you were

Jase: my girl, I would make you bone broth.

Emily: Yeah, no, no, no.

Dedeker: Okay, as someone who has been fed some delicious, like, homemade bone broth soup by a partner, it's compelling.

Emily: No, I mean, yeah, it was basically one of those, like, this is how to best feed your girl or whatever.

Dedeker: Hold on, was this all a euphemism? Is bone broth a euphemism?

Jase: Oh, I didn't think so.

Emily: I don't think so. I think it, yeah, it wasn't a euphemism. It was like a recipe video. But, like, you know, feed this to your girl when she is going through her menstrual cycle. Like, this is what you get to

Jase: do for a living. Stay tuned for different times. 'Cause I've got a lot of material on this.

Emily: I love that for you.

Jase: I think that's pretty sweet Insta. Or should I do this on TikTok now? I don't even know. Someone, if you're a social media consultant for me, hit me up.

Emily: Both.

Dedeker: The answer is both.

Jase: It'll be like the right stuff to bake for your bae.

Emily: Yeah. Oh, that's good.

Jase: The kids don't say bae anymore. That's how they know it's real.

Dedeker: Bae's out.

Emily: Damn it. Okay. So what gives? What gives?

Dedeker: Oh, the cringe. The boyfriend is cringe.

Emily: Yeah. What's going on?

Dedeker: Okay, well, first of all, I mean, I'm incredulous because sure, like TikTok trends be TikTok trends and they pass through.

Emily: I'm not on TikTok. I'm seeing it on Instagram.

Dedeker: No, neither am I.

Emily: That makes me very millennial.

Dedeker: Filtered down, right?

Emily: Instagram.

Dedeker: So sure, like having a boyfriend is cringe now is very pithy. I get why it spreads. Is this how people actually feel that? I don't know.

Jase: Or is it just that that's meme-worthy?

Dedeker: Or is that's meme-worthy, right? That's empirical. However, to steel man this, I will say that there is research that does find a correlation between people who post very heavily about their romantic partner with that relationship maybe actually not being very good quality.

Emily: Sure.

Dedeker: Correlation, not necessarily causation, right? So there is a suggestion that some people, when they post a bunch of romantic stuff or post a bunch of pictures of their romantic partner, that they might be overcompensating. For insecurities that they feel about the relationship. Now, that doesn't mean everybody who does this, that's what's going on below the surface. However, that literature does exist, of course. And I think that's the same thing with the wife guy thing, which I also only recently learned about, is calling someone a wife guy is sort of leveling that accusation that you're posting all this stuff about how great your wife is, but it's because you messed up or you're in the doghouse or you're cheating on her or whatever, like, you're actually trying to. Compensate.

Emily: Yeah, I'm interested.

Dedeker: You know what? Actually, I think I've convinced myself having a boyfriend is cringe because now I don't like to post, like, super romantic stuff about any partners. Like, I do engage in some of that, like, downplaying or sometimes it's cute, but it might, may not be, like, a very flattering picture of the person or of me or whatever. Like, I do think that tends to be my approach. I don't tend to do a lot of Earnest romantic posting. Very rarely. Okay, I'm in. I guess I'm in. I guess I'm a, I'm, I'm on board. Boyfriend equals cringe.

Jase: Yeah, well, so, and I think that the reason for this, at least to me, is us, is millennials and Gen X of doing too many of those posts for too long.

Dedeker: You don't think that millennials embraced irony so hard that we ruined it for everybody else?

Jase: No, that's a thing. I don't think we were ironic enough.

Emily: I guess we were pretentious. We did everything.

Jase: And the whole, like, What was it? Like relationship goals and all this shit about trying to idealize your relationship or someone else's or whatever. I think we made it cringe. And I think that's completely fair because I have always found it kind of cringe. I was cool before it was cool to talk about it.

Emily: Was that right? Lookie, you go.

Dedeker: You were cringe before it was cringe.

Emily: There it is.

Jase: There you go. That's actually probably the most accurate statement you could make.

Emily: Oh, my Lord. Yeah. And then finally, this heterofatalism thing, which there was a wonderful article in the New York Times about this. It was just really well written, and it was called the Trouble with Wanting Men. Please look it up if you have a subscription. Find somebody who does, because it's really well written. I know I sent it to you, Dedeker. But it's this idea that dating men is exhausting, emotional labor is unequal, the standards are just like on the floor and women are just settling or tolerating or needing to educate men. But other people are deciding that they're just going to decenter men or opt out of dating entirely. And this is sort of allowed for this rise in celibacy or quitting dating, prioritizing friendships over romance or even like becoming queer or deciding, I've always known that I'm bisexual and I want to and I'm interested in only dating women now. And finding a lot of wonderful things when they do that, or even becoming non-monogamous intentionally, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't know. I mean, I don't hate this. I don't hate this idea that we should be focusing, just everyone in general should be focusing on additional things in their life that are not just dating, because I do think that the intensity of feeling like I am not A whole human being, if I don't have a partner or multiple partners, it weighs on us. It is still very much the prevalent thing that I think a lot of people feel and think, even though all of these things now are also present.

Jase: I'm wondering a couple things. One is, will these women embrace the label WGTOW for themselves to go along with the MGTOWs who are the incels doing the same thing on the other side?

Dedeker: I mean, WGTOW has a better ring to it than MGTOW.

Jase: It does sound nice. Yeah.

Dedeker: Yeah.

Emily: But what is this? What are you saying?

Jase: Men going their own way was part of the whole red pill incel whatever thing. Of like, the men who give up on dating. Of like, women are too terrible to even interface with, so let's just not suck so much.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: I mean, this sounds like the same, same basic thing, right?

Emily: Coming from a different place. It's a softer version, but kind of the same thing.

Dedeker: Maybe it's. Well, this is all complicated, right? I mean, we could just-

Jase: red pill for her, the pink pill.

Dedeker: It's pink.

Jase: There's your book you could write. I like that.

Dedeker: Oh, no. Oh, I could definitely crap out 40,000 words of red pill for her.

Emily: The red pill.

Dedeker: Not because I believe in it.

Jase: Okay, okay. The red pill, but you could.

Dedeker: I could.

Jase: The pink pill, colon, strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman. Oh, cringe. There's your book title.

Emily: New York Times bestseller right there.

Dedeker: Well, what's hard is, like, we could talk for several more hours about the complexities of this, about the ways that women are socialized to center men and men's experiences and men's pleasure and the ways that men are socialized around their expectations around dating and how to communicate and how to show up. Like, we all live in this world where, unfortunately, because of the body that we showed up in into this world initially means that often we were socialized with this particular weird set of of rules that makes us talk past each other and hurt each other, sometimes in unintentional ways, sometimes in an intentional way. So that's definitely a big part of this. So of course, I don't want to say if someone's making that choice and realizing, oh, part of my issue is I center men too much or I center dating too much, and I need to step back from that, I'm never going to say that's a bad choice for somebody if that's what they've realized. The part that I'm skeptical about is the fact that so much of what the apps encourage us to do, so much of it is about flattening people out of their individuality. And into who they represent as like a political abstract.

Emily: Sure.

Dedeker: And we're able to project onto that person that blank slate.

Emily: The genders are not a monolith.

Dedeker: Yeah, like everything that we feel about straight men or everything that we feel about bisexual women or everything we feel about a trans person or whatever, because they've just been flattened into this like little profile. And so that's, those are the moments where I'm just like, well, I don't know if I would say that absolutely everybody needs to embrace this whole boyfriend is cringe. Approach or whatever, but, yeah, it's complicated.

Emily: It's very complicated. Yeah.

Jase: And I think it's, it's an interesting thing, too, where, like, I agree with the sentiment of, like, men shouldn't be given this past and not live up to the standards that you would expect for a person in terms of how they treat you or things like that. And what I feel like actually doesn't serve us, though, is, like, by putting that thing specifically as this category on men, I think we're not. We're not helping any men actually get better because of that. Because by doing that, you're either making it something that as a man you'd get defensive about, or as a man you want to like distance yourself from men. And I've seen that turn out shitty for men too, where like now you're not an ally to other people, you're not a helpful thing, you're kind of weirdly doing this self-hating, self-flagelizing thing in your interactions and how you move through the world. And I've seen that show up a lot. And so it's like I get the point of it and I think it's maybe coming from the right place originally, but I don't like how it's actually showing up because I don't actually think it's helpful for the women expressing that because you're kind of breaking these things down into this has to do with men or not instead of these are standards I expect, whoever that is. And then I think it doesn't help men either because it doesn't, again, hold them actually accountable. It still boils them down to their madness. And like, that's the core thing being focused on instead of the actual behavior of an individual person. So there's my little soapbox about kind of, I just think it's that we come from a place of wanting to do something good, but when we try to simplify it, we're not actually doing any good for anyone.

Emily: Yeah, I think that's an interesting point when reading these articles is just, again, yeah, the genders are not a monolith. We can't just reduce ourselves down to like one or the other. And put ourselves in these binary categories instead of like, we contain multitudes.

Jase: But it's a lot easier to write some good zingers and clever turns of phrase than taking that hard line.

Dedeker: 100%.

Jase: Much easier to write a really clever, well-written article that way than to try to say what I said in a clever way is harder.

Emily: Maybe that's why we are not the biggest podcast in the world, because we don't take that hard line. Almost ever, but I'm all right with that, truly.

Jase: Yeah, all right with that too. We're going to take another quick break to talk about some sponsors of this show. We do appreciate them for helping support this show. Please do give them a listen. Use the promo codes or the links in our description if they seem interesting to you. And then of course, if you would rather support our show directly, help support the work that we're doing, you can go to multiamory.com/join. And as a thank you for your support there, we have ad-free episodes available, as well as access to our communities, where we've recently started posting some fun behind the scenes of the episodes that we're recording or previews of what's coming up, as well as, of course, the amazing community of people there to help support each other and to bring their specific concerns and interact with each other and make some great friends along the way.

Emily: All right, it's time, hopefully, for some actionable takeaways if there are any to be had at the end here. But I did quickly want to talk about this question of, is meeting in person better? Is it better than meeting on the apps?

Dedeker: I don't know.

Emily: I think there is an appeal to organic meetings. There's often like kind of lower pressure. You're just feeling each other out. If you meet somebody at a restaurant or a bar or at work or at a class, you can get to know them a little bit more before you decide, oh, I actually want to try them on for size to take them out on a date. You can take a little bit more time as opposed to just going on what ends up being like a blind date whenever you go into an app situation. You don't know who this person is with the exception of talking to them a little bit online. And that kind of can raise the stakes quite a bit and be a little scary. I think there's also, as we said before, that room for nuance and charm and seeing if this person is going to be exciting to you. Seeing if they vibe with you when you meet them organically.

Jase: I think you also get to see how they treat other people.

Emily: Yes.

Jase: Right. Whether it's social people or whatever. I do think that's another dynamic you get.

Dedeker: Okay, okay. But a question for the two of you. Have you ever actually, actually been on a blind date, as in, like, went on a date not even knowing what somebody looks like and/or maybe related to this, gone on a date where someone has set you up? Like, a friend of a friend has been like, Hey, I think the two of you would you should really get along, or you should go on a date, or yada, yada, yada.

Jase: I have been set up, but it's never been a blind date. It's always someone that I've known through their social circle or something before that. I have, however, had at least one dating app date where it felt like I was showing up to a blind date because of how different they looked from their profile.

Emily: Oh, I've had that too.

Dedeker: I've had that one, yeah.

Jase: But that's a little different. That's not quite the same thing. I've not done a real blind date. I'd be open to it, though.

Emily: Something about organic meetings, though, is that it doesn't always mean that it's easier or safer, and that is kind of a big one for me. I don't know. I've had this feeling with people that I've dated recently. I really do want to get to know them a little bit before I commit to an actual date, or I have gone back to, maybe courting people that I've known in the past that are already a known quantity, just because that safety factor is a big one for me. Yes, especially in a big city like New York, where you just don't know what you're going to get. And I think that apps can be used for good when they're used intentionally, but it is that challenge that there's a safety factor with all of this. That I just want to acknowledge and put out there, because that is a big thing for a lot of people, and I know that it is for me. And it's interesting, and emotional safety, because

Dedeker: I feel like I related to that too. Like, anytime I've gone back through the Rolodex, right, of hitting up people that I dated at the past, or people that I already knew, as opposed to taking a risk on a dating app, that, yeah, for sure. I appreciate that you brought that up.

Jase: And, sorry, are you saying that you feel like one or the other is safer? The app dating versus organically meeting people?

Emily: I do think that I have found personally, for myself, if I get to know someone over a period of time, I can kind of gauge whether or not they're going to feel safe to me.

Jase: Yeah, okay. And that makes sense to me. I think the other piece of that is that because of how many options there are out there on the dating apps, not just for you, but for them, there's basically no penalty for bad behavior. Yeah, right? Because you just disappear back into the cornfield and then go date somebody else.

Emily: Totally.

Dedeker: Cornfield.

Jase: I was thinking of that Homer Simpson, you know, back in the day, into the cornfield.

Emily: If you build it, they will come. Like, what are you talking? Yeah.

Jase: A little bit field of dreams, too. You're a ghost baseball player. You just go back out into the cornfield.

Dedeker: Well, I think that's why, like, so many, usually women, now try to band together. Like, there's all these Facebook groups around, are we dating the same person? Or Facebook groups that are like, a geolocation tied to a particular city to just kind of whisper network report on bad behavior.

Jase: But the advantage of meeting people organically is there's generally going to be some ties that already exist. So you're not having to try to find this other way of checking these things on, like, a Rate My Professor type site. But for people you're dating, there's vetting.

Emily: There's already vetting.

Jase: There's a little bit of built-in vetting.

Dedeker: There's a little bit of social vetting, yeah.

Jase: And a little bit of built-in consequence for both of you should you be especially shitty. That there's going to be ripples throughout whatever your mutual social group or professional group or whatever is.

Emily: Yeah. You know, in looking at all of this, are we just totally doomed at this point? Because this is...

Dedeker: Doomed to what? To never date again?

Emily: No, I mean, clearly we're going to get exhausted all the time. But yeah, it is this overwhelming feeling of, are we never going to go back to the way that it was? And I think probably not. But if we can move forward and sort of understand how these apps can work for us and not necessarily against us, I think that's the thing that ultimately we should try to focus on. And again, I want to acknowledge if you are feeling really burned out, like you're not alone, there are so many people, so many people in our community that are non-monogamous, so many people that I've spoken to and that I've seen online that are monogamous, that are having a rough frickin time out there. It doesn't matter who you are. You're not broken if you're not having success. These apps are designed to incentivize engagement. It's not necessarily designed for fulfillment or making real connections.

Jase: Right. The app doesn't make more money when you find a good partner.

Emily: Yeah.

Jase: They're not really designed to succeed on that model, you know?

Dedeker: Okay, but that was Hinge's whole marketing hook was like, they're the app designed to be deleted. They know that their audience is already skeptical. Sure.

Jase: Sure.

Dedeker: And I appreciate that. I know their audience is already burnt out and full of conspiracy theories about how the dating app is keeping all the best matches behind the paywall, right? Like, the government is controlling it.

Jase: I don't even think it's that. And I think that's the thing. People think about conspiracies way too conspiratorially. It doesn't even have to be that complicated and that intentional to like just create an ecosystem that encourages you to stay in it. Yeah, that's different from like, oh, I'm hiding the matches from you. I'm like intentionally making the algorithm find you people that are almost good, but not quite good. If you had that good of an algorithm, oh my God, things would be so much better if they actually could that reliably have that.

Dedeker: You don't think there's any credence to that whatsoever?

Emily: I don't think so.

Jase: I don't think you need to. I think the engineering work it would take to actually pull that off is so much more expensive and more valuable if it worked. Like, if you actually had the ability to do that, then to hide that weirdly. I just, I just don't buy it. Maybe I'll be proven wrong someday, but I don't buy it.

Dedeker: Maybe hit Jase up if you disagree.

Jase: Okay, hit me up. If you're an insider and you know, then hit me up. I'd love to be proven wrong if you know.

Emily: There was someone in our Discord who was talking about the fact that they really wanted to make a bunch of changes to apps and had some ideas on how to do it and actually got the opportunity to speak to a person who made apps who made one of these bigger apps, but then it kind of fizzled out after a while when they decided, oh, that was going to be too ambitious or whatever. So I have a couple actionable takeaways. One of them is to try to reduce the volume overall and increase some intention. So maybe try being on fewer apps. If you're one of those people out there who is on a ton of different apps, maybe reduce it down to one or two for a couple months and try to be more specific and intentional about the places where you are pursuing matches. There are these crazy new apps out there. That are going to book you a date when you match with someone.

Dedeker: That's... As in like book you a reservation.

Emily: Yeah, a reservation for a place to go on a date. I don't know, try that out. That sounds awesome. But yeah, try to pick an app that has the highest chance of aligning with your goals and with your interests. Maybe don't swipe with abandon, put some time limits on it and make a concerted effort to choose who it is that you want to connect with and focus on fewer people at once. And then that can lead to things like fewer conversations, so you can have more intentionality with the specific people that you were speaking to and focus your energy on those people. And then don't do the date stack thing. Try to be super present in the dates that you were going on, unless you're doing that speed dating thing at Cheesecake Factory like Dedeker was talking about.

Dedeker: She's dating, she's dating.

Emily: She's dating. There you go. And then, yeah, if you want to go out and try the organic dating thing, put yourself in something like a run club or a book club. Try speed dating. That might be fun because again, it's in person. Go do a hobby based meetup or even the classic go to a bar. I saw you from across the bar and thought you were really interesting. Or maybe just, you know, go with a friend, see what happens. Try to be safe.

Dedeker: Here's my deal. I think we are still recalibrating as a culture around what level of like in public flirtation pursuit is acceptable.

Emily: That is true.

Dedeker: Really recalibrating, right? And this is not turning into a conversation around like, oh my god, did me too go too far? But I do think we're just recalibrating, trying to figure out who, what are

Jase: the new norms, what's acceptable, yeah.

Dedeker: Right, what's acceptable, what's not. So I just want to put that out there that I don't think it's like, if you go out to the bar, it's going to be the same as it was in the 90s, right? Or as it would have been for your parents in whatever generation to just approach somebody. It's different now. It is different now. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it or shouldn't leave yourself open to it, but I just do want to acknowledge it is different now.

Jase: And I actually want to go back to some advice that I remember giving on this show way back within our first couple years of doing the show. This probably was back in 2017 or something like that. It was about, especially if you're new to non-monogamy, but I think this is true just anytime, is finding whatever your local polyamory or non-monogamous meetups are, and maybe they're a couple towns over, you've got to drive to it, but find what that is and go to it with the intention of specifically not looking for dates, of like just going to be part of that community. And I think that often people can go in like too much feeling like the pressure's on finding a date rather than the pressure on, let me connect with people and kind of become part of this community. But I think that with all of these things, like with the run clubs or book clubs or, you know, hobby-based meetups or getting into live action role-playing or go to a board game bar regularly, like whatever it is, something that's kind of engaged and active with an interest is, again, I think those are great ways to do it, especially if you don't go in wanting dates right away. That it's like by being a part of that community and by being a good citizen there, not only will you just have more fun, you'll have more friends and more connections, that then when there are people you're interested in, it will be easier to engage with them because you don't feel like, oh, I'm just creeping and waiting for this opportunity. Like, no, I'm just here because I like being here. And also, I like you, so, hey, what could happen here? And then also, you'll find that if people like you and they meet someone else in their life who they think would be compatible with you, they're more likely to be like, Hey, you two should meet each other, right? Like that old school way. But again, it's like the first piece there is being part of a community of people that support each other and that you support them, right? That you're an active part of that and giving of yourself in that community. And I think I wanted to tie that a little bit back to what this person was saying about, feeling like there's a lot of these big global issues and things that they want to be, you know, moving the dial on those and that it feels irresponsible to be dating or that dating apps aren't the place to find people like that. And like, I think whatever your reason is for not dating, I think that's fine. Like I've talked about on this show, I've had periods of just kind of not as much as others because I had different priorities, but I do want to caution us against getting too much into this narrative of like, I shouldn't be dating or I shouldn't be socializing or finding people I enjoy being with because there are bad things in the world that could be fixed because you will never get to live a life. And so what are you fighting for anyway? If you're not also letting yourself enjoy this life and help, like, support other people and make their lives better. So I just want to throw that out there as, like, self-care is really important. And I think it's especially important for those of us who really do care deeply. About trying to make things better for the people we care about and for people in the world. So just like, I just want to remind us to also prioritize ourselves and take care because that'll help you do a better job of taking care of the world.

Emily: I love that. Finally, just to kind of give you a couple more things to think about, maybe put some time limits on your swiping. So like maybe 30 minutes tops, not an hour, 15 to 30 minutes sounds good. And be truthful in your bios, put your intentions down, move to some real world connection faster, or you can disengage sooner if you feel like, you know, whatever's happening here isn't going to work out. But don't ghost, don't just completely leave a person on read. And know that rest is not failure. You can take time off of the apps if you need to, or have a dating sabbatical. We're going to talk in a couple of weeks about the ick factor, ick in general, but there's kind of this narrative nowadays that, oh, if I see something that's an ick, I just have to leave a person immediately or not want to be around them. But maybe challenge that a little bit. Like, ask yourself, is this actually a deal breaker? Is this actually an incompatibility? Or am I just unfamiliar with this thing? Can I push past that ick? Or is it just like a total absolute turn off? And finally, ask yourself ultimately, do I need the relationship escalator or the things that I'm looking for in my life because I have this kind of cultural narrative that is someone else's definition of success in a relationship? Or do I just want to have some connection and fun and care and sex and excitement? Because you can find a lot of great people that way. When you're not necessarily going out looking for, I have to find the one, or I have to find somebody in my life who is going to fill like all of these boxes or all of these holes that I feel like I have in my life. But instead, maybe try to date for fun, try to date for friends with benefits or sex, or just friends in general, and see what happens. See maybe if something really amazing comes from that.

Jase: Yeah, I mean, I love the idea of getting your friendship and closeness needs met by your friends. And kind of like thinking these all don't have to fit into one package with one person, which is the usual model that we were all brought up with. And I think that could also maybe give a little more lightness or a little less of a sense of they have to tick every single box. Because I don't think your friends probably tick every single box of your imaginary what you want in a friend, but they're still valuable to you. They're still important to you.

Emily: Absolutely. So we have a question of the week for you all, which is, what do you think is the one thing that could fix the state of dating?

Jase: You will receive a Nobel Prize if you have the correct answer.

Dedeker: I think I already answered it, but people... She's dating.

Emily: The best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is the Episode Discussion channel in our Discord server or you can post in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram at @multiamory_podcast.

Emily: Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and me, Emily Matlack. Our production assistant is Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode’s page on Multiamory.com

569 - Why is Everyone So Tired of Dating?

Are you burnt out from dating?

Dating app fatigue

Dating while non-monogamous

De-centering dating

What about meeting in person?

So how do we continue to date with less burnout?

Transcript

568 - When You Want More Time But Your Partner Won’t Give It