Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks at the future and says, hey you,
Speaker 1: I don't like your boyfriend. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren
Speaker 1: voc Obama, I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about dating, dating in the digital age, uh something.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. Joe and I we're experts at this
Speaker 1: having having our our crazy lifestyles. Is settled down married men, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. I'm speaking as a layman on this issue.
Speaker 1: I am happily married and have never dated anyone online
Speaker 1: in any way. Well, to be fair, I met my
Speaker 1: wife through the internet. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so they
Speaker 1: had the internet back then. Yeah, at that point it
Speaker 1: was just tell net chat rooms, which is about are
Speaker 1: you serious? I am being serious. I met my wife
Speaker 1: and a telnet chat room. That is beautiful. That's a
Speaker 1: heartwarming story for a for a tech stuff. Forward clicked,
Speaker 1: we clicked, We met in person. She uh, she totally
Speaker 1: swept me off my feet. Um. After a couple of
Speaker 1: years we got married and we've been married for sixteen
Speaker 1: years now. So Hey, there you go. The online dating
Speaker 1: works based on our sample size size of one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In this case, again, it wasn't like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about specifically using the
Speaker 1: Internet in an effort to find a date. In this case,
Speaker 1: it was just one of those things where two people
Speaker 1: who had an attraction towards each other just happened to meet.
Speaker 1: It could have happened in any other kind of set
Speaker 1: of circumstances, right, It's not like It's not like I
Speaker 1: was going on this chat line hoping I could find
Speaker 1: a girlfriend. Uh but you know, hey, I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: turn opportunity away. It only knocks the one time. So
Speaker 1: I jumped on that ended up being great. So let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about using the great online age in a search for
Speaker 1: someone to date. Yeah, I got a question, go ahead.
Speaker 1: How does it work? All right? So how do you
Speaker 1: how do you meet? So? Do you just type in
Speaker 1: like date dot com or how do you? Well know it?
Speaker 1: Pretty much it pretty much works in a very similar
Speaker 1: way to how you would I would imagine go about
Speaker 1: meeting people in other in other Hey, it's been sixteen years,
Speaker 1: lare she's laughing at me right now, I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: I've read my clay tablets I kept back in those days,
Speaker 1: and I recall that it would involve very much similar
Speaker 1: things as if you were meeting people in other in
Speaker 1: other sets of circumstances. Right, you might have different social
Speaker 1: cues that you're trying to read off of. But but
Speaker 1: but but sure, you're you're you're gonna find someone who
Speaker 1: you know based on their their pictures or their profile.
Speaker 1: You know that the text that they've putten out there
Speaker 1: about themselves. Hey, I might be attracted to this person,
Speaker 1: and you know they might express reciprocating attraction. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Well let's enumerate here. What are the different ways people
Speaker 1: meet each other online? Well, sure, there's there's social media
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about, you know, general like Facebook, Twitter, Tembler,
Speaker 1: that kind of that kind of you know, sites not
Speaker 1: intended specifically for dating arguably. Yeah, And then and then
Speaker 1: there are sites that are specifically intended to make matches
Speaker 1: online dating services things like match dot com or okay
Speaker 1: Cupid or there dozens out there, and some of them
Speaker 1: cater to very specific populations and some are more general
Speaker 1: population and it all depends upon what you're looking for
Speaker 1: and who you are looking for, you know, So that's
Speaker 1: those are your basic approaches that we're going to cover
Speaker 1: in this but we'll talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: that happens and and and what people how people tend
Speaker 1: to behave on these sites when looking for a date. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should start with something that we all have
Speaker 1: a little more experience with, which is just straight up
Speaker 1: everyday social media. Okay, your Facebook, you're my Space, you're well.
Speaker 1: One thing I would say is that one thing that
Speaker 1: does not seem to change very much in in most
Speaker 1: dating situations, whether you're talking online or offline, is that
Speaker 1: you want to present to the other person your best self. Obviously,
Speaker 1: right right right. A psychologist talk about, you know, you
Speaker 1: having an actual and ideal and an ought self. Um,
Speaker 1: the actual being what you are, the ideal being what
Speaker 1: you feel like you you know, your your ideal that
Speaker 1: basically sums it up, the best version that's possible of you,
Speaker 1: and ought being based on societal expectations, what you think
Speaker 1: you're expected to be. So in other words, it's like
Speaker 1: there's the one that people actually see when you're out
Speaker 1: producing behavior in public. There's the one that you try
Speaker 1: to sort of cultivate when you're creating your social media
Speaker 1: profile that you want people to think of you as,
Speaker 1: or to to cultivate your presentation and to to other
Speaker 1: people in general. This happens in three dimensions just as
Speaker 1: often as it happens online. Yeah. Um. And then I
Speaker 1: guess there's the aught, which is maybe what you do
Speaker 1: when you're talking to a police officer. I don't what
Speaker 1: you what you ought to do? Yeah, um, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so I think there's something really interesting there. Now. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that this cultivation of the presenting, the ideal personality
Speaker 1: happens in person too, and it certainly does. They're like
Speaker 1: different ways of behaving. There's how you behave at home
Speaker 1: versus how you behave let's say, like on a first
Speaker 1: day when you're really trying to get somebody to see
Speaker 1: you how you want to be seen. But one thing
Speaker 1: I think that social media does change is it gives
Speaker 1: you even more power and control over exactly what you
Speaker 1: look like. You have more time to plan what you're
Speaker 1: gonna say, to sort of like create a list of
Speaker 1: interests that you think makes you look good, to select
Speaker 1: photos that are flattering to you only that you have
Speaker 1: the time and the ability to look into what the person,
Speaker 1: assuming that you can see their profile, you can see
Speaker 1: how they behave and what they seem to like, and
Speaker 1: then cultivate your approach so that you actually fit that
Speaker 1: more than you would otherwise. So in other words, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and well, I mean, I mean that that does happen. Still,
Speaker 1: there was research done way back into a way back
Speaker 1: into the eighties no one was alive then, um since
Speaker 1: before the interwebs, about how if you're meeting someone for
Speaker 1: the first time, if you expect them to be a
Speaker 1: potential mate, that you're going to check up on them first,
Speaker 1: You're going to do research, and you're going to tailor
Speaker 1: yourself on that day to what you think they're expectations
Speaker 1: will be. So there is and yes, you're right, Joe.
Speaker 1: The research states that based on the fact that that
Speaker 1: you can you know, it's we do have greater self
Speaker 1: control over our presentation online than we do in other places,
Speaker 1: based partially on the fact that a lot of the
Speaker 1: cues that we pick up on in person are non
Speaker 1: verbal ones and have a little bit less purposeful control
Speaker 1: over that. You know, people will pick up on things
Speaker 1: that we're that we're thinking or feeling by the way
Speaker 1: that we're holding ourselves, by the words that we use
Speaker 1: randomly when so, in other words, it's more than what
Speaker 1: you're just saying. So, for example, if I were single
Speaker 1: and I were trying to ask a girl out, and
Speaker 1: I was I was expressing something and I was not
Speaker 1: being sincere in that it might come across in my
Speaker 1: body language in a way that if I were to
Speaker 1: just type out a message, it might be more difficult
Speaker 1: to detect whether or not I was being sincere. Sure. However,
Speaker 1: there are two arguments kind of countering this, and one
Speaker 1: is that, um, the the social cues that we pick
Speaker 1: up on online are are very deep and and rich,
Speaker 1: and that you know, I mean from from the way that,
Speaker 1: for example, for body language, the way that someone holds
Speaker 1: themselves in their photos, or what the photos are of,
Speaker 1: or what else is going on in the background, you
Speaker 1: can judge a lot about a person. Um even if
Speaker 1: they're a very flattering photo that has been very carefully cropped.
Speaker 1: There's still cues that you can pick up on if
Speaker 1: you know enough about the culture of online dating to
Speaker 1: do so, or if you are paying enough attention to
Speaker 1: want to or um or specifics in the wording, or
Speaker 1: what they link to or what they don't link to,
Speaker 1: or you know, and just any number of things about
Speaker 1: this person's profile that you can really nitpick. So intimacy
Speaker 1: is is developed partially through a process of self disclosure.
Speaker 1: You know, if if you want to get close to someone,
Speaker 1: part of what you're going to do is reveal stuff
Speaker 1: about yourself so that you feel like you're understood. Because
Speaker 1: that's kind of the point um for a lot of
Speaker 1: people in a lot of situations. Uh, So there's a
Speaker 1: drive generally to to reconcile this this autonomy and an
Speaker 1: impression management that we're working with all the time with
Speaker 1: honesty and openness, right and and also, I mean when
Speaker 1: you look at things like Facebook where you are allowed
Speaker 1: to tweak how people see your profile, uh that can
Speaker 1: end up being a way of even just knowing that
Speaker 1: can mean that you end up getting a better idea
Speaker 1: of what the person is looking for, what they're not
Speaker 1: looking for. Yeah, I think there's there's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: that comes out of the super talkument ways that social
Speaker 1: media might be changing dating. Um, So, before you would
Speaker 1: have to make judgments about the way a person carried
Speaker 1: themselves of their body language and all that. Um. But
Speaker 1: now I think maybe there's sort of these meta tells
Speaker 1: um that are not so much about the content of
Speaker 1: the profile, but analyzing the way the person put the
Speaker 1: profile together. For example, you might totally be into the
Speaker 1: idea of a guy who is fairly muscular, But if
Speaker 1: a guy takes pictures of himself with his shirt off
Speaker 1: showing his muscles on Facebook, that's sort of like meta
Speaker 1: analysis of his process of creating the profile might give
Speaker 1: you clues that you would then use to analyze well
Speaker 1: maybe not right, right, absolutely, yeah, that's that's totally I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like like physically fit is clearly and e
Speaker 1: lutionary advantage. But I'd really appreciate if you wouldn't talk
Speaker 1: about my Facebook profile on the podcast. It's a thing though,
Speaker 1: right the Facebook. I lack the muscles to show, and
Speaker 1: even if I had them, I would not be showing
Speaker 1: them off. But but but but it does tell It
Speaker 1: does tell you something about a person if they have
Speaker 1: a great number of carefully posed selfies and you know,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and it doesn't necessarily mean this is a
Speaker 1: good or a bad thing. It may very well just
Speaker 1: mean that this is something that tells you whether or
Speaker 1: not a person would be compatible with who you are, right,
Speaker 1: So we're not we're not trying to suggest that there
Speaker 1: are specific profiles out there and bad. Yeah, it's more
Speaker 1: like suitable or unsuitable based upon your own personal preferences.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the key thing to remember here is
Speaker 1: what what works for one person may totally not work
Speaker 1: for someone else. That's I mean, that's romance, right, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And that's that's the case. That's the case whether you're
Speaker 1: online or offline. We're just trying to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's certain things that you start to learn to look for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and also um, you know, there's some some
Speaker 1: research indicates that the the that anonymity of the internet,
Speaker 1: you know, frequently these days, the false anonymity because if
Speaker 1: your full name is on Facebook, then I mean, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to sign up using your real name,
Speaker 1: we all know. But but you know, people can find
Speaker 1: you through that. And so being online and having a
Speaker 1: little bit of that disconnect from real life might actually
Speaker 1: enable you to be more open and honest than you
Speaker 1: might be in person. You know, if someone is sitting
Speaker 1: there across from you and goes like do you like football?
Speaker 1: You might go, what what do they expect me to say?
Speaker 1: Should I say yes? Should I say no? Like, based
Speaker 1: on their facial cues, I am going to form a
Speaker 1: response in order to not hurt their feelings. But if
Speaker 1: you're doing it into an online profile, then yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean to me, the interesting thing about the social
Speaker 1: media approach is that, you know, normally I think of
Speaker 1: social media interactions, they tend to have been after someone's
Speaker 1: met someone in real life already. I mean, occasionally they
Speaker 1: can happen where you're you realize someone else, you know,
Speaker 1: you know someone, and someone else knows that someone, and
Speaker 1: then the two of you connect, right, So in other words,
Speaker 1: you have a common friend, like show might be a
Speaker 1: common friend between uh, a guy and a girl who
Speaker 1: both discover one another because of their connection through Joe,
Speaker 1: because they both post on his in depth Star Wars
Speaker 1: argument threat on the Return of the Jedi, which that
Speaker 1: we're not done with that discussion by the way, Joe,
Speaker 1: all right, So that's one way. I don't know. Again,
Speaker 1: since I've been out of the dating thing for so
Speaker 1: long and Facebook didn't exist when I was dating, I
Speaker 1: don't know how frequently people have that first interaction through
Speaker 1: social media, as opposed to a like someone meeting someone
Speaker 1: else in a different setting and then saying, um, you know,
Speaker 1: finding them on Facebook that way. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: Do we have any sort of sense generally how often
Speaker 1: people just straight up meet through Facebook? It's a good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's any specific study that I
Speaker 1: have not seen research on that, but that does not
Speaker 1: mean that it doesn't exist. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we'll
Speaker 1: also be talking a lot about stuff where the research
Speaker 1: has been performed, has been through different has often been
Speaker 1: funded by specific parties that are interested in the outcome
Speaker 1: of those results. There are a lot of social media
Speaker 1: quote stats on the Internet that are unsourced and I
Speaker 1: don't know where they come from. Statistics are made up. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should move away from social media and into
Speaker 1: something that's a little more advanced. Like okay, so on
Speaker 1: social media you could be forging romantic relationships that way,
Speaker 1: just trying to sort of self select look at people's profiles, like,
Speaker 1: oh I might be interested in that person. You might
Speaker 1: just fall into it. Yeah, what about a service that
Speaker 1: specific lead designed to foster romantic relationships? Joe, have you
Speaker 1: heard about tact tact tact T a C T. And
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about knowing what to say and when
Speaker 1: not to say something. Yeah, let me get out my
Speaker 1: tactle box. It's it stands for Technical Automated Compatibility Testing.
Speaker 1: That sounds like online dating sort of. It actually precedes
Speaker 1: online dating. Okay, turned back the clock to nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Holy just know this story is gonna involve
Speaker 1: like vicarious embarrassment. No no, no, no no no. Lewis
Speaker 1: Altfest alright, he had gone to this event where he
Speaker 1: saw a computer that would match things together, and then
Speaker 1: he thought, huh, I bet we could make a computer
Speaker 1: program that could match people together. And he got with
Speaker 1: a computer programmer named Robert Ross, and together Ross and
Speaker 1: Altfest collaborated to create Project ACT. Like I said, Technical
Speaker 1: Automated Compatibility Testing. It became New York City's first computer
Speaker 1: dating service. And so the way it would work is
Speaker 1: that clients would come in and answer multiple choice questions,
Speaker 1: a lot of them, like more than a hundred of them.
Speaker 1: And you would answer all these different multiple choice questions.
Speaker 1: You would also be uh asked to choose dislike for
Speaker 1: things that you did not like to be like a
Speaker 1: twenty or something items on the list, and you would
Speaker 1: pick all the things on that list that you specifically
Speaker 1: did not like. Uh. And on top of that, you
Speaker 1: had a couple of other kind of general questions, like
Speaker 1: the men were asked to evaluate various ladies hairstyles. The
Speaker 1: hairstyles were drawn and the men had to just decide
Speaker 1: which ones they liked him which ones they didn't. Ladies
Speaker 1: would be asked to what kind of mental uh image
Speaker 1: do they have of their ideal man? Is it a
Speaker 1: guy chopping wood or is it I'm totally not joking.
Speaker 1: So you'd fill you'd fill out, you fill out this
Speaker 1: whole whole sheet, and then you would have it fed
Speaker 1: in and it was essentially become like a punch card.
Speaker 1: It would fill. You turn that over to the computer.
Speaker 1: It was a IBM Foudred series computer and you would
Speaker 1: get a you would get up to five matches. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not like you needed a bar in trade cards,
Speaker 1: and then you each have to take them to the
Speaker 1: computer dating And so you fill out the form and
Speaker 1: you turn it in, They put it through the computer
Speaker 1: and then based upon the other people who have also
Speaker 1: in the database, it would Yeah, so you would get
Speaker 1: five matches. Men would get five pink cards because pink
Speaker 1: is for ladies, and ladies would get five blue cards.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, so you would get you would get
Speaker 1: five matches, and then you could, Uh. The way it
Speaker 1: would work is that it would the computer program would
Speaker 1: match you up based upon other people's answers to those
Speaker 1: same questions. So there'd be a certain threshold there, right,
Speaker 1: and if you had someone above that threshold, they were
Speaker 1: considered a match. Below that threshold, it was considered to
Speaker 1: be incompatible and they would not be matched up. And
Speaker 1: this was in the uh, the East Side over in
Speaker 1: New York, where things were a little more kind of
Speaker 1: fast and loose and crazy at the time. Things are
Speaker 1: pretty GROOVYIXI. Yeah, so yeah, it was, you know, originally
Speaker 1: it was one of those things that was kind of
Speaker 1: a niche market, but it quickly became very popular in
Speaker 1: all of New York. And that approach of taking the
Speaker 1: profile of questions and using that to match up against
Speaker 1: other potential dates, that is the basis of computer dating today,
Speaker 1: although now some sites go a couple of steps further
Speaker 1: to make it a little more complex, but that's the
Speaker 1: basic idea, right right. I was listening to that, thinking
Speaker 1: like I did that on Okay Cupid, except instead of
Speaker 1: answering like a hundred questions, I probably spent like a
Speaker 1: thousand questions worth back when I was in college and
Speaker 1: really bored. Yeah, was it like Netflix, Like you could
Speaker 1: just keep on going and going basically forever. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the idea being that the more, the more, the more
Speaker 1: of amation you give, the more robust the profile will be. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not this is not meant for necessarily for
Speaker 1: the person who you're matched up to to see like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is how she answered all of her questions. Here's
Speaker 1: how I answered all my questions. And here's a compatibility, right,
Speaker 1: it's a you know, based on what you're looking for,
Speaker 1: you know, you know the same the same thing that
Speaker 1: might happen with a with a roommate matchup in college
Speaker 1: or something like that, like like like how clean or
Speaker 1: messy are you? How like like how noisy are you? Versus?
Speaker 1: What's your expectation? Are you a smoker? Are you? Do
Speaker 1: you mind people who smoke? If you aren't a smoker,
Speaker 1: you know? Are you a drinker? Is your ideal Friday
Speaker 1: night going out to a bar? Is it staying home
Speaker 1: and reading? Is it going to have a game somewhere.
Speaker 1: How flexible are you about that kind of thing? Do
Speaker 1: you enjoy making decisions or having decisions made for you?
Speaker 1: You know that kind of that kind of balance, right,
Speaker 1: And so of course the more questions you you answer,
Speaker 1: the more reliable your profile is, assuming and huge quoting marks,
Speaker 1: assuming that one you're being genuine and to that the
Speaker 1: algorithm is a decent algorithm. Oh, that's got to be
Speaker 1: something very interesting in designing these tests, because I bet
Speaker 1: people don't always say exactly what's true about themselves. I
Speaker 1: bet in a lot of cases because they don't actually know. Well,
Speaker 1: sure you know that that and that idea of well,
Speaker 1: I mean if you know the same way that the
Speaker 1: what are the Myers Briggs tests will will repeat questions
Speaker 1: in slightly different ways. That's I know that with stuff
Speaker 1: like Okay Cupid, they'll do that pretty often to get
Speaker 1: a more full concept of what you really meant by
Speaker 1: the yes or no or a bright Because every now
Speaker 1: and then, of course, you know, you get a question
Speaker 1: where you read the question, you look at the answers
Speaker 1: and you think, none of these answers really are representative
Speaker 1: of how I feel about this. But I'll choose this
Speaker 1: one because it's close, or you do. I'll choose this
Speaker 1: one because I perceive that as being a better answer,
Speaker 1: even if I don't actually feel that way. So again,
Speaker 1: it becomes that thing about presenting your best self to
Speaker 1: the other person. But there are some sites that figured
Speaker 1: out how to get around that. Really. Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: call it revealed preference. So that's brilliant. No, that's what
Speaker 1: I was asking. Yeah, yeah, so this this the term
Speaker 1: I saw it, uh, revealed by a guy named Greg Blatt,
Speaker 1: who is the CEO of the parent company that owns
Speaker 1: match dot com. And um, he said, uh, what you
Speaker 1: do is more important than what you say, and that
Speaker 1: is where you get this revealed preference. The idea is that, uh,
Speaker 1: the algorithm takes into account not just the things you
Speaker 1: say you're looking for or the things you say are
Speaker 1: important to you, but also your actual behavior when you're
Speaker 1: using the site. So let's say that Let's say I'm
Speaker 1: a single guy and I'm looking for a date, and
Speaker 1: I've said that I really like tall blonds, but I
Speaker 1: keep looking at tiny little redheads on there, and and
Speaker 1: even though I've said i want tall blonds for some reason,
Speaker 1: on my profile. I'm constantly clicking on all the pictures
Speaker 1: of these these redheads were like five ft one or something,
Speaker 1: or or if you say, you know, appearance doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: but all of the profiles that you click on our
Speaker 1: people with a high level of symmetry in their faces, right,
Speaker 1: Or I say that that I think I want someone
Speaker 1: who has very similar political views as myself, but then
Speaker 1: I'm spending a lot of time looking at people who
Speaker 1: don't necessarily fit that maybe, or talking to like maybe
Speaker 1: the only people that you continually chat with are ones
Speaker 1: who you can have a really good argument. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: these all of these kind of activities getting factored in,
Speaker 1: and so what they call it is they call it dissonance.
Speaker 1: It's the dissonance between what you have said you wanted
Speaker 1: and what your actual behavior is telling the computer. So
Speaker 1: here's how they take that into account. They take the
Speaker 1: dissonance between your actual answers and your behavior, and they
Speaker 1: look for other people who have similar dissonance between their
Speaker 1: actions and their behavior, because I figure, if you're both
Speaker 1: being deceptive, whether it's the way exactly if you're if
Speaker 1: you're being deceptive, whether it's self deceptive or otherwise, you're
Speaker 1: probably a pretty good match that foster is a wonderful
Speaker 1: kind of enabling relationship. Look, we're talking about forming relationships, right,
Speaker 1: We're not necessarily talking about finding someone to fix someone else.
Speaker 1: I think we've all sort of been at least we're
Speaker 1: aware of situations where people have tried to quote unquote
Speaker 1: fix other people and that rarely turns out well. Oh share. Also, also,
Speaker 1: the level of honesty and openness that you have with
Speaker 1: someone is going to depend on the involvement and intimacy
Speaker 1: of your relationship. And that's whether it's online or offline.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's you can't say that people lie
Speaker 1: on the internet as opposed to in real life, because
Speaker 1: I've people lie in real life all the time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I usually do at least three times a podcast, But
Speaker 1: it's up to the listener to figure out what those
Speaker 1: three times are. So here's another interesting thing about these algorithms, Joe.
Speaker 1: So we've already talked about the fact that it's it's
Speaker 1: looking at your behavior and figuring out what you really
Speaker 1: want versus what you say you want, and then looking
Speaker 1: for other people where you are what they really want
Speaker 1: versus what they say they want. It also starts to
Speaker 1: predict and extrapolate based upon what limited interaction you've had.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you do not go on the
Speaker 1: site regularly, but you use the site. You just you're
Speaker 1: just not on there. You're not contacting lots of people
Speaker 1: sending messages. You've done it a couple of times, maybe,
Speaker 1: but you're not like blanketing the the entire website with
Speaker 1: your your comments or or or requests or anything along
Speaker 1: those lines. What these algorithms will do as they will
Speaker 1: match you you up based upon your behaviors to all
Speaker 1: the past history of everybody else who has ever used
Speaker 1: the site, and then look for matches between you and
Speaker 1: the way other people have behaved in the past, and
Speaker 1: if it finds a match, it then predicts that you're
Speaker 1: gonna behave in pretty much the same way those people
Speaker 1: back then behaved. And therefore we'll start not unique. Well
Speaker 1: when you start, when you start looking at those big numbers,
Speaker 1: that does seem to happen. Yeah, So so that's the
Speaker 1: thing is that it's actually saying that. All right, So
Speaker 1: Joe sent two messages over the past month, but based
Speaker 1: upon who he contacted and his behavior, these are the
Speaker 1: people we think he would be best suited to to
Speaker 1: be matched with because we've decided that Joe is just
Speaker 1: like this guy named Richard who used the site six
Speaker 1: years ago and behaved in the same way and was
Speaker 1: way more active for a longer period. So we're just
Speaker 1: gonna extrapolate Joe's behavior to say he would follow in
Speaker 1: the same footsteps as Richard from six years ago. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Richard is dead now because on the site, all right,
Speaker 1: well you know there's Joe. Just watch your back, man.
Speaker 1: So uh, At any rate, Yeah, it's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: that the algorithms not don't just look at at what
Speaker 1: you say you want versus what you apparently want based
Speaker 1: on your behavior, but it extrapolates future behavior based upon
Speaker 1: the huge sample size of data that some of these
Speaker 1: sites have. That's really interesting. So when I thought about
Speaker 1: how these algorithms work before, I typically thought of them
Speaker 1: as um, I don't know, sort of creating some data
Speaker 1: that would quickly help other people know what they needed
Speaker 1: to know about you. But it seems like it can
Speaker 1: also help you figure out what you yourself want but
Speaker 1: don't know that you want. Absolutely I would in the
Speaker 1: case of Okay Cupid and my early college experience with it,
Speaker 1: When I first joined the site, it was because they
Speaker 1: had a lot of quizzes up and I was in
Speaker 1: that I'm bored on the internet in college phase where
Speaker 1: I liked taking a whole lot of quizzes, and they
Speaker 1: made me sign up for They made me sign up
Speaker 1: for an account and I was like, well fine, and
Speaker 1: then they kind of sent me a personality profile and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, okay, fine, and then they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's some people you might want to date. And I
Speaker 1: was like, whoa. That wasn't why I signed up for
Speaker 1: this thing, but I guess you're doing that now, and yeah,
Speaker 1: actually that was okay. Cupid took a very interesting approach
Speaker 1: that way. Like you said, they had all these different
Speaker 1: sort of meme surveys where, you know, to the point
Speaker 1: now where there are thousands of them, right, but all
Speaker 1: personality profile stuff right Essentially, you know, it's it's stuff
Speaker 1: that you're meant to take for fun, but at the
Speaker 1: same time they're gathering in formation that are that could
Speaker 1: potentially set you up on quote unquote the perfect date.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty smart marketing model, because I mean, who
Speaker 1: doesn't get a little bit curious about like, well, what
Speaker 1: don't I know about myself. Well, I got another. I
Speaker 1: got another. So let's let's go beyond algorithms. Have something
Speaker 1: else to tell you? Yeah, have you ever thought about well,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we're out of this one, Joe, Lauren,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about trying to match yourself up
Speaker 1: with someone based upon your DNA and their DNA that
Speaker 1: let's take the romance right out, Lauren. That's that sounds
Speaker 1: like a statistically awful Aren't there laws about that? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a sounds like like an Eltis Huxley novel or something.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a a service called Scientific Match that
Speaker 1: tries to pair people up according to their DNA. Do
Speaker 1: we okay, look y'all like like we we just figured
Speaker 1: out this whole genome thing like like ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm going to be honest here. According to
Speaker 1: Scientific Match, if you have a really good DNA match,
Speaker 1: it supposedly it's the person better female orgasms, is what
Speaker 1: I was trying to say, because that's that's how they
Speaker 1: that's how they marketed as they say that a good
Speaker 1: DNA match leads to more frequent and intense female orgasm.
Speaker 1: What's your source on this Scientific Match that's their source.
Speaker 1: That's what they're claiming. Okay, okay, hey, um so so
Speaker 1: so sexual reproduction and health issues are that's I I
Speaker 1: cannot even I think I need to laugh for another
Speaker 1: about five minutes before I can talk about this serious.
Speaker 1: That is so completely ludicrous that Okay, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Another question. So their idea is you want to be
Speaker 1: as genetically similar as that's what I said. I said
Speaker 1: DNA match. They're matching you based on your DNA, not
Speaker 1: that you are a perfect match on DNA. Then my
Speaker 1: question would be, like, what is their rubric for making
Speaker 1: the match? Because I don't think genetic similarity is what
Speaker 1: you want to get. I don't imagine it's genetic similarity,
Speaker 1: but I have no it's just like if your brother
Speaker 1: is in the data base. Uh. And never mind the
Speaker 1: yeah that I don't know specifically what they're they're there
Speaker 1: method is like I don't know what it is. And
Speaker 1: and no, none of these sites, by the way, none
Speaker 1: of the sites were talking about scientific match or okay,
Speaker 1: cubiter match dot com or any of the other ones
Speaker 1: talk about their actual algorithms because that's their quote unquote
Speaker 1: secret sauce. That's I'm skeptical of all this. It seems
Speaker 1: shrouded in mystery and causes some of us to laugh. Joe,
Speaker 1: you know, any any technology sufficiently advanced will seem as
Speaker 1: if it were magic. Um, I would I would like
Speaker 1: to I would like to put in, as the medical correspondent,
Speaker 1: not only the single lady correspondent here today, that that
Speaker 1: that that orgasms are not, in fact that be all
Speaker 1: end all of any sexual encounter, and that that is
Speaker 1: in fact a mistake that I think has been really
Speaker 1: born of the increase in watching pornography. Not that I
Speaker 1: think that that's a bad thing at all, but I
Speaker 1: think that I think that there is perhaps more emphasis
Speaker 1: than it's necessary on orgasm. I just wanted to put
Speaker 1: that in. I see. So you're suggesting that perhaps people
Speaker 1: have a realistic expectation exactly, and that much sexual pleasure
Speaker 1: can be gained without organs. This also leads to This
Speaker 1: also leads to the discussion that there are different people
Speaker 1: have different motivations for looking at online dating, right, So
Speaker 1: you have some people who are transition well, and that's
Speaker 1: why I had that there. Actually, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: of course some of us are are twelve and are
Speaker 1: all giggly. I'm counting myself there by the way, I've
Speaker 1: just managing to hold it down through uh mostly a
Speaker 1: lack of caffeine. Um. Anyway, there are different reasons for
Speaker 1: people to pursue online dating. Some people are looking to
Speaker 1: settle down. Some people want to find a long term relationship.
Speaker 1: They want to find that special someone and they want
Speaker 1: to be able to rely upon that person, and that's
Speaker 1: that's what they're looking for. There are other people who
Speaker 1: are using online dating in order to find the next
Speaker 1: physical encounter, and that's that's all they are looking for,
Speaker 1: or just for companionship in a temporary way, or um
Speaker 1: for very temporary companionship. If they're you know, breezing through
Speaker 1: a city and they just want to to to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with somebody, or maybe they don't know what
Speaker 1: they're looking for, that's also a possibility to something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this makes creating those algorithms even more tricky because
Speaker 1: let's say that you have uh, for example, men in general.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about generalities here, but we're just talking
Speaker 1: about general trends, not specific cases, because obviously we could
Speaker 1: get anecdotal and this would go off the rails. But
Speaker 1: men in general tend to be more likely to be
Speaker 1: looking for a quick physical encounter than women, and they
Speaker 1: tend to send a lot of messages out in order
Speaker 1: to essentially casting out a lot of lines to try
Speaker 1: and get a bite. Also in in certainly in modern
Speaker 1: stern society, men are generally seen as the aggressors in
Speaker 1: a relationship and the initiators the initiators, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: aggressor from mathias a strong word. Um, but in women,
Speaker 1: I mean, even from my personal sample size of one,
Speaker 1: I have seen a lot of friends, you know, even
Speaker 1: my absolute most feminist modern out there. Why could do friends?
Speaker 1: Um uh talking you know, asking like is it okay
Speaker 1: if I ask a dude on a date? Like it
Speaker 1: is it okay? If I ask a dude on a date?
Speaker 1: What will he think of me? Yeah, it's not okay
Speaker 1: to do it to me because my wife would kill you.
Speaker 1: So I don't even think about it. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I I understand that entirely because it happen. No, it
Speaker 1: would never, It wouldn't have happened anyway. Uh, which is
Speaker 1: I'm perfectly fine with. I'm a happily married me. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think that it's still a societal UM question.
Speaker 1: I don't know how people contact each other well, because
Speaker 1: we definitely have we definitely have things in the Western society.
Speaker 1: We definitely have certain certain norms that are you know,
Speaker 1: norms change over time, but they change very gradually. Well,
Speaker 1: that leads me to an interesting question, then, uh, is
Speaker 1: online dating changing these norms? Oh? I would feel like
Speaker 1: it's spent a lot of a lot of change and
Speaker 1: or or a lot of changing perception. There's at least
Speaker 1: an increased level of awareness I think now I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I would say that's not changing nearly fast enough. I
Speaker 1: mean just based upon things like getting outside the dating
Speaker 1: scheme entirely, but just looking at things like rampant misogyny
Speaker 1: online tells me that things are actually not even as
Speaker 1: um advanced advanced as I had thoughts. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: even if people are saying I'm just joking to think
Speaker 1: that that's something okay to joke about, it suggests to
Speaker 1: me that that I was very naive and thinking that
Speaker 1: we were further along than that. But the Internet also
Speaker 1: you can with that specific example, I think you could
Speaker 1: argue UM gives people an opportunity to say things that
Speaker 1: they know full well they would never say in public
Speaker 1: where they can get punched, right, But that just shows
Speaker 1: that just shows that that's the underlying that's this underlying
Speaker 1: problem though, right. It just it means that sure it
Speaker 1: wasn't voiced maybe as often before the Internet, but it
Speaker 1: was certainly there. It just wasn't it didn't have a
Speaker 1: voice before. But that doesn't mean that there was an absence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that sometimes an unfortunately, like one of
Speaker 1: the unfortunate side effects of all the data that these
Speaker 1: kinds of dating sites gather is that people use them
Speaker 1: to to further attempt to illustrate a gender divide on
Speaker 1: issues like like a lot of the time, because we're
Speaker 1: collecting all of this personal data about people in this
Speaker 1: dating situation that is on many sites by and large,
Speaker 1: straight hetersexual male female um that people use that to
Speaker 1: make assumptions about women and about men that are are
Speaker 1: really they're not necessarily realistic, They necessarily reflect the certainly
Speaker 1: not helpful. All right, Yeah, well, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: they may be to the users at that site who
Speaker 1: are looking for a heterosexual relationship. But there are some
Speaker 1: other problems with this big data issue. One of them is,
Speaker 1: of course, something we've talked about before on this podcast
Speaker 1: with other things where you get lots and lots of
Speaker 1: options opened up called the tyranny of choice. That concept
Speaker 1: that when you have so many options that you don't
Speaker 1: know where to start, or that you it gives you
Speaker 1: an illusion that you have, uh, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to go with quote unquote the best choice. But the
Speaker 1: best choice is something that you're defining in your own head.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean that the person you end up
Speaker 1: sending a message to is actually your best match. You
Speaker 1: might be going by your own set of criteria and
Speaker 1: not even realize that you're passing up the opportunity to
Speaker 1: meet someone that could genuinely make you very happy wow
Speaker 1: or yeah. Yeah. You can even have this sort of
Speaker 1: like constant sense of dissatisfaction with whoever you end up
Speaker 1: with because you have this lingering idea that I hope,
Speaker 1: but there's so many other people in my inbox and
Speaker 1: I've gone to the next dial over. I might have
Speaker 1: found the best girlfriends and this one's pretty darn good,
Speaker 1: but I bet the next one would have been even better,
Speaker 1: And now you know what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: And that there's also the issue of trading up the
Speaker 1: idea that you will start dating one person for a while,
Speaker 1: but if you see someone better online, you will then
Speaker 1: dump the first person and start dating the second person.
Speaker 1: There there's some psychologists who have said that this ends
Speaker 1: up essentially reducing people to the role of products. That
Speaker 1: instead of thinking of, uh at someone on the other
Speaker 1: end as a potential a person you could potentially date
Speaker 1: and form a relationship with someone that you could have
Speaker 1: a meaningful relationship with, it's you know, your next step
Speaker 1: to the perfect mate, whatever that might be in your mind. Right.
Speaker 1: Although I do want to put in that that matchmaking
Speaker 1: and even mediated self matchmaking is not a new thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, people can take out newspaper personals. It's it's
Speaker 1: the mid ninete century. Uh and and even even before then,
Speaker 1: you know, I I would assume that that in some
Speaker 1: way debutante announcements or something like that would be very
Speaker 1: structured in in this in this like check out what
Speaker 1: this nice lady? Yes, and you know, look how rich
Speaker 1: her family is. Yeah. The other issue, the other side
Speaker 1: of that coin, the idea of trading up that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep looking even though I found someone right now. Uh.
Speaker 1: First of all, going into the idea that the person
Speaker 1: that you connect with needs is going to be the
Speaker 1: one is as just as dangerous a mindset right to
Speaker 1: think that, oh, well, I found this person, the computer
Speaker 1: says we're a great match. Therefore everything's going to work
Speaker 1: out perfectly. That's not how reality works. So there tends
Speaker 1: to be this real disconnect. And in fact, Chris Coin,
Speaker 1: who was one of the founders of okay Cupid, told
Speaker 1: The New Yorker that it's a selection problem when you
Speaker 1: round up a bunch of people who want to settle down.
Speaker 1: Some of them are really really key, so they will
Speaker 1: just turn down options that might have been fantastic for them.
Speaker 1: Others are not picky enough, and after they get maybe
Speaker 1: one message, they're like, all right, I gotta jump on
Speaker 1: this because who knows, you know, I may never have
Speaker 1: this opportunity again. And it's this get burnt out potentially
Speaker 1: be based on poor experiences. Yeah, both both types of
Speaker 1: individuals could end up being very much unsatisfied in the
Speaker 1: long run because of this these tendencies. So, and it's
Speaker 1: it's difficult to tell someone who you know, they they
Speaker 1: feel like there's something missing in their life and they
Speaker 1: want to find that it's really hard to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: slow it down, you know dat a few people see
Speaker 1: what see who out there is a good match, learn
Speaker 1: more about them, learn about yourself in the process, and
Speaker 1: that's going to make you the happiest when you're like, no,
Speaker 1: I have a hole in my heart right now and
Speaker 1: it goes all the way to China. Hey, I should
Speaker 1: use that as my quote. Well, okay, so I feel
Speaker 1: like so far we have taken maybe an unduly kind
Speaker 1: of skeptical or negative tone when I don't think that
Speaker 1: was our intention, not at all. It kind of came
Speaker 1: up with the genetic matching and stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: I wanna say that I think online dating provides a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunities for people, especially I would imagine people who,
Speaker 1: um say, are looking for someone that they might be
Speaker 1: unlikely to find in their home social circle. Sure, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: one thing, it can extend at home social circle well
Speaker 1: outside of what that would normally be. So, for example,
Speaker 1: we're here in Atlanta. There are a lot of different
Speaker 1: places in the metropolitan Atlanta area. I mean there's something
Speaker 1: like thirteen counties in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys, but I don't tend
Speaker 1: to venture out of two of those. So, uh, so
Speaker 1: that the thing is that that might give you the
Speaker 1: opportunity to meet people that otherwise your social circle just
Speaker 1: never would overlap with. You know, that's the that's a possibility.
Speaker 1: But then on top of that, there's also, um, well,
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of studies about how frequently
Speaker 1: these sort of things, like how frequently online meeting someone
Speaker 1: online accounts for the way you met your date. Although
Speaker 1: I should say that these surveys are almost always commissioned
Speaker 1: by some company that owns a dating site, so there's
Speaker 1: a question of bias there obviously. But one of them,
Speaker 1: for example, said that meeting people online is now the
Speaker 1: third most common way for people to meet for dating,
Speaker 1: So after work in school would be number one, and
Speaker 1: being introduced by friends or family would be number two.
Speaker 1: So which that makes sense? Something, what are the others, like,
Speaker 1: you know, going out to some place like a bar
Speaker 1: or all right, all right now, or uh, you know,
Speaker 1: wandering aimlessly through neighborhoods. Um, that's what I tried in
Speaker 1: my teenage years. Did not work. Well, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: recommend it, uh, but you know, it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: method of mass communication, and anytime that you have one
Speaker 1: of those, of course people are going to and and
Speaker 1: you know, like like many other things, you get out
Speaker 1: of it what you put into it. Really at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I think, sure, yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: also it's also there are other things as well. There's
Speaker 1: there's a real issue A lot of people point out
Speaker 1: an issue with the way that these dating sites make money.
Speaker 1: Some of them are subscription based, so you pay a
Speaker 1: certain amount per month in order to be a member.
Speaker 1: Others are ad revenue based, and so it's a free service,
Speaker 1: but they get ad revenue and they possibly are using
Speaker 1: your information as part of that sort of like the
Speaker 1: way possibly yeah, well I'd say possibly only because I
Speaker 1: can't cover all of them, so there maybe one out
Speaker 1: there that doesn't. But in general, uh, these are the
Speaker 1: ways they're making money, and some people have said that
Speaker 1: really there's a disconnect there. There's a disconnect between the
Speaker 1: way they're making money and whether or not they're actually
Speaker 1: providing a successful service. So in other words, they're making
Speaker 1: money whether or not the matches themselves are working. So
Speaker 1: there's a disconnect between performance and revenue. If their revenue
Speaker 1: were tied directly to successful matchmaking. Then it would be
Speaker 1: a totally different thing, and you would have these companies
Speaker 1: have to really try and figure out how to make
Speaker 1: that you know, when when when when do they when?
Speaker 1: When do you ask someone to pay you, like, like
Speaker 1: when they're walking down the aisle, like you get a
Speaker 1: textification in. But see, that's the thing is that it's
Speaker 1: not that it's not that they're doing something wrong, it's
Speaker 1: that the model itself doesn't work in that sense. There's
Speaker 1: no incentive to get it right other than you don't
Speaker 1: want to have customers just say I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pay for this anymore. So the problem though, is that
Speaker 1: it's just by the very nature of the business, there's
Speaker 1: no connection between your your your product, and your revenue
Speaker 1: in for I mean, you know, in one of these
Speaker 1: companies eyes, a very satisfied customer is the same thing
Speaker 1: as an extremely dissatisfied customer. Either way, they're not coming
Speaker 1: back to the site. Well, yeah, I would almost argue
Speaker 1: that it would seem, just from an outsider's point of view,
Speaker 1: that the most uh the most productive business model for
Speaker 1: them would be to create a very engaging experience that
Speaker 1: keeps people returning, right so that they get matched with
Speaker 1: people who are almost but not quite right for them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that they continuous like, well, well it was nice
Speaker 1: or he was nice, but it just didn't work with
Speaker 1: the Twitter or Facebook kind of, you know, the scrolling
Speaker 1: feed model. Like really, all you have to do is
Speaker 1: to create a site experience that people are going to
Speaker 1: be very glued to. Now here's the question for you.
Speaker 1: Do you know what demographic is the fastest growing demographic
Speaker 1: for online dating sites? I would guess or did you know?
Speaker 1: I would guess retired persons. Yeah, over fifty. That's because
Speaker 1: you've got a generation of you know, people who are
Speaker 1: entering that age who are already computer savvy. Because when
Speaker 1: you look at previous generations, there were people who are
Speaker 1: like I don't know how this works, but now we've
Speaker 1: got people who have been using them. And the early
Speaker 1: adopters of these services I assume would have been people
Speaker 1: in the in the set probably yeah, I would imagine. So.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the fastest growing And keep in mind it's
Speaker 1: the fastest growing demographic, It doesn't necessarily mean that they dominate.
Speaker 1: It just means there are the there are numbers, are
Speaker 1: the ones that are growing the fastest. And also I
Speaker 1: thought I'd talked about one other thing. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a duplicitous tactic that some dating sites use
Speaker 1: called ghosting. Ghosting, Yeah, that sounds creepy. So ghosting is
Speaker 1: where the dating site creates some fake profiles in order
Speaker 1: to lure people to use the service. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: they might take a picture of a particularly attractive person
Speaker 1: and create a profile that makes them seem like a
Speaker 1: pretty good person, a pretty nice match, and they use
Speaker 1: that as the advertising for the site so that people
Speaker 1: will go and subscribe to it and look for people
Speaker 1: like the one they saw in the ad. You know,
Speaker 1: a pretty person who's like I really like music and dogs.
Speaker 1: I like dogs who play music. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: and so it's it's something that a lot of sites use.
Speaker 1: In fact, I don't have the name of the site
Speaker 1: in front of me. I just remember this from reading
Speaker 1: the article that there was one site that had something
Speaker 1: like thirteen hundred fake profiles on it in an attempt
Speaker 1: to get people to use the service. I'm totally skeezed
Speaker 1: out right now. Yeah, that's one thing that I think
Speaker 1: would be interesting to look into, would be to use
Speaker 1: these sites not for just information about the sites, but
Speaker 1: about dating in general, So like, is there a certain
Speaker 1: facial expression people make in profile pictures that is more
Speaker 1: likely to get clicked on? Or I think that it
Speaker 1: all ends up being very much. You know, obviously I
Speaker 1: would say that there there's some that I think would
Speaker 1: discourage clicking. So for example, furrowed brow with blood all
Speaker 1: over your face is probably a big no no for
Speaker 1: a large percentage of the population. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of That's kind of the point
Speaker 1: I was about to make, though, Joe, is that I
Speaker 1: think that I don't think there's like the universal this
Speaker 1: is the thing that's going to get the clicks I want,
Speaker 1: because there'd be and there would be curves, there would
Speaker 1: be within certain social segments and and different demographics. So
Speaker 1: in other words, you would sit there and look like
Speaker 1: I'm looking for someone who belongs to this particular demographic.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see what this particular demographic statistically responds to,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to recreate that in picture. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm going to be a tiny bit
Speaker 1: culturally insensitive, you know, For for example, I I'm looking
Speaker 1: for someone who I think is going to be basically
Speaker 1: like myself, which is like kind of nerdy and maybe
Speaker 1: like go team unphysically fit, and you know, and and
Speaker 1: someone who is a real affinity for cupcakes. You know,
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, and and well but you know, and
Speaker 1: so so if someone has all the muscles and a
Speaker 1: really fake tan, I might go not that person, not
Speaker 1: that person at all. But but that might be exactly
Speaker 1: what somebody else is looking at. Well, and and there
Speaker 1: there is something else I saw that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: And again I don't have this. I didn't write down
Speaker 1: the research here, so I apologize. But it was interesting
Speaker 1: in that it was another one of those general generalities
Speaker 1: where generally women liked men's pictures where they weren't looking
Speaker 1: directly into the camera, and men liked women's picture is
Speaker 1: where they were looking directly into the camera. And the
Speaker 1: armchair psychology response, because this is something else that we
Speaker 1: all discussed before we start recording this, is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the quote unquote research in this field are
Speaker 1: bloggers just saying I think this is the case. But
Speaker 1: in this case, the armchair research was that perhaps a
Speaker 1: direct gaze into the camera by a man would be
Speaker 1: seen as aggressive to buy a woman, whereas men looking
Speaker 1: at women looking directly in the camera, I feel like
Speaker 1: their entire attention has been focused upon them, which men love.
Speaker 1: These are the generalities that were being said in that
Speaker 1: particular article. That sounds like an interpretation. Yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are you know,
Speaker 1: invalid or valid. It just means that I don't know this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a very We talked about hard sciences and
Speaker 1: soft sciences. This one is uh, anytime they've got psychology
Speaker 1: and yeah, this is this is a little yeah. And also, again,
Speaker 1: like we said, it's hard to get a it's hard
Speaker 1: to get a study funded that isn't funded directly by
Speaker 1: one of the interested parties that has a vested interest
Speaker 1: in the outcome of that study. Right, So if there
Speaker 1: were more independent studies that we could look at that
Speaker 1: were you know, funded and completely independently so that we
Speaker 1: could feel better about the research, or if they had
Speaker 1: more than you know, a couple of hundreds of people
Speaker 1: in their sample size, then maybe we could cite that.
Speaker 1: But you know, not that many people have a really
Speaker 1: tackled it. I think it's due for an ignoble personally. So, um,
Speaker 1: what's the future of dating? Dating? And technology twenty to
Speaker 1: fifty years years. Based on everything we've said, we'll all
Speaker 1: be in the singularity and so it won't matter. We'll
Speaker 1: all have robot boyfriends and girlfriends. Here's a question. So
Speaker 1: imagine we get to some of these other things we've
Speaker 1: talked about, like a negligible senescence. Uh, and you're living
Speaker 1: for you know, everybody's living for hundreds of years or
Speaker 1: something like that. Does that change relationships and dating? I mean,
Speaker 1: do people get married because they're like, well, it'll be
Speaker 1: this many years. They have to endure her company for
Speaker 1: maybe fifty years? Seriously, I mean, I mean, you know
Speaker 1: a bit based on the documentary work of Say and Rice,
Speaker 1: you know, those those long term relationships don't necessarily work out.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, I think that and and different
Speaker 1: different futurists have talked about that very thing, about whether
Speaker 1: or not relationships would be a lifelong mating situation if
Speaker 1: lifelong equals three hundred years, because don't you eventually get
Speaker 1: sick of someone or you know, or might you decide
Speaker 1: that the way that you can learn about many different
Speaker 1: disciplines over the course of your extremely long lifetime, maybe
Speaker 1: you want to have many different relationship experiences, or or
Speaker 1: just that the fact that people do change over time,
Speaker 1: and so that then it comes to that whole thing,
Speaker 1: do you grow together or do you grow apart the
Speaker 1: idea that if you have two people who were very
Speaker 1: much compatible early on in the relations and ship and
Speaker 1: their compatibility decreases over time, then what happens. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like there'll be like standard units of matrimony, like
Speaker 1: your average marriage is a is a contract that is
Speaker 1: designed from the beginning to last seventy years. Please make weddings,
Speaker 1: you know, try and reverse the trend of making weddings
Speaker 1: less and less romantic over time. I'm kind of sick
Speaker 1: of it going to a wedding where I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is I'm not saying we need to make it fancy.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that needs to be genuine. I've gone
Speaker 1: to a lot of weddings where I felt like I'm
Speaker 1: in the middle of a production and it's everything is fake. Okay, son,
Speaker 1: So let's not make it contractually obligated. So okay, agree, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's you know, but but to
Speaker 1: answer your question, I don't think I would hope we
Speaker 1: would never formalize it I hope so too. Yes, I agree,
Speaker 1: I agree with that thing. Um. I I think that
Speaker 1: in general, consenting adults should be allowed to do what
Speaker 1: what they want to do as long as they're not
Speaker 1: hitting anyone. And then potentially the government doesn't even have
Speaker 1: new business being in it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: different podcast politics. Yeah, moving on. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the future of dating is essentially going to be the
Speaker 1: same old story as we've always seen, you know, people
Speaker 1: trying to find other people that they you know, they
Speaker 1: are compatible with. And I'm I'm hoping that all of
Speaker 1: this math that we are we are compiling about about
Speaker 1: stuff and things and people's um is going to to
Speaker 1: lead to an actual better understanding of ourselves because you know,
Speaker 1: like like I'm not on Okay Cupid even though I
Speaker 1: am single, because it sounds exhausting and I don't really
Speaker 1: I don't really care what a computer has to say
Speaker 1: about my personality. UM, I would kind of rather meet
Speaker 1: people and figure it out for myself. And and there
Speaker 1: are plenty of people who have that same reaction. Right,
Speaker 1: we haven't even mentioned this yet. The thing you just
Speaker 1: said brings up the whole aspect of fun. I mean,
Speaker 1: like isn't it a thing people do for fun, like
Speaker 1: dating is a fun. It's not just like I got
Speaker 1: to get through this find somebody. I don't know, there's
Speaker 1: there's that perspective. But you know, I've I've heard a
Speaker 1: lot of people talk about like needing to really settle down,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, don't you want to meet someone
Speaker 1: that you want to settle down with? I mean, like,
Speaker 1: wanting to settle down should be kind of aside the
Speaker 1: point of meeting that person. Cuarly, the process is part
Speaker 1: of it. And if you're taking if your your goal
Speaker 1: is to remove the process entirely. You both are so young,
Speaker 1: so young, you probably both think Romeo and Juliets just
Speaker 1: a genuine love story to kidding, kidding, but no, no,
Speaker 1: I think there are people who feel like they've reached
Speaker 1: a point in their lives where they have that feeling
Speaker 1: they want to settle down and they want to find
Speaker 1: the right person too. It's not I don't think it's
Speaker 1: an either or situation or even they have necessarily put
Speaker 1: one ahead of the other. It's just that they feel
Speaker 1: like this is the time of my life where this
Speaker 1: is what I want and I want to find the
Speaker 1: right person to have that with, which means I've got
Speaker 1: to find someone who also it's this thing. So I
Speaker 1: think it's that kind of mentality. It's not necessarily like
Speaker 1: I need to find I need to find person, yeah,
Speaker 1: to fit in this this this person shaped whole I
Speaker 1: have in my life that I want filled, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's the way most people think
Speaker 1: of it. I think that, uh, the computer dating thing
Speaker 1: can have its place. I also think that if you
Speaker 1: are putting all of your faith in it, then you're
Speaker 1: you're setting yourself up to fail. And that if you're
Speaker 1: putting too much faith in it means that you're putting
Speaker 1: so much pressure on it that the dates that you
Speaker 1: go on, even if they go well, you may not
Speaker 1: even recognize it at the time. And I've read a
Speaker 1: lot of reports about dates that were set up online
Speaker 1: that did not go well, which could certainly end up
Speaker 1: making you feel um disenchanted with dating in general, you know. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I think if you go into it open minded and
Speaker 1: you don't have expectations of how it's going to come
Speaker 1: out ahead of time, then it can be a useful
Speaker 1: way of meeting new people and potentially someone that would
Speaker 1: be the last first date you ever had. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's the same can be said of all sorts of
Speaker 1: social interactions. So I don't think of it as replacing anything.
Speaker 1: I think it's just another way, And as long as
Speaker 1: other people view it that way, I think that works
Speaker 1: out pretty well. If you start to put all your
Speaker 1: cards in one deck, then you start rank into trouble.
Speaker 1: That wraps up our discussion about dating in the digital
Speaker 1: age with your experts who read a lot have no
Speaker 1: idea what they're talking about. Yeah, we'll talk about particle
Speaker 1: physics all day long, but girls, all right. So, but
Speaker 1: if you want to join us and joining on the
Speaker 1: discussion and talk a little bit more about your own
Speaker 1: dating experiences, perhaps go to fw thinking dot com. That's
Speaker 1: where we have all the blog posts, we have the videos,
Speaker 1: we've got the podcast, we've got articles, we have lots
Speaker 1: of information for you to look at. We want you
Speaker 1: to join the conversation. Also, remember we have our social
Speaker 1: media handles out there. It's f W thinking. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. Come join
Speaker 1: along and we will talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this topic and the future of technology,
Speaker 1: visit forward thinking dot com. Brought to you by Toyota.
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