Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at hewlett.org. Would you say you've been scared away from the apps by weirdos in general? A hundred percent. I feel like the type of person that I want to meet who has kind of the same approach and values is not going to be somebody that I meet on an app. And if you've been on them over the course of a few years, it kind of feels like you're in like a haunted old saloon and you see the same ghosts over and over again. Like, oh, wow, you're still there in the same stool with the same drink. Today, I have a special guest here with me, Manuela Lopez Restrepo. Welcome to It's Been a Minute. Hi, Brittany. Manuela is actually a former It's Been a Minute intern, but she's now producer and writer for NPR's All Things Considered. Manuela, you're here because we're going to talk about my favorite topic, dating. Well, I'm glad it's someone's favorite topic because every time I think about it, I want to bonk myself on the head with a little clown hammer. I mean, I can understand that. I know you've been off the apps for a while though now. I've mostly been clean from the apps for about a year now. How has that been? I mean, it's hard. I think when you're going against the grain of something that has become part of modern life so quickly and so ubiquitously, you kind of maybe feel like you're the one who's doing things wrong. All of my friends are still on apps and going on dates. And meanwhile, I'm meeting maybe a few people per year. But also speaking personally, I also don't know any of said friends who are on the apps and have good things to say about it. So, you know, I would just kind of say that I'm not sure I know anybody who's happy with the state of dating in general. There's the rub. At the end of the day, all people want is some human connection. And that's, you know, it's such an elemental, it's such a natural thing. That connection in general these days, it's really mediated by technology. But what has that done to this millennia-old need? And what does it look like to try to find romance offline? Well, Manuela and I are getting into it. Let's do it. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. Brittany, here's the thing. I have basically been on dating apps my entire dating life. What do you mean? What do you mean? They used to have Tinder for minors. I'm not making this up. They used to have under 18 Tinder and above 18 Tinder. So when I was a teenager in the suburbs, I was matching with people from like the high schools nearby. And then, you know, we would add each other on Snapchat. I'm sorry. That is just so wild to me as a person who really didn't start dating on the apps until I was like 25. You ask a fish how water is and it's like, what is water? I'm like, I don't know anything different, you know? I'm sorry, not to sound like Cynthia Erivo, but I didn't know that was happening. Like, what years is that happening? I mean, this must have been, like, around the beginning of high school for me. So, like, 2013, 2014-ish. Oh, my gosh. But they actually stopped doing it in 2016. I'm sorry. That's a really early intervention into, like, the usual way of dating. I met my first boyfriend on Tinder. As I got older, it just kind of stayed a constant. I used it throughout college and after I graduated and after I moved to New York, too. And how was that? You know, I'm not going to lie. At times, it was good. I think it serves a function, especially after graduating and moving to New York post-pandemic. Everybody was eager to meet up and do stuff and get out of the house, and I was going on dates. I was meeting interesting, hot people. I was living my little sex-in-the-city life. Hold on, which character, though? I think I have a lot of the same self-hating tendencies as Carrie. You know, girl writer in the city who makes bad decisions. It just resonates with me. What about you? You know, looking back, I think I'm like a Charlotte-Miranda split. I have like the cynicism of Miranda, but I ultimately like secretly believed in love and was dating to find the love of my life like Charlotte. Like I was not playing around. I play entirely too much. But anyway, after a while of that, it felt like something shifted. I feel like I sort of watched Malay's sort of sweep into the dating scene. And I have a theory that this shift aligned with the deeper monetization of these apps. You know what? Actually, I think you might be right about that. The dating apps seem to be struggling right now. That's Greg Wazelski. He's a writer and reporter at NPR's economics podcast, Planet Money. And he wrote a story a few years ago about this, why a lot of users feel like dating apps have gotten worse. And I chatted with him about it. First of all, I just want to say that I actually think dating apps provide a valuable service. I actually met my wife on Hinge. I should also disclose here too. I met my husband on OkCupid back when it was still a website. Also, dating online does work for a lot of other people besides just me and Greg. As of 2023, 20% of partnered adults in your age bracket between 18 and 29 met online, according to Pew. And I'm so happy for you guys and everybody else, I guess. but you know when it comes to finding your match on dating apps I really relate to that thing that Tony Soprano says to Dr. Melfi in the pilot of The Sopranos it's good to be in something from the ground floor I came too late for that I know but lately I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end the best is over you really are on these HBO shows from the 90s a woman after my own heart You know, like Tony said, the best is already over. But back to Craig's reporting, please. I want to hear this. The Match Group, which is like the big dating app powerhouse that controls a bunch of the apps, their stock price peaked around 2020, 2021. And since then, it's dropped 80%. And it's been in the gutter. And they seen all of these like leadership changes There a problem with their business model to say the least To say the least Dating apps have this really sort of weird business model and at the core of it is a contradiction that I called the dating app paradox. Basically, dating apps are supposed to be matching lovebirds together, but once they do, the lovebirds fly away and they take their money with them. And this paradox is like really apparent when it comes to apps like Hinge which really market themselves in this kind of weird way for a tech company. Hinge's slogan is the dating app designed to be deleted. And just like, can we just like think about that for a second? Like this is a for-profit company that wants to attract as many users as possible and inevitably make money from them. And they are bragging that their social mission is to have people delete the app. Like how is that a long-term profit strategy? I mean, he makes a good point. Right. And I think part of app retention is this mindset I've seen in some people where if you just keep swiping, there will always be a better person waiting for you. Huh. That leads me to another of Greg's points. Would you say you've been scared away from the apps by those kinds of people or like by weirdos in general? A hundred percent. I feel like the type of person that I want to meet who has kind of the same approach and values is not going to be somebody that I meet on an app. And if you've been on them over the course of a few years, it kind of feels like you're in like a haunted old saloon and you see the same ghosts over and over again. Like, oh, wow, you're still there in the same stool with the same drink. Well, Greg actually has this theory about that, courtesy of an economist, of course. There's an economist whose name is George Akerlof, and he has this classic paper. He actually won a Nobel Prize for it. It's called The Market for Lemons. and the basic idea is like markets where there's not great information sometimes go haywire. So he used the example of cars and the basic idea was that if you're like in the used car market, you kind of don't know what you're actually buying. Like, could this be a lemon? Could it not be? And because of that information problem, all of a sudden buyers are like, wait a second, I don't know if this is gonna be a good car. So in expectation, they're like, I'm not going to pay full price for what I think this used car is worth because there's a chance it's a dud. So the price goes down. The sellers of the good products are like, well, I don't want to sell at that price. So I'm leaving the market. This keeps cycling and cycling and cycling until it's just a market for lemons and the market fails. So this is a long way of saying like, I think there's the possibility that there's this sort of problem in dating apps. Now hear me out, Brittany. And I'm going to try to word this in a way that is not offensive. But, you know, I think there's a lot of especially men who approach dating apps without the earnest intention of actually wanting to find love. I don't think that's controversial. Yeah, I don't really think so either. You see this sometimes where you get on the app, you know, you go on a bunch of bad dates or somebody broke your heart and then like lemons driving good cars out of the used car market, maybe sleazeballs push like great catches out of dating apps and ultimately ruin the quality of the whole app experience. So people go to a new app with the hopes of finding something better. And then the cycle starts again. Yeah, that is very real. Wow. Yeah. And that effect, if Greg's theory holds true, that's not really the app's fault, but some apps are doing things that are putting some users off. Have you heard of Rose Jail? Heard of Rose Jail? I was staring at those bars for years. Okay. So for listeners who don't know, Rose Jail is what some users call the standouts tab on the dating app Hinge. The tab has all the people that Hinge thinks are your best matches and you have to send them a digital rose to match with them. But you only get one rose per week unless you pay for more. They're kind of paywalling your potential partners, essentially. And that sounds like a horrifying humiliation ritual. Yeah, it feels kind of desperate. I've never really been into accepting or using them. You know, in Pokemon, when you come on too strong and then it runs away into the wild grass, it makes me kind of do the same thing. Yeah, honestly, it's kind of grossing me out just hearing about it. Like, you're paying to come off as thirsty? Like that's not for me. But anyway, this is the freemium model a lot of dating apps now operate on. But many like Tinder and OkCupid started out as 100% free. There seems to be this kind of cycle of degradation where they start off being really good to users and like serving their needs. And then at some point they shift to making money and like squeezing users. And then the classic fix for that problem from a customer perspective is like competition. You know, one potential problem in the dating app market is there has been a lot of consolidation and the Match Group has like been systematically acquiring rivals. Originally, Match Group was just like associated with the dating app like Match.com and now oversees like this like huge dating empire of dozens and dozens of dating apps, including like the big names, Tinder, OKCupid and Hinge. I mean, hearing about this, it just affirms something I felt for a long time. I just don't trust the free market to help me find love. I don't know, maybe a government somewhere could make one without rose jails and whatnot. You know, the city government of Tokyo made one for their citizens. I live in New York City, so maybe a city dating app could be Zoran's next project. I mean, I feel like he's busy, but it's worth asking. We're going to take a quick break, but first, if any of you are finding It's Been a Minute for the first time, welcome. I hope you're enjoying the show and that you come back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings for brand new episodes. If you're enjoying this episode, we did one like it last week about what it looks like to stop relying on food delivery apps. And tomorrow, I've got a brand new video episode about daters looking for men in finance. Coming up after the break. There is something about the directness of why we are here that I'm finding really difficult. to navigate. It's making me nervous. I'm like choking up a little bit. Stick around. Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Well, I think a lot of people would say that using dating apps is frustrating. I think many would still agree that they are at least convenient. Yeah, I mean, you get tons of little people right there in your phone whenever you want. Right. But I think the biggest sell for the convenience of dating apps is the lowered possibility for rejection. Like when you match with someone, you're ostensibly talking to someone who is already interested. And in real life, when you go up to people, maybe they don't like your vibe or aren't even interested in your gender. I think avoiding rejection is a big draw for some people. Oh my God. Yeah. Whenever I watch old TV shows or movies that kind of show how people used to have to go up to each other and flirt. I yearn for that time of just casual courage. You know, I try it every once in a while, cold open with a stranger. And I honestly think sometimes people find it kind of strange when I'm willing to go up to them just to try. That is so wild to me. I mean, back in the day, me and my friends went out to get numbers and give numbers. It was such a big part of my early 20s. And I remember being so shocked hearing that this is what the dating scene is like now for a lot of people. Like, actually, the first time I heard this was last year. I was out on the street talking to people for a different episode about dating with this group of 20-something girls. It's just crazy being single now. The apps and like, everyone kind of wants to meet someone organically. But it's like, I feel like we don't really live in the day and age where we can do that anymore. Like people don't come up to people and start conversations oh yeah there's so many choices that like nobody wants to pursue anything oh so they feel like they have ultimate choice like like like all these choices in their phone yeah yeah like that you know for sure will like you're single right yeah like you know you know when you go up to someone the possibility of rejection is so high either oh i'm dating someone or i'm taken oh no thank you or like i think people are now so scared of rejection that they don't put themselves out there anymore so like the apps kind of train people out of having to experience rejection oh yeah i think and so now like the cost of going up to someone is like it feels Too high. Yeah. I think that's common, and it goes with this larger feeling for me that no one wants friction anymore. Life needs to be smooth and streamlined, and everything has to go down as easy as possible. And I think dating apps play a part in that. Listen, I don't disagree with you, like, at all. But also, you know, rejection can be really psychologically tough on people. And according to researchers from East Tennessee University, people who are rejection-sensitive are more likely to date online. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, look, I've been in the trenches before. I don't really blame anyone for wanting to have a smooth experience while dating, but people looking to avoid the sting of rejection might not actually be getting what they want out of apps anyway. Here's Lauren Howe. She's a professor at the University of Zurich. She co-authored a group of studies in 2015 about rejection and self-definition. And she spoke to It's Been a Minute producer, Liam McBain. We found in one study, we kind of varied the intensity of the relationship related to the rejection, right? Like we were kind of curious if you're rejected by someone who's like kind of a stranger, you know, maybe someone who you meet on online dating who just ghosts you, stops texting you back versus, you know, being broken up with a long-term relationship. We thought that one of those was going to maybe have a stronger effect on people who were most at risk of being adversely affected by rejection. Interestingly, though, we actually didn't find that in the research. We found that even this like smaller kind of rejection was meaningful for people who tended to kind of carry the pain of rejection with them. And so I think that, you know, even being rejected in this online context where it's like someone just stops talking to you can still be kind of like symbolic rejection that can be troubling for some people where it's like, well, wait a second, like this person barely knows me and still they thought like I'm just not worth continuing to talk to. So I kind of question whether online dating actually helps those who are most scared of rejection to avoid it or whether it might actually exacerbate the problem that they're hoping to avoid in some way. Something else I found interesting is that dating online also makes people more rejective. I wanted to test What is actually psychologically happening to us on the moment we enter an online dating setting? That's Tila Prok. She's an associate professor in social psychology from Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She spoke to IBAN producer Liam. Evolutionary speaking, it is very weird what we're doing. We've never encountered people in this way where we can select partners, just like we're selecting new pairs of shoes while we are online shopping. It's so weird. So in my study, the longer people are swiping, the more picky they become. And that's irrespective of the people they see. It's just number one is your highest likelihood of accepting. And every other option that comes after, statistically speaking, has a lower chance of being accepted by you. It's happened to me many times where I reject someone because I'm like, I could never love somebody who's wearing those shoes. And then I see them in person and it turns out, wow, this person's actually pretty cute and pretty charming. And I realize that I'm just being dumb and nitpicky. And I really think I'm a victim of the forces that Tila is describing here. I also study the psychological effects and we also see that people suffer when they are swiping longer. We see that, for example, in the sense that they become more depressed, more pessimistic about their chances of ever finding a partner that suits them. Also, they become less satisfied with the quality of the profiles that they are seeing, even though these profiles are objectively speaking, stay the same. You know, it really breaks my heart to hear that this is people's experience when simply trying to find dates. Again, online dating, it worked for me. and has worked for a lot of other people too. But what Tila's describing is just not a very encouraging result. No, I would not say it is. But what do you do, though? How do you handle rejection, especially when it's happening face to face? You know, historically, not so well. I'm a human being. But as I've gotten older, I've come to recognize that if you have the guts to just put yourself out there, that's enough. And a lot of times it not really even about the reaction that you get from the person you speaking to but more about reminding yourself I am willing to make an effort to find happiness and I am willing to make that effort for myself I mean you miss 100 of the shots you don't take. This also reminds me of something Lauren said. I think there's a lot of interesting strategies therapists will use for helping people to cope with rejection, just to put yourself out there and get used to dealing with circumstances where you might worry about being rejected to realize like, actually, it's generally not that bad. A friend in grad school was going through some of this kind of coaching. And one of the sort of assignments that was given for coping with rejection was like, hey, you know, go out to a coffee shop and compliment someone on something that you honestly think is like nice about them. Like you like, you know, the watch that they're wearing, or you like the book that they're reading, just say that. And that's something that might seem very scary when you're thinking about it abstractly to go up to a stranger and compliment them. But, you know, probably that person is going to just answer your question, maybe like, thank you and go on to have a nice day. Even if like the worst case happens and the person was totally weirded out, what happens? You just leave the coffee shop, you walk away and you go about the rest of your day. So I think realizing that rejection doesn't have to be scary and can just be, you know, a random thing that happened can help to overcome some of the fear. Okay, so we've been talking about what's going on in the apps a lot. But I want to hear now what it's been like for you dating offline. Well, I haven't had huge success. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here talking to you. Okay, I guess that's true. What does dating in person look like for you, though? Like you said you're like going up to people? I mean, it's mostly just been going to parties, even if I don't feel like it. What's that one quote? The cost of community is inconvenience. So just forcing myself to go to events where I might meet people, you know, within my community. And, you know, I've tried some other things out. I put a personal ad in a zine that I like to read. And, you know, sometimes I've gone up to strangers, but that one is rare. Have you tried like speed dating or just like singles nights? No, but I've seen that they've been getting a lot more traction lately, especially in New York City. And in the spirit of choosing to do a hard thing over convenient tech, I put a call out on Instagram to ask if anyone had any singles nights or speed dating that they knew about. It was really looking quite dry out here post-Valentine's Day. But one friend sent me a flyer for a singles night at a food co-op in Bed-Stuy. That's incredible. I actually genuinely cannot wait to hear about this. Hi, we are here in the storage room of the Green Hill Food Co-op. Can you describe what it's like out there? Pretty good vibes. It's like a very cute little store. Everybody seems very nice and friendly. Definitely saw some cuties in there. So I went with your producer and my good friend Liam. Dating is a really vulnerable thing and we didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. So we didn't record my chats with people. We just checked in on Mike in the back office in between our conversations and it was cute. They lowered the lights, they put up some streamers, they gave out name tags, color-coded to what type of person you're attracted to. It was kind of a vibe to be flirting next to shelves of organic beans. But, you know, I still felt nervous talking to people. You've talked to a couple of people now. How's it been? It has been a lot. I don't know if it's because I'm just not used to this type of interaction and this type of like intentionality there is something about the directness of why we are here that I'm finding really difficult to navigate it's making me nervous I'm like choking up a little bit okay we're gonna do a lab and I'm gonna make you point out to me who I think is cute yeah okay and then I need a cigarette. Maybe Liam should produce for Love Island instead of It's Been a Minute, just throwing that out there. Maybe. And after that, I did approach a couple of people that I thought were cuties. I had some nice chats, as they would say, on Love Island. But ultimately, I didn't really feel a spark with anybody or not enough to prompt me to ask them for their number or anything, at least. Are you glad you came? I would say so, yeah. It had a little bit of a school dance energy, sort of a nervous eagerness that I think is hard to find in adult spaces at this point in life, and so there was something really invigorating about that. I really appreciate people who are willing to put themselves out there when they have a lot of really simple options to never do that ever again. We must always remember that dating is a numbers game. My therapist likes to say that you will kiss a lot of toads before you find your frog. And so I think, you know, if I were to be doing this on a frequent basis, I'm sure it would feel much more routine and a lot less precious and a lot less intense because it's like, oh yeah, not this time, but last time I met someone and maybe next time. Oh my gosh. I mean, I have to agree. I do think of dating as a numbers game. I think that's like a healthy attitude to have. Like you may not get it every time, but sometimes you will. And sometimes you might strike out. But in the grand scheme of things, I think the hope is that you never get too down about yourself. And it sounds like that's like the attitude that you have adopted as a result of doing this. I think that's really cool. Manuela, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us about dating offline and the terror, but also the beauty of chatting people up. This has been so much fun for me. I've been living vicariously through you, just so you know. Totally. Thank you for having me. That was Manuela Lopez Restrepo, writer and producer for All Things Considered. Also, this episode was inspired by Catherine Jaser Morton's fabulous piece in The Cut called In 2026, We Are Friction Maxing. I highly recommend checking it out at thecut.com. This episode of It's Been a Minute was produced by Liam McBain. This episode was edited by Nina Potthuk. Our supervising producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sanguini. All right, that's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Luce. Talk soon. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org.
