Call Her Daddy - Your Survival Guide to Dating Apps

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

Dating apps are here to stay - and when you ask anybody about their experience with the apps, the consensus is that dating apps are a soul sucking experience. Esther Perel joins Call Her Daddy to discuss why dating apps leave us feeling bad about ourselves and how we can add some humanity back into the process. Esther speaks about managing feelings of rejection, creating unrealistic standards, and why first dates often feel like a job interview. She gives advice on how to change our mindset and behavior on the apps so that we can add some excitement and intimacy back into the dating experience. Esther also addresses the pressures associated with age and dating so that one’s own fears don’t lead to panic or settling. Alex and Esther play Esther’s game - Where Should We Begin - and discuss their own experiences with love, heartbreak and adolescence

what is up daddy gang it is your founding father alex cooper with call her daddy hello madam hello we're back we're back i was just saying it's like the cousin who comes for the annual visit but it's the best cousin it's not the annoying cousin it's not the drunk cousin no no it's the best cousin. It's not the annoying cousin. It's not the drunk cousin. No, no, it's the one you look forward to. Absolutely. Esther, why don't we just get into it, right? Esther Perel, welcome back to Call Her Daddy. It's a pleasure to be back. I'm so happy you're here.

Esther, I wanted to have you back on the show today to discuss the reality we live in now when it comes to dating. The apps are here to stay. When you ask anybody about their experience with dating apps, the majority consensus is that dating apps are a soul-sucking experience, but they're necessary to meet people. Why does the dating app experience leave us feeling so bad about ourselves? Because when you date on an app, you are immersed in what Eva Illouz beautifully calls emotional capitalism. You have to basically cultivate your seduction capital. You have to make yourself become a commodity that is desirable and you are constantly evaluating yourself and evaluating other people. If you don't like it, if there's

an item that doesn't sit well with you, you just go into an immediate ick and you ghost and that leaves people feeling like you can just be plopped and dropped. And it is a terrible feeling for a human being to be kind of, you know, just like, it's like a commercial commodity. Like you're having to look at yourself like you're like a salesperson, like you're selling yourself. And oh, does this picture, even though it doesn't look like me, will this gain attention and et cetera. So it's definitely like a difficult dance you're having to play with yourself of, does this feel like I'm being authentic to myself, but also recognizing like what's going to get you attention on the app. Yes. And does the algorithm like me? I mean, this is very far from what is a real encounter, right? What was it about when people would date? It's a very different script. The apps also make rejection a daily or I guess

even hourly experience. You can send out five, 10 messages in a day and not hear back from a single person. How should people manage these feelings of rejection so that their self-worth doesn't suffer? I mean, what do people typically do to deal with this kind of romantic consumerism is that they all on occasion say, I'm done. I'm taking a break. I can't do this right now. Look, 65% of people still meet on apps at this moment. And the goal is to meet in person as fast as possible. Go off and into real life. What you do with the rejections, you learn. And this is the problem, is that you start to learn to become more callous. You start to develop a thicker skin. And when you develop a thicker skin on yourself, you become

also colder and more callous with others because you start to forget that they too have a heart that is thinking, you know, when is this going to happen? It's been two years. I just broke up. Where, you know, where is the love of my life? So the more you learn to not be so rejected, the more colder you become in the rejections toward others sometimes. Not always. What do you do? You go with your friends.

You continue to tell your friends, introduce me to people. You organize a little dinner and you just say, I'm going to invite a few people. You bring a few. Everybody brings someone that we don't know. And you maintain still the organic, other, more social ways that people used to introduce one to each other, you don't become completely at the mercy of the app. Yeah. I think sometimes when you're single and you're trying to date, you can almost have this mindset of dating is a string of painful and bad experiences that we have to trudge through until finally finding the one.

Like, it's going to be all miserable until we find that one person. How do we combat that feeling and that mentality of, like, just focusing on, like, if I don't find this, then everything else is miserable? But that is a societal thing. You see, at this point, when we talk about love, when we talk about commitment, when we talk about commitment, when we talk about intimacy, we, by default, located into the romantic relationship with one special person, that one and only, so to speak. And it's very complicated to be looking for a soulmate on an app. You know, there's a kind of a contradiction here between the consumer approach for a spiritual quest.

So what you do to not be in that string of things is that you value your other relationships, the ones you have with your family, your colleague, your friends, and you don't buy into the idea that unless I have a partner, I am not whole. You know, you have a full life and you want one more person with a special different relationship to enter it. But do not dismiss everything else, not respond to your friends, let them, you know, wait for weeks on end before you send them a text back. Go out, have a life, have a life. The other thing is make those people, when you meet them in person, actually come with you to your meetings with your own friends. Don't go and sit in a noisy bar alone with a person and then do the kind of job interview to see, you know, do they match the checklist? Just say, I had plans to go and do this tonight. Would you like to join in an organic way?

First of all, you learn a lot more about the person because you'll see how they socialize with others. You'll see how your friends respond to that person. They're outside. They have a different perspective. Bring them into your life. Don't close off your life because I'm busy dating. I'm busy looking for a person. Everything else is on hold. It's depleting. I agree. I mean, I've done it before when I was dating. Like you do kind of get into this mentality that when you're dating, it's over here and then the rest of your life is over there. And you can't merge the two because you also get in your head of like, I don't want them to think like this is this has gotten more intense than and I'm introducing him to my friends. But it's like by allowing it to be

more casual in your brain of like, this is someone that I'm about to meet. Naturally, I would want them to get along with my friends. Let's all just meet up at a bar, meet up at a coffee shop. And let's just be like, hey, I'm actually studying with a friend or I'm, you know, doing some work with a friend. Like, why don't you stop by? That also takes the pressure off of the concept of like a first and second date and everyone's like sweating everywhere in every crevice. And it's like, let's calm down. It's just human interaction. And let's try to strip away like the intensity. After a series of bad first dates and rejections, do you think it is at any point beneficial to take a break from dating?

I think sometimes people need a break because it just puts them in a state of anxiety and self-doubt and uncertainty. And it's okay, you know, because there's also a way in which a certain type of search becomes counterproductive. So yes, it's totally fine to take a break. It's also totally fine to have a very different first date. That is not to look for a match. It's not like you're doing organ donation here. You're looking for a discovery, for something that's going to surprise you, for something that you didn't expect at all, that is not at all what the algorithm would necessarily put in front of you. And that discovery of somebody that I would otherwise not have looked at is a

discovery of a part of you that you hadn't been attentive to or were not aware of. That mystery, that element of discovery and exploration is really lacking when you are in the match mentality. That's the first thing that you do. The second thing is don't go and sit and ask questions on a first date. Create an experience. Go do something together. You'll have something to talk about. You'll see how the person, you know, rather than this face-to-face, you know, bar, coffee, lunch, dinner, depending on the importance, you know, we decide. Oh, la la la. What questions should we be asking if we do find ourselves burnt out from dating?

Like, what do we look inward and ask ourselves if we're feeling so depleted and just exhausted and like feeling down about ourselves because we haven't had success? But success is what? I'm meeting you. What am I expecting? I'm going to sit in front of you. I'm going to ask a few questions. I'm going to start to feel butterflies immediately in my stomach.

I'm going to start to get sweaty palms. I'm going to get all intense and aroused and interested. And I'm going to think, I found my soulmate. I mean, is that what we're talking about? Or is it, this is an interesting conversation. I'd love to continue it, you know. And we thought we were going to sit here for half an hour, and two hours later, we're still having a conversation.

Wow, that thing is taking me. I wasn't directing it. It is taking me like a trip, you know, like an exploration, like a piece of music that you listen to, and you just want to hear it again. That's a very different mentality. So you ask yourself, what exactly do I expect should happen to me on a first date? Rather than, it's a meeting.

That's it. It's a meeting that at some point I may want to either extend it or I may want to say, ah, I'd love to see you again. That casualness, the more people are in the dating experience or in the dating rut, the more the casualness actually disappears. The openness, the surprise, it becomes tense. And people go in there with resentment. I have to do this again.

I have a date tonight. Rather than, I'm excited, I'm looking forward, I'm curious. Bring curiosity. If you can turn the tension into curiosity, the reactivity into reflectivity, then you are going with a very different stance to a first date. And I think you'll have a better time. How about this? We obviously face scrutiny in dating.

And we also are a lot of the times doing the scrutinizing. We're constantly evaluating others, sitting with our phones, swiping left and right for hours at a time, judging people. What is the cost of this? Are we creating unrealistic and unattainable standards when we are just fixating on what's on the profile? What am I seeing? This isn't good enough. Swipe to the next. Here is what I think is happening.

We are subjected to a host of predictive technologies. And they are telling us what we should eat next, what we should watch next, which piece of music we should listen to next, where we should make a right turn next, and who we should date next. And all these predictive technologies are having a very interesting effect.

You would think that they are reassuring, that they help us be more at ease with the unknown, with the surprise, with the mysteries of life, with the frictions of life. But in fact, they are making us more and more anxious, more and more unable to deal with the unpredictable and the unknowable. And the flattening that is taking place with a profile, I mean, an algorithm, a device, an app wants to flatten things. It wants to remove the obstacles.

It wants to be something very polished that solves all the problems. But that's not what life is about. That's not how relationships are created. And that's not how relationships evolve afterwards. They're filled with obstacles and frictions. They're filled with contradictory feelings at the same time. I like this and I don't like that. Rather than if I don't like that, well, then that's a bad match. No. From day one, we see a person and we live with mixed feelings about them, things we appreciate, things that actually we find a little bit more repulsive, things that attract us, things that distance us. And the ability to hold that is what allows us to be in relationships.

Certainly past the first date, if you go in and it's about finding perfection, because an app says this is the one, you begin to doubt yourself. You begin to not know what you like, and especially you don't know what to do when you have a multiplicity of feelings at the same time, which is what life is often about. Yeah. When we think about dating profiles, they basically read like a resume and it can be pretty easy to hyper focus on certain qualities. Like I know a lot of girls are like immediately looking at a person's height or, you know, people are immediately looking at like, where did this person go to college? What do you make of this scenario? Is it problematic that we're hyper fixating on something they're putting on

basically their resume or are people just prioritizing what they value in a future partner? No, I think that this is a kind of a job interview and I would still hope to think that a job interview is not the same as a romantic encounter. And when you have a job interview, you have a list of things you're looking for. Now, if you go on a date have a list of things you're looking for now if you go on a date with a list of things you're looking for and you find the matching items you often find that you'd also don't have much of an encounter because it is flat what creates a date and a desire to see the person again is not a match of the items. It's the mystery, the surprise, the curiosity, the anticipation, the unexpected. This is what

eroticism thrives on. It doesn't thrive on a checklist. It kills itself with a checklist. And don't ask people where they went to college. And don't ask them necessarily even, you know, where they live and what car they drive. And just ask them a series. You know, in Where Should We Begin the Game that I created, I looked at a host of questions that tell stories rather than give you data points and information. Stories. Stories bind us. Stories make us lean forward. Tell me more. Do you ever say, tell me more when someone said, I went to this college? No, no, you have no

interest. Okay, thanks. Check. But what makes you lean in, what makes you interested in a person is when you start to intimacy and you enter this universe. This person tells you things about themselves. You know, what's a risk that you took that changed your life? What's a rule that you secretly love to break? What would you say is your most tenacious vice? What's a thing that only your best friends know about you and other people don't? You know, tell me a story. Tell me what you would say to your younger self if you could whisper something in their ears. This creates a whole different set of information. I think, here is the thing, dating that looks for data is going to deaden you. Data that invites stories will elicit curiosity, will elicit the erotic and becomes the inkling for a romantic relationship. I have a close friend who is one of the few who did not

meet her partner on a dating app. But what is interesting is that she says she thinks if she came across him, she would never have met app, she would never have matched with him. Correct. What does that tell us about dating apps? Do you think that means people are lowering their standards when it comes to meeting organically? Or is this a flaw of the dating apps and we're not giving it a try? I think that's a great question. This happens all the time that people will say,

I met somebody that I would never have matched on an app because the app looks for data points. And because when you meet someone organically, you are basically in a burgeoning story that opens your curiosity and takes you without knowing where you're going to go. You follow with your curiosity. You're taken in an exploration, and it involves surprise. It involves mystery. It involves the unknown. It involves the place where really the erotic lives. Doing this, you know, a piece of information, a piece of information.

I like this music. I like this music. So what? You know, how many people like the same piece of music? They can't have a sentence with each other without, you know, this is not what brings people together. Yeah. I appreciate when you were talking about the concept that we have lost the feelings of intimacy and excitement around connection because the feeling of the app and looking for data, it's like the reason that we thrive is actually we need that risk to have that spark. We need to feel the mystery. We need to feel a little uneasy at times. That's right. That's right. What three tips would you recommend to

someone on a first date in order to cultivate intimacy? When you go on a first date, be in motion, if you can. Walk, bike, run, dance. Be in motion. Involve your bodies. Don't go and sit there static, trying to look into each other's eyes to make a conversation

that is actually often more of an interview than a conversation. So they really believe the movement piece, create an experience so that you can talk not in interviewing each other, but you can jointly reflect on something that you are experiencing, discovering, watching, listening to at the same time. Don't talk about what music you like. Go and listen to live music. Don't talk about the fact that you both like to dance tango go dance tango don't have a first day to establish it just say let's go salsa tango whatever swing whichever piece

you're interested in so do something together and three don't necessarily do it just the two of you. Bring the person into your life because that's where they're going to reside if they ever stay there. And don't think that bringing them to your friends is a sign that you really are more interested. Just simply say, I like to meet people in context. Social context is a place to meet people.

The idea that you have to go and create like a box in which you need to enter and then there's no energy in that box. Create something that has energy. Look, otherwise what you get with artificial intelligence is you get artificial intimacy. What you want is real intimacy, real connection, not an artificial, a simulacrum of it you know we asking questions doesn't create a connection telling stories does create a connection experiencing things does create a connection it's almost sounds so basic but we've clearly lost that ability to like have human connection because we have been so trained to be on our phones and focus on the apps.

And at this point, it is pretty uncommon for people, I feel like almost to start talking with each other when they're standing in a queue or to be in a cafe where people are working and to start a conversation because there must be something weird with you. If you just start a conversation spontaneously, you you should everybody should be in their phone you know around the bar rather than actually looking at the people it's uh it's i'm telling you the more spontaneous the more people are responding with anxiety at this moment rather than with curiosity those who meet organically like your friend, ask her if she was ever anxious before she met him.

No, because she didn't expect it, because she didn't go on a mission. She just ran into somebody and here began a story. I like how you say that too, like being at a bar. Somehow we've now socialized it to be more normal to be on our phones rather than if someone comes up to you at a bar, which is quite literally the, what a bar should be is people connecting. But if, if someone comes up to you, it's, Oh, what's wrong with him? He's a weirdo. Like, why is he approaching me? Where back in the day, no one had a phone to be staring at. So naturally like the

human connection was much easier to be able to connect because there wasn't this thing in everyone's hands that was either used as a source of, oh, I'm so awkward, I'm feeling uncomfortable. Let me look down at my phone. People were forced to have their heads up, look around. Even if you were uncomfortable, probably the way to feel less uncomfortable is to connect with people. And I just want to normalize for everyone, like when you're going out, if you want to meet people, being on your phone, I understand, has become like a comfort for people to like hide behind.

But you're actually doing yourself a disservice. We're all doing ourselves a disservice because you're then showing to other people, I'm not open to conversing. And most of the time, if you're going out to a bar, you're probably wanting to meet someone. So help yourself out. But your friends, Alex, except for this one, they met on an app, right?

The majority of your friends. Yeah. And what do they say now? So the soul crushing is when it doesn't work. And so far, we've kind of put a focus a little bit on the challenges of it. But the other ones will say, we met on an app. Yep. far we've kind of put a focus a little bit on on the challenges of it but they are the ones we'll say we met on an app yep so then what do they say made this relationship possible I think that a lot of the times that I have success stories of friends that met on apps they always talk about

how in the beginning there's always a story of like I wasn't actually gonna go on the date with that person or like, I didn't know if I was gonna meet up with them because I wasn't sure if they were like a weirdo or a serial killer. And it's always like the first, the hardest part usually that I always find is people saying that they weren't even going to go. And then most times after that first date,

it takes off and it's a normal interaction. It just takes getting there and actually being face to face and like touching the person's hand and hugging them and getting that normal human interaction that immediately alleviates the awkwardness that was the app for a certain amount of time. So it's usually that initial, let's just get in person. Once you get in person, if you're going to have a connection, you're going to have a connection. Usually you can kind of feel that spark right off the bat. But that is usually a theme I see of like, wow, thank God you showed up to the cafe that day, or thank God you went on the date because that's also a testament to anyone listening. If you're so apprehensive about putting yourself out there and feeling a little uncomfortable, so many people, all it took

was just actually getting in the car and showing up. And then everything just goes from there. You just have to get yourself out of your comfort zone of like, oh my God, I don't know this person. I don't know their mannerisms. I don't know if they're going to be this, this or that. Well, that's also kind of exciting. You know, there's two things that stand out in what you just told. The first is the plot. I wasn't going to go. I didn't trust this person. This was so not what I was looking for.

There is a plot. There's a story. You know, can you imagine a movie without a plot? But a relationship is a story too. It needs a plot. Then the second thing that is interesting about the particular plots that you're telling is that these became obstacles and that these were obstacles that people circumvented prejudices biases uh you know whatever the mood was of the day and jack moran a great sexologist had this fantastic formula you know the erotic equation attraction plus obstacle equals excitement. I love that too, because you also said earlier,

you were like your friend that didn't meet on an app. The reason it works so well is because when you're in that bar, you don't have time to stress out over like, let me stalk their life and let me look at the height. When she turned around and the guy was there and introduced himself, it was an immediate that she didn't have the opportunity to overanalyze. And so I think that's also what we're missing with these apps is we're having too much. Yes. And we're having too much time to ruminate on what could go wrong, what could happen. It's almost like

any situation in life. If you get thrown into something at work that it's like, we need you in the office right now and you need to give this presentation, you're going to, you don't have time to get anxious about it. You can have a quick minute, but then you're going in and you're doing it. Whereas if they tell you next week, you have to do the presentation, you're going to be sitting, thinking about it, stressing about it. So sometimes if you give yourself too much time to think about it, you're going to, again, create a plot in your head that could be way more exaggerated than it should be. So it's like, try not to overthink. I think a lot of times could be helpful because we're just doing ourselves a disservice and we're creating a plot line where it's like, hey guys,

you haven't even met them yet. So here's the thing, the phones and the devices, these predictive technologies that are constantly thinking for us, making choices for us, and really kind of curtailing our own sense of agency, lead us to want to de-risk our relationships. What you consider over-analyzing are efforts to de-risk, and yet discovery, surprise, serendipity, spontaneity, improvisation, all of these things involve risk. This is what people are trying to diminish these days is to take away the risk. You know, the risk of getting lost, the risk of listening to a piece of music I don't like, the risk of buying something that I can't return, the risk of meeting someone that I won't necessarily like,

if life is filled with risks, so are relationships, so is dating. You're overanalyzing. The example here is a sad case of de-risking. It's such a good point. And I hope everyone listening just pauses for a minute to think about that of like the amount, I mean, I, I, when I met my partner right now, like I didn't really have time to I, I, when I met my partner right now, like I didn't really have time to analyze and think, and I just went for it and went on this date. And when you think about that, it's like, usually the spark is because of how much risk you took and you show up and it's like exciting and you have no idea what's going to come. And so overanalyzing you're so right. It's taking away our ability to feel the butterflies and to feel nervous and to feel like, I wonder what I'm going

to discover. We're doing all the discovering before we even meet the person. That's right. The discovery, excitement of meeting somebody in the beginning is bound up with insecurity. It is nature. It's in the nature of it. If you want to neutralize the insecurity, if you want to de-risk up front, if you want to have your checklist, then you have data points again, but you won't, you know, you will have date upon date upon date and you will say, no, no, I'm not the right, because you're waiting to experience something, but you've neutralized all the elements that could lead you to experience something. another factor that exasperates the dating experience is perception around age a lot of people i do think specifically women because we have the biological clock everyone talks about

is if we're hitting 30 and we're single there are these feelings of panic that can often lead people to settling. Now we're swiping like our life depends on it. How should people manage these pressures and not settle? I mean, it's not always just settling. It's also that when women become clear that they're not just interested in having relationships temporarily, but they're looking for a life partner, not just for a love story, that they then come with a certain kind of urgency. And they start to ask questions that, do you want children? Do you want to marry? Do you want to stay in America? Do you want to, you know, do you believe in family? Do you believe in monogamy? Do you believe, like, could you just have a, could you just meet somebody? You know,

you'll find out all of those things, but there is urgency. I shouldn't waste my time. It's like pragmatism meets romanticism and they clash, you know, because the majority of the time, if the person on the other side is not there yet, they feel like they're being recruited for a story. As I often like to say, they are trying to be recruited for a play that they haven't auditioned for. It's not their life. It's somebody else's needs. And so then nothing happens. It's the challenge. It's really a challenge because you know you don't want to go in a direction if it's not going to yield anything.

But on the other end, you can't just do your cost benefits from the first hour that you meet a person. That is not the way it works. So my advice often is to those women is it's much earlier. It's not waiting till you're 30. The problem is that we also live with, you know, for a certain kind of young women, urban women, contraception in hand, permission to do what they want,

a sense of control over our destiny. We suddenly come around after 30 and we realize biology matters. And it's not all in our control. If you want, freeze your eggs. If you want, you know, prepare yourself in advance, but start thinking about it much earlier because you don't control everything. And if you then come with that feeling of, I lost control to your first dates, you are talking to somebody who doesn't have any idea what you want from them. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that

because I do think that sometimes in our twenties, we can just be like, oh, it doesn't matter. Once I'm in my thirties, I'll focus on that. But I do think for women, it's like, we get so anxious at a certain age because society has, has told us we need to do that. And I agree with you. It's like, there are now steps that we can take in order to not feel as much pressure. Society and biology. And biology. I mean, for those who do want kids, there are some very real factors.

But what I really hope is that we don't, you know, it's not enough to just arrive in the post-30 and suddenly panic. There is a responsibility, that is a social responsibility on the part of society to not make women think that, you know, it's all in their hands at this point. Yeah. A lot is in your hands, but it depends what you want. Yep.

People are partnering up at a later age and it has kind of caused a shift in the attitude around dating. You have to play it slow. You can't come across as too interested. You can't say you're looking for something serious on the first date and it will freak them out, even if you are. How do we go deeper with people in a culture that idealizes casual dating and being chill about our wants and needs? Oh, my God.

These are fantastic questions. You know, it's a culture that values independence. It's a culture that thinks that if you want a relationship, you are dependent, as if that was a problem, when in fact, that is how we live best. You know, I am European, and in that sense, it's very different for us. We do not have this notion that we have to pretend that it is not really important because then we are not really strong and independent and self-reliant.

We love to be in relationships, and we live much earlier in couples. Here, it's like you live in groups for a long time until you're ready to be in a relationship. And then suddenly, you know, you're looking for somebody to be partnered with rather than you evolve and you grow up in couples. One couple, another couple, two months, six months, one week, it doesn't matter. But it's relationships upon relationships. That's not the story of a lot of people in the U.S. Now, we did later, you know, in the 60s, 80% of people in their 20s were married. Today, 20% of people in their 20s are married. So we have moved from

what used to be a cornerstone model of marriage or committed relationships to a capstone model. The cornerstone model, you know, you met in your early 20s and you began life together with the person and you built all the cornerstones jointly. The capstone, I've already developed my career. I may even already have a place of my own. I may have a car of my own. I have an identity of my own. I've worked so hard to shape this person that I am. And when you come, it is a recognition from you on all the hard work that I've put in. And we are just putting the capstone

on two things that already exist. And you're going to continue to help me become the best version of myself. The version has already been cultivated. That's a completely different narrative. That's less about going fast and going slow. That's the meaning where I'm at. When I meet you at 28, 29, it's very different than when I meet you at 20, 21. And then we have, we've pushed it back by 10 years. What are the bigger implications of this like flattened social experience that we're discussing?

How does the Internet in general impact our personal relationships? I mean, there's two different pieces. The flattening is one thing. The Internet has done a lot of marvels for our relationships as well. Here we are, you and I. I mean, the technology is both ends all the time. But I think that one of the things that I want to caution is there is our sense of self-doubt, our constant living in comparison, our constant living with excessive choices,

our constant living with having to be authentic, but having to define this for ourselves all the time. What does this authenticity actually mean? Our increasing sense of isolation and modern loneliness that masks as hyper-connectivity. We're connecting all the time. We're talking to thousands of people. We don't want a single person to ask to go and feed our cats.

So we've created this thing called friends. But are they really friends? Intimacy? But is it really intimate? I call it artificial intimacy because of that. And what happens is that all of these things are fueling anxiety. And then we talk about a mental health crisis where we say people are more anxious, but it doesn't come out of nowhere. It's anxiety producing when I think I am talking to you, I'm connecting with you, but in fact, the entire time I'm talking to you,

you're on the phone, clicking away. You're there, but you're not present. And I start to feel like, do I matter? Am I relevant? Do you care? These flattening of experiences are directly connected to the increased isolation. So it's a real paradox. You have a series of technologies and applications that are meant to connect us,

but they also, in fact, disconnect us and create an amplified sense of loneliness. And I think that there is where we need to take responsibility. I agree. I think, Esther, how you talk about, you know, the internet and even dating apps, like it is causing us to not only not meet new people, right? We just talked about dating apps where, Daddy Gang, you're listening. It's like, how many times have you've had a plethora of people at your fingertips and you still haven't gone on that date?

Whereas if they were in a line outside of your house, you probably would have gone on a couple dates. So it's hindering us from actually meeting new people. But I do agree. It's also causing us to not hang out with the people that we already know. That's good. And it's isolating us to where we're sending an emoji to a friend, whereas maybe in the earlier days, people would be at least writing a letter and that letter would have substance.

And so I think that we've like stripped away the humanity of allowing ourselves to thrive. And the investment. And the investment and the investment you know you value things that you invest in but if you have if you have a plethora of people and you just are dealing with your FOMO and what better can I find then you don't invest and then you suddenly when you don't invest then you start to think that the person who texted you for your birthday versus posted it on social is actually doing a real stretch. And the more we are invested with this flattening of our experiences through these technologies, the more we are lessening our expectations of relationships. And the more we lessen our expectations of relationships and the more the type of connection that we are experiencing is leaving us hungry. You know, we have been discussing the lack of connection that is the result of dating apps and technology.

And you have been saying, you know, like when you're going to meet these people, though, like be having a conversation that is not you questioning them and asking things as if you're doing a job interview. You created the card game, where should we begin as a tool to help people have deeper and more intimate conversations. I would love to, if you're willing to answer a few questions with me today, so we can show the daddy gang, like, hey, these are the type of conversations. It may be a little uncomfortable, but you're going to get to know someone and you're going to be able to have an immediate intimate connection with them rather than asking them where they went to college. Let's go. Okay, Esther, we can both answer. You go first. Okay.

My views about love changed when? Two things came to mind. I think when I was young, very young, I used to be often quite insecure. And I wanted people to like me so that I could like myself more. And when I began to experience myself differently, I was less looking at people as a way to value me or validate me or confirm me and much more as who they were. And I began to like them for the person and not for what they could be for me, even though it was often hidden. And I remember that very, very clearly the first time that I realized I'm really curious about this person. I'm not just thinking about how

this person is making me feel about me. Oh my God. How am I going to top that answer? That was phenomenal. That just came, you know? No, that was great. I think as you were saying that, I think my answer is like, again, kind of a two part as well well where my views about love changed when growing up as a young girl obviously we're consuming a lot of movies and television shows that kind of explain to you what love is and so I had an idea but I don't I think my view of love changed the first time that I fell in love I was able to understand what an actuality it is, where it is not as glamorous and easy as we see on in rom coms and television shows. And so I think actualizing it and living it just like any other experience in life, it's like, I then was able to understand what it meant

to me. And then I think as I got older, now that I understood the feeling and how intoxicating it can be, I then in every relationship, I think altered my view of love because I then had to go on a journey of figuring out how do I accept love? How do I give love? What does love mean to me? So it's like, it's like a lifelong experience of first understanding it and then understanding how you want to experience love. What's a movie for you that you carry that told you a story of love that really influenced you? I think that this is embarrassing because it's such a classic, but The Notebook. I remember watching The Notebook and was so intoxicated by the concept of these two people having this like

forbidden love and the fighting and the drama. And I remember my first relationship ended up being that. And I look back, I'm like, did I truly believe that I put myself in this toxic relationship? Because I thought, and then when I would fight with this person, I thought it meant that our love was so strong because we were fighting for something when really it was so unhealthy. It shouldn't have been happening that way, Esther. But those movies made it seem so glamorous when you're fighting. And then I realized, like, this doesn't feel great. It looked great on Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, but it didn't feel so great in Pennsylvania with my high school boyfriend, Esther.

I think it's important that we say that none of these questions, I have no idea what you're about to ask. Neither do you. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. We have nothing planned. We have nothing written about this, Daddy Gang. Like, we're just going off of it. How about what is the hardest lesson you've learned about love?

The hardest lesson I've learned is that in moments when I thought it was completely gone, it actually comes back. That you can in a moment just say, I can't stand another minute of this. You know, what the hell am I doing here? I'm out. I'm finished. you can in a moment just say, I can't stand another minute of this. You know, what the hell am I doing here? I'm out. I'm finished. And then it just comes back. It doesn't just come back. As you repair, as you fix things, as you take responsibility for things, it's an incredible feeling, love.

It's like a muscle that just you pump and it you know if it atrophies sometimes but if you infuse it with new energy it comes back and I thought when it's there it's there and when it's gone it's gone yeah that's interesting I almost not mine's not the opposite but it's almost on like the other side of the spectrum where I feel like the hardest thing I've learned about love is that even if it's there sometimes you you can't have it and and I feel like that's something that is a really indescribable feeling until you go through it where if you love someone it doesn't even have to be romantic it could be a family or a friend like no matter how much you love someone and even if they reciprocally love you there are moments in life where you that doesn't always mean that

it's going to work out and it can hurt and you can lose it and it can be out in the universe and you can still not have that person, which is a really weird feeling. No, but you know, it's so interesting you tell this because I would have told that story, but not in response to the question, the hardest lesson, because it's not hard, but I've understood a long time ago. And I've said this at times, there is a difference between a love story and a life story and there are many more people that we can love than people we can make a life with you know you can meet somebody on a trip and have a magnificent story you know a short story with them and it

transports you and it's transcended and it feels like you're touching on the essence of things etc etc but this person could not enter your life or you couldn't enter their world it's transcended, and it feels like you're touching on the essence of things, etc., etc. But this person could not enter your life, or you couldn't enter their world. It's just too far apart. Different values, different backgrounds, different aspirations, different ambitions. It's not meant to be a life partner, because a life partner needs more than love. But a love story, you just need your heart. I feel like I'm having a therapy session right now. Your heart and your body.

This is great, Esther. Okay, one of the last ones, I think this is interesting, is something I wish I had been told as a child. I think I would go directly to my mom in that sense, you know, of what I would. I would, I had a rather critical mother. And she meant well, but she went at it in a way that wasn't particularly ego-boosting. And she was very...

My mother believed that neighbors and friends will tell you what is good and that the mother is there to tell you the truth and the truth usually meant the things that are not so good and she was true to form she really believed it and she was like that till the end she just didn't want to blow up your head to think that you know she didn't want to make you think ever that you were grandiose and that you could do everything. But on occasion, I think a little bit more of that boosting, I think, would have cut a few years of therapy in my life. I love the honesty, Esther. I wish at a younger age, my parents or someone may have explained to me as a young girl that my whole life as a woman, people are going to be fixated on your looks, whether it's negative or positive. Like if you are a woman, people are commenting on your body, on the way you look. And when I was younger, I really struggled with

self-image and I like hated a lot of things about myself. And no one ever explained to me that like my self-worth didn't have to be contingent on the way that I looked. And so I think I struggled a lot of being in my room alone, hating things about myself, wishing I looked like something other than myself. And it was, it just, I think that again, as women, like I can imagine now knowing almost every young girl growing up is thinking something about themselves negatively because peers at school or whoever was making a comment about something about your body or your image that a lot of young boys don't have to deal with. And I just feel like I may have had an easier time loving myself and not having to do

the work later had I understood that it doesn't matter what I look like. It's about who I am and what's inside. So as I'm listening to you, I have two thoughts. One is I've often thought if I had the confidence of today with the looks of then. But when I had the youth, I was not nearly feeling as confident and good about myself as I do today. The other thing, though, is I don't think boys are unscathed. Boys have their own pressures. They often have to disconnect from their feelings and therefore from the closeness with other boys and under and their friendships they have their plight every gender is put under a stressors and is is really led these days to have to disconnect of different parts of themselves but

absolutely we we I don't think that it's by definition harder on the girls. I agree with you. And I definitely, I think in a way that's a great point to make because I feel like we all, it's almost like in life, we all have the one thing that we're struggling with and it doesn't mean other people aren't struggling. I think just regard to like the body image thing, it was difficult for me at a young age to feel like why, obviously, I mean, we've talked about it before it's like everyone gets to watch a girl become a woman like there's physical things we're

watching no I can relate to everything you said I I could have chosen that story too no but I I appreciate you clarifying that because I I yeah I agree I don't want to diminish the fact that I agree there's a lot of young boys that now are having to do the work where they can't maybe connect with a partner because they didn't even know how to be vulnerable. They don't even know how to get in touch with their feelings because as young boys, it was like, wipe it off. You don't cry. Boys don't cry. And that is one of the most beautiful things in life is when you get to feel emotional and get deep and cry and actually embrace your emotions rather than pushing them away. You know, it's interesting

you describe this tears thing because in the podcast, in Where Should We Begin, it's therapy sessions. It's anonymous therapy sessions. And every time you feel the heart swell on the part of the male partners, people are continuously commenting about how rare it is that we are in the presence of that. And it's interesting because it's in those moments where it's vulnerable, but it actually feels very strong at the same time. So I'm just thinking of that as you were. No, that is a good point. I've always said, like, I think it's so attractive when a partner of mine, I mean, obviously, if they're crying over something, that's like a little them trying to, like, make me feel bad.

It's like, oh, they cheated, and now they're going to start crying to me, Esther. I'm like, get your shit together. Why are you crying? I should be crying. But when they get emotional and they're able to go there, I agree. I think it's the, such a form of human connection. We can bond with someone in that moment because we all experience those feelings. And if someone is in front of you, allowing you to watch them be the most vulnerable they can be, that can also take your relationships to the next level where that person clearly trusts you to hold them in a space where they're going through something that's clearly extremely difficult. And to share it with someone, I think, is incredible.

So all of this is part of real intimacy and connection. What I'm afraid of, because you've been asking me the whole time, you know, the influence of the apps, the kind of dating that we do, is that we are becoming socially atrophied. And that skills and tools that we used to have that allow us to respond to people, to engage with them, to show up for them, to not be afraid that we are intrusive or imposing

if we need help from them, that that whole range of interactions is diminished because we are becoming atrophied. It was really refreshing even to just do a couple of these exercises from your game. I, one, I can even feel the difference in the conversation. It's just flowing and our mind is going places. I'm learning more about you. I mean, we could go on forever. And I hope everyone listening felt the ability for both of us to connect over commenting on each other's and oh, I've learned something about Esther. That's really interesting, her answer, and then feeling so comfortable to share mine because you got open

and vulnerable. And again, you can pick and choose what questions you're going to ask on a date. You can, maybe if you want, like, you know, it doesn't need to get so deep and intense. There are many light ones. There are many, many light ones. You know, what's a, what's a guilty pleasure. Yeah. And it's, it's just having an open prompt that allows you to both get to know each other without it actually being so specific of like, okay, you answer, tell me about your life. Okay, you answer, tell me about your life. It's not as aggressive.

It's more of a collaborative conversation. So Esther, I feel like this episode is gonna help so many people because they are now gonna take a deep breath and be like, I'm about to reopen the app. I'm gonna have a much different mindset. And maybe someone is going to go on that date that they have been kind of avoiding and nervous to go on because now they're feeling more empowered of like, you know what? Why not?

Let's try it. Let's see what can happen from this. And worst case scenario, I learned something new about myself. On to the next. Imagine that you even ask the person on the date, what would you find an interesting question to ask that you actually never asked because it's supposedly not in the code of dating? You know, do a meta position, you know, like we were talking about movies. What's a movie that you would like to see again for the first time. I love that too.

And I love also like sometimes talking about what's actually happening. Like, how do you feel about first dates? How are you feeling about the app? Sometimes I feel like having a conversation about what is actually prohibiting us from furthering the conversation and feeling comfortable. It's like, how is your experience on the apps?

How is your first date experience going? Like, I always get a little nervous. And so you almost can break the third wall of just acknowledge the unsaid between the two of you, which will immediately garner a closer connection because you can bond over the thing that you're currently stressing out about. Cool. You know, in my, one of the memories I remember, I used to love hanging in bookstores. And I remember going to bookstores on first dates.

And it was like, you know, show me what you would want me to look at, what I would want you to look at. You could do this in a vinyl store. Vinyl stores are an amazing place for people to go these days. You know, at the time, they were nothing unusual. It was all vinyl, you know, until we got invaded with the discs. But it's, you know, tell me something about you, you know, without my having to do an interview and ask you a question about it. We get so much information from people.

You don't want AI to curtail us to the point where we have artificial intimacy and artificial intuition. You want to be able to be intuitive, to sense things and to trust what you sense. If you become constantly doubtful that you're not sure that what you sense is what it is or is okay, then we are losing a fundamental part of our humanity. Esther, I cannot thank you enough for coming back and call her daddy. You're our guiding light. You help us through everything. And we need to see you more often. I'll come again.

Yes, exactly. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Me too. Great. Outro Music