Stuff You Should Know - How Online Dating Works

Episode Date: March 6, 2014

No longer weird, possibly still desperate and approaching normal, online dating's been around almost as long as the Internet itself. So what exactly is the best way to find love online if one were so inclined to do so? Josh and Chuck hook you up. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.

So it's Stuff You Should Know. That's right. The online dating edition, we are all in committed relationships in this room, and so I doubt if any of us have ever online dated, probably right? I have not. I have not, Jerry, probably haven't.

We're all like long-term monogamers. But I mean, we're also good at research too. Sure. It's not like there's, I haven't been to the sun, but we did one on the sun. And that one's stunk. Yeah, that was a bad example. I do have to say though, if I were single

here in this modern age, I would way, way be into online dating. Well, it's normal now, you know? I was not ever skilled at wooing the ladies like out in bars or whatever like. I would do fine set up or like at a dinner party or something, but this would have really benefited me back in the day, if it was like a legit thing

in the early 90s. Well, yeah. And there were some legit sites, but it was more like, remember the movie singles, like the video profiles. Right, great expectations. Was that what it was called? Well, that's in real life. Yeah. There's something like that

called great expectations, yeah. Well, should we talk about the history? Did you have a better intro than that? No, I didn't. Okay. No, I just figured we'd go into the history of it because it does have a surprisingly long history. Yeah.

I guess using computers, not necessarily online because there wasn't such a thing as online. Right. Started in the 60s with a guy named Jeff Tarr, who was a mathematician at Harvard. And he was interested in the girls. He was a little bit of girl crazy. I said he was so desperate to meet girls.

And I think with your mathematician at Harvard, it's probably not like, you know, bustling with hot chicks. So prepare to have your socks knocked off because the lady who wrote this slate article did a miscarriage of justice in describing Jeff Tarr and his operation. Oh yeah? First of all, apparently the computer that they used,

the circuit board spelled out the word sex. Yeah. Just for fun? Yes. Okay. No, because like that was the point. Well, yeah. Right?

And he was desperate to meet them because he was desperate to like get with as many girls as he could. Apparently this guy had no problems whatsoever. Really? Yeah. You saw a mathematician Harvard 60s and you thought, hey, I read a contemporary article

and another one that written years later about this thing. It was a thing. It was called Operation Match that he set up. Yeah. And basically for $3, you submitted a questionnaire and Jeff Tarr fed your questionnaire into a computer and you were guaranteed to get at least five names

of people who the computer decided were a match based on your questionnaire answers. And they, you know, he was doing it mostly in New England for the New England colleges. It was probably back then it was probably names, addresses and how they like to be touched. Pretty much, you know? But they got kind of a tepid response

and then somebody mentioned it on like an interview on TV and it took off after that. And then a few months, they had 100,000 people in this database. It's pretty good for the 1960s. Yeah, and they were, these were undergrad college students charging three bucks a piece. So in a few months they made like $300,000.

Wow. Coming up with the first computer dating service whatsoever. Did he go on to do anything great? Oh, he's a mathematician from Harvard. I'm assuming yes. Okay. Well, in the 70s, Great Expectations is what you mentioned

was founded by Jeffrey Oman. Yeah. And he's the one that did the video presentations like they made fun of in the singles movie. Right. Where you would just do your little video profile and people would watch it and say, you know, I like that girl, she plays guitar

and look, she's drinking coffee. She likes dogs. Can you imagine anything more clunky than getting like a video tape in the mail of video profiles of people? I couldn't imagine it. It's not a sustainable system. Or making one, man, especially in the day

of when you had to, you know, it would take me like two weeks to do a video thing and that's with modern computer editing. Right, or yeah, or yeah, be the burnout editor who like had to put those things together. Yeah. Well, in singles, it was Tim Burton. He had a little cameo as,

Oh, really? The director of her dating video. Have you seen singles recently? No. Wow. It really made quite an impression on you. I was about to say it's one of my favorite movies, but it's not on my top 100 favorite movie list.

Oh. I might have forgotten that one. Great movie. You're gonna have to do 101. Yeah. Perhaps. So I like this story about Jeffrey Olman, who found a great expectations.

He was apparently on Montell Williams show. Yeah. And Montell Williams. That dates it. He was basically saying like, doesn't your service just pray on lonely people? And Olman said, yes, just like restaurants, pray on the hungry and doctors pray on the sick.

And talk show hosts pray on the people who are too bored to read a book. Love that guy. I know. And I remember, I'm old enough to where I remember these early services and it being like an embarrassment. Like, God, what a desperate person to sign up for something like this.

I read an article that made that point that there is still that stigma surrounding online dating. No, a certain percentage of people polled still feel that way for sure. I think like 13% of people who are involved in online dating consider themselves desperate for online dating. And this author was putting this assertion out there

that just the very structure of online dating, the privacy settings, the just general embarrassment surrounding it, just the way it's set up. It's treated like it's an embarrassing thing. And as long as it's treated like it's an embarrassing thing, it's never going to become real dating. It's going to become some hybrid of it where only sad people are the desperate

or people who just want to hook up or the dregs of humanity. That's where they go. It will never be the de facto method of dating as long as it's structured as an embarrassing thing. Do you think it's still structured that way? Yeah, I think it is. I think like the privacy settings are in part for protection and to keep creeps at bay.

But I think it's also so that the average person can't see that you're trying online dating. Even still today. I guess I see that. I think there's nothing to be ashamed of. No, I agree entirely. It's a very efficient way to meet a like-minded person. Right.

I would be way into it. I think maybe like in five years, that will be a moot point because so many other people will be using it. Because apparently it started to wane in 2004, 2005. Well, that was more to do with the economy, I think. Oh yeah? Yeah, they did a study from like over a 10 year period

and it definitely waned in the mid 2000s. But now it's booming again. Dating services report earnings of $2 billion in 2013. Jeez. And they said that they're growing at a rate of 3.1% per year now. But it did when disposable income was in shorter supply. That was definitely one of the first things to go.

Yes, but I saw and now it's back. But I think in addition to that economic hitch upward, there was an attendant acceptance, social acceptance of it as well that accounted for a growth in it. Between 2005 and 2013, the number of Americans who said that they know somebody who online dated like doubled from like 15% to 30% of Americans. And like 11% of all Americans use

or have used online dating services. So it is definitely becoming more and more widespread. But again, I do think that there is still just some tinge of whatever that it is. Yeah, sure. Some people might be a little reticent to say that in mixed company. Yeah, which is weird.

Because it's like you, if you're dating, people aren't ashamed of dating. No, or not dating. It's just adding that online to it, changes everything for some reason. Yeah, and of course with the advent of smartphones and apps and GPS locators that has helped a lot too to increase revenues and action.

So thanks to the technical revolution that was the advent of the internet. In 1995, a little site called match.com came about, which is interesting because that was the first online dating service and match was the name of that one from Harvard in the sixties. I noticed that. I wondered if he got any juice out of that.

Probably not. Probably not. No, but he's a Harvard mathematician. He's doing all right. Yeah, we assume. Yes. And then a couple of years later, another one that's still around

a very prominent J-date was created. Yeah, for the Jewish community. Yeah, and then the original version of Facebook was called Face Match. Yeah. And it was basically an online version of. This way to check people out, basically. Right, exactly.

Now, Chuck, like you said, there's sites all over the place. There's apps. It's just becoming more and more prevalent. Yeah, I made a list if we can go ahead and get to this of my 20 favorite niche sites. Oh, yes, please. Because you can go to the gentle ones like eHarmony or Match or the big daddies.

Or if you're really specific, you can go to a likewise for fellow book lovers, farmers only. City folk, just don't get it. Exactly. There's one called HowAboutWe.dot.dot, which is basically instead of some huge profile that you have to set up, it's very, very short and casual. Like, how about we go eat at a great restaurant tonight

and someone can just respond and meet you. If you're an Ivy Ligger, you might go to Ivy Date. That's a site. EquestrianSingles.com. I'm sorry. That's an obnoxious dating site. Oh, totally obnoxious. EquestrianSingles, if you're into horses.

There's one called CupidTino.com for fans of Apple products. Oh, man. Because they found that Apple people tend to be alike. VeggieDate, if you're a vegetarian, must love pets. Our time is just one of many for people over 50, which is kind of cool to see. Geek to geek, there's obviously political ones, Republican people meet and Democratic people meet.

I don't know if there's a Tea Party people meet or not. I would guess. TrekPassions. Yes. They like to hike? Nope. Man. My lovely parent is for single parents.

SeaCaptainDate is, I think, my favorite one. That's for real. Yeah, it's just for people looking for their first mate. That's awesome. Find your face mate. That's for people who think that want to find people that look like them. It's a little creepy.

WealthyMen.com. StashPassion, if you're into mustaches. OK, not drugs on you. No, personals for cat lovers. Waiting till marriage for the virgins among us. Yeah, I found one that was founded by a woman who had had cervical cancer. Oh, that's nice.

Who founded a site for people who are incapable of having sex but still want to find love. And apparently, it's gotten a pretty great response. That's awesome. And the last one was Tall Friends that I thought was kind of interesting. Like they're just tall? You're just into tall people.

Or I guess I've heard of that from a lot of tall people, especially tall women who don't like dating short guys and have a hard time finding dudes that are 6'3". You go to Tall Friends. Go to Tall Friends. I saw another one called The Gaggle. Have you heard about that? Yeah, that one's interesting.

It's basically for a woman to date all of the various prized parts of an individual's personality but broken out and distributed among a whole group of men. Like I want to date an athlete, so I go on a date with this guy. But I like a brainy guy, too, so I'll go on a different date with a brainy guy. Right. And so on and so on.

A tall dude. Yeah. And then the woman, but she's dating all these dudes at once, hence The Gaggle, a gaggle of dudes. Yeah, more power to you, I guess. And then, of course, it gets as weird as your imagination can get. Weirder than farmers only?

Oh, yeah. Or Trek passions? Way weirder. Or sea captain date? Even weirder. All right. Yeah. So that's some pretty good stuff, Chuck.

Thanks. That was some good digging. Well, those are, like you said, one of many, many, many. But we're going to be talking about the basic online, standard online dating scenario. And we're going to talk about that right after this message. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye,

bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude. Bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so welcome back to online dating. I guess we should just walk someone through this process. Yeah.

Step by step. Yeah, so the first thing you're going to want to do, there's different kinds of sites. They're typically broken out into two categories. Sea Captains and Tall People. No, I kid. It's Free Sites and Pay Sites. No, that was serious, that last one.

No, no, no, I was still laughing at it. Oh, OK. So you got your Free Sites, you got your Pay Sites. And both of them, it depends on the site. But for the most part, if you are thinking of creating a profile, you will be able to go on to just about any dating site. And give a very minimal amount of information.

And start browsing. Yeah, because they want you to check out the site and get the hooks into you. And they don't necessarily say, you got to pay right away, or you got to give us all this information. Just browse around the shop, see if you like anything. Right. So you're going to give a little information

like whether you're a man or a woman, or whether you're seeking a man or a woman, maybe the year you're born, and then maybe your zip code. Yeah, you're not going to get full profiles if you're browsing. No, unless you may not get pictures either. It depends. So if it's a free site, you may. Y'all true.

If it's a pay site, and we'll talk about the pros and the cons in a minute of each. If it's a pay site, you might be able to see a profile without pictures, or you might be able to see both. But you can't contact anybody unless you pay. But for the most part, when you're going online, you can check the people out with just a tiny bit of information. Yeah.

Once you join, though, you're going to have to start building a profile. And it kind of starts out easy and broad. And then as you go through creating the profile, I mean, it takes a minute. Yeah, and I guess we should point out, too, that you're going to have to input some kind of email address. It's up to you if you want to create an email address for free just for online dating.

If you're really super freaked out about privacy, might not be a bad idea. But most of these, you're not allowed to be emailed directly at first. It's either anonymous through the site, or the site has their own messaging system. So it's pretty safe these days as far as protecting your privacy. You shouldn't get too freaked out. It's not like this 1970s.

Where there wasn't even online. With great expectations. Oh, yeah. But it's like, this is my address in the background. Right, exactly. You want to, your next step there is probably writing down some physical attributes about yourself. Because as much as people like a good personality

and a sense of humor, a lot of people are probably looking for something specific. Right. Or maybe just general, physically. So you've got height, weight, hair color, eye color. Body type. Yeah, whether you have tattoos or piercings, that kind of thing. Sure.

And then it gets a little more involved. Then all of this is, you're just clicking bubbles or selecting from dropdown menus. Yeah. But it gets a little more granular. Like, what are your interests? And these aren't people snooping. You're doing this for yourself to have a more complete profile.

Sure. If you're in there going, well, why do they want to know what kind of movies I like, then you don't get online dating. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you should go to, like, Suspicious Minds. Or Suspicious Hearts Online Dating Service. They're like, you don't give out any personal information

because you're off the grid. Yeah, or the dropdown menu says, I like this, this, that, or none of your business. And everyone just picks none of your business. So your interests and activities. You play guitar. You play sports. So you're into reading.

Who's your favorite filmmaker? What do you like to do on the weekends? All that kind of stuff will give someone else a good idea of what you're like. Yeah, your income level. Whether you have pets, how you feel about having pets. If you live with your parents. These are all things you can lie about.

Well, that's the thing. I read somewhere that one in 10 profiles online are made up. Yeah. In fact, OKCupid says the top four things people lie about most are height, income, their photo, and their sexuality, which I thought was weird. Yeah, it is weird. I didn't get that one.

You're not doing yourself any favors if you're lying about your sexuality out of the gate. No, and supposedly also, Chuck, 54% of people who submitted to a poll about online dating said that they had met somebody, met up with somebody in life, who quote, seriously misrepresented themselves in their dating profile. Well, we might just like.

Yeah, we should go and talk about that with your photo. You want to represent yourself well, obviously. But you want to be accurate because, again, you're not going to do yourself any favors. You're not going to get a second date if you show up looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and you put a picture of Tom Selleck up there. Hey, Hunchbacks need love, too.

Sure they do. And that's why there's Hunchbackmate.com. Like, really, we could just sit here all day and come up with feasible names for dating sites. Goitre Touch. I think Jerry's grossed out. Did you know Goitres, right, is from hyperhypothyroidism, which is the result of an iodine deficiency?

That's why there's iodized salt. To prevent Goitres? Oh, wow. So I should have told my grandmother that. Apparently, also, the most preventable form of mental retardation is treated with iodine, or it results from an iodine deficiency, which is the main reason why they started

adding that to salt, supposedly. And they think there's this thing called the Flynn effect, where inexplicably, the intelligence as mapped by IQ over the 20th century rose like three points across the board in the West. And they think it's possible that it's from iodized salt. We actually talked about that in that podcast a couple of weeks ago.

Did we really? I'm just very fascinated by that, apparently. So fascinated that it knocks out all memories of speaking about it. Buddy, you put that in an online dating profile and just watch your computer light up. What do you think I talk about to you, me? Drives are crazy.

She's like, tell me about iodized salt for the eighth time. She loves it stuff. All right, so where are we here? Oh, you're going to list all these things. You're going to fill out your profile. And then you're going to do that again, but under the notion of what you're looking for in someone else, like what your ideal mate do and look like.

Yep, and then they're trying to match you. Yeah, the computer takes the stuff, choose it up like carrots and apples, and poops out some matches. True. Is that true? Because I think it's made up, frankly. No, we'll get to the science of it.

See, you mentioned your photo. Did we say don't put any personal information on there? No, that seems like a no-brainer. They won't ask for that stuff, but there are times where you can write things about yourself, so don't feel free to say, this is where I live and this is my social security number. Right, or this is where I work.

Yeah, true. Which is one that I mean, I could see overlooking that. Yeah, that seems innocuous. Inevitably, you know, like. I work at Discovery Channel. Something like that, yeah. Where? Oh, in DC.

Oh, cool. I'll be right there. Which floor? I want to show you how I can hold a knife in my teeth. You're going to love it. That would be PiratesLove.com. No, that's C-Captain. That's a sub branch of that one, right?

Yeah, probably so. All right, so you mentioned free versus subscription. They both have their pluses and minuses. Free is good because it's free, and we like that. Yes, but so do 12-year-old boys. Exactly. Who poses other people. Yeah, exactly.

That is one of the problems with free websites like this, is that you will get imposters. Jokes, ads, scams. There's like a whole Nigerian Prince scam that's going on. Actually, apparently, there's something you can do. If you see a photo of somebody that you're interested in, you can put it to the test. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, you can drag and copy it onto your desktop, and then drag and drop it on Google Image Search. You know, you can search by image. Does it reverse lookup? It looks up that image, and it will show you all this stuff, and it may say, this is a scam. If that same picture shows up all over the place under different names, different aliases, whatever,

that's a scam. What if I did that to your picture? Would it say, this is Josh Clark? Yeah, probably. Wow, that's creepy. It's a pretty smart computer they got there. Yeah, that's pretty creepy, though. But I guess it's good.

Like, it's creepy on one hand to be able to find out who someone is from a photo. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not like that. Sorry. No, if it were on a dating site, and it was just supposed to be somebody's photo, if it came up as like, yeah, here's this photo that you found.

Here's the place that you found it. And here it is on these 18 other profiles with 18 other names. Gotcha. Then you know it's a scam. OK. But you can go back. It's kind of like a backdoor way to figure out

if the person's made up profile. All right, so I guess that's good. Man, my brain is not quite functioning today. Really? I'm saying things just a little out of syntax. Yeah, Josh is going on vacation tomorrow. So you're in vacation mode. Last day of school.

I told him to rip up his research and throw it up in the air and run out of the building after. I'm pretty psyched. You should do that. All right, so the free ones, like we said, are good because they're free, but bad because of all that other stuff. The pay ones, you got to pay for, which isn't great.

But a lot comes with that, which is like an identity verification process, because they're going to be using your credit card and stuff. So your information is going to be valid and safe with the paid site. Supposedly. Or you can sue the pants off of that paid site for failing to verify correctly.

Yeah, I guess so. You can also access other features if you're a paid member. Like maybe they'll bump you up in search, or you'll have access to more information. That seems wrong. Like paying for your profile to come up higher, that's not OK. That's the basis of the internet.

I guess. You know? I guess. Search referral. So Chuck, we talked about making a profile. Let's talk about making a good profile. Yeah, and by the way, this was Ed Grabinowski, right? The Grabster?

I believe so. Yeah, an early Grabster. Yeah, I think reading some of his examples here, I think we're learning about the Grabster. Oh yeah, for sure. I think he's talking about himself in third person. I think he totally is. But he does have some good ideas.

I'd go out with him. Some good examples. Like he's basically saying don't be a hack when you're coming up with your profile, especially when you're free writing stuff. Choose a cool picture of yourself. Choose a picture of yourself where there's not other people around, and you have a shirt on,

and you just don't look like a sleazebag. Use humor. Like don't just say I'm funny. Be funny. Don't just say I'm interested in something. Demonstrate how you're interested in it. Like he said, begin with the subject line. And he used two awesome examples, frankly.

Yeah, a Bogart fan seeking unusual suspects. OK, that was a half awesome example. The next one's awesome. Agreed, go ahead. Come sail away with this boating enthusiast-slash-sticks fan. I think that is the Grabster. I bet you anything that's.

Yeah, how would you come up with that? Just using your imagination. I'd go out with that person. You want to make sure that you fill out your whole form, everything. Don't be lazy. If you're lazy, it sends a very clear signal that, one, you're lazy, which is not a good prospect for anybody.

Well, unless people are into that. Well, that's when you go on lazy date. Yeah. And then it also says that I'm not really that into this. Yeah. This is half-hearted. Yeah, and definitely don't say my friends put me up to this. I usually don't do things like this.

Right, I'm not a loser. So I don't normally do that, because you're insulting the very people that you're reaching out to. Yeah, not a good idea. And like we said, you want to not just talk about yourself. You want to demonstrate yourself. Yeah, and Ed, again, says, instead of saying, I enjoy Stanley Kubrick films, say,

the other night I was watching A Clockwork Orange, and I found myself thinking it'd be a lot more fun to watch and discuss with someone else. To suddenly punch as we're walking down along the water. This movie about random violence and rape and torture, be a lot more fun to watch it with someone. Or instead of, I'm funny, say, I love quoting Monty Python or Simpson's lines.

Yeah. That could be us. Well, we do that all the time. He says another way to be successful is to just know who you are and know what you want and know what you're looking for. And that's a big plus for people who get fixed up on dates, like your friends might think someone's perfect for you.

But who really knows best but yourself who's perfect for you? Yeah. So you can avoid all that, the claptrap of getting set up on a bad date. Well, that's the whole role of online dating. Computer algorithms and apps and individuals have taken over from these traditional roles of family,

friends, coworkers. Yeah, of matchmaking. It's people taking it into their own hands or relying on a computer algorithm to do it. Which is, I mean, that's the whole basis of online dating. That's the whole point of it. To me, it makes sense. It's just a time saver.

Like, who's got time to go through just the random, maybe I'll meet someone thing. I think that's probably what ultimately 100 years from now, historians and anthropologists will look back on and explain the prevalence of online dating. That's why. It's just more efficient, I guess. And then lastly, this one's extremely important, too.

When you're creating a good profile, use grammar wisely. Yeah. Don't check for misspellings, punctuation. Put some thought into it, because you'll look like a dummy if you have a poorly worded profile. Yeah, or again, if that's your thing, if you want to type the letter U instead of Y-O-U. Then go to dumdumlove.com.

Do that and find fellow dumdums. If you're into finding like-minded people, you should be honest, you know? Yeah. All right. You can also go to the arrival site, uh.com. So check before we go on. I like lazydake.com.

Pretty soon, you're going to be getting ready. You're going to put on some aftershave, your very nice ruffled tuxedo shirt, some pomade in your hair, and your high waiter pants with your white socks. It's time to go out there in the big wide world and actually meet somebody. Yeah, and this is after you have, uh, pinged this person.

Yeah, and that's after this message. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Uh, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS

because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling

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Yeah, like I said, this is after you have been pinged or pinged someone else. That's right. So we should probably talk about that first. Like it's not just like you make a profile and all of a sudden you have a date and you go out. Like there is a first contact procedure. Sure.

And it doesn't necessarily happen very quickly. Yeah. And some people choose to make contact. Apparently you don't have to say much in your message when you're making contact with somebody. The Grabster says something like, hey, I saw your profile and it seems like we have some common interests.

Take a look at my profile and if you're interested, send me a message. It's probably sufficient. And he says you might send a message to several people at once, one at a time. And then after you sent your messages, there's nothing you can do but wait. Yeah, and that I think goes back

to how you are generally as a person. If before online dating, you were the kind of dude that would go to a bar and try and get like 15 phone numbers, then you might want to scatter, you might take the shotgun approach. Or if you're not that kind of guy, if you're like me and never talked to girls at bars,

because you were just into hanging out with your buddies, then you might want to be a little more singular in your approach and say like this, this lady sounds really nice. Not these 12 ladies sound really nice. Let me see if one of them likes me back. She sounds like such a super lady. It depends on what kind of a hurry you're in, I guess.

Yeah. I would be a little more methodical, but I've known, I have friends that, you know, take the shotgun approach. And I shouldn't keep saying that because that implies like you're killing somebody. I just mean you're spreading a wide. Casting a wide net.

Casting a wide net, there you go. So that's the capturing people in nets approach. That's right. And we should also point out too that there are a couple of ways to go about it. You can either get matched with someone through their algorithms that we talk about, or you can just do the searching yourself.

Like they can narrow it down for you and you could do it, you know, just search through until you find someone you like. Right, and there's a lot of sites out there that have no algorithm whatsoever. It's just that questionnaire you filled out is matched up with other questionnaires. And the more similar answers

there are on the two questionnaires, the higher the ranking of the person who is suggested that you contact. Like you've got 12 things in common with this person. And then there's other sites, which we'll talk about a little more, that do use algorithms that have like basically proprietary algorithms supposedly

do a lot more than that, just comparing similar questionnaires. Yeah, which one is that? Well, eHarmony does. They compare 29 dimensions of compatibility. Key dimensions. Yeah, that's right. I believe match.com uses algorithms.

Chemistry.com, which is apparently a sub-site of match.com, uses a personality inventory that the anthropologist Helen Fisher came up with. Oh yeah? That supposedly is kind of work-y. Yeah? I don't know if it, that's the thing. No one has any idea how well this stuff works.

Well, each site is gonna tout their own method and say that we're really pairing you with someone who's like you. But I think in general they probably do a decent job if you're filling out all these things and someone has a lot of similar interests. It's not brain surgery to pair those people up and say you might like each other.

Well, supposedly like people who are professional personality inventorists, that's a real thing now, have sat down and taken these things and still are only scoring about 75%. And Grabster points out like these people are professionals if you sit the average person down in front of these, one of these personality inventories, we have a terrible ability to express what we want

and who we are. Yeah, inability. Right, and as Helen Fisher was pointing out, like we're terrible at that kind of stuff, but if you can pay attention to people's behavior, then you can start making predictions very accurately. So they were saying and in this article and from other places I've seen like

those algorithms don't necessarily do anything more than just the two comparing inventories would, like comparing the two questionnaires and finding 28 similarities and there's your match right there. But like you said, the other way to go is to browse. Yeah, and I would recommend, and this is just how I would do it, is that there are sites that give weighted answers

to certain attributes, like it's too black and white to me to say, I like blondes, I want a girl who's 25 and who's a Democrat, you might feel really strongly about like a political belief, so you can say that's that one is super important to me, but hair color really is not that big of a deal. So then that's thrown into the algorithm and you get a little more specific,

like they're not gonna pair some super liberal person with a tea party person if they both say that's really important to them. If like that's one of their values that they stick by or I hate dogs and they paired you with a dog lover, like you need to tell someone, I really hate dogs. Well, that goes back to being upfront and knowing what you want and saying it.

Yeah. Because apparently that saves a lot of time as well. All right, so you've made contact with some people, some people who have gotten in touch with you, you've messaged back and forth and you said, hey, let's meet in real life. The next step that you have to take unless you're insane or just a dummy

and you're on dumdum.com is to talk to this person on the phone, go to a pay phone, have them go to a pay phone. It doesn't matter. Good luck finding a pay phone. You have to talk on the phone because right then and there you're going to find out if it is a 12 year old boy that we talked about earlier who like, who made a joke profile on a free site.

Yeah, it's a good way to root out just the biggest piece of dishonesty. Sure, I also imagine that you could probably find out pretty quickly if they're actually boring. Yeah, sure, you can learn a lot by talking to someone and if you think you can learn to everything you need to know from emails, you're wrong. Well, yeah, I mean, like it's not true.

We've figured out by now how to perform online. Yeah. You know, like people just know how to be online and what's expected of them online. It is much more difficult to talk. Yeah. As we quite often find ourselves saying things aren't good, right?

Good. So then you want to go out in the real wide world and you're going to arrange for Chuck a very public meeting, a crowded place, lots of people, AKA witnesses, and you should set up a date that is going to last no more than about an hour. Quick dinner, meet for coffee, maybe a movie,

but a short one. Yeah, and that's, we'll meet for a TV show, right? That is for your own safety and for your own sake because sometimes you get it wrong or the dating site gets it wrong and you end up with someone who's not a match and you don't want to waste each other's time. So make it quick.

You can, I have a feeling if you're having a great time, you both are, you can always extend that date. Sure. Say, hey, let's go hit that wine bar too. Cause dinner was great, I'd like to keep talking to you. Right, it's harder to shorten the date. Right. Like remember how we were going to go

to that wine bar after this? Let's not do that. I found out I hate your guts. Yeah, and it's real easy to say, you know what? I lied, I don't have to go help my mom clean out her sock drawer. I really like you, let's keep the state going. And it's super easy to say, no,

I really do have to go help my mom clean out her sock drawer. It's crazy. Yeah. You also want to meet in public, like we said, for your safety as well. Sure. Oh yeah. There's a woman from Las Vegas who's suing match.com

for $10 million right now because there was a man who she met and dated for like eight days who four months later came to her house and stabbed her a bunch of times and like kicked her head and neck and left her for dead. Was this after their relationship had gone bad or just? Yeah. So they dated for eight days,

four months later he shows up at her house and this guy apparently confessed to murdering another woman he met on match.com too. All right. And then killed himself in jail. Wow. Yeah. And it happens to men as well.

There was a man who arranged to meet a woman and was beaten and robbed by the woman and her son. So you don't want to invite people to your house. And he's like, you didn't tell me you had a son. Yeah. I don't like kids. That's nice. So you don't want to meet him at your house,

you want to meet him in public. Yeah, just protect yourself. Use common sense and caution. Don't be a dummy. Ed suggests a college sporting event. Yeah. I thought college was very... Because Ed wants to take a girl to a college sporting event.

Not pro. No. It doesn't like pro. If it'd like pro, he would have written pro. Yeah, that's true. You got anything else? Yeah, I totally do. Okay.

So we were saying that the, this online dating thing, the sites themselves, there's, they're still growing and it's becoming more and more normal. Sure. But then apps are becoming a little more prevalent as well. Yeah. Like there's one called Tinder,

where you can see based on GPS, is it Facebook profiles? I don't know. Or maybe you have to make a Tinder profile. I don't know. Of the people who are literally right around you, at like a coffee house or a bar or a club or whatever. Yeah.

And you can basically say, I'm interested in this person. I like how this person looks. I like this person. Yeah. And if the, those people on Tinder, say the same thing about you, then you can communicate with one another.

Right. And apparently like that's a big thing now. Yeah. Some of them are less about dating and more about just kind of hooking up maybe like, hey, I found someone who's two blocks from me. Do you want to go kiss each other for a little while in that alley?

You can do that. And I don't know. I don't know if that's an online dating site, but it's a thing that exists now. Well, yeah. Dating, it depends on your interpretation of the word date. Good point. And then lastly, Chuck,

Wired got together with okcupidandmatch.com and did some data mining and came up with some tips for how to optimize your online dating profile. So for example. Are these real? This is real. Okay.

This is based on okcupidandmatch.com's figures. And apparently that's another surprising byproduct is these dating sites, the raw data they do have are serving the fields of like anthropology and sociology. They're starting to open up their raw data archives and say, go get whatever you want from us. And it's helping. It's helping things like Wired.

Yeah, I guess so. So if you're a guy and you have a tattoo, it's cool. If you're a woman, you have a tattoo, you're going to have a harder time getting a date. Really? Statistically speaking, on match.com and okcupid. All right. If you talk about karaoke, you're going to bomb.

Really? Yeah. Wow. This one says, be hotter than you are now. That's a good tip. Send a picture that under-represents yourself slightly. And then show up and be like, oh yeah, I actually dropped 10 pounds.

Yep. Check it out. If you are a female, you want to talk about London, New York City, yoga, surfing, and the word athlete. If you use those in your profile, you are likelier to get dates. You want to always refer to yourself as a girl, never as a woman.

Okay. And if you're a boy, you never want to use the word girl when referring to women. Sure. You always use the word women. Interesting. Someone took us to task the other day

in an email about saying female. Like we should say or should say? Should not say female. Saying you guys don't say male, you say female though. And I was like, I didn't know there was a bad association with that. About what? I would have think saying like,

dames or broads would be super offensive, but I thought female was like a, like kind of the straight and narrow way to go. Sure. And that's the justification of someone's gender. Yeah, I'm confused. I was too. I didn't get a response.

So maybe I misunderstood it. Apparently, Wired says men who use the word whom get 31% more contacts from women. The word what? Whom. W-H-O-M. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Even when it's used incorrectly. Yeah. I guess that's an impressive thing to say, whom. Yeah. If you are a man, you can talk about crafting and your children. If you're a woman, don't ever bring up crafting and never bring up your children.

Man, that is just so wrong. It is. Very wrong. I mean, like this is what I'm talking about. Anthropologically speaking. Yeah. This is like misogyny is alive and well. Yeah.

What else you got? Radiohead is the only band you should ever talk about. Apparently. Let's see. That's funny. The word retirement is attracted as far as it's related to men's profiles, but not women's. Yeah.

If you're on wealthymen.com and you see the word retirement, that's probably pretty good. I'm sure. And then also, if you have a shirtless pick of yourself, you're not gonna do very well. If you put a shirtless pick of yourself? Yep.

As a man or woman? I imagine either way, but probably it's even worse with men. Yeah. But it is true. I mean, like even if you're a girl and you just put up like kind of a smuddy selfie or something like that.

Yeah. It definitely says a certain amount too and you're gonna attract like a certain kind of guy that you might not be interested in. You just said smuddy selfie. Yeah, it's almost like the golden rule. Treat others as you want to be treated. It's represent yourself how you want to be viewed.

Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to represent yourself as a smuddy person, then put a smuddy selfie. Yeah. But the people you get, you know what you're gonna be getting. Right. That's exactly, I think that's well put.

Like you're asking for it in that case from the dregs of society. You will send you a date request. Yeah. At that point. And to try like hell to find out your address. That's right. If you want to learn more about online dating,

go give it a shot. There's free sites and stuff. You don't have to listen to us. We've never even done it. Or you could also look up this article from Ed Grabinowski for some pointers and tips by typing online dating in the search bar at houseofworks.com.

And let's see everybody. I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. You said smuddy selfie. So it's time for listener mail. Is there something wrong with that? Just think it's a funny pairing of words. Well, it's the onomatopoeia.

No, no, no. The alliteration. Yeah, alliteration. It sounds funny. Onomatopoeia would be like smuddy popping. Right. I think so. Or yeah.

Is that when the word sounds like the sound? Yeah. Okay. Hey guys, I'm going to call this pinged from Sacramento. Hey guys, I just finished the podcast on robots replacing human doctors. There's a reason I don't think we'll see that soon.

Doctors are trained scientists who specialize in human health. The whole reason we need trained scientists as doctors is that human physiology and chemistry vary enough that it's not sufficient to treat each patient the same way. If we could treat all patients the same way, nurses and diagnostic manuals

or computer systems would be sufficient because all humans don't respond the same to the same treatment, you actually do need to specialize scientists actively involved in the process. Still, I think robots or computer systems will replace many human doctors in time though. We just need more intelligent robots,

ones that are capable of thought beyond a simple pre-programmed response. Our current tech, as you indicated, is suitable for initial screening and such. With thinking machines, we could actually replace doctors, as you said. With thinking machines, we could actually replace doctors, and as you said,

they'd be more current on their medical knowledge. The big question would be whether such machines would consent to serve humanity as our current automatons do. And that is from Andy Ping in Sacramento. Nice, thanks a lot, Andy Ping. That's the kind of name you say first and last. Yep.

Never just Andy or Mr. Ping, Andy Ping. Or Dr. Ping. Maybe, is he a doctor? No, I don't think so. Is he an evil supervillain? Yes. Okay, then Dr. Ping, it is. If you want us to make a nickname for you,

or just say your first and last name together, because that's how it should be said, you can get in touch with us by tweeting to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastatdiscovery.com. And as always, check us out at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, Netflix streams, TV shows, and movies directly to your TV, computer, wireless device, or game console. You can get a 30-day free trial membership. Go to www.netflix.com slash stuff and sign up now. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

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bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.