The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Revolutionizing Dating: Endgame App’s Intentional Matchmaking Approach

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Revolutionizing Dating: Endgame App's Intentional Matchmaking Approach Endgame.dating About the Guest(s): Dr. Baxlee Bynum PhD. is a licensed therapist with over a decade of experience focused on enhancing couple relationships using scientifically proven methods. Dr. Bynum offers deep insights into the psychology of relationships and aims to revolutionize online dating through new technologies. Dr. Maegen Renee PhD. is a licensed professional counselor and business owner with extensive experience in mental health. Her expertise includes working with individuals and couples to improve communication and relational dynamics. Both Dr. Bynum and Dr. Renee are instrumental in the development of the innovative dating app, Endgame. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss dives into the intricacies of modern dating with Dr. Baxlee Bynum PhD. and Dr. Maegen Renee PhD., key figures behind the groundbreaking dating app, Endgame. Throughout the episode, they explore the endemic issues plaguing current dating platforms, from superficial connections to ghosting, and introduce a new approach that aims to transform the online dating landscape. This episode promises to deliver insightful discussions on how Endgame is setting a new standard with factors like intentional dating and scientific assessment methodologies. The conversation unveils how Endgame differentiates itself from traditional dating apps by emphasizing values like genuine connection, emotional intelligence, and reduced choice overload. Dr. Bynum and Dr. Renee reveal the psychological science behind Endgame's visual decision-making assessment designed to match users on compatibility rather than superficial traits. The episode also tackles critical issues such as married individuals on dating apps, ghosting, and the pervasive hookup culture, providing listeners with both awareness and strategies for more fulfilling dating experiences. Notably, the hosts and guests examine the transformative potential of intentional dating, offering a fresh and hopeful perspective on building meaningful relationships online. Key Takeaways: Intentional Dating: Endgame focuses on aligning users who are serious about forming genuine, long-lasting connections, contrasting with the more superficial nature of traditional dating apps. Visual Decision-Making: The app uses a unique psychological assessment based on visual choices to match individuals by values and preferences, cutting through superficial criteria. Anti-Ghosting Features: Built-in mechanisms encourage timely communication and substantive interaction between matches, addressing ghosting and decision fatigue. Combatting False Profiles and Bots: Through unique features, Endgame effectively filters out non-serious users and bots, creating a safer, more authentic dating environment. Focus on Quality over Quantity: The app favors fewer, quality matches, reducing choice overload and making the dating process more streamlined and effective. Notable Quotes: "If you're serious about dating and finding a long-lasting relationship, join our app. If not, just don't do it." - Dr. Baxlee Bynum PhD. "Our system is really instinctual, tapping into subconscious choices to understand what people truly value." - Dr. Maegen Renee PhD. "More efficient, more intentional, more purposeful dating—that's our simple goal." - Dr. Baxlee Bynum PhD. "Your time is valuable…we encourage you to date intentionally and put better use of your time on an app." - Dr. Maegen Renee PhD. "We need all the help we can get out there." - Chris Voss

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm host Voss here from the Chris Voss Show.com. When there are at least season that makes a fish, welcome to the show. For 16 years and over 23 episodes of bringing the Chris V Big Show. For 16 years and over 23 episodes, we bring you the Chris Voss Show. And as always, we're bringing the smartest guests. They're so darn bright.

They just make me look stupid, which is kind of where I am. I flunked second grade as the callback joke is on the show and never went to college, but I did start my first business at 18. So we're going to be talking to this amazing young ladies today about Endgame, the innovative dating app that's coming down the market and hopefully we'll upend what's going on in the world of dating and make things better. In the meantime, go to goodreads.com, Forchess, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Foss, Chris Foss 1 on the Tik Tok, and all those crazy

places on the interwebs. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have Dr. Baxley Bynum, PhD, and Dr. Megan Reneeene PhD on the show. Dr. Binum is a licensed therapist with more than a decade of experience, spent most of her career working to enhance couples' relationships through scientifically proven methods. And Dr. Rene is a licensed professional counselor and business owner with over a decade of experience in the field of mental health. Welcome to the show, ladies. How are you?

Thank you for having us Thank you for coming. So give us Great, we're happy to be here So give us your dot-coms. Where can people find out more about you on the interwebs? You can learn about in game at www.endgame.dating And that's ENDGgame.dating. And that's E-N-D-G-A-M-E.dating. Our app is also available on the Apple iTunes store and Google Play store.

And it's endgame dating on those app areas. There you go. Funny, socials, there are websites where people can check you out. Do you wanna plug that? It's up to you. We have an Instagram that we would love more followers. We are currently running little contests

and you can see that happening through social media only. So please join our Instagram. It's at endgame dating. Is that correct, Meg? Yes, at endgame underscore dating. You'll be able to find us and you'll quickly recognize us and see some of our video content. Look for us on there. So give us a 30,000 overview of what Endgame, the dating app is.

I'll give you each a swing of that. All right. I can go first. Endgame is a new dating app on the market and it's designed for effective dating for people who are dating with intention and purpose. The goal of Endgame is to get rid of unnecessary matches or superficial matches and match people with the most compatible, most genuine connections based on an assessment that we have on the front end that uses visual decision making and matches with people compatible from there. And I'll let Megan add anything that I may have missed.

Yeah. So in game is a game changer. The world of online dating has been around for a bit now. It's not going anywhere. The problem is, it hasn't really been changed in many years. We're changing it and we are making it more about deep, meaningful connections for people who are looking for something that's not superficial, not text heavy profiles. We have a very unique visual matching system where people are choosing between images that help them capture a picture of what it is that they value. Their lifestyle choices, their communication, all the things that research says make up a good healthy match. And then there are algorithm pushes and helps people match with people who have

those same shared value systems, communication preferences, and so on. That's all I really add at this point, just that it's a game changer, and that's the name, you know, Endgame. There's a little bit of tie in there. as the founder of Endgame and stuff. How did all three of you guys get involved in this app and deciding to help promote it? Tell us kind of the timeline for that. Yeah, so I met Candice many years ago when I first moved to Palm Beach area. I was working for FAU, Florida Atlantic University,

and I found her just to be a very bubbly, wonderful, interesting person, and she graduated from Auburn. And that is exactly where Baxley and I graduated from with our PhDs. Fast forward years later, I'd moved away, I spent some time abroad, came back to the U. the US and landed back in Palm Beach area and Candace reached out and she said, I have this idea and here's a problem right now. The online dating system has got to change, but I need some people who have an understanding of psychology, what's really going to work, what's not, let's put some science behind

it, what do you think? And I was like, I know, I know with just the right person, Dr. Bynum and I, we can help you figure this out. And that's when we all put our heads together and started figuring, figuring out what we wanted to do. And that was about a year ago now, not quite a year ago. So what, what do you, what is the problem you guys hope to solve in dating? That seems like a glaring obvious thing, but tell me, tell me what you guys are solving in dating. There's a lot of problems in dating.

Nowadays. Yeah. In the world of online and app-based dating, we see three major problems and we see this through our own experience and also we did some user experience research before going into our development phase. And what we found and what we've also experienced are superficial profiles, mismatched, matching with people who aren't viable or serious relationship options, and ghosting people who start a lot of conversations

and don't take actions. Dating that's not actionable or connecting that the connection is an action while it doesn't go anywhere, and just this mismatched process. So it causes people to feel like they're wasting their time. They have decision fatigue with all of the matches, and half of them are not even viable

matches. They are frustrated with matching and the connection not going anywhere. And also they're just frustrated in general with the process, the amount of time that it takes and just the lack of positive result afterward. So we're seeing these major problems, wasting time, decision fatigue, frustration, and we try to make a matching system that's more intentional and that connects people based on genuine interest and inherent qualities first, ahead of going to their profile with pictures

or carefully curated responses that you can have ChatGPT make your whole profile for you, but that doesn't tell you who the core of that person is. I've seen that where people are using ChatGPT to make their profile things and you're just like, and then you know them in person. Because like I said, we have big meetup groups where we meet in person and you'll be like, yeah, it doesn't match at all. I met you.

I've worked with friends. We did a game where everybody got their dating app profile and passed it around a circular table. We all got somebody else's. And I was reading my friends' profiles and they were amazing and I had positive feedback, but I was like, I didn't even know this about you or who and I had to ask who helped you Who helped you make this profile because you just kind of know they didn't do it themselves And I've also had people help me like what would I say to this prompt or how would I?

Depict myself through this little paragraph and and it's fun and it's interesting and it's cute but it doesn't necessarily yield a genuine, meaningful, lasting connection. Megan, what do you think? Yeah, I think that you kind of laughed when you said, the problems are glaring. I know that anybody could get on TikTok or Instagram or any type of social media right now, and you're going to see a thousand memes about the guy holding a fish. About the picture of what's on your mom's refrigerator.

Right now you're going to see the text threads. I've seen them turned into songs that are actually hilarious and sad at the same time, because the people are engaging in such a disrespectful and erratic weird way. So I think what we're trying to do is take away the opportunity for somebody to build a very false sense of self with just images. I could put a thousand images up of myself that are filtered and just the right angle. I can also create any narrative I want

about how great I am at communication and blah, blah, blah. But it just doesn't, like you said, when you meet the person face to face, I think that's where the disappointment comes in, right? So our system is really instinctual, is really tapping into sub-parts. So when you're looking at two images, think about a this or that. We all love to play that game, this or that.

But this is with images that capture what are your values? What is your lifestyle preference? What are your hobbies? What communication styles do you have a preference towards? Why would somebody lie about picking this image over that image? And it also makes it really difficult for bots to get in there and just create like their very text-heavy narrative. Think about it when you go on Google or any of these things, what do you do to prove that you're human? What do you do to prove that you're human, Chris? And the answer is you have to,

yes, and that would be for your person, but they ask you to click, they ask you to click, where's the red light? Where's the motorcycle? Where's the stop sign? They have a word that you have to look at and listen to and then say back. So it's really difficult because our system

is really like an image and you're selecting an image. And so it's a little bit different than what it, it's not a little bit different. It's a lot different from what exists out there. And let's talk about that. Cause I was, as you guys were talking, I was going through the app and getting set up and there was a large amount of these,

this or that questions. And I wasn't really sure, you know, what I was going through there, but that's part of the, evidently part of the 50 aesthetic decisions that you guys use to determine potential preferences, goals and values. Is that, so that's what that was, that this or that, that I went through? Correct.

Yeah, it was kind of- It may be a little bit, I was just gonna say, maybe a little bit confusing because you're looking at two images, curiously you're saying, which of these, oh, a beach or a ghost beach, I like both of those things. And it's nuanced. That's the thing, because you're gonna have to sit with,

we ask people to sit with yourself and there's slight differences and you may prefer both, but which one ultimately would you choose over the other one? We kind of wanna put a person in a position where they really have to dive down a little bit deeper and say, what's a deeper value? And it's intrinsic and it's subconscious on a level. We won't get into all the secret sauce of how we capture this whole psychological profile of you. It's not quite a psychological profile, but it's definitely a look into what you really value.

Yeah, I spent run the last half for the show. I don't know if I can probably go back and adjust that. The matching system is unique also. I just wanted to share one extra thing about it before we move on that some of the images are really similar to each other and some are really desirable images. so you could see yourself liking both and part of our intentional and purposeful dating is building self-awareness first. So

knowing yourself first before you go in to learn other people and this helps it forces people to really think I do both the beach and the mountains, but there's a part of me that has a little bit more preference towards one, even if it's small. And so this is a really simple example, but an example to highlight that people, that our users will have to really, really engage with themselves and find out what is the tipping point?

What is the tiebreaker. And at the end of the day, you do have a preference for one over the other. And that small nuance is going to put you in a category that matches with those like-minded individuals. And so we love that. Outside of that, we have a major where you can go back and reassess me and assess me too later. So we also recognize that people have seasons of life and that they grow and change, you can take back and reassess the assessment too later. So we also recognize that people have

seasons of life and that they grow and change. You could take it more than once. Pete Slauson Oh, there we go. Now, it mentions on the PR statement that you guys use this visual expression and it helps emphasize emotional intelligence. Is that what you find that this or that does or other aspects of the app? Yeah, in this case, it's talking about self-awareness and knowing yourself and being able to make those decisions well enough for yourself. Yeah, so I went through the this or that. I got to the other side. I do love how something like that can prevent the bots. Like two years ago, I subscribed to Tinder for a year, like a dummy, and really regretted it.

Like immediately as soon as I got past that paywall, all I got were those, I don't know if you've seen the Asian bots, the spammers. You can always tell, because they're these filtered gals from Asia and they're all just on, you know, they'll eventually ask you for money or your privacy data. And I was just shocked at how much of that was on. It was like, I don't know, 60% of the stuff I saw in Utah.

And I was like, this is insane. And you know, a lot of times they know those bots are there and they don't really do anything about them. You'll report them and you never hear anything. But yeah, so I like the idea of not having bots. Like I mentioned before, I've got two big Facebook group for singles and the meetup group for singles and the amount of bots we get. And then the other thing we get a lot of is the Instagram

girls, the Facebook girls and the OnlyFans girls. They're making money off of, I don't know about Instagram, but they're making money off of Facebook pages where they get paid for views and interactions with their stuff. And so they're not doing like OnlyFans level stuff. They're just kind of posting suggestive thirst traps. And then of course you have the OnlyFans bots that they try and make it look like a normal OnlyFans profile or Facebook profile. And then they want to join all the singles groups and then they're all trying to direct

everybody to traffic to their OnlyFans. So the bot system is out of control. I mean, it's become, I've probably rejected 10,000 bots to our Facebook group. It has 3,400 people. It's insane It's just it's like it's just like an assault of war really on everything and a lot of a lot of other Facebook groups They'll approve them and you'll see just you know spam the thirst traps the you know They ask I get lots of reports of asking for money for just, you know, spam, the thirst traps, the, you know, they ask, I get lots of reports of asking for money for dates, you know, oh, I need you to pay for me to drive to you, yada, yada, yada, all sorts of scams that go on. And so I like how you guys have that approach where it's a, it's a higher, it's kind of

like a, it's kind of what, what was that one app that used to be, they ask you a lot of questions beforehand, but yours is pretty easy where you can just click the button, click, you know, which picture you like and all that good stuff. What are some other aspects of in-game, the dating app that are kind of unique to you guys or you feel you've kind of put a, put a edge on it where it's better? We have, we have a patent-binding time-stamping feature and we've mentioned, we teased it earlier, but the time stamping feature helps us to understand a few things. A, how quickly it takes a person to get through the this or that assessment and that could

be a decision maker in the matching or in the queue process. It also wants you to get through that and you do see your matches. It helps us with an anti-ghosting and chat connection features that we have going on in the app. So for example, if you match with someone, you have 48 or 72 hours to engage in a chat with them to engage in a conversation And if you don't then you get a prompt. Hello. It really gentle reminder. Hello It looks like you've made this match. Are you planning to make a move so that we don't have So we don't bury people with a lot of matches that are not going anywhere. So we're action-based, intentional-based dating. If you're serious about dating, join our app.

If not, don't. Um, so the timestamping feature helps us with that. It will send a general reminder. It will help prompt a conversation. And then once you are in the conversation, it'll do the same. If you're not responding or if you haven't actioned a plan, you'll have a little prompt and this is helping us encourage respectful, mature and actionable communication so that we don't waste anybody's time.

Yeah. I think Baxley did a great job of explaining that. I think our culture, our dating culture has become really toxic. People are ghosting left and right. People who are in monogamous relationships are getting on these dating apps when they go out of town and hopping on and meeting with people and they engage with you and you have this great conversation you think it's going somewhere. Then they ghost for 48 hours and then they pop back on because you can't go back to a living situation where you're in a monogamous relationship and do these things.

Yeah. So I think that we're trying to put some protective measures against this toxic culture around I'm going to pop on and I'm going to just see what my options are. And I'm going to cramming, you know, throw out a little cram here and there. Person. Yeah, go ahead back sleep. Sorry. Oh, no, I think you have a small delay. I was just saying play for attention. I think we don't want people on the app playing for intention. Instead, we want them playing for intention. So we're not

just talking to all of our matches to feel an attention void. Instead, we're really trying to intentionally date. But I'm sorry to interrupt you, Megan, because you were on a good track there with the bread crumbing. No, yeah. And I just, I'm sorry if there's a little bit of a lag on my end, but that's the thing too. What Bexley said was dating with intention and this is not a platform where people should go on if they're seeking attention. I think a lot of times women are flooded with matches and this also limits the number of matches. People think that the more matches I have, the better. Men often don't get as near nearly as many as women, and women often get too many.

For men, that's a terrible feeling. For women, it's an overwhelming feeling. What we're doing is instead of you going through and swiping on what somebody looks like, and not really reading their profile, our algorithm matches you with the person first based on these intrinsic value systems and what research says about what makes you compatible.

We say, you two are compatible. Then you can look at each other and then you can decide if you want to have a conversation. So it's a little bit of a reverse system. I like that. About four things I want to cover here and then, or five things I'm gonna throw at you guys, and then I'll let each of you take a turn at whatever you want to throw back at. So we covered a few things here. One thing we talked about is choice overload. So I found that we'll just bang these out. We'll play these all out. I don't want to throw everything at you at once because it's too hard to figure out which. So one of the things you mentioned is choice overload. So back in the early parts of dating,

I've dated for 35 years. In the early parts of dating, I've dated for 35 years. In the early parts of dating, I was dating, Match.com came on the scene. It was the first big, I think eHarmony came out after that. But Match.com came out. It was like the first big commercial success of a dating app. And I remember I took out a gal, we had a great date, I think second base, we really connected and had a good time. And I thought, okay, she likes me, I'm probably going to call her and ask her for a second date. So it wasn't like we went to coffee and we're like, I don't know about you.

I mean, we were kind of into each other, at least physically it seemed that way and everything else in the thing. And so I had, for some reason I hadn't got her phone number. So I had sent her a message on match. I don't know why, or maybe she gave me her phone number and I don't, I'm pretty sure I didn't get her phone number and I was just relying on match. And so I sent her a second message on match, you know, to ask her out. I never heard back.

And I was like, okay, she's not interested. Cool. Next. And a few months later, she replied back to me and she goes, hey, Chris, I just saw your message. Hey, man, since I dated you, I get 400 messages a day and it just got lost and all that stuff. And she reached out to me, so I was, I'm assuming she was being honest, but choice overload, that's when I realized that women were just getting slammed with options and choice overload. And I know from being in the sales business that if you give a customer choice overload, they won't make a choice. They'll just waffle. And then I started tracking and noticing people on the dating apps that were on there forever and they never really

got with anybody. And there's probably some other things for that and attention and validation. But I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit, choice overload. Choice overload is a huge problem in the dating world right now in our dating app processes. So we try to control for that, that the process of matching intentional matches and queuing only a few at a time makes for a more efficient dating practice. So that's our simple goal, more efficient, more intentional, more purposeful dating. You don't have to go into every date thinking you're gonna marry this person,

but you do need to go because it's impossible, but you do go in with the intention of truly getting to know them and whether or not you match each other's lifestyle, passion, general compatibility. If you have, you're so right about the, the choice fatigue and it's just, it's just not productive for anybody. So I think that that's why it's so important to have an intentional and smart matching process that cues a few really good matches at a time. Mm-hmm.

Megan? Quality over quantity, right? Quality over quantity. We hear that all the time. And I think that a lot of apps, too, ask one person to make the first move. Oh, the woman in this one has to make the first move. As a woman, I have to reach out to the guy. Or for the guys, you know, I have to reach out to the guy. Or for the guys, you have to reach out.

It's hard sometimes to initiate, and it's exhausting. And there is a fear of rejection. But our system's not asking people to select each other. We're saying, be open to evaluating who you are. So then this person is doing the same assessment, and then that's matching you. You're not choosing. And you're not waiting for somebody just to say, oh, I like the way that person looks.

The other massive problem that I've seen on dating apps, other dating apps is the married people and especially the married men issue. But there's a lot of married women too. The poly thing, the swingers, et cetera, et cetera. I have no issues with those folks. I mean, do what you want, but I don't allow them into our dating groups that I run because we're looking for pure singles who really, like you say, intentionally want to date. And sometimes there's different things that go on with the swinger community that are

deceptive. And the same thing with the poly thing.. I mean basically those people are in a relationship They're not really officially single and so that's kind of the barrier we use But yeah, if you you mentioned how you guys can help filter that, you know The the guy who disappears for 48 hours that's usually a sign that you know He's spending the weekend with his wife and and then at work he's hustling women on dating apps. It's a real anger point for me about married men on social media, because some of these

dating apps, because it seems like it's about 70%. I've actually met women that I'm really interested in and maybe I took them out once on the dating apps and I'll find out that they've got some married guy who's got them on the thing like, oh yeah, I'm going to leave her babe. They got on a mistress status and she really buys into it. I'm like, okay. Yeah, somehow getting married people, I don't know if you guys filter for the swingers and all that Polly and stuff, but just getting the married people off and people in relationships,

I'd really love to see on dating apps because I'm tired of it. And then the other thing is the play for attention people. There's a lot of broken, damaged people out there or they have situations where they really can't have someone in their life or a lot of times what I've found, because I've looked at probably 20,000 Facebook profiles to our dating groups, and a lot of times what they're doing is they're just looking for attention and validation. And there's a lot of people doing that. They can't ever meet, you can't ever meet them, they won't ever meet you.

They're just collecting simps to wake them up every morning and go, hi, good morning, honey. Good night, honey. And simps to worship them really when it comes down to it for attention validation. And so it sounds like you guys maybe have some ways to avoid both of those. I'll let you both jump in here. Okay. Yeah, I think that this is a really good head actually. Sorry, we may have a lag. I have a short and sweet answer for this one. A, if you're serious and intentional about dating and being in a compatible long lasting relationship that's genuine, then

join our app. If you are not, do not join our app. Period. And then two, we do have, like we mentioned earlier, we have some safety features in place that track timing, response rates, and a report feature. So if a person's reported for inappropriate or disrespectful communication or behavior, we take that very seriously. We have a really amazing tech team. So whether this is a person who's in a full marriage and has a full family and is deceitful,

and they get reported, we take, whatever the report is, we take it very seriously. So that's my short and sweet answer. A, if you're serious about dating and finding a long lasting relationship, join our app. If not, just don't do it. Megan? Yeah. So I think one of the reasons Candace brought us on, both with our background, Dr. Byram and myself, and psychology as therapists, licensed therapists, licensed therapist supervisors, running my own practice, both of us working with couples, people who are single who are looking for relationships. What we've realized over the years is there are these situations, absolutely, where people are unhappy in their relationships and

they're looking to get out, but they're not communicating that with their partner. We are really big on communication. That's why a lot of the images you'll see in the matching system are focused on your communication styles and preferences. We also really envisioned down the road with our website and some of our features, articles and informational things from a psychological standpoint to help people navigate situations like that. When you come to a person on a date and you find out this person's married, how are you going to navigate that? These were real life situations that sometimes people

just don't know what to do because it's not where their brain goes. They're not doing something that's deceptive and they're showing up with this vulnerability and this pure heart of, I'm looking for a relationship, and then they're deceived. So what are red this pure heart of, I'm looking for a relationship, and then they're deceived. So what are red flags?

How to be on the lookout for those sort of things? How can we continue? Nothing's ever complete. You want to see an app evolve. You want to see more features built in that protect the person. It's genuinely trying to seek out a healthy, monogamous relationship. Pete Slauson Yeah. And that's what we're committed to. Pete Slauson Sorry, the lag, it's affecting us, I think.

One other thing you mentioned, one of you mentioned was hookup or having people who are serious and no ghosting. And ghosting has always been a problem in dating going back to when I started dating in the 80s and 90s. I mean, it just became a signal for she's just not interested. I only date women, so that comes from my perspective from that. But she's just not interested. It's okay. Thanks, next. Bye. Some people get really offended by rejection, but you really have to have a healthy mindset, people. If someone's uninterested, it's fine.

The goal is to find your person you should thank and be thankful for people who don't waste your time and either ghost you or tell you no, they're not interested. You know, just keep moving on. I don't really have too much of a problem with ghosting. I do it myself. Other people do it. I just take it as a no and I take a signal as a no. I've never found, I've never ever found telling a woman the reason I'm not interested ever works out well. It's actually better just to somehow leave it as no, I'm not interested. I don't think we connect.

I don't think we're compatible, something along those lines. So I don't know if you want to address those two issues. Oh, the thing I was going to say is hookup culture is huge right now. It's more huge than I even understood it when I started these big dating groups almost a year and a half ago. It is 95% of the market that people are doing hookup culture. I don't see hardly any intentional dating, at least not in Utah where my groups are based. So it might be group based, you

know, in California and New York, they have a lot more singles. So I don't know if you want to talk about that, hookup culture and ghosting. I'll give you guys both a swing and a no. Lauren Ruffin I think that people's dating styles and dating preferences is very personal to them. So what's healthy for one person may be a different scenario for another. So people engage in hookup culture and they do it for a reason and it may be healthy for them in the moment, but that doesn't mean it's healthy for everybody. When you're on an app and then for the ghosting thing, a well adjusted person

takes ghosting as a no one moves on next Thank you for not wasting my time but people in the early stages of developing a sense of self and of innocence of confidence could really benefit from Communication whether it's a simple it could be so simple just like hey, I had it. I enjoyed meeting you I don't find our connection is romantic. Thank you for your time I wish you good luck and I know that that's wishful thinking but a communication Respectful communication goes far most of the time and obviously there are some some nuances out there But in a dating app

You don't want to make so many connections that are just stagnant. And for that reason, our anti ghosting feature is huge for the apps. So we're talking beyond just connecting in in your real life. In the app, anti ghosting is huge because it takes that person out of your queue and puts it makes room for someone else who is more engaged. It takes away the decision to delete or not delete or wait if they're gonna come back and bread from,

maybe they're wanna engage in a situation ship. We in the app space, we do wanna eliminate that. In your regular life, in your personal life, whatever you choose to do, I think that people are gonna have to be self aware of how their decisions impact them, how they feel about themselves, and how they're healthy and their other close relationships in response to some of the things they're experiencing in the dating world. So for the app, it's healthy to remove that in your personal life. You just need to do that

inventory. What's best for you? Is this something that feels good in the moment or is this actually making me a better person long-term? And that's all I'll say about that. Megan, I'm curious what your thoughts are. Yeah. So I would say, again, I really appreciate how Baxley described this hookup culture for some individuals that suits their personality, their lifestyle, their value systems. Again, that's why we really wanted to help people assess what their values and what they actually want in a relationship and life matches up with what somebody else wants because a lot of people don't have good communication skills. I think more than ever,

we're seeing some communication skills fall off. And that's why we have seen ghosting. And some people like Baxley said are well adjusted and they can take that as a no. But again, it's not super respectful to be like, just disappear. Why don't just send a message like, hey, I didn't really feel a connection.

You don't have to go into why you didn't feel a connection, but I didn't feel like a relationship material for me, but I wish you all the best and on to bigger and better things for you. And it's like you said, we really want to remove this guesswork of, oh my gosh, this person pops up and then they disappear. Do I delete them? I really like them. They look like they're nice.

No, we're going to do it for you. If you're not serious and you ghost a person for 48 hours, bye. Again, welcome to our app with these behaviors. And that's a couple of chances. You get a couple of chances, like a friendly reminder, an engagement, a friendly reminder, and then we're like, all right, are you serious or are you not?

Yeah. If someone exhibits a pattern of that, like they just keep doing it, I don't know. Does anything happen? Yeah, if it's rewarded, behaviors continue if there's no consequence or it's rewarded, behaviors continue if there's no consequence or it's rewarded. Pete I like that idea of doing that because it really helps, you know, some of the women I've talked to, I mean, they have thousands of DMs and messages in their Tinder app or

whatever. And number one, it's choice overload. And number two, they're just sitting there playing with them all and you're just like, do you, you know? And where guys aren't asking women out on dates as much now, that's another big thing. I mean, a lot of them don't close. Like one of the problems I've found in dating is these guys won't ask to go on dates or they'll take forever. And I'll talk to these women and they'll be like, Chris, you've got to...

They'll be like, so what are you doing with this girl? Oh, we're in the texting phase. I'm like, what is the texting phase? And that's where you talk to them for three to six months before you ask them out. I'm like, what? That's where you talk to him for three to six months. Before you ask him out. I'm like, what? That's the rule? I'm glad I'm not part of this world anymore. There's no way.

Yeah. I'm like, what? There's no such, there's no, no one, I've been dating for all my life. There's no test, there's no texting phase. You, you, you know, I might have five or six back and forths when I see a woman has genuine desire and interest in me. The ball's going to keep coming back across the tennis court, tennis net. And then I'm going to ask for her phone number. I'm going to call her up

and ask her out. I don't fuck around. I get it on or off. I don't know who I'm talking to on the other end. With most other competitive dating apps, for all I know who I'm talking to on the other end. With most other competitive dating apps, for all I know, I'm talking to a 400 pound guy on a bed in Nigeria, who's just buttering me up for some money. I'm going to get on or off and find out if things are there. And I had one woman tell me in my dating groups, she had a guy text her for four years. Good morning, good night, how are you doing today? Blah, blah, blah. Just that sort of thing that these simps do. And after almost five years, he asked her out. He texted her for four to five years. Can you imagine?

That would be tough. Did they meet each other? I don't know what happened. My head was spinning just from that alone. No way. There's no replacement for human connection. There's absolutely no replacement for human connection. And talking and chatting like that, it's fun in the moment. It's a hit of attention dopamine in the moment,

but it's not sustainable for long term for most people. And you got to meet each other. We got to stop this. Pete Slauson Yeah. I mean, and the other thing too is I'm not going to, you know, connection is everything. So, you can text somebody for six bloody months and pretend like you're in love and I don't know, even have, you know, whatever and then you meet them and you're not compatible at all. Or you're like, you know, you find out it's a 400 pound dude from Nigeria. And I'm not kink shaming if you're into that, but yeah, it's a huge deal.

And I tell guys, I'm like, and it seems like, you know, me too, really scared a lot of guys out of the pool, which leads me to my next talking point with you guys. About 88, according to my testing in Utah, about 88% of men aren't, are on the fence. They're not asking women out. About half of the 12% that are still active, half are chads and they're just, they're just running through women. And the other half are just dudes who are fumbling around trying to find their way.

Some are good, they're like me, they're experienced in dating and doing actual real dates. But most of the men aren't dating. And one of the challenges you have with dating apps, and this actually comes, I think this is data from OKCupid or one of those competitors, basically 95% of women in dating apps, what they're doing is they're setting their settings to only see the top 5% of men. I mean, it's

a huge problem in my dating groups and everything else. 95% of women are chasing the top 5% of men and they're literally blinding themselves out from the other men. So what they're doing is in the settings, they'll pick, I only want guys six foot or taller. They're doing the three sixes. I'm sure you've heard of that. You know, six foot tall plus he must have six figure income and you can pick the third six and figure it out. And so what they're doing is they're putting that into their dating search profile of I

only want to see men who are six foot and taller. I only want to see men who have college degrees or advanced degrees beyond college. And so because of it, they only see a very small selection of men and that's why a lot of men don't get a lot of responses on dating apps. Is there anything on your app maybe that deals with a couple of these things? Is there anything on your app maybe that deals with a couple of these things? I think again, we do allow people to put certain preferences in place, whether you have a religious preference, the rest of the mattress on my leg, same religion, those are things. But most dating apps, that's the biggest way that they sort through your matches and push matches towards you is those filters of like

height, how much money they make, what kind of college do you know, do they have a college degree? Do they not? ours again goes back to matching people we have we invite you to come to the site and have your preferences, but also to keep an open mind because again, what research says about what makes a good couple is not that you're six foot tall, is that you you have shared values, it's that you have shared hobbies, it's that you have shared interests, you have shared communication patterns and desires. And that's what our app allows people to do is to first match on that foundational level.

So honestly, anybody who's looking for that superficial match, if I only want to match with people who look this way and it's very focused on appearances, it's not really the app for you. So if you're looking for something different, that's that we're who you're looking for to help you match in a more authentic and intentional way and a non superficial way. There you go. Backsley this time. I've been answering first the whole time. in a non superficial way. There you go. Baxley this time, I've been answering first the whole time. Megan did it for the first time.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm flipping through the screens. No, I think that she answered that perfectly. We invite you to join the app and have an open mind to intentionally go through the assessment and be excited about the foundational matches you're going to see if you want intentional dating That's not superficial from the bat. Then our app is the app for you You got a date intentional, you know, I it's it's I see a lot of people in dating

They're just you know, Fafo fuck around and find out and they're not taking dating seriously. It's kind of interesting. I'm seeing that 30 is the first wall for people. That's usually when they get married. Women have that time clocks screaming in their head and usually it's time to settle down and start having kids if that's what they want. And then the second wall seems to be about 50 where people are like, okay, I'm going to intentionally date now. I'm going to get serious about dating. They've been through one or two divorces They've you know, they've got kids in tow, you know, one thing I'm seeing it's kind of interesting in dating is late Family makers so they did the career thing waited all their life and now they're like 40

40s starting a family and then they've blown out of their first divorce I'm even seeing women in their 50s starting a family and then blowing out of their first divorce. And you're like, wow, okay, you're going to be 70 when those kids leave home and you want a guy to come join that ride. And a lot of struggling at 50 because men die off, I mean, we die off almost double throughout most of our lifetimes compared to women.

And then our fifties, it really accelerates. We start dying double digits plus off. And so what I found is the ratio to men and women really start hitting hard at 50. And people, people, they kind of, they kind of had fun dating all their life. And then at 50, they're like, Oh, I should probably get serious. And I'm actually guilty of this too. I actually did this all my life where in my 50s I finally was like, I should probably find somebody for the ride out. I should probably find that person to spend my golden years with. So I'm guilty of this too. But I find a lot of people

are doing that. It's kind of wild. They're not getting intentional until later in life. I think there's a misconception of time always. I have all the time in the world. I have all the options. Especially as a woman getting all these options thrown at me on our dating app. You think you have all the time and opportunities in the world, so you don't really get serious about it because you're not thinking you have any limited timeframe or limited options for who you can authentically connect with.

I think that's a realization a lot of people are coming to, and that's why people are looking for a dating app like ours. Definitely. Baxley? Yeah, I was going to say, Chris, you definitely deserve to have a partner for your last, for your last ride. It feels good to have that partner in crime person by your side that is just there for you. I think Megan's exactly right. I think we think we have time until one day we are retrospective and think, oh, where did the time go?

Yeah. Where did the time go folks? Yeah. It's good. I was going to say the Fafo thing made me laugh. We, I don't want to discourage people to let go of the, of around and find out. If you're like, I was going to say, if you are skeptic of our app, we encourage you to FFO and join just to see.

It may change your life, you never know, but don't take that FFO phrase to the extreme. Yeah, I mean, it's, I tell people, I go, this is your life, man. This is real life, this is your life. There's not a lot of room for errors, especially as you get older. There's no room for errors.

I don't have time to go chase red flags. There's some people you meet dating on both sides of the aisle, they're a red flag communist parade, eh? They got more red flags than, I don't know, the Chinese. And so I don't have time to FFO anymore at 57. I've got to find my person and lock it down. And I find a lot of people are struggling at that point.

I mean, we pulled the numbers and the problem is the available people in the fifties just drops precipitously to one or two percent of most people that are out in the dating market. So it's something I think people need to get intentional sooner. I mean, you do need to F around and find out, I suppose, if you're trying to figure out what you're looking for, but Jesus, hopefully you have that figured out by your twentiess or 30s. Lauren Ruffin I also think that one thing we're seeing is people, not necessarily older people, but younger people are settling down later than ever before now. And I think that both men and women would like to be financially stable and know exactly who they are and know exactly what path they're on before they invite

a partner in. And that's not everybody, but that's a lot of people that we're seeing. Kids out of college and kids out of grad school are settling down and getting married much later in life now because they're having a hard time staying direct on a career path or becoming financially stable. And I think this impacts men sometimes more than women. And men have the luxury of easily and without judgment dating much younger women, so they can be in their success and in their career where they'd like

to be before they choose a woman. Women have a little bit of a different pressure with their biological flaw, but the phenomenon happens to them the same. They want to be financially secure or secure in their life in some way before engaging in a partnership. Whereas when my mom was getting married, she was engaged and married at 21. And she trusted her whole life to my dad. And I think that we're in different political and financial times where people want to be a little bit more secure before they make those choices. And then there are also some anomalies to that where we have some people who aren't

ready to grow up. But I agree with what you're saying. Time is of the essence. I think that one day we will look back and ask, where did the time go? Becoming intentional sooner than later is the positive step forward for everybody. All right. So as we go out guys, final thoughts, I'll give each of you a shot at pitching out people signing up on the app, where they can go to do it.coms, et cetera, et cetera. out to people signing up on the app, where they can go to do it, dot coms, et cetera, et cetera.

Sure. You can go to the Apple store and download our app. In-game dating, you can go to our Instagram to learn a little bit more about it. That also will provide you the hyperlink for our website and the bio. You can also download app on Google Play. So if you're an Android user, you have that option there too. And we do encourage you to consider that time

is something you can never replace. We can replace a lot of things. We can replace objects. We can replace time, money, but we can't replace our time. Your time is valuable. So if you're looking for a way to date intentionally and put a better use of your time on an app, because apps aren't going anywhere, people want to meet

on apps, the problem was apps hadn't changed in a long time or ever. And now we are, we're changing the dating game and through our app. So we really encourage you to come and check it out. And we're excited about how this will continue to evolve too. Backslate. Yes. We're so excited to see how things are going to evolve. We encourage you to download the app on the app store or Google play, visit our website at ingame.dating or keep up with us and keep up with us on social media at endgame underscore dating

where we're posting a lot of content of what we're doing, some fun contests and engagement, as well as resources for healthy, intentional and long lasting relationship advice. I'm glad to see someone's trying to tackle this issue because I know one of the problems with the dating apps is they're all owned by I think a single conglomerate pretty much. I'm glad to see someone's trying to tackle this issue because I know one of the problems with the dating apps is they're all owned by I think a single conglomerate pretty much. And I think they're being sued right now. And they're not very helpful. Like I said, I reported on Tinder, I would report all the Asian bots and nothing would happen. Like they just ignore them. They don't care. It's just filler. It makes it look like, I realized after a time of seeing so many of them, that it was about 40 to 50% of the base that was being shown to me.

And I was like, that's a lot. It's a lot. It's like what Megan said earlier, quality over quantity. And we think that in multiple areas of our development and design, quality over quantity, we're less concerned about engagement rates and more concerned about quality matching. So thank you very much ladies for coming on the show, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. And thanks to Ronnitz for tuning in. Check out the end game. It's available on both iPhone and your Androids, Google Play Store and your iOS store.

And yeah, check out the new ways to update. We need more help. We need all the help we can get out. Let's put it that way. Thanks, Ronit, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss 1, on the TikTok, and ChrisFossFacebook.com. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.

National Havasaw.