The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Conversation with Lakshmi Rengarajan — Removing the Consumer Mindset from Dating

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Lakshmi Rengarajan, a leading researcher on dating and the host of the Later Dater Today podcast, joins Scott to discuss the trends around dating for both old and young people, the importance of “striving,” and how dating apps bring out the worst side of us when it comes to finding potential partners. Scott opens with his thoughts on Meta’s staggering earnings. Algebra of happiness: what shapes you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 286. Route 286 is a Nework state highway located near rochester in 1986 the oprah winfrey show debuted and the film ferris bueller's day off was released true story i've been asked to star in a porn film i'm the husband leaving for work go go go Welcome to the 286th episode of The Prop G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Lakshmi Rangarajan, the host of the Later Dater Today podcast, and WeWork's former director of Workplace Connection. We discuss with Lakshmi the trends around dating for both old and young people,

the importance of striving, and how dating apps bring out the worst side of us when it comes to finding potential partners. Okay, what's happening? I was really excited to have Lakshmi on the program. I am fascinated by different marketplaces, the marketplaces for media, the marketplaces for government, how government procures products and investments. Lakshmi, I have a lot of respect for. One, I'm fascinated by the mating market, and that is how do people enter into what is effectively a transaction? One person in a relationship is usually providing more of one thing and the other more of another, and they come together for one plus one equals three. I think relationships at the end of the day are the key to a long and happy life. And I'm just fascinated by what I going for the same dude. And because media constantly

tells them that, oh, you can have it all. Basically, every song and every piece of media on TikTok is telling women to have unreasonable standards or to exit the relationship because you do better. And then the other side of media is telling men that it's not their fault that women don't like them. Yeah, maybe you should get to the gym every once in a while. Maybe you should work on yourself. Maybe you should have a plan. But even if you don't do those things, it's not your fault. It's the government's fault, or it's women's fault, or it's the left's fault. And men, a lot of young men don't want to take responsibility for leveling up. Media is literally separating men from women. It's also happening politically. Essentially, we're bifurcating politically

based on gender. Women are becoming more progressive and men are becoming more conservative. And typically, typically, people have a negative first impression of somebody based on their political beliefs or specifically of their much different political beliefs. So if we can't figure out a way to have more reasonable discussions and also have a bit of a nod to the other side and perhaps even generate more moderates, which I think a lot of us are, a lot of us see some value there. But no, media wants you to be far left or far right. There's going to be yet another gulf, another reason why men and women don't connect. So what do we have? It has become such a hunger games in this society that we not only have income inequality, we have mating inequality. Why? Why? Because online, and I'll talk with Lakshmi about this specifically,

all of the attention from women is going to the top 10% of men, and it's unhealthy. It's bad for women. It's bad for men. And we have a society that's not engaging in household formation. And then by the way, as boomers, we're going to figure out a way for you not to afford a house, which is going to be even more difficult and more discouraging to bring people together, to start getting dogs, which is practice for kids and enabling what I think is the key to happiness. And that is a long loving relationship with a partner where you can raise kids and develop a good household and hopefully raise good citizens. If I sound like something out of the fifties, yeah. Okay. A little bit, a little bit of touch. Anyways, this was all a means of sort of introducing Lakshmi because I'm fascinated by the

market for mating. Anyways, what else is happening this week? I was blown away by what is arguably the best quarter, the best earnings announcement when you really think about the underlying dynamics of it, perhaps in modern business history. What is it? Is it Netflix blowing away their numbers because of subscriber growth? Was it Microsoft's fantastic earnings blowout because they're incorporating AI into their products? Nope. It's the mendacious fucks from Meta. That's right. They had, if you just look at it analytically, what may be the best quarter in history. Not only did the firm announce its first ever dividend, 50 cents a share, it posted a 25% increase in quarterly revenue. 25%. Oh my God, their investments are paying off. While they registered a 25% increase in revenues, they reduced their total costs and expenses quarter on quarter by 8%. So they're able to increase their revenues by 25%

while decreasing costs. This came through layoffs, right? So check this out. In the last year, Meta has laid off approximately a quarter of its workforce, or a little bit more than 22,000 people. They were at 88,000, now they're at sixty six thousand. What happens when you lay off a quarter of your workforce, but but you manage to increase revenues by twenty five percent? So first off, I don't think that's ever happened. You have nitro meet glycerin and the explosion is in earnings and the earnings were up something like seventy five percent. What's the result? What's the result? The single largest one-day value gain in history with respect to market capitalization. They added $200 billion in one day. This is nothing short of staggering. Staggering. By the way, what was the dog's 2022 November stock pick for 2023?

Meta. And I hate those mendacious Fox because I realized the stock had been oversold because his consensual hallucination dreams that we'd want to hang out in some incel panic room was coming to an end or would eventually come to an end. The guy's brilliant. The stock got taken down to 80 bucks. I'm like, OK, he can waste this much money and it doesn't matter given that he sits on top of Instagram and WhatsApp and the core platform. That was our stock pick, our big tech stock pick in November of 2022.

Where does it sit now? Where does it sit now? $457 after the biggest one-day gain in history of any public company. Now, what also is happening here? What also is happening here? What also is happening here? The 600 plus army of comms and PR people at Meta have been given their marching orders. And they said after Mark Zuckerberg had to face parents and apologize to a group of parents who represent about 600, not even 600,000, it wouldn't be fair to say 600,000 or 600 million, but a couple hundred million parents across the world whose kids have endured an unfair amount of despair and depression at the hands of Meta. He had to apologize to the people in the room who held out pictures of their kids, some of whom have taken their own life. But here's the thing. They said to their, they weaponized their army of public relations and comms folks and said, get out there and wallpaper over this with our unbelievable earnings. And if you go online now, for a moment, for a moment, we heard about that moment of theater their job and prevented a tragedy to the commons, right?

And they're wallpapering over it with this unbelievable corridor. And this represents where America is headed, and it's not a good thing. America builds companies better than anyone else in the world. That's a wonderful thing. Capitalism, money, being able to take care of your parents, being able to take care of your kids, being able to enjoy yourself, having the confidence to spend a lot of money, such as small businesses grow, and then they can do the same and wash, rinse, and repeat. We have the best incentives in the world. We have figured that out. But also key to capitalism is that we pay taxes and then elect people who will prevent a tragedy that comes and say, hey, automobile company, you probably shouldn't be pouring your mercury into the river. Hey, pharmaceutical company, we shouldn't addict so many people that 50,000 plus, 60,000 plus people die each year after being addicted to these things. We have a group of elected representatives who have the capital and hopefully the leadership based on capitalism and the profits these companies produce to prevent a tragedy of the commons regulation,

except when it comes to big tech, right? We have an EPA, we have an FDA, because we realize we need emission standards. We realize a certain level of pesticides might be warranted, but not too many folks. We need to be thoughtful about this. If you're going to kill people by addicting them to nicotine, at some point you have to put warning labels on it, get rid of the kids' cartoons, and ultimately pay a settlement. That is what is supposed to happen, and it is not happening here. It is not happening. Why? Because in America, we have elected a group of people who are totally ineffectual. And two, America has decided that we're no longer a perfect union. We're no longer about the pursuit

of happiness. We're about money. Money. We're the Hunger Games. Survive this gauntlet, get through this shit, be outstanding at what you do, and you're going to live a remarkable life. The rest of you, well, sorry, folks. We got ours. You get yours. Why? Our optimism here has come to haunt us. What do I mean by that? What do I mean by that? We put up with Harvard and Stanford rejecting 95% of its applicants because we all believe that our lottery ticket is the winner. I know the lottery is a bad idea, but baby, my ticket's going to work. Everybody believes their kid is the exceptional one. Everybody believes their business is going to break through.

But I can prove to you, I can prove to you that six out of seven small businesses don't survive because we have a total lack of regulation and anti-competitive behavior that kills too many businesses in the crib. I can also prove to you that 99% of your children are not in the top 1%. Back to meta. We have decided in America, we're about prosperity, but we have forgotten the script here. We also need to be about protecting, specifically protecting our children. This is a nation, not the Hunger Games. We'll be right back for our conversation with Lakshmi Rengarajan. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Lakshmi Rengarajan,

the host of the Later Dater Today podcast. Lakshmi, where does this podcast find you? I am in my apartment in Brooklyn. Well, of course you are. Of course I am. Of course you are. Where else would I be? Yeah, of course. All the cool kids. All right, so let's bust right into it. You've been observing the ways modern relationships have changed for quite some time now. Can you walk us through how you ended up researching this field?

Sure. Well, it was probably like back in like 2009. I was a bartender for most of my life and then I was a brand strategist. So that's kind of the two sort of, you know, different parts of my life that merged. And I was sort of watching how online dating was changing people. And this is like before Tinder, but I mean, you could already see the effects happening. So I started mapping out the timelines of people who met offline, like met in person. And then I was mapping out the moments of what happened when people, you know, met online.

And they were completely different. And so it's not that, you know, meeting people online was, like, wrong or that it shouldn't happen. It's just that we were starting to lose the, I would almost call it like a category of relationships that sort of forms over time and over moments. And so those two weren't lining up. And so I noticed that. And I think just like somewhere in my gut, I was like, you know, there's going to be a lot of good things that probably happen from online dating and this industry. And there's probably going to be a lot of not so good things that happen. And I was sort of keeping track of those.

Let's double click on that. And I'll give you, I'm fascinated by what I'll call the mating market. And generally speaking, what the observations I've gleaned is that if you talk to couples in their 60s and 70s, almost all of them will say one was more interested than the other or one wasn't interested in the other in the beginning. So online dating is pretty, you know, two-dimensional. It's the person's appearance and then some kind of top-line cliff notes about what I'll call controlled boasting and bullet points. And people make an assumption on if they like them or not, and that's it. Whereas when you're at work with someone, when someone approaches you at a bar or a softball league or a church or a nonprofit, you're hit with not whether I want to mate with this person, but you start

an interaction, some sort of social interaction. And smell, vibe, humor, and maybe you decide, I don't want, I'm not romantically interested in this person. But then you see them give a PowerPoint presentation. You think, wow, she's really smart. I like her body language. Or you say, you get to know a guy and you think he's, I like the way he treats his parents. And love at first sight is just not that common, but people do fall in love. And so what we've, what apps have done is said, unless it's love at first sight, it's not going to happen. And also that it dramatically skews favor or seeds advantage for men to women because men are much less choosy. I think women have much,

a much finer filter for mating because just anthropologically, the downside of sex and pregnancy is much greater for them than it is for a man. And that this has resulted in this massive mating inequality where it's much, you know, the top 10% of men get a disproportionate amount of interest. And essentially, it's leaked to value or currency. I don't even know if it's leaked from men to women. I'll say it's definitely made it worse for men. So a lot there. Can you respond to where I got it right and wrong there? Yeah, it's made it worse for everyone.

There you go. You know, the thing that I hear you saying, and I think you're right, is what online dating did is it made everyone really, really dependent on whether or not there was a very quick spark, an immediate spark. And nobody really had the chance to simmer anymore. And so the other thing is that when you spend time on the apps, and again, I think a lot of people think I'm anti-app. I'm not anti-app. I am anti-apps being the dominant form and the way that everyone. You should do it all, right? I mean, put it into the mix. You should put it into the mix.

It shouldn't be the only thing. But I think what's hard right now is there just aren't as many places. And so, you know, what I was trying to do, you know, back in the day, I actually did events and I did all these different sort of experiments to see, like, if I changed the order in which people learned about each other, the information that they were given about each other, if I changed that order, how would that change the trajectory of the relationship? And how would that change how people got to know each other? Could I slow them down? Could I just slow everybody down from the sort of snap judgments? And more importantly, what you're describing, which I think is correct, is when you spend a lot of time on an app, that the side of you that is the shallowest, most consumer-focused side is the one that comes out. So one of the things I had people do is I said, like, while you're swiping, I want you to talk out loud, you know, kind of

share your internal dialogue with me. And as you can imagine, people were like, I am horrified that this is what I'm saying, and this is not how I want to be, and this isn't, like, the kind of person I would be out in the world. And it's not just be, and this isn't like the kind of person I would be out in the world. And it's not just the dating apps. It's also the culture of dating, how people advise each other and how people talk about each other. It's like, oh, if you, like, why would you, why would you go on, go out with someone three times? Oh, you're not feeling a spark. You should move on. So there is the dating apps, Scott, but then there's also this bigger way that we talk about how people are supposed to feel and how quickly they're supposed to feel it. Yeah, I like that. I love

the research around, you know, verbalize what you're thinking. So I'll put forward another thesis. I'm sure you get asked a lot. I get a lot of emails asking for advice. It's usually professional advice, and then it's around things like business school or moving, what I call lifestyle, but I'll be reductive here because I do bifurcate the general advice I give to young men versus young women. And it goes like this. And again, I'm very open to coaching here. With young men, I tell them, essentially, men are metaphorically, something like 50% of women say they won't date a guy shorter than them. I believe it's greater than that. It's just an embarrassing thing to say. It makes you sound unkind, but metaphorically men are getting shorter and shorter. Fewer are going to college. They're not maturing as quickly as they used to, which is strange. They're not socializing as much

and they are becoming less economically, emotionally viable. And some, they're just less attractive to women. And what I tell young men is, okay, it's not about finding the right person. It's about becoming the right person. And then putting yourself in a place to meet somebody, but what is your plan professionally and economically? Physically, without having your mom or a girlfriend nag at you to iron your shirt and take a shower and get in shape and all that stuff, are you doing that? Are you finding interests that make you a more interesting person? And then we can talk about

putting you in a situation, but you want to be the person you'd want to date. And I basically tell young men, you need to get your shit together. And I take time out of their phone. I ask them to give me their screen time, and we reinvest it in, I call it money, muscle, and relationships. And I say with women, okay, I find, the advice I give to them is, I don't want to say lower your standards, but be open to the notion that a second coffee on someone that you maybe didn't love, but didn't turn you off, might be a good investment. And the reason why is I believe that media and TikTok are essentially constantly feeding women with this notion of, you deserve better, leave that guy, or you can have it all. And it creates a set of expectations, whether they're realistic or not. What they do is they lower, they reduce the time horizon that

you're willing to engage and give a potential relationship an opportunity. So one for men, be the guy you'd want to date. And two, for women, give it a chance. So I think the essence of what you're saying is spot on. I would package it a little bit differently. So let's start with, you know, women are getting taller. Is that what you usually say? Yeah. Yeah, he calls it the high heels effect.

Yeah, okay. So here's what I'd say. I completely appreciate that framing. I understand it. It's very provocative. I don't know if it's always useful because I would say, did women get taller or were women finally allowed to grow in the past few decades? Is that what's happened, that we're finally seeing a lot of women realizing their potential in a way that we hadn't previously? But that's a societal statement. Whatever the reason is,

women are more, more single women own homes than single men now, which is a wonderful thing. I'm not suggesting we go back to the 1900s. I'm just saying men haven't kept pace with women the last 30 years. That's just the reality of it. Right.

Sometimes that framing can seem a little bit adversarial. What I would love to see is both in this framework, like both people sort of appreciate the other gender more. And so you said something about like women wanting to, you know, like kind of lowering their standards. And I guess what I would say to that is I would say a little bit, I think there's this idea that, you know, both men and women should in some ways be going out and like trying to find some sort of like the right person or the perfect person. And so what I tell people is instead of thinking about like lowering your standards, like create your standards. Like what is it that is truly valuable to you in a relationship as opposed to what you think is like

the right guy or the good enough person or, you know, the, the achievement. I think there's a lot of like this idea that I should achieve a relationship. I should get like this, this thing that, you know, is like a trophy or a prize out there. And in terms of like the height thing, and I think I said this to you before, I know that, you know, people say that. And I think part of what the apps do is they prime people to care about things that aren't actually as important once you get to know somebody. So the more that you get to know somebody, the less you may be hung up on something like that. And then I think... Do you have any research on that? Because I find that that's aspirational. I'd like to believe that's true. The data I've seen does not bear that out. The dating apps, the dating... I'll

just give you one piece of data. The stuff I've seen is that a guy who's 6'2 is as attractive and has as much success, everything normalized. A guy who's 6'2 who makes, I think, $60,000 is as attractive as a guy who's 5'8 who makes $120,000. So you have to be substantially more professionally and economically successful if you're substantially shorter. That height is still, you know, right? If you're on an app and most people spend time on apps. So the, when they're making those decisions, height will factor importantly. And what I'm saying is like, when I'm, when I do, I talk to tons of people that have met, you know, both offline and online. And I have lots of stories of people who, you know, if they met someone in context, then height wasn't as important to them, right? So height becomes more important when we have fewer venues to get to know someone. And so go back to the framing again, a better way around the notion that around the high heels effect that there's a better frame.

So I want to acknowledge that it's great and we can celebrate that women have made progress. My sense, though, is that as they have registered that progress, their talent pool or the potential pool of mates in their eyes has shrunk. Because women made socioeconomically horizontally and up, men horizontally and down. And because there are fewer and fewer people horizontally and up, that there's just fewer, quote-unquote, viable men in the eyes of women. I mean, one thing, whenever I ask, I hear a lot about people say, I have a friend, she's wonderful. And, you know, I hear this all the time. She's attractive. She's interesting. She's wonderful. And, you know, I hear this all the time. She's attractive. She's interesting. She's professionally successful. Can't find a guy. And my response is she can

find a guy. She just can't find a guy she wants to date. And that there is just this chasm, if you will, and I don't know, expectations. And you can't say to a woman, lower your standards. I guess the question is, are we going to wait for men? Is it about third spaces? Is it about where do you see this all kind of playing out? Because I'm worried that we see household formation going down. We see birth rates going down. We see depression and anxiety going up. I think men in their 20s, it registers, I think the lack of mating opportunities really hits men hard in their 20s. I think men in their 20s, it registers, I think the lack of mating opportunities really hits men hard in their 20s. I think they lose a lot of self-esteem and they kind of sequester from society. Women are much better, my sense is, at maintaining social relationships, finding

places to receive and give love without necessarily a lot of romantic relationships. Guys are not good at it. Where I see it begin to impact a woman's life is she goes into her 30s and starts to leave her childbearing years and is disappointed that that part of her life gets shut out or is no longer an option. And that weighs on her. And so what I see is a lot of loneliness and a lot of unhappiness. And I'm just trying to figure out. And by the way, I love the fact that you're doing these events. I think that's wonderful. I think the government should literally pay you to do this. I think that's why I feel so differently about this. I think just because I've done so much on the, like, you know, boots on the ground research as opposed to, like, you know, that I feel like I've just, I've witnessed so many different scenarios.

And I completely understand and agree with what you're saying. You know, online dating and all this stuff, it's exacerbated all of the extremes that you're talking about. The side of them that shops on Amazon, the side of them that is, you know, a very astute consumer, they're bringing that same side when they're on the app. And that's actually the opposite. That's like the version of you that you don't want on there. And you were saying something about men and, you know, kind of feeling a little bit, you know, dejected. And,

you know, and I also spend a lot of time talking to Gen Z men because they're very important to my research too, is that I know there's this idea that you have to be like this, you know, high achiever or, you know, physically tall or something. The thing that I always saw with women, again, in my events when I kind of slowed the process down, is a lot of people, what they're looking for is someone who is striving, right? And I think that's captured in what you're talking about. It's not necessarily, it's this idea of like you are reaching,

you're reaching into the future and you feel compelled by that future. And that striving could be physical. It could be professional. It could be like, you know, something that you're trying to learn, a craft that you're trying to master. And to is, I find America becomes more like itself every day. And that is, it is a generous, loving place if you have money. It's a rapacious, violent place if we pulled our money together. We had an apartment, we were building a life together. I wasn't making a lot of money, but it didn't really matter that much. We had kind of a similar life to everybody else. It felt like everybody was sort of kind of middle class. And now there's such a variance in people's income and money can buy so much now. And so the life that money offers in America now is the gulf between the life that someone with money can have versus someone who doesn't have money creates an environment where the amount of money you have, especially as a guy, actually, I'd say only as a guy. The stuff I've seen is that men don't really care if a woman has money. They care if she has her act together and she has a professional interest, but they don't really care about my sense of the stuff I've read. Whereas it's becoming so important for women that they naturally gravitate you really, really break it down is, yes, of course, people are drawn to people that have money or in their mind, resources and stability is the deeper need. But let's be specific. I'm not saying people. I'm saying women are drawn to men with more resources. Okay. So I'll talk then about women because I am, that is who I'm referring to. What you really want is someone who is resourceful with what they have. Like you can see how much money someone has, but what's really attractive is someone's philosophy of money and how they interact with it and how they, you know, like how it's like a part of their identity.

And I think that that piece has kind of gotten lost because of the transactional nature of dating right now. Whereas I think you are correct. People just look at the headlines. Does this person have money? Does this person not have money? What people, I think, are actually drawn to is someone's relationship to money

as opposed to how much money they have. We'll be right back. We've been talking about young people and older people want relationships as well. And with somewhere between 45 and 55% of marriages ending in divorce and people getting married later, you've done a lot of work that focuses on the later dater, which I hope you've registered and trademarked that. I did. I did. Oh, good for you. Walk us through who that is and the challenges they face and how the dynamics and the atmospherics are different there.

I just sort of noticed that so much of like dating advice and dating content was very centered on the 20 or 30 something who is mostly trying to, you know, secure commitment. And it was always, it was almost like a little bit rushed. Like, you know, you got to figure out very quickly if this person is the right person and then move on. And then it kind of jumped to like the golden era, you know, the people that were in the much later years. And I just felt like this middle group was not really being looked at very closely. And so I really wanted to dig in and understand like, how is dating in this period different? What are the advantages? And also it's a very interesting group of people

because it's primarily Gen X. A lot of the people that I work with, this is their first time getting on a dating app, you know, in their 40s or 50s, or in some cases, like their early 60s. And so their wiring is fundamentally different. And so it's very interesting to think about what not only how their wiring is different, but also what you want from a relationship in this sort of Gen X. Actually, I'm right on the edge when I call myself Gen X. Because I'm a narcissist. Thank you for that. But I always describe it as, you know, when I talk about the way I hover over my kids, I would leave my mom's house, my mom, single mother, at 10 a.m. on a Sunday with a Schwinn bike, with a banana seat and a card that made that rumbling sound, that playing card I would put in the back of the spokes. And then an Abba Zabba bar and 35 cents. And I might be home 14 hours later. I mean, she just had, and so I was more independent. I think I was a little bit more resourceful. I think I was a little bit more resilient. And I think those paid dividends for me later in life when it came to work and dating,

et cetera. How does Gen X approach dating? What advice would you have for them in contrast to the advice you give to younger people? It's interesting because they're dating on the app. So in some ways, they're dating on this platform that wasn't necessarily meant for them, but that's what they have to use too. I think the interesting thing about this group of people also dating at this point in their life is don't necessarily go straight for the commitment, which, you know, kind of sounds counterintuitive. But this is a period of life where people are in many ways, what's the most important to them is actually like connection and a degree of curiosity, right? They're in many ways exploring new identities. Like what is attractive to them now? And so I always sort of ask people to like take a step back and say, OK, like this is sort of how you dated in your 20s and 30s.

But what do you what do you want now? Because it actually might be different. It seems to me the young people on the wrong end of this technology revolution is is it as bad, worse, not as bad for for Gen Xers, for later daters? No, I think they're experiencing a lot of the same frustrations. I think what I want them to realize is that because of, in some ways, like their pre-app wiring,

that they, like, I really want to embolden them to use the apps, but to also use a lot of the sides of them that were forged before the apps. So I think there's a little bit more patience, a little bit more, you know, able to, you know, sit through awkwardness, a little bit more like references and life experience, and just a little bit more, you know, stuff that they can tap into and really connect on.

Let's talk a little bit about the LGBTQ market. Someone who works at Prop G had a great point. It's one of those things where it hit me in the face. I'm like, Jesus Christ, I'm so fucking tone deaf. And I was saying that men need to approach strangers in a bar, and that's a skill we have to teach people in mating, to approach strangers in a bar and express romantic interest while making them feel safe. And she said, that doesn't work for gay women. Gay women can't go in, you know, unless it's a gay bar, can't necessarily, there's just a different level of risk of rejection or a very awkward situation for a gay woman approaching another woman. And, you know, out in the wild, so to speak. And I thought, God, I didn't even think of that. And then I thought maybe that is really, that is one place where online dating has been a really

strong positive is it can find people, you know, outside of what you'd call the, the normals are onward, but the bulk of the market such that they can not waste time. They can be a little bit more efficient. What do you see in terms of dating in the LGBTQ market, how it's changed? I'm not as familiar with that market, but I think everyone has said that it's brought a lot of positive things to the LGBTQ community. But just like this is where there's a lot of overlap is the same thing is that I think with the speed and the volume and the amount of choices, like that's going to scramble anyone. As we wrap up here, is there any... Scott, can we talk about AI?

Oh, I'd love that. Yeah, talk about AI. Yes, AI and dating is here sometimes as an overlay. So that's already here, right? You can use AI to tweak your pictures, to write your profile, to do the back and forth messaging. And then there's AI as a replacement for a companion. That is, you know, something that is going to be on people talk about, you know, third places or how we improve things. I am, the wrong word is freaked out, but I am hugely concerned that the advances in AI are going to convince men who endure some initial rejection or don't have confidence or don't have economic opportunities to regress to a much more utile, rewarding, low-risk, low-entry form of porn known as AI.

And they're going to start having relationships with AI-driven algorithms and sex dolls, never develop the skills, just fall off the map romantically and sexually, and never develop the skills to have a relationship and that they'll just sequester from society. And unfortunately, with men, when they don't have the prospect of a romantic or a sexual relationship, usually all their other relationships wilt. And then we're just going to have this generation of men trading crypto, playing video games, and having sex with dolls. And I just find it just so incredibly depressing. Your turn. What I want is I want people to be like conscious of consumers in this because everything that you just said is a very, very real possibility. What you painted is pretty dark. The way that I kind of see how AI and dating could play out would be, you know, something like how we see

a stationary bike. Like, right, we've all accepted that there's a stationary bike at the gym. And it's not real, but it's a place to, you know, have a, you know, a sanitized, safe experience. But you miss out on a lot of things when that's the only form of biking that you know. So I think that there could be, you know, and there are, there's a lot of stuff out there that there are a lot of upsides. People are getting a lot of, you know, positive, having a positive therapeutic experience, you know, with AI companions. But I'm absolutely with you.

What, like, my concern is, is that such a big part of the human experience is being in relationship. It is experiencing disappointment, heartbreak, and all of the great things that come with the relationship. So much of what it means to be human is to be in relationship with someone that can choose to leave you or stay with you.

And an AI cannot do that. An AI has to be with you. Yeah, as long as your credit card doesn't expire. Right. Lakshmi Rangarajan focuses on the intersection of modern dating and modern work. She previously served as WeWork's Director of Workplace Connection and a director of Match Group. Lakshmi has hosted two dating podcasts, including Paired by the People and Vox's Land of the Giants. Her latest project and podcast, The Later Dater Today, focuses on reaching those who are dating later in life. She joins us from

her home in Brooklyn, New York. Lakshmi, thanks for your good work and please keep hosting those events. Thank you so much, Scott. I really appreciate it. Algebra of happiness, what shapes you? Think of yourself as a block of clay, and the humidity of the room where you choose to live, the atmospherics, who you give chisels to, who you let influence, how your block of clay is going to emerge or take shape or form is really the key, but it's within your control. And it's not only that, it's the perception. It's what you respond to. And what are you going to let shape you? And what I would argue is don't let social media shape you. A lot of the media you're going to see on social media is shaped by algorithms trying to figure out who you are, what your

political beliefs are, and then throw you into a hermetically sealed echo chamber and serve you more and more content that shitposts the other side. If you're a progressive, recognize the majority of Republicans are not racist, evil people. And if you're a Republican, you've got to acknowledge or try to acknowledge the people on the left aren't these ineffectual identity politics, you know, racists in sandaled, woke, Brooklynite clothing. A lot of bad metaphors in there. Anyways, recognize we're all Americans. Recognize that the media has a lot of influence on you and can potentially be somewhat poisoning and not necessarily turning you into the person you'd like to be yourself. And specifically, specifically, try and ignore the comments in your social media feed. I think the comments are really the cesspool, the digital exhaust of our media world. And I'll use a personal example.

Joe Rogan secured a $250 million contract from Spotify. And I went on threads, and I said that he deserved every penny. And it got hundreds of comments saying what a misogynist I was for endorsing Joe Rogan and how they had lost all faith in me. And my observation is that a couple things. One, I actually have contempt for Joe Rogan. I lost a cousin who should not have died from COVID. His 81-year-old mother and his older sister both contracted COVID, likely together, and they were both fine. And my cousin Andy, this 51-year-old strapping, handsome, thin kid, a series of really unfortunate circumstances, ends up in a ventilator. They take him off the ventilator. He crashes and dies. And then seven, eight months later, his girlfriend, who is the parent to his nine-year-old boy,

takes her own life. I don't think people, including Joe Rogan, realize what an incredibly, just how much damage, how much collateral damage there was. It's one thing to have a dissenter's voice and say that if you're thin and young and COVID is subsiding, maybe you'd want to think twice about getting the vaccine. I get that. The dissenter's voice is important. But to be bringing on and platforming people who are saying that mRNA vaccines are altering your DNA is just—and adding to this politicization of vaccines that resulted in not enough people taking them. Anyway, that's my rant, my pro-vaccine rant. Anyways, all of these comments made me think, well, maybe I should delete the post or they were initially kind of upsetting, but they're not really upsetting anymore because here's the thing. If you don't occasionally offend people or upset them, you're not saying anything. Your job is to develop a sense of self and really try and think about what you believe and then express those viewpoints in a kind,

civil way and learn. We all get it wrong, but don't let likes or negative comments shape your views. Listen to thoughtful people when they have feedback. Recognize when you get it wrong, but put the chisel in the hands of people who are smart and thoughtful and measured. That's who shapes you, not fucking comments and social media. Be your own woman. Be your own man. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our another genius show.

It's the cow shirt. Ladies, watch the shoulders. Watch the shoulders. That's right. That's right.